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Forums - General - Libertarians are anarchists who would lose in a knife fight.

richardhutnik on 28 October 2010
FreeTalkLive said:
Jumpin said:

A libertarian is essentially someone who puts their faith in who has the most money to shape society, rather than democracy.

Or more like, a libertarian is some one that puts faith in you and your ability to run your life.

Yes, and with this normally comes the belief that if individuals DON'T make it, it is their fault and they deserve to fail.  Out then comes characters from the book of Job doing fault finding with the person.  It gets close to conservative on this.  I do speak here of someone who is philosophically a libertarian, as opposed to one who is merely a libertarian politically.

So, could you win in a knife fight?



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richardhutnik on 28 October 2010
FreeTalkLive said:

* Penn Jillette (Penn and Teller)


You ever seen Bullshit?  That dud is pretty big and good with magic.  He cut take a stabbing on the got and not die or could just make the knife disappear.

Penn is not in shape, and also a key to a magician is to control the environment and his equipment.  He may juggle knives, but his size costs him mobility, so someone in greater shape would out move him, and jab with the knife, likely getting the first blow in.  In a show on self-defense, Penn told people to carry a gun and not take on their attacker.  He is anti-martial arts.  He does have a point here, most likely though.



richardhutnik on 28 October 2010
mhsillen said:
HappySqurriel said:

Calling a libertarian an anarchist is a lot like calling a moderate liberal a communist ... Libertarianism is an ideology which believes in an efficient and limited government, not an ideology that rejects all governments.

It is an ideology that is growing in popularity in the United States primarily because of how large, inefficient, and corrupt the government has become. Many libertarians today are confused why some people would want to see an expansion of the responsibilities of the state when, if you evaluate how poorly the government has handled other responsibilities, it is clear that the government is doing an abysmal job at meeting its current responsibilities. Just consider public education in the United States today to see why people might not want further government control in their life.

Regardless of whether you think libertarianism is the correct approach in general or not, today it is the correct approach for the United States. The Government of the United States needs to be torn down to the essential components, cleaned up, and new safeguards need to be put in place to ensure that it doesn't become such a mess in the future.

I agree with this

 

Oh and Bill Mahar calls himself a libertarian but he is a European socialist asshole

Bill Maher became a fan of Ron Paul, and said it on his show.  Also, if I throw Ron Paul in the libertarian camp, despite him having some conservative views, I can put Bill Maher in there also, eventhough he would be on the left with some views.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Maher#Views_and_beliefs



rocketpig on 28 October 2010

I'm a fan of a lot of people I don't agree with on even 50% of the issues. That doesn't make me a Libertarian, Democrat, Republican, and Green Party member all at the same time.




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mhsillen on 28 October 2010
richardhutnik said:
mhsillen said:
HappySqurriel said:

Calling a libertarian an anarchist is a lot like calling a moderate liberal a communist ... Libertarianism is an ideology which believes in an efficient and limited government, not an ideology that rejects all governments.

It is an ideology that is growing in popularity in the United States primarily because of how large, inefficient, and corrupt the government has become. Many libertarians today are confused why some people would want to see an expansion of the responsibilities of the state when, if you evaluate how poorly the government has handled other responsibilities, it is clear that the government is doing an abysmal job at meeting its current responsibilities. Just consider public education in the United States today to see why people might not want further government control in their life.

Regardless of whether you think libertarianism is the correct approach in general or not, today it is the correct approach for the United States. The Government of the United States needs to be torn down to the essential components, cleaned up, and new safeguards need to be put in place to ensure that it doesn't become such a mess in the future.

I agree with this

 

Oh and Bill Mahar calls himself a libertarian but he is a European socialist asshole

Bill Maher became a fan of Ron Paul, and said it on his show.  Also, if I throw Ron Paul in the libertarian camp, despite him having some conservative views, I can put Bill Maher in there also, eventhough he would be on the left with some views.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Maher#Views_and_beliefs

And Bill Mahar is an elitist who thinks if you have misgivings on Obama care you are a dumb dog like hill billy.  He is no libertarian 



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richardhutnik on 28 October 2010
mhsillen said:
richardhutnik said:
mhsillen said:
HappySqurriel said:

Calling a libertarian an anarchist is a lot like calling a moderate liberal a communist ... Libertarianism is an ideology which believes in an efficient and limited government, not an ideology that rejects all governments.

