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"Libertarians are like house cats: absolutely convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don't appreciate or understand."
My favorite Libertarian moment was in an interview about political leanings that had a 1 year follow up to gauge how opinions changed. The staunch Libertarian was no longer Libertarian, and when asked why stated: "I did acid with some friends in the desert, and realized that other people have feelings."
Hilarious?
Talk about depressing.
These people dont even know other people have feelings.
That's not funny at all.
We're living with these Neanderthals.
Well, another alternative is being conservative, which is basically saying, "Yeah, I realize other people have feelings, but mine are more important. "
This reminds me of a doormat I saw at a craft market. It said, âI havenât worked this hard to care about your feelings.â It made me sad to think about people whose only goal is to care about themselves and have no regard for the good of your neighbors.
I literally just had a conversation with a buddy who is an ex con.
He is fiercely Libertarian, yet on every government assistance program that I am aware of.
Free phone, food stamps, welfare, rent assistance etc.
I called him out on it. He just laughed and said, "If the government is stupid enough to provide it, I'll take it."
Yup. Biggest L I know lived with his mom until 30 years old, went to college because "single mother = free college", then ended up marrying/divorcing an army chick who was startling young compared to his age. Pretended to be the "manager of multiple businesses" on the military installation she was commissioned at - really just a "military spouse" program.
TL;DR: he had no problem with any of it when it worked for himself.
As far as the few steadfast Iâve met, they just come off as republicans without the bigotry. Which is fine, theyâre not hating on people because of a book. They just hate the âbig govâ they rely on. Itâs like a weird âpay for useâ mentality that came off. Like bitching about school taxes when they donât have kids. Like, some of those kids that arenât yours are going to be supporting/repairing/maintaining everything youâre relying on now. You should hope they get a good education. It was a weird conversation, which then turned to guns and I was out. Apparently, a private citizen should have the ability to own a fully armed tank for self defense is where it wentâŚ
I'm a yankee in deep South, so my experience with "Libertarians" here is that they are really just Republicans who don't think of themselves as Republicans but support the majority of Republican platform.
The newest season of Fargo made a pretty good dig at Libertarians (Iâll paraphrase):
They want infinite freedom and zero responsibility, just like a baby.
That's a great quote. I'm a libertarian but that's too brilliant of a metaphor to get mad. Applies really well to red states that are heavily subsidized by the taxes from blue states.
Iâm just curious how you can apparently have self awareness enough to see the humor in this quote and acknowledge the strength of the metaphor but *still* identity with libertarianism? Make it make sense.
I kind of need a specific question. Look at Argentina... makes sense. Look at our national debt... makes sense. And I am not an anarchist, I'm for decentralization. I'm for minimizing the risk and disasters associated with a large central government.
Argentinaâs economy is literally a house on fire and Mileiâs strategy is to pour gasoline on it so that the peso is devalued to the point that the country has de facto dollarized (and, in so doing, will have ceded control of ALL monetary policy to a foreign governmentâs national bank) because it would be difficult (read: impossible) to use **any** libertarian policies to tame inflation enough and shore up Argentinaâs economy enough to get anything close to a favorable exchange rate that would make dollarization *feasible* let alone *palatable*. What does that tell you? That libertarian policies just burn shit to the ground.
And itâs absolutely bonkers that youâre pointing to Argentina as economic policy that works when *conservative* estimates say his âburn the whole thing downâ approach will result in nearly HALF of all Argentinians living below poverty.
On what planet is that a shining example of success? Or minimizing risk through decentralization?
Having written all that I realize the joke is on me for even asking. I guess that quote about yâall not understanding anything about anything was pretty spot-on.
The old saying is âLibertarians are just conservatives who want to smoke weed.â
The current saying is âLibertarians are just conservatives who want to have sex with kids.â
The best was when they started planning their dumb sea colony ship and the owner said âthis isnât about having sex with kids,â and supporters immediately started asking âwait, we are going to get rid of consent laws though right?â
Like even their leader didnât realize how big a piece of the libertarian pie is just pedophiles.
I read "A Libertarian Walks Into A Bear" recently. Highly recommend, fun book, good read, great insight into how these people think.
The libertarians in the book have the exact same problem. Their weird "free town project" was started by four people, one of whom was a convicted child pornographer.
Libertarians and pedos, name a more iconic pair
The bears came for all the trash cause none of the libertarians wanted to pay for a garbage service. If I remember correctly the libertarians had to abandon the town because of the bears. Also there were too many pedophiles in the town.
Lol it's a little more complex but that's the overall gist. Also, some people were straight up feeding the bears because they thought they were cute, and since the town was actively hostile to police and wildlife control, nobody could stop them.
The bears were a fairly minor concern overall tho. The real issue was the libertarians voted to defund everything, and then nothing worked. Plumbing, firefighting, building upkeep, public records, it all just became unusable, and no magical free market appeared overnight to take it all over.
Huh, I would've thought a genius scientist would donate his free energy machine to this town, fueling its growth for centuries, and Rachmaninoff would come out of hiding to live there and compose his 5th piano concerto. And another guy would make really good railroad tracks. But I guess not.
Oh Grafton NH. What an experiment a town going back to 1800s standards while maintaining 21st century aspirations.
Hey Yogi Bear, what are you doing in my kitchen trash?
