POLITICS SCHMALITICS

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Archie said:

Its always different when the problem personally affects them and the problem is their own backyard.  They don't care about someone elses back yard.  

The different part is being a real functioning Human Being instead of privileged, self-absorbed jerk. 

...just sayin'

[chasfh]

On 12/10/2021 at 12:41 PM, Tigerbomb13 said:

 

 

 

[Jim Cowan]

Oh my goodness, he is just horrible.  I couldn't get all the way through the interview.

[pfife]

I'm happy to announce that after "just asking questions" and then "doing my own research" I have concluded that Hutchinson won the Heisman.   Congrats to Hutchinson!

 

[Tiger337]

7 hours ago, pfife said:

Typical libertarian dipshittery

 

Rand Paul is not really a libertarian.  He is a phony opportunist.  Justin Amash is an example of a libertarian.  

[ewsieg]

13 hours ago, pfife said:

No it's clearly just that rand is a fucking prick.  Rand actually didn't go through a natural disaster like you claimed so that's not why he had a good faith change of heart you seem to be suggesting 

 No bonus points for expressing basic empathy once.   That you chose to spend your time defending that behavior shows poor judgment. 

It's not just Paul either.  I'm assuming it was true, but it was also on Twitter and I didn't follow up on it, but apparently one of the KY congressman has been around for a bit and has a history of voting no on nearly all federal assistance requests, except when they impact KY.  The quote of his response was something like 'I have a clear conscious with my votes because while I don't like federal assistance for other places, even with my no votes they almost always pass, so when it effects us, I must due this so my district gets their fair share'.  If even 50% true, what a POS.

[Motown Bombers]

 

[CMRivdogs]

This has been around for a couple of months now. It doesn't get into the weeds as most of the quizes about where you stand on the political scale. The explanations are better than most

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/quiz/political-typology/

As In expected I landed right in the middle of the Democratic Party spectrum (Mainstay)

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/democratic-mainstays/ 

[Crazy Cat Gentleman]

1 hour ago, CMRivdogs said:

This has been around for a couple of months now. It doesn't get into the weeds as most of the quizes about where you stand on the political scale. The explanations are better than most

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/quiz/political-typology/

As In expected I landed right in the middle of the Democratic Party spectrum (Mainstay)

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/democratic-mainstays/ 

oh, nice.

establishment liberal in the house. seems about right.

[Motown Bombers]

Figured I would leave this here. 

 

[chasfh]

On 12/12/2021 at 3:03 PM, Tiger337 said:

Rand Paul is not really a libertarian.  He is a phony opportunist.  Justin Amash is an example of a libertarian.  

For the record: libertarianism sucks.

[chasfh]

On 12/12/2021 at 9:51 PM, Motown Bombers said:

 

 

This makes me tear up, and not for happiness or joy.

[gehringer_2]

5 minutes ago, chasfh said:

For the record: libertarianism sucks.

Libertarianism should never be more than phase you pass through as you figure the world out. To remain there is arrested intellectual development. Or in cases like the Kochs, just a convenient self serving propaganda framework to push.

Edited December 14, 2021 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

15 hours ago, Crazy Cat Gentleman said:

oh, nice.

establishment liberal in the house. seems about right.

Me too, which surprises me, because I am usually left of Lenin when it comes to these kinds of quizzes. Must be getting more right wing in my old age. 😅

Although I gotta tell ya, this quiz hit one of my pet peeves pretty hard with one of the questions: synonymizing "great/greater/greatest" with "good/better/best". Here's the question:

 

 

Because the United States is indisputably the greatest nation on Earth, in terms of scope, reach, influence, etc., but there is more of a debate to be had as to whether it is the best country on Earth, since based on some measures that is more of a subjective call , and based on others it is demonstrably untrue.

[chasfh]

11 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Libertarianism should never be more than phase you pass through as you figure the world out. To remain there is arrested intellectual development. Or in cases like the Kochs, just a convenient self serving propaganda framework to push.

I think I might see what you mean, although I'm not sure it's a defensible philosophy even as a pass-through phase, at least to the degree to which someone puts any amount of serious, rigorous thought into it.

[buddha]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

I think I might see what you mean, although I'm not sure it's a defensible philosophy even as a pass-through phase, at least to the degree to which someone puts any amount of serious, rigorous thought into it.

i think there are parts of the libertarianism philosophy you probably agree with.  im thinking of the social part of "let people do what they want."  that said, i dont subscribe to libertarianism either and think it is a poor governing philosophy in general.  

