Libertarians are just Republicans who don't understand how taxes work.
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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Some of the funniest shit in the world to me is watching a libertarian talk to pretty much anyone remotely competent in discussing policy and watching in real time as the libertarian reinvents things like taxes and liberal democracy trying to make their policy prescriptions make sense.
I had a "debate" with a libertarian once. It's annoying because they reply with: "it's the government's fault" or "free market can do it better" and citing examples just leans to their boring hypotheticals.
Workers rights, healthcare, regulations, public transit, public healthcare, mail, etc, it's boring how uninterested they are in how things actually work.
Yeah that can get very boring. I suppose though if they had any interest in how things actually worked they wouldn't be libertarians. That's exactly what kept me from aligning with them back in high school when I first started getting into politics.
Like I got as far as roads and it was like "Wait a second, how would you handle roads going into areas where where it wouldn't be profitable to run them?" They either just wouldn't have roads, or someone would build it and would make it profitable by charging exorbitant tolls. Neither of those were acceptable to me and my agreement with libertarianism died. There are always going to be things in society that are not profitable but are worth having because they have downstream benefits to society.
The problem I've had with a lot of them related to what you mentioned is that their very base motivation for wanting libertarianism is selfishness. They don't want to pay for things other people use so the argument becomes "well that area just doesn't have roads. I won't live there so I don't care. That's for the locals in that area to figure out."
From what I've gathered libertarianism is "I got mine, fuck you."
Like hospitals. Sure they can be profitable, but they should still be running with funding even if they are not.
Education of the masses being a great example.
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The argument is generally to favor non-coercive solutions to avoid centralized power breeding corruption (admittedly with a caveat that wealth can also create centralized power). I'm not clear how that would entail more taxes. Or exactly what you mean by "liberal democracy", which in the conventional use isn't something they disagree with?
I don't mean more taxes I mean taxes at all. Pretty much every libertarian I've ever heard talking about it says "Taxation is theft," then the ones I'm talking about will for example get asked to describe their ideal society and when asked how to say maintain some key infrastructure they essentially describe collecting taxes from the citizens for it. Things like that.
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Republicans don't even know how taxes work.
I always thought a Libertarian is a Republican who is trying to sleep with a Democrat - or vice versa.
I was a libertarian until I vacationed in a country where taxes were used on its people instead of it military.
(Gross over simplification for comedy before anyone comes at me for my political beliefs)
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Republicans don't want small government, they want a fascist police state and a corrupt military industrial complex to oppress people around the world to steal their shit while funding profitable wars for their contractors.
I think the last 2 people who wanted small government and balanced budgets were like John McCain (dead) and John Kasich (retired, but endorsed Joe Biden in 2020) and they're no longer relevant.
Honestly, as a party, they need to go. I want an opposition party to the Democrats, but they're not it. Hell, America really needs ranked choice voting and more open primaries, and probably 4 major political parties.
Hence the meme where the Republican party kills the Libertarians
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Libertarians are just Republicans that don't want to say they're Republicans, their stances are almost completely the same.
A more honest comic would be a frame of two republicans (use the lion from this comic) tearing part and eating America...say, Uncle Sam, just visceral and blood all over their mouths and claws. Second frame has that scene in the background with a third lion standing with another animal looking upon the carnage. The third lion saying "I'm not republican, I am a libertarian that leans right" while also having blood all over it's mouth and claws.
Actual libertarians would never vote Republican. They’d be pro-choice, pro-trans rights, against any kind of book ban and for way less invasive religion in the state.
People who vote republicans and call themselves libertarian only like their own freedom.
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Don't let them fool you, libertarians are just Republicans who are too chicken shit to admit it and be open about it. They still side together on every issue, small government or not. I don't see a difference between the two in their actions
Hey now, be fair, not all self described libertarians are just being dishonest about their political affiliations.
Some don't know how anything works and call themselves libertarian because they think it sounds cool.
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I don't respect conservatives. Someone who votes Republican is either ignorant of what their party is doing, is willing to look the other way, or is actively encouraging it. None of these traits are admirable, or respectable.
Libertarians are enemies of everyone else's liberty, when it contradicts with theirs personally.
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Republicans run on the campaign that government doesn't work, and once they are in power they prove it.
