Why not just TRY Libertarianism?

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I think that a 1% sales tax across the board, with tarriffs, could completely negate the need for an income tax. Grocieries and medical supplies would not be taxed.

With easy to read and explain numbers backing this principle, it would be a cinch to win people based on taxes alone. If they could just shut up about their open borders policy (I personally as a libertarian-minded person still wants to increase Border Patrol by about 50k people), they could do something. Get more grass roots going, and then work their way up.
 
Thanks for all the attention guys. You have explained how the NAP works to the extent that I'm still solidly in the GOP camp. Cheers! Stepping out for a latte.
 
Dischord Says:
What's with the strawman arguments today?
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I wasn't making straw man arguments, tough guy. I was responding to posts on this topic by self-declared libertarians. Try reading the posts, it can really help you. ;)

For instance (courtesy of Zak Smith, no relation :p ):

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B) The U.S. built a huge arsenal in repsonse to the Soviet threat. Meets the NAP.
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Dischord,

This only meets the NAP if the funds for the arsenal were not taken by force.
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It's no knock on those people who spent their lives working for the DOD or NASA, but one cannot deny that those projects were funded with stolen money, taken at gunpoint.
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The private army would serve those defensive interests of its shareholders. And if it got out of line, the armed people themselves can whack it down.
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And there we have the "taxes are armed robbery" and getting rid of the national armed forces points addressed in my post. HINT: It ain't a straw man if I can quote exactly what I'm arguing against from the person I'm arguing with. ;)
 
Actually Tam it was rather easy-I'm not sure why some of us took that so personally. There was so much hair-splitting and hypothesizing that I thought a little humor might lighten (no pun intended this time) things up. All political philosophy seems to be perfect in theory. The reality of injecting the human elemant trumps this idealism every time. We have a passionate, intelligent, and opinionated bunch of people at THR. Threads like this only further prove that. That we have thought about subjects like this and have deeply held opinions is the reason I choose to remain a participant in THR. Unfortunately this medium (the net) can veil one's true intentions and feelings. Most of us have not met and therefore don't know what our individual personalities are really like. I had no intention of insulting anyone-and don't feel I did. I did intend on "needling"(no pun intended again). Happy New Year Everyone!!
 
I was responding to posts on this topic by self-declared libertarians ... It ain't a straw man if I can quote exactly what I'm arguing against from the person I'm arguing with.
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Sean, you spoke of it in terms of the party platform, and then said, "Me, I think the Libertarian party needs to learn how to do politics better.

Your contribution to this thread has been a side argument that the discussion here is beside the point because the Libertarian Party itself has problems (I agreed with some points). When I point out that you are making false arguments about the LP platform (your word), you suddenly flipflop and claim you were not speaking of the party but just the discussion here. Spare me. :rolleyes:

You either engaged in a stawman argument or you didn't bother to find out what the platform actually is.

Good attempt at backpeddling though. :p
Thanks for all the attention guys. You have explained how the NAP works to the extent that I'm still solidly in the GOP camp. Cheers! Stepping out for a latte.
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Like I said earlier, BigG, people who declare victory and go home usually do so because they know they were beat. :p

Thanks for being an easy opponent. ;)
 
Sean, you spoke of it in terms of the party platform
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As in, the ideas espoused here would make an insane party platform. Very simple. Since I never said "the Libertarian Party platform consists of X and I don't like it," but rather that "X that libertarians harp on would make an insane party platform," no backpedaling on my part is required.

Your contribution to this thread has been a side argument
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As has almost everything you have posted, if we look back and see what the topic of this thread was originally. ;)

But I promise to be good and not interrupt any more ideological navel-gazing posts about the NAP, or whatever. :p
 
As in, the ideas espoused here would make an insane party platform.
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Sean, your backpeddling is starting to embarass me. You made it clear that you were speaking of the party and not the ideas here. :D
You know, it is hard to get fired up by all this ideological blather when the Libertarian Party is still less relevant than the Green Party in American politics.
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and
Me, I think the Libertarian party needs to learn how to do politics better.
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Embracing some of the Lib/NAP philosophy need not cause a completely different form of government to be required. There are incremental changes to our form of government which could make a significant step towards a more libertarian society.

For example, libertarians think that victimless "crimes" should not be crimes. This is a consequence of liberty and the NAP. If a constitutional amendment existed which basically said, "No level of government has the power to outlaw 'victimless crimes.'".

Alternatively, the same could be said about the NAP: "No level of government has the power to outlaw actions which are not initiations of force."

Don't like the AWB? The same could be said for possession of property vs. the act of a crime, "No level of government shall ban possession of any particular object; only actions may be crimes."

You could also imagine a constitution which is stronger with respect to limiting government power, its ability to tax (even if you believe tax is okay, some absolute limit like 10% could be set), or prohibiting wealth or income redistribution.

I think some of these changes are possible. One can imagine a nation ruled under our same constitution, but with some amendments which more strongly limit government power and emphasize individual libeerty.

-z
 
Sean Smith:

With a washed-up grade-Z "celebrity" the Green Party pounded the Libertarians into goo.
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So you are taking a single presidential election and holding it up as proof positive that Libertarians will never get votes? Huh. Have you every bothered to check your own state's voting records? Or local records across the state?

Also, you seem think that having someone with name recognition as a candidate has absolutely no effect. What do you think would happen if, say, Kurt Russel decided to run for president as a Libertarian candidate? You still think they'd get "pounded into goo"? I think you're totally underestimating the effect that name recognition has on both voting and fund raising.
 
Zak, I couldn't agree more! Like I wrote a couple of pages back:
I think we all here can agree that movement towards a more-libertarian society would be a good thing.

