RE: RE: US to invade neighboring countries?
Posted: 12/8/2003 11:49:25 AM
By: Comfortably Anonymous
Times Read: 1,567
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Topic: News: Politics
Parent Message
I don't like that Liberatarian Quiz that much. It's ok but I prefer the Politial Compass one. Check it out if you have some free time (a lot of so-called Liberatarians don't like it though).

The problem I have with the LP Quiz, and American Liberatarians in general, is that it lumps economics and social issues together. You aren't a Liberatarian unless you support pure capitalism, and are libertarian on social issues. I prefer to seperate them. The world-view of liberatarianism is very different from the American Liberatarian view. American Liberatarians treat free markets (and hence pure capitalism) are part of liberatarianism. The rest of the world doesn't; the rest generally consider liberatarianism to do with liberties only.

To a leftist like me, Liberatarians in USA are too biased towards capitalism. The markets, private businesses, etc are treated as a key Liberatarian principle. To see the flaw with this, consider this. I find it ironic that Liberatarians (in USA) don't generally support anarchism (no govt). If I'm not mistaken the Liberatarian Party doesn't either. The "justification" for this is that you need government to enforce private property laws, deal with contract law, have a justice system, and so forth. Liberatarians don't even consider anarchism to be "true" liberatarianism (because there is no govt to enforce private property). This is totally hypocritical to me given that the government is the entity that oppresses people. How can you stand for liberty (as Liberatarians claim to) when you support a government. A small one, but nevertheless *a* government. I'll tell you why it is like this. It's because American Liberatarians support an economic system (namely capitalism) when in fact they should just worry about liberties.

You can read the reasoning behind political compass to see my problem with the LP Quiz.

Why call commies leftists and fascists right-wing? I guess the intent of the two sides is different (I'd disagree), and maybe they go about their plans in different ways, but untimately they all take away freedom. I suppose you could talk about how ideally, communism would not take away individual freedoms, but I'm talking about reality. I think they're all totalitarian.

Yes, the form of communism that the world saw and the fascism, were both totalitarian. As Political Compass says, Stalin and Hitler will agree on everything except economics.

And my cynical side would argue that any serious politician wants to take our freedoms away somehow (for his own power), it's just a question of which we're willing to part with.

It's not as simple. The difference between a Liberatarian like you and a strongly-liberatarian leftist like me (eg. I am probably in favour of legalizing drugs, prostitution, full freedoms (USA is better than Canada in this respect), etc; do note that I do NOT consider myself THAT liberatarian--I'm nowhere near anarchism :| ) , is that I do not consider economic freedoms in the same way. So-called free markets are nothing more than ways for private businesses (such as corporations) to enslave workers. You, since Liberatarians consider capitalism to be the Holy Grail, do not see it that way. Workers being enslaved by businesses is evil to me while you are "ok" with it. For example, Liberatarians support workers working as slaves for 12 hours with no washroom breaks with little benefits in many poor countries. They support this by arguing that people are WILLING to work therefore they are still free. After all, the market decides right? I'm sure you would say that too. I, on the other hand, wants government intervention or some sort of worker intervention to block such mistreatment of workers.

The problem is not when a politician is stripping your liberties. That's easy to fight. Both the left and the right comes together to fight it (as is happening for Patriot Act and Patriot Act II). The real question is what happens when economics is involved! The left and the right will seperate on this issue. One side worships capitalism; the other side hates it. A billionaire is ok with you; a billionarie is an undesirable result for me.

On top of all this, there are also differences with international treaties, human rights and things like that. For instance, leftists generally prefer UNIVERSAL rights. The right generally does not. You can see this difference by comparing, for example, Noam Chomsky (liberatarian socialist, aka anarchist) vs Justin Raimondo (some dude who writes for antiwar.com). Chomsky, who is leftist, will support the UN more than Raimondo, who is on the right even though both of them are against the Iraqi war on liberatarian principles. Both are strong liberatarians (ie. extreme views towards freedoms, power of govt, etc) yet the left diverges from the right.

Until American Liberatarians cut off their ties with capitalism, they will amount to nothing. They clearly aren't going to do that for a few hundread years.

Sivaram Velauthapillai
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