[Tiger337]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Libertarianism should never be more than phase you pass through as you figure the world out. 

I went through that phase for a period of time in my 20s. It sounds reasonable on the surface, but it's unrealistic.  

[Tiger337]

37 minutes ago, buddha said:

i think there are parts of the libertarianism philosophy you probably agree with.  im thinking of the social part of "let people do what they want."  that said, i dont subscribe to libertarianism either and think it is a poor governing philosophy in general.  

Much like socialism, libertarianism has some good elements but it's unrealistic as an overriding philosophy.  

[Mr.TaterSalad]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Libertarianism should never be more than phase you pass through as you figure the world out. To remain there is arrested intellectual development. Or in cases like the Kochs, just a convenient self serving propaganda framework to push.

I passed through that phase of my life. When I was in college and after graduation I went through my Ron Paul/libertarian phase. For me it was about 07-2013ish. I was a big Ron Paul fan back in 2008 and 2012 and voted for him in both primaries. I still respect the guy for his honesty, opposition to the Iraq War, opposition to the Patriot Act/domestic spying, and a few other issues I agree with him on. I've read all the libertarian authors and political commentators too from Ayn Rand to Fredrich Hayek to Ludwig Von Miss to Milton Friedman to Murray Rothbard. I used to read all the think tank publications too like Cato, Mises Institute, Reason Magazine, and Heartland.

What got me off the libertarian wagon though was related to what happened to my dad. When he lost his house to foreclosure during the recession and when he came clean to be about being joke broke, I couldn't sit there and continue railing against the very social programs and safety nets that were keeping him subsisting (Social Security, Medicare, and VA Assistance). Government money was the only thing keeping food on my dad's table, clothes on his back, and giving him the medical care/prescriptions he needed to live. How could I be so strident against the very social welfare that was keeping him alive and was keeping him from not having to live with my sister or I?

The other thing that really worked for me is that I left the vortex of libertarian media and the libertarian echo chambers online and in research. Instead of sitting there sifting through Reason Magazine articles and Cato research all day I forced myself to listen to other points of view, hear out other people (most notably my own mother whose always been a progressive), watch other sources for my daily news, research opposing view points, and just take a cruise around Metro Detroit to see how others outside of the middle class enclaves of Canton Michigan actually live.

The thing about libertarianism is, when you leave no checks and balances in place, when you strip away all regulations and you rely solely on the nature of others to do good in a situation, you create chaos and destruction. What libertarianism doesn't or refuses to account for in the bad nature of others. That bad and unethical behaviors like callousness, greed, manipulation, selfishness do exists and without proper controls placed on those behaviors, they will run roughshod over people all in the name of self interest. Whether that self interest is that of a company trying to maximize its profits or someone refusing to look out and take care of their fellow human being. Libertarianism in some cases makes false assumptions that people will naturally do good because it is in their own self interest to do so. In other instances, like Ayn Rand and her sociopathic theory of objectivism, doing good for others or caring for those around you matters not. In Rand's case, only looking out for yourself and treating yourself as the king above all else, breeds a degree of selfishness and greed that is downright destructive to people and the planet.

Besides, who wants to live in a world where you're stepping over bodies and walking around a burning planet all so you can maximize your own gratification and self interests for a short amount of time. Life is about far more than that and there is a certain nobility and positive impact you get to make in life by being a caring, compassionate, kind, selfless human being.

Edited December 14, 2021 by Mr.TaterSalad

[chasfh]

44 minutes ago, buddha said:

i think there are parts of the libertarianism philosophy you probably agree with.  im thinking of the social part of "let people do what they want."  that said, i dont subscribe to libertarianism either and think it is a poor governing philosophy in general.  

It's a poor governing philosophy because if libertarians were to win the day, they would remove the authority if the government to, among other things, regulate business in the interest of protecting the people from unsafe and predatory practices. Libertarians would have the federal government literally do nothing but maintain armed forces and negotiate interstate commerce disputes.

In such a scenario, who do you think would rush in to take control in the power vacuum that would create? I think the only forces powerful enough to do so would be the corporations, specially a cabal of the largest corporations cooperating with and dividing the spoils among one another. Since they would be completely untethered in this scenario, they would become the de facto governing force in America, because who else would have the size, scale, influence and raw power that could match corporation worth hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars? That's my opinion, anyway. We can agree to disagree on that one.

