Friday, March 31, 2006

The Great Libertarian Fallacy

A good place to start is the Libertarian Mantras. All the wingers recite them, even when they are flying directly in the face of even the agreed base of the thinking.

But the mantras actually promote Progressive values if you correct just one bit of raging illogic (probably deliberate). That is the Libertarian very narrow definition of what is government.

Try this
"Government is what government does"

"Someone Deciding about your life (what medicine your doctor can prescribe, how your electric is produced,etc)"? Yes? Then they are government!

"Do they charge you for the privilege (Insurance bill,power bill, etc")THAT is TAXES! And then the key Question.

"can't hold them accountable for their decisions?" THEN THAT IS TYRRANY!!!!!

If you doubt it, try changing your power company, or your health insurance. Worse, your health insurance is often changed for you, with a whole new set of rules (LAWS!)about what you can and cannot do. And every year the laws are more oppressive and the taxes more obscene (over 60% of my not fabulous income, last I looked) They usually hide those costs in the salary you are not paid, so people don't know what they are really paying.

Also Libertarians usually talk about Free Enterprise and Capitalism as though they were the same thing when they are actually opposing things. I thought I was the only one who saw this till I read the Halloween Documents that should be required reading in every high school as they are as important to the nature of the country as the writings of the founding fathers.

Essentially if your business is a commodity {Free Enterprise (say building computers in the '90's)}your prices (and profits) are limited by what your competition will accept. The only way to control (raise) profits is to own (control) the market {Capitalism (think Microsoft)}. No real capitalist would knowingly invest in a business market that had real free enterprise because they could not make a profit beyond what everyone else is making. This dosen't mean they might make the mistake, or buy into such a Market and "De-Commoditize" it.

In any case Capitalism is "government by other means" and DeJure Government the means by which those governments are held accountable.

I am all in favor that the government governs best that governs least, but any action that involves several (or millions) achieving a single goal involves a de'Facto government, no matter what the name is on the door.

There are many things that need no government.
1.Who I engage in sex with, or how, as long as they are willing, aware, and old enough.
2. What (or if) I think about the Metaphyisical and how I want it to affect my life. (this does not include my actions that include others who don't wish to be included)

The list is much longer but again Libertarians are very selective in how far they let their logic go, it is up to progressives to show that freedom cannot be so limited. As soon as your action affects someone else in space or time you become a Government limiting their freedom, and thus must be accountable to them, or become the hated tyrant.

Posted by Freedem at 3/31/2006 10:32:00 AM

2 comments:

  1. Nuisance Man7/30/2007 07:48:00 AM

    Thank you for seeing through the libertarians. I also wrote a piece about their fallacious concept of freedom, Fight for your freedom to work in a sweatshop — VOTE LIBERTARIAN!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ishmael1/26/2008 07:01:00 AM

    I assume you are an intelligent guy with something to say, and I suspect that I disagree with all of it, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is you are saying. What's your point? Is there a refutation of Libertarian philosophy in there somewhere?

    ReplyDelete

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Quotables

Intolerance

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between 2 "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility,
kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:

"Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."



from an old tale.

The Golden Rule
“That which is hateful to you do not do to another ... the rest (of the Torah) is all commentary, now go study.”

- Rabbi Hillel


Libertarians



1.

The self made man just isn't admitting how or where he came by all those parts

---FreeDem---- Aug 2005


2.

If a man tells you that the Government cannot accomplish anything of value, then voting for him would be like hiring an Amish Auto Mechanic.
If they don't believe in the concept, they are more than likely to do a very poor job of it.


---Bob Danforth Sept. 2009



3.

Republicans never meant to cut government waste, fraud and graft, from the get-go their plan was to organize, monopolize and privatize waste, fraud and graft.



They see the civil service as meddling “middleman,” who interfered with the free flow of cash from taxpayers into corporate coffers. Their intent was to eliminate the “middleman” as an obstruction to corruption.


---Unknown rabblerowser Feb 2007




Patriotism:


No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.

Edward R. Murrow




In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot

Mark Twain





Leadership:





You see, we often get noncreative leaders, people most interested in preserving their own positions. They flock around centers of power. Such centers attract people who can be corrupted. That is a more descriptive observation than to say simply that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.



If you are corruptible and your imagination is confined to worries about loss of power, you exist in a self-destructive system. Eventually, as all life does, you must encounter something you did not anticipate, and if you have not strengthened your creative resources, you will have no new ways for adapting to change. Adapt or die, that's the first rule of survival.



The limited vision of noncreative people is not difficult to understand. Creativity frightens the unimaginative. They don't know what's happening. Things new and unexpected arise from creativity. This threatens "things as they are." And (terrible thought) it undermines illusions of omnipotence.

Frank

Herbert 1984 (the year not the book)





News:




"News is what powerful people want to keep hidden; everything else is just publicity."

....Bill Moyer





Religion:



1.
Just as having only a hammer makes every problem either look like a nail, or as something irrelevant, our very technological skills have had us look there for explanations and ignore reality it cannot deal with. With our powerful hammer, we seek only nails, and dump the rest as dross. Not all questions involve hammers, not all answers are nails.
-- Freedem---Nov., 2006



2.
My issue with Atheists is not that they have no God, there are many religions that have no God, but that they have no religion.
-- Freedem---Nov., 2006



__Note: by this I mean that there are many things religions do besides the discredited "science" and self serving promises (give me your money and God will hold and pay the note), many like charity or fellowship, even social accountability can be very good things not requiring a God.




3.

Many have been very disappointed that their "God-critter" was not to be found as a technology swimming about in the shallower pools of knowledge. So in the obsession basic to our culture, we search ever deeper and more difficult pools, and always the "God-critter" seems to wink at us from the pool just beyond.



In the process we have found technologies beyond the wildest dreams of our most sophisticated ancestors. The great joke is that the "critter" never existed except as the pools themselves.



----Freedem --- Oct 2006



4.
Indeed I do think that many folk, believe all kinds of stuff from the actually true, to the utterly illogical, with no personal discernment one from the others. But that would hardly make any of them a scholar to rely on, any more that one should get their theology studies from a door to door salesman, offering "get out of hell free" cards, on special because the creator of galaxies in greater numbers than beach sand, nonetheless has an ego so weak He cannot exist without shamelessly excessive psychophancy from a major portion of the inhabitants of this particular dust speck.



----Freedem ---June-2007



More to come