Taking Sides: Republicans v. Libertarians

Republicans seem to essentially just be rich scumbags and anyone they can dupe into following them... they bang on about freedom but are happy to throw people in jail for smoking spliffs, and their attitude to people who don't want to live the same square lives as them shows them as only interested in freedom when it means having to pay less tax. Tightwad conservatism, basically.

You have infringed on the intellectual property of my client, the estate of AYN RAND, by posting a work derivative of a number of her works including Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. My client, the estate of AYN RAND, generously suggests you settle this out of court. We are prepared to offer you a non-exclusive license to this intellectual property for the of ONE MILLION (1,000,000) US$.

Sincerely,

J. R. Humbledinker, Esq.
Attorney of the Estate of AYN RAND

http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/faq.php#libandleft

back at university, some of 'em took over one of the college publications over a decade ago, and, while i was a student there, wrote no shortage of screeds achievable by only the finest upper-middle-class suburban 21-year-old male kids from Bloomfield Hills, Dearborn, Rochester Hills, etc.

American Libertarians come in two varieties: "fuck the DEA, I want to smoke weed and hire hookers" and "fuck the IRS, taxes are evil, the government's use of force is evil. Except for when it's protecting my property rights by force, that's OK."

BECAUSE HER MEN GAYED UP ON HER!!!

Pick which part you like best: the statements on "African tribal culture", the professor trying to justify why aid won't help and thus apparently is bad, or when he starts going on about "American Blacks"

He has been frequently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize

see? SEEE?!! he's been nominated lots! he MUST know what he's talking about!

One of my proudly Libertarian friends donated time and money to help Kerry get elected in 2004... he didn't agree with everything Kerry supported, but he felt he was a far lesser evil, keeping to a lot of no-government ideals mind you, than Bush.

At this point, I think Libertarians are more liberal than our current crop of fundamentalists Democrats... I don't think a Libertarian governor would try to pass a law to ban abortion, for example. (Hi, Louisiana!)

Ayn Rand's body and philosophy can rot for all I care, though. Not all Libertarians want to make the necro-horizontal rhumba with her, as most would like to think.

Is there a recent example of this happening that I'm missing, and you're being sarcastic? Or is this sincere conjecture?

The related case of discrimination in the workplace is perhaps even more illuminating. Here, liberals would typically support laws to penalize employers for discrimination on a basis unrelated to the ability to do the job, conservatives would typically allow or even encourage such discrimination, but libertarians could be expected to oppose any laws on this matter because these would infringe on the property rights of both the business owner and the justly-hired employees. In other words, even if a particular libertarian feels strongly that various groups being discriminated against should have equality, he would say that intervening to establish this equality should not be the role of the government, but that of society. If a business discriminates against you, you are "free" to work elsewhere, or possibly start your own business which follows your personal belief structure. The libertarians ability to distinguish between equality and freedom in this instance demonstrates their belief that equality of position is not a necessary condition of freedom, especially the freedom to enter into agreements in an un-coerced manner. By endorsing such things as the freedom to discriminate, libertarianism supports freedom of association which is the foundation of human rights.

is freedom from choice more of a freedom or a choice?

WHO WOULD WIN

If the Democrats get control of the House and Senate, they will probably launch a bunch of annoying investigations into Bush's business deals, Enron, etc. Bush would run the risk of some political damage, but, at the same time, Democrats would run the risk of looking like shmucks going after a president during a war. Also, continued gridlock would allow Bush to run against a do-nothing Congress in 2004 and on his war record — which would hopefully give the GOP better and bigger majorities than we could possibly win in 2002.

looking forward to pointing and laughing as they drown in a sea of trash

"There are quite a lot of people who think it's not possible," Thiel said at a Seasteading Institute Conference in 2009, according to Details. (His first donation was in 2008, for $500,000.) "That's a good thing. We don't need to really worry about those people very much, because since they don't think it's possible they won't take us very seriously. And they will not actually try to stop us until it's too late."

yeah, too late FOR YOU

Dry land is for slaves.