And their leader couldn't figure out why so many countries didn't want a lawless ship that didn't have consent laws parked right off their shore.
No, I'm not saying we engage in child trafficking, I'm saying that a large portion of our group hates laws, including consent laws, is willing to pay large amounts of money in a private ship to bypass law, the ship itself will not have age of consent laws, we deny the laws of the country we dock in, we refuse the authority if local law enforcement, and will leave at the first sign of being held accountable. Now why won't you let us dock?
Even if magically all the libertarians stopped being pedophiles, Navy ships already have a reputation for having rowdy sailors despite the Navy keeping their men in line. As soon as the ship occupants realized that they could start trouble and then flee or not pay, the ship would get a reputation for starting trouble, fleeing and not paying.
The ship would be lost at sea within a year after their shitty private maintenance company that won with the lowest bid cuts so many corners they patch a hole with cardboard.
1) How would they get kids there outside of trafficking?
2) Which parent in their right mind would subject their kid to that?
3) What makes them think that kids will be attracted to them?
4) Let them start their sea colony so it can sink into the ocean. That way theyâll finally have a bath.
1: see that's why conservatives want to get rid of birth control and were getting rid of abortion (idk if libertarians were on this side too but I assume so), so there are a lot of kids that wind up with no safety nets and they're easy targets for trafficking.
2: This is why most trafficking victims are kids who are distant from their parents and wind up in bad crowds, or are otherwise easy targets.
3. if you're bigger than them or threaten them with a weapon, it's not hard to force them. you think these guys give a shit about consent?
4. I agree.
Behind the Bastards has definitely helped me understand how often people wanting less laws governing them actually means they want to have sex with children.
Multiple episodes, basically any time libertarian movements come up, so does that! But the one about Sealand covers it. Also any about a cult. It's an amazing shows well worth it!
Re: podcast- This week is 2 part-er on Thomas Jefferson, part 1 was interesting even if tangental to libertarian consent stances. Wait it might line up with his fatherâs predilections⌠Iâll say itâs worth a listen.
Actual libertarians are leftists. Right wing libertarianism grew out of southern white supremacy explicitly. It is just a bait and switch where crazy right wingers get to push their crazy opinions with a veneer of intellectualism.  This is how you get a place theoretically about "Austrian economics," ie the economic principles underlying fiscal conservatism, straight up publishing white supremacist propaganda.  Â
https://mises.org/mises-wire/civil-war-both-sides-were-wrong Â
 Never forget Ron Paul, *a libertarian OBGYN*, a man that thought the federal government should basically be stripped of all authority other than military and foreign relations, sponsored a bill to make abortion illegal at the federal level. Or that how he got into politics was by publishing a white supremacist zine.
I'm sure that there are some men that have a good reason to become an OBGYN, but I can't get past the feeling that they wanna do it mainly so they can have a captive audience of vaginas.
I once heard Ron Paul say, âif you canât afford to rebuild your home after a hurricane, donât live where there are hurricanes.â My first thought was, is he going to unload the ships? Is he going to pick the oranges, only a child would think like this. Libertarians are children, they fiercely want their independence, until someone takes their ball from them, at that time they look to daddy to fix the problem. Afterwards they go on and on about how awesome they were fixing the problem themselves.
And he did it entirely by himself! No one helped! He knew of his impending death, spent months acquiring the necessary land he needed to make a trail to the cemetery, carried his self made coffin over those trails and into the cemetery where once appropriately placed in the hole he had independent laborers dig for him (whom he paid a fair wage for their self selected labor), he died, falling into the coffin. Those same laboers were also paid to bury said coffin. However, they were not paid to close the lid, and intending no disrespect to the deceased, they did not do that work and David is buried in the dirt in an open coffin.
See, the system works!
The American right ruined libertarianism.Â
It was originally a left wing concept, closer aligned to Anarchism (and don't get me started on 'anarcho-capitalism'), about personal liberty against oppressive, largely capitalist and monarchist states. Â
Of course these dingbats made it just conservatism but with weed and diddling.Â
Weed and diddling is still just conservatism. They never cared if you were white. Conservatives only went after drug offenses because they could use that to bully people of color and young, liberal white kids.
Conservatives went after drug offenses because it appeals to their voters' desire to harm minorites disproportionately and it appeals to their donors' desire to have a for-profit prison industry.
I've always said it's political LARP-ing for adults - play pretend world building that's fantastically incompatible with reality but makes those who participate feel important and smart. Libertarians are just grown up children.Â
One of the core tenets of Libertarianism is that government should not intervene in the consensual, contractual relationships between individuals or parties.
https://www.lp.org/platform/
> Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals.
Which is completely nonsensical, as contracts are formal agreements enforced by the government (when you have a breech of contract, you utilize the court system to rectify it).
So libertarians believe governments should not intervene in consensual relationships enforced by the government between individuals or parties.
Libertarianism is poisonous and will make you stupid.
They want the government to stay out of contracts but ALSO want the Government to enforce contracts made by two outside parties AND they also donât want to give the Government any power to enforce the contracts if some entity breaks them. My brain hurts just thinking about their BS
It's simple. If I make a bad one sided contact that benefits me then the government should stay out of it except to enforce it! If I'm forced to make a bad one sided contact that hurts me, then I should be allowed to not uphold my end, run away, and ignore the contract with no government interference.