As far as I can tell, untethering business from government regulation is their #1 goal, which is probably why practically every billionaire and other captain of industry will tell us they are libertarians.

[Tigeraholic1]

7 minutes ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

I passed through that phase of my life. When I was in college and after graduation I went through my Ron Paul/libertarian phase. For me it was about 07-2013ish. I was a big Ron Paul fan back in 2008 and 2012 and voted for him in both primaries. I still respect the guy for his honesty, opposition to the Iraq War, opposition to the Patriot Act/domestic spying, and a few other issues I agree with him on. I've read all the libertarian authors and political commentators too from Ayn Rand to Fredrich Hayek to Ludwig Von Miss to Milton Friedman to Murray Rothbard. I used to read all the think tank publications too like Cato, Mises Institute, Reason Magazine, and Heartland.

What got me off the libertarian wagon though was related to what happened to my dad. When he lost his house to foreclosure during the recession and when he came clean to be about being joke broke, I couldn't sit there and continue railing against the very social programs and safety nets that were keeping him subsisting (Social Security, Medicare, and VA Assistance). Government money was the only thing keeping food on my dad's table, clothes on his back, and giving him the medical care/prescriptions he needed to live. How could I be so strident against the very social welfare that was keeping him alive and was keeping him from not having to live with my sister or I?

The other thing that really worked for me is that I left the vortex of libertarian media and the libertarian echo chambers online and in research. Instead of sitting there sifting through Reason Magazine articles and Cato research all day I forced myself to listen to other points of view, hear out other people (most notably my own mother whose always been a progressive), watch other sources for my daily news, research opposing view points, and just take a cruise around Metro Detroit to see how others outside of the middle class enclaves of Canton Michigan actually live.

The thing about libertarianism is, when you leave no checks and balances in place, when you strip away all regulations and you rely solely on the nature of others to do good in a situation, you create chaos and destruction. What libertarianism doesn't or refuses to account for in the bad nature of others. That bad and unethical behaviors like callousness, greed, manipulation, selfishness do exists and without proper controls placed on those behaviors, they will run roughshod over people all in the same of self interest. Whether that self interest is that of a company trying to maximize its profits or someone refusing to look out and take care of their fellow human being. Libertarianism in some cases makes false assumptions that people will naturally do good because it is in their own self interest to do so. In other instances, like Ayn Rand and her sociopathic theory of objectivism, doing good for others or caring for those around you matters not. In Rand's case, only looking out for yourself and treating yourself as the king above all else, breeds a degree of selfishness and greed that is downright destructive to people and the planet.

Besides, who wants to live in a world where you're stepping over bodies and walking around a burning planet all so you can maximize your own gratification and self interests for a short amount of time. Life is about far more than that and there is a certain nobility and positive impact you get to make in life by being a caring, compassionate, kind, selfless human being.

Well said.

[Mr.TaterSalad]

15 minutes ago, chasfh said:

As far as I can tell, untethering business from government regulation is their #1 goal, which is probably why practically every billionaire and other captain of industry will tell us they are libertarians.

Libertarians would allow children and adult workers alike to be chained to factory floors and workshops. That doesn't mean every libertarian supports that kind of behavior or practice, but when you strip away child labor laws like they want to do and like the Big L Libertarian Party wants to do, that's what you would get. Libertarianism, were it put into practice, would return us to the days of the Robber Barons of the late 19th century/early 20th century from an economic stand point. It would also mean the return of Jim Crow era of segregation and racial/ethnic politics. Separate but equal would be perfectly acceptable to a libertarian so as long as it preserves states rights and doesn't interfere in the ability of others to carry out their personal liberty, which includes being a racist and displaying bigotry.

[romad1]

1 hour ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

I passed through that phase of my life. When I was in college and after graduation I went through my Ron Paul/libertarian phase. For me it was about 07-2013ish. I was a big Ron Paul fan back in 2008 and 2012 and voted for him in both primaries. I still respect the guy for his honesty, opposition to the Iraq War, opposition to the Patriot Act/domestic spying, and a few other issues I agree with him on. I've read all the libertarian authors and political commentators too from Ayn Rand to Fredrich Hayek to Ludwig Von Miss to Milton Friedman to Murray Rothbard. I used to read all the think tank publications too like Cato, Mises Institute, Reason Magazine, and Heartland.

