The Truth About Big Government

that's not an argument, that's an unsupported manifesto. Or am I "labeling"?

I can't follow your point here. Your sentence structure seems to be messed up. Could you rephrase pleas?

Really. Because my life experience has shown me that in fact the opposite is true. It is "small government" Which is to say governments which lack power to create or enforce their own laws where corruption and lawlessness runs truly rampant.

You haven't really experienced true small government till you've had half the belongings in your suitcase removed for sale or personal use by the more or less unpaid border guard doing a 'customs inspection' as is traditional throughout most countries that actually follow the practices libertarians lobby for.

The last administration is another case in point. They implemented large numbers of economic policies initially lauded by libertarian groups until it was shown that they didn't work, at which point much like the a religious cult let standing on the mountain when the time for the rapture has past frantically recalculate and claim they didn't really mean it and if they make this small change THEN it will ACTUALLY work.

what libertarian plans did Bush have?

tax breaks, deregulation, refusal to enforce regulation that was in place. Refusal to deal with the UN. The standard 'small government' stuff. Generally things the libertarinans used to emphasize but are trying to avoid doing these days

to which statement are you referring? there are so many that applies to here

the numbers are based on per capita. It already is adjusted for population growth.....we really have 6 times the size of government per person compared to 100 years ago.....

>"Bombastinator takes another approach the right and left utilize... ""...utilize to quash any approach to protest. They label something in this instance libertarian and say it is antiquated in nature."<

No, I prove it on a regular basis.

Libertarian philosophy IS antiquated. It is based on an admittedly brilliant, but still primitive mathmatics left over from the infancy of modern economic theory which in some very significant ways is similar to the difference between astrology and modern astronomy. The mathematical theory that made it possible to solve economic equations was essentially a fudge. Much like the cosmological constant or the concept of astral ether. While essentially inaccurate, It was however accurate enough enough of the time to allow useful work to be done.

Some idiot hippies in the seventies found this math, decideded that if it was kind of true some of the time when applied in certain situations it must also be totally true all the time in all situations. They then formed a philosophy around it and started producing ridiculous films like "THE AMAZING BREAD MACHINE".

This is where Libertarianism becomes similar to astrology. Astrology can also in fact do useful work. It can reliably predict the movements of planets and eclipses and such. What makes it silly and a tool for abusing the gullible is that it is also used to do much more than that. It is also similar in that there are now more reliable and accurate systems.

For libertarianism to work you basically have to stop thinking about econoic theory as of about 20 years ago. The concept that said the public is essentially impossible to fool and manipulate in the long term did not sit well with people like marketers, advertisers, and those who's business was more or less just that, so they set out to find the holes in the rule that allowed them to get around the limitation and do their jobs.

It turned out there were lots. Time is a big big one. if you move fast enough and constantly change your approach the problem can be basically ignored. There are even mathematics they designed about exactly how to go about doing this. Information management is also huge. Because of this we have whole college departments that have grown up since the 50's such as marketing and communications. Each of these disciplines has their own body of math.

What is most irritating to me is that the majority of Libertarian leaders know this, and much like astrological charlatans use this knowledge to take advantage of the people they can convince.

>"Just because we have not culminated it is not any reason to abandon trying."
So just because you know it doesn't work is no reason to stop pretending it does. Oh that's good that is.

Good point

We don't want to return to anything, freedom is the future and nothing in the past compares to what we want. We are against slavery of almost every form, minorities prosper under a freer system. Government protectionism and government negative externalities are what gave slave owners their guns to force and enslave the african-americans. What we want is more freedom for all, where market pressures force the rich to compete for our dollar and where prices are competed down, where personal freedom reigns in the individual, and where skin color is dissolved of all relevance just as hair color is today...

Liberty for all is the future, that is what we fight for, we don't want to go back to anything. Are you saying that America was once libertarian? Sure we came close, but still nowhere near it. We are the future of peace and prosperity, big government monopolies are hopefully a thing of the past, although they have ruled the day for centuries, throughout most of the world.

>"What we want is more freedom for all, where market pressures force the rich to compete for our dollar and where prices are competed down,"<

The quality of the ideals are not an issue, except possibly for their attainability. Utiopian societies always have great goals. So did marxism. The problem is the methodology is so completely flawed that implementation causes effects opposite to those intended.

I know you said "almost all Libertarians are white", so I would fall under one of the few exceptions, but I cant help but share my view.

I'm half white American, and half Arab, Kuwaiti. I considered myself a liberal Democrat for quite awhile. That is until I took a political science class, really read the books, took surveys, start analyzing the data; to find my ideals to match that of the Libertarian Party. I may have liberal values socially and be progressive when it comes to the environment, but I still hold interest in small governance. Actually, while were at it, I think Marx's theory of the working class revolt is inevitable. But I'll save that for later.

One point I would like to focus on is how the Libertarian Party ideals is what is best for The U.S. at this time. Many of this young generation consider themselves to be a Democrat based on their socially liberal values, yet dont understand what the true platform of what it truly means to be a Democrat. Goverment welfare, running programs, and the need for high taxes to pay for these expenditures are all understandably a part of the Democrat platform. You can be liberal and still have conservative ideals of governance. The government should not be interfering with the social arena of the people, like making judgement on gay marriage. Its a distraction led by neo-conservatives, and those that cant seem to take religion out of ruling a free nation.

Once everyone begins to understand the platforms of all the parties, there will likely be a spike in support for Libertarians and a small government. Its a bold statement to make, but i stick by it.

yeah a lot of people who are attracted to Marxism are also attracted to libertarianism. they ar both pie in the sky Utopian philosophies based on nice little in the box ideas rather than how things actually work. Marx wasn't completely wrong mind you. A lot of his criticism of capitalism is quite insightful. The problem is his solutions were pulled more or less completely out of his fanny and acted like it when put into practice. As for the uprising it already happened. In the twenties. it just didn't play out at all the way he predicted. Democracy adjusted, as it is supposed to, and we got things like the FDA, the eight hour day, and unions.

Liking the ideals of libertarianism is fine. They are nice sounding ideals. The problem is they don't work in practice any better than Marxism or any other Utopian philosophy does. They invariably assume a capacity for people to behave in a perfect and predictable fashion, and people are just too flawed.

Exactly. For the simple minded. If you think about it too deeply it falls apart.

Just like Marxism and all the other ridiculous Utopian philosophies it shares so many similarities with.