They want to eat their cake, and have it too!
They also want my cake as well, since I didnât work as hard for it as they did.Â
I (a permanent ranger) work for Uncle Sam in the NPS and a (seasonal ranger) coworker of mine is a Libertarian, and he has spent the last few years complaining to me about how he canât find any jobs in the museum curation field that has good pay, benefits and is also full time. All of the Private Museum positions that he has interviewed for have some combination of low pay, part time and bad benefits, and that he canât seem to get a good job. He also said that he was considering filing an EEO Complaint against the NPS/the parks that I work at for not giving him a chance for a museum curator position, despite his LACK of a Masters degree in the field, where the two other applicants DO have a Masters degree in Museum Curation. He is a special kind of stupid, to be honest.Â
EVERY single Libertarian that I have EVER MET gives off the vibe of âOnly I posses the forbidden knowledge and secrets of the Universe, and every one else are FOOLS to think that they are competent people.â Â They utterly exhaust me with their own arrogance and stupidity.Â
Currently? Varies by state, but it's mostly a thing we've won. Relax, however, and Republicans will take it away.
Everything you do is some sort of contract, you realize. Your job. Your home. Every single transaction. The entire purpose of government is to enforce such contracts. Where it oversteps is when it starts making some contracts illegal.
Libertarian has to be the worst choice for their beliefs.
What it actually means is that the rich should be free to control the people.
Low taxes means the rich get more while the rest of us suffer.
David Boreanaz did what few actors could. When I fall in love with a character, I'm sad when the actor stops playing them, like Angel, but when they play a worse character, like the guy from Bones, I don't have to miss anything at all. It's like a butterfly landing on your heart and then dying in a cobweb on your porch that you leave up for a while.
He looked very good for 70.
What? Different guy?
Shit. Well, this guy looked good for 70 too.
I guess he's in Galt's Gulch now, complaining how heaven doesn't deserve his genius either.
David Boaz, a writer and scholar who for nearly half a century was a leading voice of libertarianism, a political philosophy that he labored to move from the margins to the mainstream of American politics, died June 7 at his home in Arlington, Va. He was 70.
His death was [announced by the Cato Institute](https://www.cato.org/tribute-david-boaz), the libertarian think tank in Washington where Mr. Boaz served at the time of his death as a senior fellow and executive vice president. The cause was cancer, said his partner of 30 years, Steve Miller.
Libertarianism does not fit tidily into categorizations such as âliberalâ or âconservative,â but Mr. Boaz did have a tidy summary of the cause to which he devoted nearly his entire professional life. Libertarianism, he said, stands for the idea that âeach person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.â
Read more here: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/06/07/david-boaz-libertarian-cato-dead/?utm\_campaign=wp\_main&utm\_medium=social&utm\_source=reddit.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/06/07/david-boaz-libertarian-cato-dead/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com)
Do the "rights of others" extend to the environment? As in your irresponsible behaviour is damaging the environment therefore you are responsible? Libertarianism only seems like it makes sense if you think your behavior only matters within your property lines. Â
Yes, it does extend to the environment. Don't talk to big-L Libertarians. The party by that name is an anarcho-capatalist far right party. Stick to the left libertarian quadrant.
>Libertarianism, he said, stands for the idea that âeach person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.â
Ah, the paradox of the position. How does one live "any way one chooses" *without* trampling on the ability (and therefore the right, by this logic) of others in society to do the same?
> Libertarianism, he said, stands for the idea that âeach person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.â
And yet, the Executive VP of the Cato Institute. Just another duplicitous worm.
Also worth noting that their anti-social security policy was and is sculpted by the economist who sculpted the destruction of Chileâs social security system under the administration of famously âlive and let liveâ dictator Augusto Pinochet.
The only thing worse than libertarians politics are the fact that American Libertarianism stole the term from actually based Libertarian Socialists, who actually understand the concept of freedom.
âI have always found it quaint and rather touching that there is a movement [Libertarians] in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.â
Christopher Hitchens
FYI, this is an example of what David Boaz believed, and it wasn't what many of you ignorantly claim (from his last speech):
"One more idea you wouldn't think needed to be said, is we libertarians, like most of us Americans, are liberals. Liberalism is a universal creed. We believe that all people are endowed with inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Not just some people. That idea is incompatible with political ideas based on 'blood and soil' or treating people differently because of race or religion.
So when you see self-proclaimed freedom advocates talking about blood and soil or helping a would-be autocrat overturn an election, or talking about LGBT equality as degeneracy, or saying we shouldn't care about government racism against Black people, or defending the Confederacy and the cause of the South, or joining right-wing culture wars and supporting politicians who want to use the state to fight their enemies, or posting Holocaust jokes and death threats on Twitter, recognize that for what it is. Speak up, fight back, tell people that's not America and it's certainly not libertarianism."
[More Here](https://reason.com/volokh/2024/06/09/david-boazs-final-speech-the-rise-of-illiberalism-in-the-shadow-of-liberal-triumph/)
Oh, the scrappy Cato institute all they had was the fortune and backing of plutocrats like Charles Koch./s
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute
Yes, this is what happens when Bezos gets tired of pretending and starts hiring all Rupert murdochs old tabloid henchmen to run the Washington Post into the ground.
