posted August 03, 2013 10:55 PM            

The other is that too many were easily manipulated into serving authoritarian goals by jingoism, and I saw authoritarian conservatives do it quite a bit, and that includes misguided attempts to promote liberty that actually empower authoritarianism (by being very selective in what they try to liberate so that checks & balances end up being removed from authoritarian conservatives which thus result in less individual liberty as a result, such as when the LP targets Social Security, schools, and welfare but ignore the power of taxation itself and corporate welfare, which thus means more money for corporations who in turn spend it on their political cronies which often overlaps with funding Verizon & Google to help monitor citizens, Raytheon & the warfare state, increasing monopolization of the media with privileges granted or revoked by how much it serves big government AND big biz, along with a populace less mentally able to fight it, etc, and yet most in the LP don't seem to realize that they're actually promoting less individual liberty than more).

I've gotten along better with some of the less popular (sometimes called "small-l libertarians"), such as those promoting Steve Kubby (fairly moderate for a Libertarian, and more of an inspiring hippie than a politician, IMO), or the more anarchist kind (what I sometimes call the "El Neil/Claire Wolfe crowd," those people make me think of the show Firefly, and be they amoral to true idealists they definitely promote individual liberty--sometimes to the point of actual anarchism--over economic liberty, that is to say that unlike the LP they distrust banks & big biz as well as big government, and though I don't get along with all of them they strike me as the kind to leave alone--including politically--as long as they're left alone, and I can honor that).

Btw, one of my favorite scifi stories, written by L. Neil Smith (in graphic novel form), you might enjoy this, Faith:
http://www.bigheadpress.com/tpbtgn?page=0

I personally have serious doubts that such a "libertarian" (actually more accurate to call it "anarcho-capitalist," IMO) society (first featured as a parallel universe on page 27 of the link I left there) could've formed and remained as wonderful as he paints it (even when it got its start centuries ago), but even so I bet it could still be a lot better than anywhere in this world and I'd likely emigrate there despite the dark side (including injustice) that I wouldn't doubt exists (even back when I was an anarchist I never thought anarchist organization, or at least a highly decentralized society, would make a utopia like that, I just figured it was better than the alternative).

posted August 06, 2013 04:31 PM            

The Libertarians who love Ron Paul DO fear a central economic power which is why "End The Fed" is their #1 mantra. They also talk a lot about corporatism, aka crony capitalism, and will talk until they are sweating blood and tears trying to persuade people that there is a HUGE difference between genuine free markets and the crony capitalism we've had in America for so many decades.

The Libertarians who voted for Bob Barr are so weird to me, I don't want to talk about them, because I feel cooties swirling around me just at the thought of them.

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Btw, one of my favorite scifi stories, written by L. Neil Smith (in graphic novel form), you might enjoy this, Faith:

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'Will check that out later.

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I personally have serious doubts that such a "libertarian" (actually more accurate to call it "anarcho-capitalist," IMO) society (first featured as a parallel universe on page 27 of the link I left there) could've formed and remained as wonderful as he paints it (even when it got its start centuries ago), but even so I bet it could still be a lot better than anywhere in this world and I'd likely emigrate there despite the dark side (including injustice) that I wouldn't doubt exists (even back when I was an anarchist I never thought anarchist organization, or at least a highly decentralized society, would make a utopia like that, I just figured it was better than the alternative).

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I guess that's my bottom line, too. Unless I would be risking an unbearable death like being drawn and quartered, or forced to do go against my morals constantly just to survive, I would like to try that anarchy stuff.

My parents were so lenient when I was little. I could walk all around town from a very young age; they barely paid attention to my school career; and after my mom died my father let me do basically whatever I wanted. And I have always been so grateful for all that freedom. And I paid them back by being a good kid, for the most part. So I can't help but see how freedom does NOT necessarily corrupt, and removing laws does NOT necessarily mean you will get more crime. A lot of people respond to liberty by becoming more virtuous, knowing that if they fail they only have themselves to blame. And I like it that way.

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These days I think it's better to promote VALUES over ideology as the system will reflect those values

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