Did the Tea Party takeover/ruin libertarianism?

Indie

Why would you want to hand even more power and influence to wealth when the problem with the US political system seems to be that wealth has gain too much power and influence already?

 

I don't remember making such a claim.

 

That's just the way Balbus debates... if you can call it that.

People like Balbus don't understand the corporations and government are one and the same thing, and has no solutions about how to solve this problem. Instead he wants to give more power to the corporate government, so they can tax you more and give it to their buddies on Wall Street while continuing to take away your rights.

Balbus cannot explain how the people he calls "right wing libertarians" are giving more power to wealth (which there is no such thing because wealth is created out of nothing), and how what he supports (socialism) would do the opposite, when socialism is just monopoly capitalism controlled by the fascist state.

 

Accusations might be the more appropriate word.

Money, real or fiat, tends to flow in the direction where it produces the greatest return, and more often than not government, the source of laws, regulations, taxes, tax loopholes, subsidies, and grants happens to be where that is best accomplished.

 

Indie

Again this is me not someone that doesn’t know you or hasn’t had long conversations with you, I know what you’ve said.

This is one of your many wheezes (tricks, cons, misdirection’s) its like someone asking a hitman that he wants someone ‘taken out with extreme prejudice’ so when they’re asked if they wanted someone killed they can reply ‘I didn’t say that”.

OK at one time or another you’ve promoted these ideas -

1) low or no tax
2) deregulation
3) Little or no welfare
4) Free market/laissez faire based economics
5) Social Darwinist based education, healthcare etc.

All of which are more advantageous to wealth rather than to the majority.

 

Rat

LOL - My poor little rodent, you rant, heckle, cackle, belch lies and dribble innuendo, it is rather amusing that you feel you can turn around and accuse others of not being willing to debate.

If you wish to debate your views why not do so rather than run away when your ideas are shown to be nothing more than untruths and misdirection. At the moment the site is littered with thread you have abandoned and questions you have not replied to.

And once more name calling me ‘socialist’ has gone beyond laughable to become rather pathetic since we all know by now that to you anyone that is to the left of your extreme right wing views is to you a ‘socialist’.

 

Again and again I’ve pointed out that to me the problem with the US political system is that wealth has too much power and influence over society and therefore its governance.

The things put forward in the quote are symptoms of that problem.

I think the system needs reforming to lessen that influence and to balance it with more democratic principles.

But many on the right like Indie and Rat seem to want to bamboozle people into believing that the best way to deal with the problem is to give in and just letting wealth have even more power and influence.

And they are backed up by large sections of the wealth based right wing media and a large number of wealth financed right wing think tanks (not to mention all those very well paid lobby groups).

 

While you may have formed a convoluted opinion of me, you most obviously do not know me or even partially understand what I have written.

While it is also true that I have commented on each of the 5 'basic' topics you mention, you appear to have the view that only a society tightly controlled by government force is the means by which the majority should be ruled, which I accept as a means by which the governed could be made more equal to one another, beneath those who govern, leaving the governed society much less free and prosperous as a result. I've seen nothing you have written previously lead me to believe that the ideas you promote would do anything to improve society, but would only have effect on the individuals who comprise the middle and lower classes of society.

Just look at where the last nearly 100 years has brought us as the Federal government under control of both parties has crept toward the Left and away from its Constitutional limitations. Socialism on a large scale can only lead to, and result in, failure on a large scale. Check out the EU, Greece, Spain, Italy, and where it is heading. You need to learn that failure is a natural part of life, and providing aid where needed should be left as a choice of who and how to provide it by those with greatest knowledge as a result of their proximity, and not to a centralized government who does little more than distribute the suffering and losses most often with little positive effect.

 

What would you like to be called?

 

Indie

Oh I think anyone reading your reply would quickly see I was right on the money, because you just seem to be reiterating your right wing stance that would favour wealth.

 

Thank you for making my point.

 

Indie

LOL –

Well if you want be to point out all the problems with your post I can.

Well its true we’ve never met and are unlikely to (are you still living in Laos?) But we have had a number of debates and I think I have the measure of you and although it is often like pulling teeth I have a good grasp of your ideas although since you can’t defend them from criticism I’m still don’t understand why you still hold on to them.

 

Part One

Indie

OK at one time or another you’ve promoted these ideas -

1) low or no tax
2) deregulation
3) Little or no welfare
4) Free market/laissez faire based economics
5) Social Darwinist based education, healthcare etc.

All of which are more advantageous to wealth rather than to the majority.

I didn’t say ‘comment’ I said promote and that’s exactly what you have been doing you’ve been promoting them, what you haven’t been able to do so far is defend them from criticism.

And I’m sure I’m not the only one that noticed you are not saying you disagree with them or the conclusion that they are more advantageous to wealth rather than to the majority.


No rather than try and defend them, which you know you can’t - instead you seem to think that if you go on the attack no one will notice that your ideas favour wealth.