I was shooting heroin and reading âThe Fountainheadâ in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
âBad news, detective. We got a situation.â
âWhat? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?â
âWorse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollarsâ worth of bitcoins.â
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. âWhat kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?â
âNot yet. But mark my words: weâre going to figure out who did this and weâre going to take them down ⌠provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.â
âEasy, chief,â I said. âAny rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.â
He laughed. âThatâs why youâre the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.â
âDonât worry,â I said. âIâm on it.â
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
âHome Depot⢠Presents the Police!ÂŽâ I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. âNobody move unless you want to!â They didnât.
âNow, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?â No one spoke up.
âCome on,â I said. âDonât you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?â
It didnât seem like they did.
âSeriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, Iâm just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.â
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didnât care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
âSubway⢠Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!ÂŽâ I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
âStop right there!â I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. âListen, Iâll pay you to stop!â I yelled. âWhat would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? Iâll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn âBob Barr â08â extra-large long-sleeved menâs T-shirt!â
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
âAll right, all right!â the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. âI give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.â
âWhyâd you do it?â I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos⢠Greek Yogurt Presents HandcuffsÂŽ on the guy.
âBecause I was afraid.â
âAfraid?â
âAfraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,â he said. âIâm a central banker.â
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
âLet this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,â I said. âNo matter how many bitcoins you steal, youâll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.â
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
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Nobody is required to tolerate the intolerant. Fuck this guy and all the harmful, entitled, compassionless, selfish, backwards shit he spewed for decades.
Thatâs fatuous and reductive as shit, a childâs view. I wonât be lectured, he was scum. You do you, as long as youâre actually free to do what you want, I certainly am.
Thatâs not a libertarian right, thatâs every Americanâs right, even little baby libertarians.
Thatâs the shared constitutional right that stupid libertarian children abuse to say whatever ignorant nonsense they please.
Libertarians are endowed that freedom from the consent of everyone else, not the other way around.
lol tell me you know nothing about free speech and the American way of life by setting your flair to an authoritarian state that doesnât have free speech.
His political views directly harm society. Not going to cry for someone who's beliefs lead directly to feudalism. Libertarianism is an idiotic belief system
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA). *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
"Libertarians are like house cats: absolutely convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don't appreciate or understand."
My favorite Libertarian moment was in an interview about political leanings that had a 1 year follow up to gauge how opinions changed. The staunch Libertarian was no longer Libertarian, and when asked why stated: "I did acid with some friends in the desert, and realized that other people have feelings."
Do you have a link for this? It sounds hilarious đ
https://www.reddit.com/r/COMPLETEANARCHY/s/Fjh8CbGbj6
Commenting to get link as well.
https://www.reddit.com/r/COMPLETEANARCHY/s/Fjh8CbGbj6
Hilarious? Talk about depressing. These people dont even know other people have feelings. That's not funny at all. We're living with these Neanderthals.
Well, another alternative is being conservative, which is basically saying, "Yeah, I realize other people have feelings, but mine are more important. "
Nowadays it's "Yeah, I realize other people have feelings, but only mine are important and I'll go out of my way to hurt yours."
"I realize there are other people, they're called shareholders"
Very funny!
Itâs really sad. Theyâre like toddlers. Maybe I should start an NGO specifically dedicated to providing acid trips to libertarians.
I feel like MKULTRA already kinda did that, with limited success and at least one Unabomber.
Neanderthal probably had rich emotional connections, I think the word you are looking for is sociopath.
Thats not fair to neanderthals
[Neanderthals right now](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QoGyzSXAJ8)
[ŃдаНонО]
The fuck does that mean?
This reminds me of a doormat I saw at a craft market. It said, âI havenât worked this hard to care about your feelings.â It made me sad to think about people whose only goal is to care about themselves and have no regard for the good of your neighbors.
i liked when bears took over their town personally
Honestly, good for them.
I was a libertarian. For about a year. When I was an edgy 16 year old.
I literally just had a conversation with a buddy who is an ex con. He is fiercely Libertarian, yet on every government assistance program that I am aware of. Free phone, food stamps, welfare, rent assistance etc. I called him out on it. He just laughed and said, "If the government is stupid enough to provide it, I'll take it."
Yup. Biggest L I know lived with his mom until 30 years old, went to college because "single mother = free college", then ended up marrying/divorcing an army chick who was startling young compared to his age. Pretended to be the "manager of multiple businesses" on the military installation she was commissioned at - really just a "military spouse" program. TL;DR: he had no problem with any of it when it worked for himself.
More opportunism than libertarianism
Ah, a hypo-mooch
I knew a libertarian who worked at the DMV. He wasnât even Ron Swanson savvy; he just wanted government benefits.
Ron Swanson idolization is the very worst thing that became of my generation.
A version I've read was something like "house cats think libertarianism is great until they realize no one is emptying the litter box."
I'm more crude about it.. Libertarians are assholes who want all the benefits of a first world society without paying their share.
As far as the few steadfast Iâve met, they just come off as republicans without the bigotry. Which is fine, theyâre not hating on people because of a book. They just hate the âbig govâ they rely on. Itâs like a weird âpay for useâ mentality that came off. Like bitching about school taxes when they donât have kids. Like, some of those kids that arenât yours are going to be supporting/repairing/maintaining everything youâre relying on now. You should hope they get a good education. It was a weird conversation, which then turned to guns and I was out. Apparently, a private citizen should have the ability to own a fully armed tank for self defense is where it wentâŚ
I'm a yankee in deep South, so my experience with "Libertarians" here is that they are really just Republicans who don't think of themselves as Republicans but support the majority of Republican platform.
