Are we talking about the Libertarian Tea Party or the Republican rip-offs?


If I had to classify myself, it would be an Atheist Libertarian. I am socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Meaning I have a hard time dealing with the justification certain taxes. The only thing saving the rich, and keeping the poor alive is Middle Class consumerism. Once the middle class says fuck it, then the system will crumble.

Did I also mention I like entropy? I think it is a great thing!

But... it's funny, cause they're stupid!

But yeah, he does have a point.

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by dystopianfuturetoday.

There's no way to oppose a tyrannical corporation? What happened to getting your goods or services from a competing corporation that offers a better product, fewer restrictions, or better service; or more cynically how about a competing corporation that is only better in that it is less tyrannical than another option?

I believe that solution can and frequently does work, particularly in microeconomics. In macroeconomics, yes we need some (hopefully small) level of government monitoring and intervention to prevent collusion and foster competition.

I was going along, listening and agreeing with most of what he had to say until that particular remark though.

He is correct that there are people with genuine grievances. Fiscal conservatives are not evil.

However, protesters standing in the streets chanting about Kenyan Nazi Socialists are not helping anyone get any real points across.

MilkmanDan: "There's no way to oppose a tyrannical corporation? What happened to getting your goods or services from a competing corporation that offers a better product, fewer restrictions, or better service; or more cynically how about a competing corporation that is only better in that it is less tyrannical than another option?"

^Yes, that's brilliant. Fight TyrannicalCorporation-A by throwing your support behind TyrannicalCorporation-B. This method also works at election time!

Psychologic: "Fiscal conservatives are not evil."

Not by definition, no. But quite often the results of fiscal conservative policies are, in fact, evil. Think of Ronald Reagan and his bullshit "welfare queen" scare tactic, and then try to imagine what it would be like to be five years old and living in a homeless shelter with your mom and two little brothers. Many fiscal conservatives know there is a direct causation, measured in very real human terms, that stems from the cold policies they advocate. And they simply don't care.

Not by definition, no. But quite often the results of fiscal conservative policies are, in fact, evil

By the same logic of OUTCOME, the results of social liberal policies are, in fact, evil. Think of Social Security, the War on Poverty, Medicare, Medicaid, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and a bazillion other social programs that increase poverty while creating entire populations that sit & wait for gummint subsistence checks.

This is a common trick of liberals to pretend that fiscal conservativism results in 'greater' levels of poverty and suffering - when it is the exact opposite. The creation of these social programs is always sold to the public with good intentions - but craptastic results. That's because social liberalism is built on the fallacious premise that giving money to government is a good way to alleviate society's problems. History has proven that to be a blatant falsehood. Giving money to government programs does not reduce poverty, help the poor, or in any way improve the issues in society. All it does is empower government, demean humanity, strip human freedom, and make society's problems bigger & more expensive.

Fiscal conservatism is the SOLUTION to society's problems. By encouraging thrift, industry, hard work, independance, and personal responsibility you create a population that does not NEED assistance. At the same time, people become happier, wealthier, more propserous, and less dependant on government. They also become more intelligent, informed, and compassionate - as well as having the means (through private charities) of helping those who really do need a temporary hand.

Fiscal conservatism 'evil'? Pht. Only in the small minds of people who don't trust human freedom and that only believe people can be helped by government edict. Government will NEVER be the solution because government by nature is amoral. The solution to society's problems are MORAL solutions - and moral solutions cannot be addressed by an amoral source. Period.

governments have alway used cultural constructs like race, gender, religion and class as wedge buffers to keeps its citizens from unifying

this generation they're simplying using "liberal" vs. "conservative".

tools.

the majority are always easily duped morons, and they inhabit all camps....morons I mean-Chomsky is a practical, intelligent academic with no real voice...people with practical solutions to absolute fascist bullshit usually are.

People are predictable. Make sentences with enough proper grammar and rhetoric, tinged with the right amount of truth, non-truth, and meaningless bullshit, and you got yer self a crowd-pleasing, mob-quelling, best-selling, lauded by ineffectual pompous useful idiots chunk of ass-gravy that anyone can stomach.