What got me off the libertarian wagon though was related to what happened to my dad. When he lost his house to foreclosure during the recession and when he came clean to be about being joke broke, I couldn't sit there and continue railing against the very social programs and safety nets that were keeping him subsisting (Social Security, Medicare, and VA Assistance). Government money was the only thing keeping food on my dad's table, clothes on his back, and giving him the medical care/prescriptions he needed to live. How could I be so strident against the very social welfare that was keeping him alive and was keeping him from not having to live with my sister or I?

The other thing that really worked for me is that I left the vortex of libertarian media and the libertarian echo chambers online and in research. Instead of sitting there sifting through Reason Magazine articles and Cato research all day I forced myself to listen to other points of view, hear out other people (most notably my own mother whose always been a progressive), watch other sources for my daily news, research opposing view points, and just take a cruise around Metro Detroit to see how others outside of the middle class enclaves of Canton Michigan actually live.

The thing about libertarianism is, when you leave no checks and balances in place, when you strip away all regulations and you rely solely on the nature of others to do good in a situation, you create chaos and destruction. What libertarianism doesn't or refuses to account for in the bad nature of others. That bad and unethical behaviors like callousness, greed, manipulation, selfishness do exists and without proper controls placed on those behaviors, they will run roughshod over people all in the name of self interest. Whether that self interest is that of a company trying to maximize its profits or someone refusing to look out and take care of their fellow human being. Libertarianism in some cases makes false assumptions that people will naturally do good because it is in their own self interest to do so. In other instances, like Ayn Rand and her sociopathic theory of objectivism, doing good for others or caring for those around you matters not. In Rand's case, only looking out for yourself and treating yourself as the king above all else, breeds a degree of selfishness and greed that is downright destructive to people and the planet.

Besides, who wants to live in a world where you're stepping over bodies and walking around a burning planet all so you can maximize your own gratification and self interests for a short amount of time. Life is about far more than that and there is a certain nobility and positive impact you get to make in life by being a caring, compassionate, kind, selfless human being.

That is really well stated.  I was never Libertarian but I ran in the conservative side of the aisle so you'd see them as fellow travelers.  But, like the fellow travelers of the Left, some of these jokers be nuts.  

The crazy thing is how you see these bumper stickers on cars in some of the parking lots around DC where say...the IRS or the NSA or other organizations employ these people.   Cognitive dissonance. 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

43 minutes ago, romad1 said:

That is really well stated.  I was never Libertarian but I ran in the conservative side of the aisle so you'd see them as fellow travelers.  But, like the fellow travelers of the Left, some of these jokers be nuts.  

The crazy thing is how you see these bumper stickers on cars in some of the parking lots around DC where say...the IRS or the NSA or other organizations employ these people.   Cognitive dissonance. 

Thanks! The other thing for me too, is even though I had voted Republican in the past (ie Ron Paul and also McCain in 08) I could neve side with the crazier elements of the Republican Party. I'm not the least bit religious so the Christian Conservatives and their need to regulate behavior so it falls inline with their religious beliefs was always a turn off for me. The Tea Party was a turn off too as I never bought into their idea that Obama was a Muslim terrorist from Kenya. I also saw the Tea Party folks as phony libertarians who were only against the government when it suits them. Look no further than Rand Paul who spent several years in the Senate railing against disaster relief funding, only to come begging for it hat in hand when tornados hit Kentucky.

All the craziness of the religious right and Tea Party finally gave way to a President who matched their values. For years the George Bush's, Dick Armey's, Tom Delay's, William F. Buckley's, and George Will's ran the party from a political and intellectual perspective. They've gotten overrun now and Donald Trump, along with the likes of Lauren Bobert, Louie Gomert, Mark Meadows, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Dan Bongino, are the culmination of their radicalization and conspiracy-laden mindset. We're only lucky that Trump and his cohorts are as big a clods and feckless as they are. Someone with Trump's selfishness and narcissism, who could effectively govern and run an organization, would be far more dangerous to this country than Trump himself.

I'm glad as a former libertarian, as I'm sure you are too as a former Republican/conservative, to be standing on the right side of history against the Trump movement. Standing in support of our democratic institutions and freedom from authoritarianism.

Edited December 14, 2021 by Mr.TaterSalad

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

Besides, who wants to live in a world where you're stepping over bodies and walking around a burning planet all so you can maximize your own gratification and self interests for a short amount of time.

 

FWIW, there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of video games from the past couple of decades that are based on this very premise.