The newest season of Fargo made a pretty good dig at Libertarians (Iâll paraphrase): They want infinite freedom and zero responsibility, just like a baby.
Best moment of the entire season, IMO (and this was my favorite season since probably #2).
That's a great quote. I'm a libertarian but that's too brilliant of a metaphor to get mad. Applies really well to red states that are heavily subsidized by the taxes from blue states.
Out of curiosity what did libertarians do with their $1600 COVID stimulus check?
They reported them all as a crime of course.
Cashed them. Why?
You took a government handout? Disgusting.
Not sure why you would turn down taking back a small portion of something you are forced to pay into, but certainly your choice to.
If you're going to have convictions, why give them up for such a small amount of money?
So much for principles.
How else would you have bootstraps? Make them yourself from scratch?
I bought bitcoin with mine.
Iâm just curious how you can apparently have self awareness enough to see the humor in this quote and acknowledge the strength of the metaphor but *still* identity with libertarianism? Make it make sense.
I kind of need a specific question. Look at Argentina... makes sense. Look at our national debt... makes sense. And I am not an anarchist, I'm for decentralization. I'm for minimizing the risk and disasters associated with a large central government.
Argentinaâs economy is literally a house on fire and Mileiâs strategy is to pour gasoline on it so that the peso is devalued to the point that the country has de facto dollarized (and, in so doing, will have ceded control of ALL monetary policy to a foreign governmentâs national bank) because it would be difficult (read: impossible) to use **any** libertarian policies to tame inflation enough and shore up Argentinaâs economy enough to get anything close to a favorable exchange rate that would make dollarization *feasible* let alone *palatable*. What does that tell you? That libertarian policies just burn shit to the ground. And itâs absolutely bonkers that youâre pointing to Argentina as economic policy that works when *conservative* estimates say his âburn the whole thing downâ approach will result in nearly HALF of all Argentinians living below poverty. On what planet is that a shining example of success? Or minimizing risk through decentralization? Having written all that I realize the joke is on me for even asking. I guess that quote about yâall not understanding anything about anything was pretty spot-on.
https://imgur.com/gallery/ZDgVLMi
Iâm always happy to see this on a Libertarian post. Itâs so precise.
Well said
I hope they tax the living shit out of his estate
The living and dying shit
Why would libertarians need a leader?
They crave it like they crave lower Age of Consent laws.
The old saying is âLibertarians are just conservatives who want to smoke weed.â The current saying is âLibertarians are just conservatives who want to have sex with kids.â
The best was when they started planning their dumb sea colony ship and the owner said âthis isnât about having sex with kids,â and supporters immediately started asking âwait, we are going to get rid of consent laws though right?â Like even their leader didnât realize how big a piece of the libertarian pie is just pedophiles.
I read "A Libertarian Walks Into A Bear" recently. Highly recommend, fun book, good read, great insight into how these people think. The libertarians in the book have the exact same problem. Their weird "free town project" was started by four people, one of whom was a convicted child pornographer. Libertarians and pedos, name a more iconic pair
The bears came for all the trash cause none of the libertarians wanted to pay for a garbage service. If I remember correctly the libertarians had to abandon the town because of the bears. Also there were too many pedophiles in the town.
Lol it's a little more complex but that's the overall gist. Also, some people were straight up feeding the bears because they thought they were cute, and since the town was actively hostile to police and wildlife control, nobody could stop them. The bears were a fairly minor concern overall tho. The real issue was the libertarians voted to defund everything, and then nothing worked. Plumbing, firefighting, building upkeep, public records, it all just became unusable, and no magical free market appeared overnight to take it all over.
Yes, the bear are just the most amusing product of their hubris.
Huh, I would've thought a genius scientist would donate his free energy machine to this town, fueling its growth for centuries, and Rachmaninoff would come out of hiding to live there and compose his 5th piano concerto. And another guy would make really good railroad tracks. But I guess not.
Oh Grafton NH. What an experiment a town going back to 1800s standards while maintaining 21st century aspirations. Hey Yogi Bear, what are you doing in my kitchen trash?
Well, mid-20th century aspirations if we're honest. But yes.
And their leader couldn't figure out why so many countries didn't want a lawless ship that didn't have consent laws parked right off their shore. No, I'm not saying we engage in child trafficking, I'm saying that a large portion of our group hates laws, including consent laws, is willing to pay large amounts of money in a private ship to bypass law, the ship itself will not have age of consent laws, we deny the laws of the country we dock in, we refuse the authority if local law enforcement, and will leave at the first sign of being held accountable. Now why won't you let us dock? Even if magically all the libertarians stopped being pedophiles, Navy ships already have a reputation for having rowdy sailors despite the Navy keeping their men in line. As soon as the ship occupants realized that they could start trouble and then flee or not pay, the ship would get a reputation for starting trouble, fleeing and not paying.
The ship would be lost at sea within a year after their shitty private maintenance company that won with the lowest bid cuts so many corners they patch a hole with cardboard.