 

Part Two

Indie

This is frankly rather confused, maybe on purpose to actually confuse or maybe just because you haven’t got a coherent argument, but lets try and unravel it.

I love the use of ‘tightly controlled’ and ‘government force’ they sound so sinister when in fact all I’ve ever been arguing for in relation to US politics is balance - because at the moment I think because of neoliberal ideas and policies, wealth has gained too much power and influence over governance.

And I wonder why you would want to give even more power and influence to wealth?

Again wonderful use of the sinister inflection ‘beneath those who govern’ but what I’m saying is who governs and what is governance for - is it about the promotion of everyone’s interests or only about the interests of a few. Should everyone share in the prosperity and freedom or should just a few?

I say everyone - you on the other hand seem to say it should only be about a few.

I think a rebalancing of power from the few to the many would have an effect on the individuals who comprise the middle and lower classes of society. It would make things better for them and why wouldn’t you want that?

For the last thirty years of neo-liberalism the real term incomes of the middle and lower classes have stagnated or even fallen while those of a few have sky rocketed, why would you want to make that gap even greater?

 

Part Three

Indie

For the last 100 years wealth and right leaning governments have been trying to harass and suppress left wing ideas.

From the ‘First Red Scare’ of the 1920’s through to the imprisonment of the Socialists including the presidential candidate Eugene Debs up to the left wing purges of the ‘loyalty’ oaths and the un-American committees in the 40’s 50’s and 60’s.

Here is Albert Canwell in 1949 who was chair of the California state un-American committee on the kind of thinking he defined as being left wing –
“If someone insists there is discrimination against Negroes in this country, or that there is inequality of wealth, there is every reason to believe that person is a communist”

*

It depends on what you define as ‘socialism’ as I’ve pointed out to many on the extreme right of politics in the US see anything that is to the left of their far right ideas as ‘socialist’.

As pointed out to you before - all of the countries of the EU have had neo-liberal governments in power during the last 30 years. Many political parties of the right and the left succumbed to neoliberal ideas.

In the UK the flawed neoliberal ideas of the Thatcher era were taken up by the New Labour leadership.

In Greece the government that was in power just prior to the crisis (2004-2009) was the “strictly neoliberal” right wing New Democracy Party which used derivatives as a means of hiding the true level of their debts. In Spain the neo-liberal Peoples Party was in power from 1996-2004 (and created the conditions for that countries housing bubble) and was succeeded by an opposition party ‘of the left’ that followed many of its neoliberal ideas and as for Italy the right wing neoliberal Silvio Berlusconi has been in power for eight of the last ten years.

Yes I already now your Social Darwinist take on social provision, we have been through it a length you think that if people through no fault of their own find themselves in hardship they should be ‘free’ to die of want and etc and etc….

But you still don’t seem able to back up your thinking beyond the rather lame arguments that ‘life isn’t fair’ and that anyone that doesn’t agree with your Social Darwinist ideas is too ‘emotional’.

 

Well, I'm sorry if you have problems understanding, but I see no point in disrupting this threads topic just to appease your desire to argue endlessly to no avail. What you promote as the duty of government is unsustainable, and regressive, and if you can not see that, I'm truly sorry for you.

 

Go back and re-read my posts, along with the U.S. Constitution and perhaps the Federalist papers in order to understand it better, and most of all recognize and accept the fact that the U.S. Federal Government is not a Socialist Democracy, or even a Democracy, but a Constitutional Republic.

The question asked in this thread seems to be asking "Did the Tea Party takeover/ruin Libertarianism?"

Have you responded to that?

Personally, I don't look at the Tea party as members of any one party, but made up of members from all parties and seem to have united on some common causes.

 

i'm a libertarian to the fullest. if it isn't a violent crime, it isn't my business. i feel like it'd be easier to survive in a society where the government doesn't regulate everything i own. i don't want to pay for guns for the military. i don't want to pay for healthcare that benefits me very little and in fact, won't even cover any transplants i need at the moment. without taxes, i might be able to even afford to pay for my own healthcare, what a dream. i'm for very small government, that works for people rather than the people working for it. i feel like as someone who isn't rich, i basically belong to the rich while i pay taxes for ssi which typically they benefit from when they get old, and i probably won't live to see a cent of.

sluteva.

don't want to argue about it, those are my opinions.

 

also, i don't mind the tea party. if you ignore the bafoons they typically record and actually go to a rally, you'll see they aren't typically all as bad as the media will have you believe. equally not as wholesome as fox news will have you believe. see for yourself how everyone is. don't just go based off the opinions of the same people who told us marijuana would cause people to be violent and cause wars. c'mon.

i'm not a teapartier, just open minded.

 

You mean you are a right wing libertarian?

1) low or no tax
2) deregulation
3) Little or no welfare
4) Free market/laissez faire based economics
5) Social Darwinist based education, healthcare etc.


The problem is that such things would only seem to help the few rather than the many.