It is an ideology that is growing in popularity in the United States primarily because of how large, inefficient, and corrupt the government has become. Many libertarians today are confused why some people would want to see an expansion of the responsibilities of the state when, if you evaluate how poorly the government has handled other responsibilities, it is clear that the government is doing an abysmal job at meeting its current responsibilities. Just consider public education in the United States today to see why people might not want further government control in their life.

Regardless of whether you think libertarianism is the correct approach in general or not, today it is the correct approach for the United States. The Government of the United States needs to be torn down to the essential components, cleaned up, and new safeguards need to be put in place to ensure that it doesn't become such a mess in the future.

I agree with this

 

Oh and Bill Mahar calls himself a libertarian but he is a European socialist asshole

Bill Maher became a fan of Ron Paul, and said it on his show.  Also, if I throw Ron Paul in the libertarian camp, despite him having some conservative views, I can put Bill Maher in there also, eventhough he would be on the left with some views.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Maher#Views_and_beliefs

And Bill Mahar is an elitist who thinks if you have misgivings on Obama care you are a dumb dog like hill billy.  He is no libertarian 

Ok, one can say he is not now.  However, I think one can argue that he had been at one time.  So the question is: When Bill Maher was in the Libertarian camp, could he have won a knife fight?

Ok, on this, one can say not all people who can't win knife fights are libertarian, but that libertarians, as a whole can't win it.  As someone has an increased chance to win a knife fight, they will gravitate from towards the anarchist side of the political spectrum.



Squilliam on 28 October 2010
rocketpig said:
Squilliam said:

 The biggest failing IMO of liberals is that they don't understand incentives and what drives people to actually succeed and in my personal experience the libertarians need to share the liberals political distrust of larger corporations and their ability to distort the free market.

100% spot-on. My biggest beef with Libertarianism is its faith that big business will do the right thing but big government will not. It makes no sense.

Big business exists in large part because of government mandates. It makes sense that an organisation which exists and acts in a certain way due to various legal requirements and priviledges given to them by government would act in a similarly inefficient way. For instance, tech companies are developed and groomed to be bought out by larger companies in part because of the patent minefield of the tech industry. Many companies couldn't exist without cross licensing agreements on patents for instance.

 



Tease.

De85 on 28 October 2010

I doubt Penn could win a knife fight because he's too big and slow, but I've been to their show and seen Teller work some SICK sleight of hand.  He could beat anyone...



richardhutnik on 28 October 2010
De85 said:

I doubt Penn could win a knife fight because he's too big and slow, but I've been to their show and seen Teller work some SICK sleight of hand.  He could beat anyone...

Teller is likely to take more damage, to.  He seems like he can endure pain.  I don't know how much in shape he is though.  Penn has spoken how they love to eat burgers and donuts, so I question both of them being in shape.

On this note, I swore I read someone ask why a knife fight, when we have guns today.  Well, a knife fight would bring things down to the most primal level.  Guns are equalizer, but a knife fight has people relying on their natural ability.  Knife fights happen when resources break down, and you lack society that is built up through laws, contracts that are honored, and an ability for people to trust that tomorrow will be better.  When this happens, people grab anything and fight with it.  One can say guns are the tool of choice of cowards, who don't feel they can go toe to toe with anyone, but want to hold their own, because they have to. 



Squilliam on 28 October 2010
richardhutnik said:
De85 said:

I doubt Penn could win a knife fight because he's too big and slow, but I've been to their show and seen Teller work some SICK sleight of hand.  He could beat anyone...

Teller is likely to take more damage, to.  He seems like he can endure pain.  I don't know how much in shape he is though.  Penn has spoken how they love to eat burgers and donuts, so I question both of them being in shape.

On this note, I swore I read someone ask why a knife fight, when we have guns today.  Well, a knife fight would bring things down to the most primal level.  Guns are equalizer, but a knife fight has people relying on their natural ability.  Knife fights happen when resources break down, and you lack society that is built up through laws, contracts that are honored, and an ability for people to trust that tomorrow will be better.  When this happens, people grab anything and fight with it.  One can say guns are the tool of choice of cowards, who don't feel they can go toe to toe with anyone, but want to hold their own, because they have to. 

Just FYI, the ideal libertarian would be industrious. He or she would be bringing a spear and a bow to your knife fight especially considering the tooling required to make spears is perfectly suited to making arrows and bows. These items are also much more practical in the sense of gathering food or self protection against animals. After the fight, the libertarian can consider himself to have also scored a free knife.



Tease.