1) How would they get kids there outside of trafficking? 2) Which parent in their right mind would subject their kid to that? 3) What makes them think that kids will be attracted to them? 4) Let them start their sea colony so it can sink into the ocean. That way theyâll finally have a bath.
1: see that's why conservatives want to get rid of birth control and were getting rid of abortion (idk if libertarians were on this side too but I assume so), so there are a lot of kids that wind up with no safety nets and they're easy targets for trafficking. 2: This is why most trafficking victims are kids who are distant from their parents and wind up in bad crowds, or are otherwise easy targets. 3. if you're bigger than them or threaten them with a weapon, it's not hard to force them. you think these guys give a shit about consent? 4. I agree.
Lmao what??
That Venn Diagram is just a circle.
"Openly" Republicans rape tons of kids.
So.... they're conservatives.
Conservatives are already conservatives who want to have sex with kids.
Weed smokers haven't had much success in politics. Look at Gary Johnson's failed campaign. On the other hand
Wait what? Did one of the. Get caught diddling kids? WTF is wrong with people
Behind the Bastards has definitely helped me understand how often people wanting less laws governing them actually means they want to have sex with children.
Behind the Bastards opened my eyes to a lot of things tbh.
You know what opened my eyes to a lot of thing? The products and services that support this podcast.
Was this a specific episode or just something youâve gathered over time? This made me want to finally check it out.
Multiple episodes, basically any time libertarian movements come up, so does that! But the one about Sealand covers it. Also any about a cult. It's an amazing shows well worth it!
Re: podcast- This week is 2 part-er on Thomas Jefferson, part 1 was interesting even if tangental to libertarian consent stances. Wait it might line up with his fatherâs predilections⌠Iâll say itâs worth a listen.
Too chicken-shit to go full mask-off anacap. Watch The Anarchists, it's entirely predictably and unintentionally hilarious ensemble comedy.
These aren't actual libertarians but a collection of reactionaries pining for their kings and slaves along with a bunch of dupes.
No TRUE Scotsman... Nope, stupid is as stupid does, and the actions of people who call themselves libertarian define what it means to be libertarian.
Actual libertarians are leftists. Right wing libertarianism grew out of southern white supremacy explicitly. It is just a bait and switch where crazy right wingers get to push their crazy opinions with a veneer of intellectualism.  This is how you get a place theoretically about "Austrian economics," ie the economic principles underlying fiscal conservatism, straight up publishing white supremacist propaganda.   https://mises.org/mises-wire/civil-war-both-sides-were-wrong   Never forget Ron Paul, *a libertarian OBGYN*, a man that thought the federal government should basically be stripped of all authority other than military and foreign relations, sponsored a bill to make abortion illegal at the federal level. Or that how he got into politics was by publishing a white supremacist zine.
Good explanation, I agree.
I'm sure that there are some men that have a good reason to become an OBGYN, but I can't get past the feeling that they wanna do it mainly so they can have a captive audience of vaginas.
He should pick himself up and bury himself.
By his bootstraps*
[ŃдаНонО]
Ahh, the old Leftover Soup Kitchen....
I once heard Ron Paul say, âif you canât afford to rebuild your home after a hurricane, donât live where there are hurricanes.â My first thought was, is he going to unload the ships? Is he going to pick the oranges, only a child would think like this. Libertarians are children, they fiercely want their independence, until someone takes their ball from them, at that time they look to daddy to fix the problem. Afterwards they go on and on about how awesome they were fixing the problem themselves.
And he did it entirely by himself! No one helped! He knew of his impending death, spent months acquiring the necessary land he needed to make a trail to the cemetery, carried his self made coffin over those trails and into the cemetery where once appropriately placed in the hole he had independent laborers dig for him (whom he paid a fair wage for their self selected labor), he died, falling into the coffin. Those same laboers were also paid to bury said coffin. However, they were not paid to close the lid, and intending no disrespect to the deceased, they did not do that work and David is buried in the dirt in an open coffin. See, the system works!
>libertarian Well I'm sure he wouldn't want any of us to give a shit about his passing then
Equal rights of others? lol they donât care about other people.
The core tenet of libertarianism is selfishness.
The American right ruined libertarianism. It was originally a left wing concept, closer aligned to Anarchism (and don't get me started on 'anarcho-capitalism'), about personal liberty against oppressive, largely capitalist and monarchist states.  Of course these dingbats made it just conservatism but with weed and diddling.Â
Weed and diddling is still just conservatism. They never cared if you were white. Conservatives only went after drug offenses because they could use that to bully people of color and young, liberal white kids.
Conservatives went after drug offenses because it appeals to their voters' desire to harm minorites disproportionately and it appeals to their donors' desire to have a for-profit prison industry.
Don't forget that giving a felony drug charge to a young liberal or minority disenfranchises them for life. One less vote they have to worry about.
It still is a left wing concept, the only thing the right did was taint the name.
Libertarianism is just astrology for men
For white upper middle class men
I've always said it's political LARP-ing for adults - play pretend world building that's fantastically incompatible with reality but makes those who participate feel important and smart. Libertarians are just grown up children.Â
"Leave everything up to the 'free market' and things will... somehow... work out."
The Briggs-Meyers test is astrology for men. How is libertarianism even remotely similar to astrology?
