richardhutnik said:
I believe Libertarianism has some merit. However, I think they aren't realistic in what they want, and they fail MISERABLY functioning as a political party. My experience at Libertarian meetings is that they argue about the meaning of things, and why they hate government. No one wants to run on local level to prove themselves. It is all of idealism based around hatred for a label (government) than it is about actually gathering to do something. Also, people just want to live and pay their bills. If you want there to be less government, you need to offer people solutions that will meet them without government. And they refuse to listen to anything anyhow. I end up in somewhat heated, but rewarding conversations, but nothing changes. Also, it is a bit of a paradox, the Libertarian Party. It is working in a political realm, when they say government is not needed. If the LIbertarian Party would position itself as a civics organization, and NGO, and actually work to provide solutions today, outside of government, then they would have a case. But, they don't do that. Anyhow, the fall out of libertarianism ended up being the Ron Paul campaign, which then led to the Tea Party. The Tea Party is probably the strongest Libertarianism has been. Whether or not it does anything is another story, however. To sum up here, I disagree STRONGLY with the argument Libertarians have that less government is the answer to everything. I believe, and this would come from the Huckabee side of the political realm (I read it in his book) that unless society collectively has a strong set of values, and deals with things on a local leve, you can't have smaller government. I believe that government grows as citizens fail to manage their own problems. At that point, government steps in. So, as a society slides down the slope and loses control, you get more government. Of course, the LIbertarian answer is that society doesn't exist and all that there is, is contracts between people. So, Libertarianism is blinded by its own definitions, which not only causes it to make little inroads politically on an argument level, but also to not fuction as an organization, because it doesn't do anything collectively. |
You mean there isn't an easy solution? /gasp
In all seriousness though, I don't think MrStick believes Libertarianism is, to borrow a phrase from the rest of this discussion, "the end-all-be-all" of solutions to the country's problems. Just that he thinks it is closer to providing optimal solutions on the broad spectrum of problems we face than any other point of view being given any serious consideration on the political stage right now (and possibly ever).
This is one of the things I have to harp on when I discuss economics with people in person, is that free markets are not advertised to be perfect. There is no such thing as a system that is perfect. You simply have to choose the system that ultimately works the best for the society and the country. And so far as I can see that system thus far is unquestionably Free Market Capitalism. While other systems could certainly claim to be more uniform and "fair" in how wealth is distributed in society, no other system promotes the relentless advancement of standard of living for all people to anywhere near the degree that Free Market Capitalism does.
And it is a shortsighted individual who cannot see that a system of fairly distributed stagnation is objectively inferior to a system of unfairly distributed growth. When in the latter system it takes less than a generation before the poorest individual lives better than everyone in the former system it should be obvious which is better. And many economists and journalists have, over the years, taken the time to create a list of what you could buy as a low-income individual 50 years ago and compared it to what you could buy at that equivalent income level today. And it is always staggering how much more (and better) crap you can buy today compared to what you could then.
To put it simply, capitalism doesn't just happen to create uneven wealth distribution, that unevenness is the very point of capitalism. That unevenness is the reward for the person who invents something that revolutionizes our standard of living, just as it is the penalty for the person who decides they have no desire to be a productive member of society. In that sense it can be argued to varying degrees of success that capitalism is really a very fair way to distribute wealth. Those who improve standards of living for their fellow man are treated to higher standards of living themselves while those who refuse or are unable to participate are by default relegated to living at the lowest standard of living in a society that constantly pushes that barrier. From there capitalism advocates that the individual, not the government, decide who is truly deserving of aid and in what amounts they will receive it. Thus instead of creating a paternal bond between citizen and government you instead build a brotherly bond between fellow citizens.
To illustrate why it should be this way I'll close with a borrowed line from Grover Cleveland's veto of the 1887 Texas Feed bill:
"A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty [(i.e. that of the Government)] should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people."
PS - Please don't confuse what I'm talking about with a complete Laissez-faire philosophy. I believe in limited government including some limited regulations. Or to give two concrete examples, I don't think the mortgage industry should be forced by regulations to give NINJA mortgages to people because they happen to be a minority borrower, but I do agree with regulations that require ingredient labels on all food products (i.e. a regulation that addresses a demonstrable public safety hazard with a solution that is reasonable).
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| To Each Man, Responsibility |