Yeah, the extreme ideal utopia is most-probably unattainable. But if we can get halfway there, shouldn't we do it?

You know what? Democracy is an unattainable utopian ideal too. But Western society didn't simply chuck out the idea. It created a halfway point that works in the real world -- the republic. We should try to do the same with the libertarian philosphy.
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With regard to Libertarians getting votes..

One my my co-workers and friend was roped into running for a Colorado representative or senate seat. After being barred from the local debates and doing no advertisement, he got something like 18% of the vote just because he was the Libertarian candidiate.

-z
 
The ideas espoused here are an embarrassment to the libertarian party. If you guys are their champions, they need to hire a new PR team. Cheers! :D
 
Libertarianism is great political idea. The flaw with it ever being workable is human emotion.
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On the contrary, it is compatible with the basic human emotion of survival of the self, that is: self interest. Anyone who has ever felt cheated because his hard-earned dollars go to a welfare bum has an interest that coincides with libertarianism.

-z
 
BigG

The ideas espoused here are an embarrassment to the libertarian party. If you guys are their champions, they need to hire a new PR team. Cheers!
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What, you think you're some kind of credit to whatever-the-hell it is that you support? Think again, princess.

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Bruce H:

Libertarianism is great political idea. The flaw with it ever being workable is human emotion.
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You're absolutely right. But then again, that's the flaw with every single human endeavor. However, we somehow succeed.

And don't forget: there are many levels of "workable".
 
BigG,

your contributions to this thread have managed to convince me that libertarianism is a lost cause. People not only want the chain of control around their necks, they get downright hostile when someone else suggests to remove it. As such, I wish you get what you vote for.

You have managed to accomplish two more things besides that.

First, your refusal to attempt a reasoned debate, and your constant trollish nose-thumbing, have earned you the honor of being the first person on my "ignore" list.

Second, since Libertarianism has no chance of succeeding, I'll do my best to get it over with and cast my vote for whatever statist stooge the Democrats manage to put up for office come election time. Since the cause of freedom is lost, we might as well accelerate the fall towards statism, so the inevitable collapse comes sooner rather than later. Just because of you, and just for you, I may just vote a Democrat ticket next election time. Thank you for making me see the error of my starry-eyed, utopian ways.
 
So you are taking a single presidential election and holding it up as proof positive that Libertarians will never get votes?
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No I'm not. Read closer. The election results are merely evidence that the LP is irrelevant at the national level NOW. Hard to argue otherwise without engaging in wishful thinking. I for one actually hope the LP can get votes at some point... having politics be dominated by two parties based on moronic ideas is not a good thing in my book.

Huh. Have you every bothered to check your own state's voting records? Or local records across the state?
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Well, I checked the LP site & looked up the state where I'm from originally, and apparently NOBODY from the LP holds any elected office there. Texas had a few, courtesy of stretching the definition of "elected official" to the breaking point. But hey, good LP propaganda. :D

Also, you seem think that having someone with name recognition as a candidate has absolutely no effect.
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Um, no, I didn't say that.

But let's face facts, the LP wasn't beaten by a real celebrity, they were beaten by Ralph Nader. There is no good face to put on that, especially since it wasn't even close. What do you say to people? "Yeah, we lost, in fact we got gang-raped, but everyone knows how hardcore Ralph Nader is..." :D

Sean, your backpeddling is starting to embarass me. You made it clear that you were speaking of the party and not the ideas here.
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Actually, I was talking about BOTH. Pretty simple, actually. And your infantile need to paint me as "backpeddling" (sic) is rather annoying. :rolleyes:

P.S. And yes, BigG is acting mental.
 
Bruce H:
Pure libertarianisn won't work for that most evil on emotions, envy.
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Yeah, everyone here has pretty much agreed that the extreme utopian ideal is unattainable, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to move in that direction.

Pure democracy also fails on the same "envy" grounds, but we didn't chuck the idea out the window. We came up with a compromise -- the republic :)

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Sean Smith:
Actually, I was talking about BOTH. Pretty simple, actually. And your infantile need to paint me as "backpeddling" (sic) is rather annoying.
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Hey, I let it go about 6 hours ago, but thanks for the spelling correction. At least I'm not backpedaling and saying that I really meant you were selling things (peddling) from your back. ;)
 
As close as we are ever going to get to libertarianism it very short absolute term limits. We are also going to have to break ourselves of raids on the public treasury. Representatives two terms. Senators two terms. No govt. retirement. What we have can work much better but we have to take the graft and corruption out of it.
 
Sean Smith:

Well, I checked the LP site & looked up the state where I'm from originally, and apparently NOBODY from the LP holds any elected office there. Texas had a few, courtesy of stretching the definition of "elected official" to the breaking point. But hey, good LP propaganda.
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Actually, I was refering to votes cast for Libertarians, not just actual Libertarians elected. I mean, Ralphie didn't get elected either, right?

But let's face facts, the LP wasn't beaten by a real celebrity, they were beaten by Ralph Nader. There is no good face to put on that, especially since it wasn't even close. What do you say to people? "Yeah, we lost, in fact we got gang-raped, but everyone knows how hardcore Ralph Nader is..."
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Real celebrity or not, I guarantee that more people heard Ralphie's name before he ever decided to run for Pres. than they did the Libertarian candidate. That's pretty much the sole reason the Greens "pounded" the Libertarians in that single election.

Alaska had a Lib governor. In Texas, 5 times as many Libs hold elected office than Greens. :D The Libs have been fielding a pres. candidate that has been on every state ballot for at least the past 4 elections, probably more. They've gotten increasing numbers of votes in every election as more and more people find out about them.

It's a good thing.
 
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