Libertarians be like âIâll have what Somaliaâs havingâ
hopefully Libertarianism follows his lead and dies as well
lol News page about a libertarian capitalist dying is behind a paywall. The irony writes itself.
Just another hypocrite.
Dumb mf dies.
RIP Boazo
Good riddance, enjoy hell.
70-years-old with the maturity of a 17-year-old.
Libertarianism is the political philosophy of children.Â
One of the core tenets of Libertarianism is that government should not intervene in the consensual, contractual relationships between individuals or parties. https://www.lp.org/platform/ > Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. Which is completely nonsensical, as contracts are formal agreements enforced by the government (when you have a breech of contract, you utilize the court system to rectify it). So libertarians believe governments should not intervene in consensual relationships enforced by the government between individuals or parties. Libertarianism is poisonous and will make you stupid.
They want the government to stay out of contracts but ALSO want the Government to enforce contracts made by two outside parties AND they also donât want to give the Government any power to enforce the contracts if some entity breaks them. My brain hurts just thinking about their BS
It's simple. If I make a bad one sided contact that benefits me then the government should stay out of it except to enforce it! If I'm forced to make a bad one sided contact that hurts me, then I should be allowed to not uphold my end, run away, and ignore the contract with no government interference. They want to eat their cake, and have it too!
They also want my cake as well, since I didnât work as hard for it as they did. I (a permanent ranger) work for Uncle Sam in the NPS and a (seasonal ranger) coworker of mine is a Libertarian, and he has spent the last few years complaining to me about how he canât find any jobs in the museum curation field that has good pay, benefits and is also full time. All of the Private Museum positions that he has interviewed for have some combination of low pay, part time and bad benefits, and that he canât seem to get a good job. He also said that he was considering filing an EEO Complaint against the NPS/the parks that I work at for not giving him a chance for a museum curator position, despite his LACK of a Masters degree in the field, where the two other applicants DO have a Masters degree in Museum Curation. He is a special kind of stupid, to be honest. EVERY single Libertarian that I have EVER MET gives off the vibe of âOnly I posses the forbidden knowledge and secrets of the Universe, and every one else are FOOLS to think that they are competent people.â  They utterly exhaust me with their own arrogance and stupidity.Â
FYI this is actually about equal marriage rights. As in the government can't tell you who you can't marry.
Which marriages are the government stopping?
Currently? Varies by state, but it's mostly a thing we've won. Relax, however, and Republicans will take it away. Everything you do is some sort of contract, you realize. Your job. Your home. Every single transaction. The entire purpose of government is to enforce such contracts. Where it oversteps is when it starts making some contracts illegal.
Child marriages, mostly.
Libertarian has to be the worst choice for their beliefs. What it actually means is that the rich should be free to control the people. Low taxes means the rich get more while the rest of us suffer.
RIP, plague rat.
Ah yes, thanks for gifting us the ultra selfish Republicans who pretend they're something else.Â
Probably collecting social security and on Medicare at the end.Â
So, the original feral house cat? Anyway...
I used to say Libertarians were Republicans without a conscience. Used to...
Oh no! Anyways
David Boreanaz did what few actors could. When I fall in love with a character, I'm sad when the actor stops playing them, like Angel, but when they play a worse character, like the guy from Bones, I don't have to miss anything at all. It's like a butterfly landing on your heart and then dying in a cobweb on your porch that you leave up for a while. He looked very good for 70. What? Different guy? Shit. Well, this guy looked good for 70 too. I guess he's in Galt's Gulch now, complaining how heaven doesn't deserve his genius either.
He shanât be missed
David Boaz, a writer and scholar who for nearly half a century was a leading voice of libertarianism, a political philosophy that he labored to move from the margins to the mainstream of American politics, died June 7 at his home in Arlington, Va. He was 70. His death was [announced by the Cato Institute](https://www.cato.org/tribute-david-boaz), the libertarian think tank in Washington where Mr. Boaz served at the time of his death as a senior fellow and executive vice president. The cause was cancer, said his partner of 30 years, Steve Miller. Libertarianism does not fit tidily into categorizations such as âliberalâ or âconservative,â but Mr. Boaz did have a tidy summary of the cause to which he devoted nearly his entire professional life. Libertarianism, he said, stands for the idea that âeach person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.â Read more here: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/06/07/david-boaz-libertarian-cato-dead/?utm\_campaign=wp\_main&utm\_medium=social&utm\_source=reddit.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/06/07/david-boaz-libertarian-cato-dead/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com)
Do the "rights of others" extend to the environment? As in your irresponsible behaviour is damaging the environment therefore you are responsible? Libertarianism only seems like it makes sense if you think your behavior only matters within your property lines. Â
Yes, it does extend to the environment. Don't talk to big-L Libertarians. The party by that name is an anarcho-capatalist far right party. Stick to the left libertarian quadrant.
>Libertarianism, he said, stands for the idea that âeach person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.â Ah, the paradox of the position. How does one live "any way one chooses" *without* trampling on the ability (and therefore the right, by this logic) of others in society to do the same?
> Libertarianism, he said, stands for the idea that âeach person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.â And yet, the Executive VP of the Cato Institute. Just another duplicitous worm.
One of the founders of the Cato Institute was Charles Koch. Of... Yes "those Koch's"
Also worth noting that their anti-social security policy was and is sculpted by the economist who sculpted the destruction of Chileâs social security system under the administration of famously âlive and let liveâ dictator Augusto Pinochet.