I like how they seems completely oblivious to the need for things like fresh water, arable land, a working ecosystem... the miracle of laissez faire capitalism will just provide for all!

Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place. Details says the experiment would be "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons

It's quite laughable that none of these idiots have played Bioshock, and it's also both ludicrous and quite tragic that the personality flaws and sociopathic traits that can allow you to thrive in certain hierachies blind you to any sense of self-awareness, self-reflection, irony, et al.

Hubris leads to downfall etc etc etc

outside of the obvious functional problems the biggest problem with building a libertarian dreamland is that it would be filled with total assholes

how can "no minimum wage" possibly be meaningful on a robo-island that no one would live on for less than minimum wage

willing slaves will flock to the islands in rowboats for the chance to live in a lawless paradise filled with self-righteous ignoramuses

they want to do one of these off the coast of SF. I look forward to the opportunity to literally point and laugh.

of course the real, actual downside of this is the emergency services/ecological cleanup that will be required by *gasp* actual governments once this shit goes kablooey

the best thing about that story is how it makes the dude funding the eternal clock seem like he is making a reasonable investment choice by comparison

I really want to know how they plan to deal with food and water. And rape and murder.

At least old-school off-the-grid style libertarians have land...

let's just hope they extend their philosophy about loose building codes to these sea-going platforms themselves...

willing slaves will flock to the islands in rowboats for the chance to live in a lawless paradise filled with self-righteous ignoramuses

lol.

eternal clocks are way cooler than impoverished libertarian resorts obv

might also think about how they're going to power this paradise. importing all yr oil/gas needs is pretty pricey

you're talking about america right

is the name of this new robo-island gonna be New Somalia?!?

also, i remember first hearing of this "idea" back in the late 1990s. dunno if this is the same clown, though.

It has been brought to my attention that some citizens have discovered ways to... hack the vending machines. I should not need to remind each and every citizen of Rapture that free enterprise is the foundation upon which our society has been established. Parasites will be punished.

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

Found the quote I was looking for:

These sad saps. They come to Rapture thinking they're gonna be captains of industry, but they all forget that somebody's gotta scrub the toilets...

If I were a silicon valley billionaire I would invest in a heavily armed fleet of pirate ships and take their floating office park by force as soon as they finish building it.

yeah right everyone who lives there is gonna own like 30 guns

but I'll strike right before they all move in. it's a foolproof plan.

just crash a plane into it

that doesn't sound like much fun

are these ppl renouncing their citizenship when they go out onto this thing

well you could parachute out before impact and then surf to safety, that'd probably be nice

xp

Nothing better than trying to build a community out of people who think anything communal is evil

you're talking about america right

― iatee, Tuesday, August 16, 2011 8:03 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

http://m.kotaku.com/5831456/paypal-billionaire-continues-work-towards-making-bioshocks-rapture-a-reality

Kotaku pretty much thinks in the same way I do, only they include far more explicit game refs

"When you start a company, true freedom is at the beginning of things," he says and slides the thought over to the topic of nations. "The United States Constitution had things you could do at the beginning that you couldn't do later. So the question is, can you go back to the beginning of things? How do you start over?"

can't wait to enslave this motherfucker

http://m.gawker.com/5831434/a-facebook-billionaires-big-dumb-failure

"It's quite laughable that none of these idiots have played Bioshock"
libertarian boneheadedness notwithstanding, video games as a medium lend themselves more to libertarian wish-fulfillment (make a world where you can do anything you want!) than literary warning, and bioshock probably ended up glamorizing the thing it intended to satirize.

I really want to know how they plan to deal with food and water. And rape and murder.

p. sure they favor all four.

I don't know if the games are nec. wish fulfillment, so much as attracting the horridly socialized/Aspergian types which tend to cling to the Randian thing

http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1187

tbh if the american right really wanted to build itself something of an intellectual foundation for the 21st century, thiel would be a pretty good place to start. (not that they do.)