Noam is the bomb-how do I know??...He's still breathing air and has tenure.

" History has proven that to be a blatant falsehood. Giving money to government programs does not reduce poverty, help the poor, or in any way improve the issues in society."

What history books are you reading Winstonfield? Never in the entire history of civilization has a "Libertarian fiscal conservative" government ever succeeded in creating a stable social environment. Not once! Why? Because it flies in the face of human nature. The world is not so super simple that we can teach everyone to be rugged individualists and then we will not need government at all. Before it will even have a chance to work you need an even playing field, and that does not exist and probably never will exist, thanks to human nature again.

Conservative thinkers know this, which is why pure conservatism = dictatorship. If you don't believe me, turn off the talk radio and crack open a book. Read the philosophers that inspire conservatism, like Plato and his "Philosopher King" or John Burke's defense of royal fiat.

Conservatism does not create a paradise like Galt's Gulch, it leads to places like Haiti, and Zimbabwe, and Somalia. "Liberalism" leads to high standards of living, like Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the fast recovery of Germany. These countries are technologically more advanced, better educated, have higher average incomes, better medical care, and longer life spans than us Americans. Yet they are (falsely) labeled "socialist" and are considered places we should not follow as examples.

Think for yourself!

Noam himself is a Social Libertarian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism

Do not let the media fool you into believing that the original Libertarians were Republican hacks.

There was a time when there were no Republicans in the T.E.A movement. The movement, as I was told, spawned from End The FED. To which it promptly grew into a hack convention for the Conservative Right, all of which thought it was a good platform for their candidates. When it was highly televised by Fox News is when it became a rampant goat fuck. Agent K said something like the following about people as a group.

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow. -Agent K

Sadly Agent K is wrong about the Earth is Flat quip. In fact in Columbuses time most people believe it was round.

Chomsky has self-identified as a libertarian socialist. (Not "social libertarian") But he makes it very clear that he's using the word 'libertarian' in the proper European sense, and not in the distorted USian fashion.

"Rand in my view is one of the most evil figures of modern intellectual history." -- Noam Chomsky

>> ^qualm:
Chomsky has self-identified as a libertarian socialist. (Not "social libertarian") But he makes it very clear that he's using the word 'libertarian' in the proper European sense, and not in the distorted USian fashion.
"Rand in my view is one of the most evil figures of modern intellectual history." -- Noam Chomsky


I have to agree with him on the rand part.

But let's not mince words here. Social Libertarian is exactly that, Libertarian Socialist. In fact, if you Google Social Libertarian it redirects to the Chomsky link. But that's semantics in its truest form, and we could argue what each of us meant for some time. There is really no need for the Tit for Tat that follows semantics arguments.

^ libertarian socialist vs social libertarian
democratic socialist vs social democrat

But whatever...

The quotation is from an interview with NC and The Western Standard, a Canadian right-wing libertarian magazine: http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2008/12/question-period.html

^yeah...Rand was purely fucked from the git go once she started writing books that wont fit in yer pants....

..edit..In a pamphlet

>> ^qualm:
MilkmanDan: "There's no way to oppose a tyrannical corporation? What happened to getting your goods or services from a competing corporation that offers a better product, fewer restrictions, or better service; or more cynically how about a competing corporation that is only better in that it is less tyrannical than another option?"
^Yes, that's brilliant. Fight TyrannicalCorporation-A by throwing your support behind TyrannicalCorporation-B. This method also works at election time!


I detect sarcasm, but that's the general idea, yes. Particularly if TyrannicalCorporation-B is at least slightly less tyrannical than A. If enough people give a damn and follow suit, it encourages A to recognize that they are losing customers/profits to B due to tyrannical practices, and makes them more likely to make slow evolutionary changes in the direction of B's policies. Again, I would acknowledge that this functions better at a micro rather than macro scale, but it doesn't just suddenly cease to work at all in macro terms.

The way I see it, we've got a few choices:

If we really need item X good/service, get it from whatever source is the least tyrannical / evil / obnoxious.

If we don't really need item X, or we don't need it enough to tolerate imperfect / tyrannical / evil sources for it, then don't buy it.