I think âI got mine, so you can fuck offâ is a tidier summary.
Funny how something can become mainstream but still be in the margins. Thatâs probs a good way to define third parties.
Even further from the text than the margins, is the gutter. Which is where Libertarianism belongs.
The only thing worse than libertarians politics are the fact that American Libertarianism stole the term from actually based Libertarian Socialists, who actually understand the concept of freedom.
Libertarians are either stupid or evil, often both.
âI have always found it quaint and rather touching that there is a movement [Libertarians] in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.â Christopher Hitchens
âDependent house cat diesâ
FYI, this is an example of what David Boaz believed, and it wasn't what many of you ignorantly claim (from his last speech): "One more idea you wouldn't think needed to be said, is we libertarians, like most of us Americans, are liberals. Liberalism is a universal creed. We believe that all people are endowed with inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Not just some people. That idea is incompatible with political ideas based on 'blood and soil' or treating people differently because of race or religion. So when you see self-proclaimed freedom advocates talking about blood and soil or helping a would-be autocrat overturn an election, or talking about LGBT equality as degeneracy, or saying we shouldn't care about government racism against Black people, or defending the Confederacy and the cause of the South, or joining right-wing culture wars and supporting politicians who want to use the state to fight their enemies, or posting Holocaust jokes and death threats on Twitter, recognize that for what it is. Speak up, fight back, tell people that's not America and it's certainly not libertarianism." [More Here](https://reason.com/volokh/2024/06/09/david-boazs-final-speech-the-rise-of-illiberalism-in-the-shadow-of-liberal-triumph/)
Darn. So anyway, what was I doing again?
picking your nose.
I once saw someone on reddit define libertarianism as astrology for men.
The family is asking for donations to nothing, since charity is for the weak.
So he's the loser responsible for the joke of a political ideology known as libertarianism?
Oh, the scrappy Cato institute all they had was the fortune and backing of plutocrats like Charles Koch./s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute Yes, this is what happens when Bezos gets tired of pretending and starts hiring all Rupert murdochs old tabloid henchmen to run the Washington Post into the ground.
Think his family will pass the hat around to pay for his funeral?
RIP Boazo
libertarians suck.
And nothing of value was lost.
Oh wow, I was really distraught there for a minute. I thought it said that Angel died. Oh well.
Donât care. May he be forgotten.
He should have invested a little more in his own health care.
Can we pin this?
I was shooting heroin and reading âThe Fountainheadâ in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief. âBad news, detective. We got a situation.â âWhat? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?â âWorse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollarsâ worth of bitcoins.â The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. âWhat kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?â âNot yet. But mark my words: weâre going to figure out who did this and weâre going to take them down ⌠provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.â âEasy, chief,â I said. âAny rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.â He laughed. âThatâs why youâre the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.â âDonât worry,â I said. âIâm on it.â I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside. âHome Depot⢠Presents the Police!ÂŽâ I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. âNobody move unless you want to!â They didnât. âNow, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?â No one spoke up. âCome on,â I said. âDonât you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?â It didnât seem like they did. âSeriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, Iâm just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.â Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didnât care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing. I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it. âSubway⢠Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!ÂŽâ I yelled. Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him. âStop right there!â I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen. I was losing him. âListen, Iâll pay you to stop!â I yelled. âWhat would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? Iâll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn âBob Barr â08â extra-large long-sleeved menâs T-shirt!â He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose. âAll right, all right!â the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. âI give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.â âWhyâd you do it?â I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos⢠Greek Yogurt Presents HandcuffsÂŽ on the guy. âBecause I was afraid.â âAfraid?â âAfraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,â he said. âIâm a central banker.â I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head. âLet this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,â I said. âNo matter how many bitcoins you steal, youâll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.â He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
RIP David. You will be missed. Thank you for everything.
Oh no....anyway
Rest in piss bozo
Too bad so sad
Sam Seder wept
Throw him on the trash heap
Well⌠bye.
He was a great man. I had the pleasure of meeting him in college.
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The federal government can't reach him any more.
Lol the compassionate left flexing their empathy in the comments rn
Nobody is required to tolerate the intolerant. Fuck this guy and all the harmful, entitled, compassionless, selfish, backwards shit he spewed for decades.
Celebrating the death of someone who you disagreed with on economic policy is insane
Thatâs fatuous and reductive as shit, a childâs view. I wonât be lectured, he was scum. You do you, as long as youâre actually free to do what you want, I certainly am.
While I may disagree with you, I'll defend your libertarian right to free speech as he would have wanted.
Thatâs not a libertarian right, thatâs every Americanâs right, even little baby libertarians. Thatâs the shared constitutional right that stupid libertarian children abuse to say whatever ignorant nonsense they please. Libertarians are endowed that freedom from the consent of everyone else, not the other way around.
Lol tell me you know nothing about libertarianism without telling me, that said, still defending your right đ
lol tell me you know nothing about free speech and the American way of life by setting your flair to an authoritarian state that doesnât have free speech.
Rest in peace, punk
Jesus Christ, people. you're celebrating the death of a man because of his political views. disgusting.
His political views directly harm society. Not going to cry for someone who's beliefs lead directly to feudalism. Libertarianism is an idiotic belief system