Libertarianism is the ideology of the childish and selfish, it is the ideology of putting oneself and one's own interests before everything else, just dressed up in pretty words about "liberty".
A nice word that Rothbart stole from Anarchists to use for his capital-Feudalism
It makes me a sad left a libertarian/anarchist.
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Used to call myself Libertarian at one point. Then I grew up and realized most "Libertarians" are a group of morons who would get eaten by the wealthy if the world suddenly switched over to their ideal "Libertarian" society. You think the gap is bad between the rich and poor now? Let "Libertarian" ideals run amok for a decade....
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It’s weird seeing American “libertarians”. In Australia, the Liberal Democrat Party were the first to support same sex marriage and drug decriminalisation (even before the far-left Greens) and have long supported peoples right to decide for themselves on euthanasia and abortion. They’ve been the only voice against the governments overreach on internet filtering and their power to secretly force companies to write backdoors into their software. So basically the opposite of American “libertarians”.
After winning some seats about 8-10 years ago, the major parties realised they could marginalise the LDP on issues like gun control, which most Australians know nothing about but support with blind enthusiasm anyway. So we’re back to the stats-quo of 4 parties, Lib/Nat vs Labor/Greens.
Libertarianism in the US is all about personal liberty, basically about being able to do whatever they want and fuck anyone else's needs or desires.
So they're just Republicans by a different name then
A libertarian is just a republican who knows that admitting who they align with is socially dangerous. You would think that makes them better in some way but in fact it makes them worse. Many republicans don't know they are absolute garbage. Libertarians know they are garbage but still choose to be garbage.
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I kept misreading it as librarians which really confused me xD
I do think libertarianism has some principles and concepts that are valuable, I would have even called myself libertarian-ish at certain points, but over the years it's fallen into a similar bucket as communism from my perspective.
It's an attractive system until you start introducing the people.
I did call myself a libertarian at a certain point. Then I realized it's trash. The political philosophy itself is stupid.
"Liberty is the most fundamental right." Why? Who says? Why not...idk, caring for others and being cared for in return?
It's an ideology of selfishness fundamentally. And it only makes sense that it was started by a bunch of selfish rich assholes, the same people who champion it now.
I can't speak for everyone but I don't see much out there that gives me the ground to tell someone else how to live their life. So until it affects me or someone else, I have a hard time justifying violence, which is where the "live and let live" thing comes from.
I think that gets a lot of people in the door, and then the reality gets messy. But I don't think that central principle is trash. And the first part of caring for someone else is recognizing their rights as an individual. It's why the party was the first to include marriage equality explicitly as part of their platform nearly four decades before democrats. When democratic presidents and presidential candidates were pushing DOMA, libertarians had had as a tent pole for decades already. And that is the fundamental difference: it's not good enough to have a government that agrees good things are good, they can change their mind and have a bad track record. The libertarian view is that it ought to be a high-bar for anyone to presume the ability to intrude on what's your business alone.
So yes, there's a lot of mess where the rubber meets the road, but there's a lot of good there. A lot of people eventually realize as nice and simple as what I just said above is, there's very precious little in this world that is exclusively "your business alone". Still, the principles a good enough starting point, and you'll find a lot of people are pretty open to things if they're a net positive and applied equitably. You'll find a lot of libertarians that are way more opposed to subsidizing the likes of lockheed martin than they are about medicare for all or food stamps. Hell, there are people that still consider themselves libertarians who are proponents of UBI.
I had hoped the party would siphon off some of the more reasonable republicans rather than catch the crazy itself. Sadly that's not how it played out. Add that to the crazies ("age of consent is a violation of my rights!"), and I 100% get your take. But man... I don't know about you but I'd sleep much better in a Garry Johnson/Biden election than a DeSantis/Biden election.
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Things aren't just black and white and I wish people didn't feel like they had to pick teams. I lean towards liberalism/socialism when it comes to social issues but I lean more libertarian when it comes to economic issues.
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I'm just going to post this article every time a libertarian post makes it to the front page now. Yes, libertarian taking over a New Hampshire town only to get overrun by feral bears will never stop being funny.
https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project
The funniest part of this is the part where we assume libertarians are being honest and acting in good faith
Libertarians are just Republicans who are embarrassed to admit it.
The mental illness is strong
The panda-rabbit should be a leopard.
Libertarians are just Republicans wearing silly hats.
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