If we feel frustrated by this, bitch about it on the internet, and prepare for the whole situation to magically get better!

>> ^NordlichReiter:
Are we talking about the Libertarian Tea Party or the Republican rip-offs?


you're right and you're wrong nordlichReiter.
I think Chompsky is talking about both. Neither fox news or the other networks distinguish. I am pleasantly surprised to agree with chompsky so much.

Watching MSNBC get laughs at the teabaggers is the point of this video right?

Kind of like finding a great restaurant, and then one weekend, all the wrong crowd starts showing up and ruining the place. so it is with Glen beck showing up at the tea party.

@MilkmanDan: That's crazy.

>> ^MilkmanDan:
>> ^qualm:
Yes, that's brilliant. Fight TyrannicalCorporation-A by throwing your support behind TyrannicalCorporation-B. This method also works at election time!

I detect sarcasm, but that's the general idea, yes. Particularly if TyrannicalCorporation-B is at least slightly less tyrannical than A. If enough people give a damn and follow suit, it encourages A to recognize that they are losing customers/profits to B due to tyrannical practices, and makes them more likely to make slow evolutionary changes in the direction of B's policies.

I love dimestore economic analyses like this. It's like whenever people talk about politics or economics, they think the only thing you need to know about either one ends with micro 101.

It's supposed to be a science, and the theory should bend to fit the observed facts, not vice versa.

This entire line of reasoning is undercut by the facts of the world around you. There are no laws preventing someone from starting new insurance companies that treat their customers fairly. Why has medical insurance continually become both more restrictive and more expensive?

Incidentally, I rather like Chomsky's overall take -- the tea partiers are people who should be behind the progressive movement, but aren't because the progressive movement has failed to cut through the bullshit that segment of the population has been fed.

I rather agree. Like Truman said:

"I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you
find out who's hitting you? It's about time that the people of America
realized what the Republicans have been doing to them."
- Harry Truman

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Good stuff.

There's a pretty good book about how the Republican movement courted the working class in America - it's called 'Deer Hunting with Jesus', I think. Worth a look.

Class Dismissed: How Television Frames the Working Class: http://www.videosift.com/video/Class-Dismissed-How-Television-Frames-The-Working-Class

Did you just cite Ronald Reagan as a fiscal conservative?
>> ^qualm:
Psychologic: "Fiscal conservatives are not evil."
Not by definition, no. But quite often the results of fiscal conservative policies are, in fact, evil. Think of Ronald Reagan and his bullshit "welfare queen" scare tactic, and then try to imagine what it would be like to be five years old and living in a homeless shelter with your mom and two little brothers. Many fiscal conservatives know there is a direct causation, measured in very real human terms, that stems from the cold policies they advocate. And they simply don't care.

i'll field this one:
ahem...
because profit motive eventually trumps every other possible motive.
because the free market rarely, if ever, actually works in favor of the people in the end.
and in the case that it does, its mere coincidence that what is good for masses actually happens to also be good for the corporation.
because corporations are like scapegoat prophylactics for the greedy.




>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^MilkmanDan:
>> ^qualm:
Yes, that's brilliant. Fight TyrannicalCorporation-A by throwing your support behind TyrannicalCorporation-B. This method also works at election time!

I detect sarcasm, but that's the general idea, yes. Particularly if TyrannicalCorporation-B is at least slightly less tyrannical than A. If enough people give a damn and follow suit, it encourages A to recognize that they are losing customers/profits to B due to tyrannical practices, and makes them more likely to make slow evolutionary changes in the direction of B's policies.
I love dimestore economic analyses like this. It's like whenever people talk about politics or economics, they think the only thing you need to know about either one ends with micro 101.
It's supposed to be a science, and the theory should bend to fit the observed facts, not vice versa.
This entire line of reasoning is undercut by the facts of the world around you. There are no laws preventing someone from starting new insurance companies that treat their customers fairly. Why has medical insurance continually become both more restrictive and more expensive?

Somebody wrote: "Did you just cite Ronald Reagan as a fiscal conservative?"

No, I cited a typical example of a fiscally conservative policy.