* Raised in a home of Democrats.  Likely ended up somewhat liberal as a result, or at least liberal-moderate.  Believed in government.  With Catholic background, ended up anti-abortion, anti-drugs and all the government being busybody stuff.

* GW Bush gets elected.  Around 2004, lose job with IBM and do soul searching, and I defended GW Bush regarding Iraq.  I battled Fox News dittoheads on Usenet.  I saw a ton of "But Clinton" in defense of GW.  Also decided to check out Libertarians.  I read real conservative stuff from American Conservative magazine, and saw a lot of the issues I had with GW Bush were similar to what Pat Buchanan's magazine had.  I also looked at more Libertarianism.

* 2008 comes rolling around, and I get on the Ron Paul grassroots campaign local, running a Meetup.  I had the mix of Libertarianism and paleo-conservatism, with dislike of government busybody stuff on personal morality.  But I have a Christian grounding in compassion, so not up for just rip up the social-safety net and hope for the best.  Still believe society as a whole needs to do more.

* Got involved with Occupy and bypassed Libertarianism to be pretty much anarchist at this point (as far as preference for a perfect world).  I have anarcho-capitalistic leanings, in regards to private property, but also have some traditionalist views that I am suspect that markets are magic and will resolve things, and believe there needs to be more values.  I believe government is folly to solve problems, but I am not a destructionist.  I happen to not believe you can just dismantle government and suddenly things get better.  Alternatives need to rise to replace government.  But I realize I live in a society with lots of government, so I try to make the best I can here.   The destructionist tendencies in Occupy really bothered me.  I saw people who had no respect for law there.  What I have is an end, not a means.  And if government is doing some good things, I am not going to tear it down.

And with this, I am sure some are going, WTF? when they read what I write on here.  I hope it makes things a bit clearer, but may be confusing still.  And yes, I may be hugely inconsistent.  I don't fit into a neat categories and I could contradict myself also.  Oh well, so be it.  I am not in power now at this point, so it doesn't matter.  Does it? 

A moderate Democrat since I was 5.

I disagree. In a properly functioning democracy (and they actually do exist) the power brokers are basically the electorate. As such a party or coalition actually does get elected based on its platform.

Of course America isn't really a properly functioning democracy...

I don't really know what to classify myself as, could anyone help? :P

-I'm definitely pro-choice. It's the woman's body, she can do with it what she chooses :P

-I see the use of force as necessary to solve some conflicts, though in most cases, diplomacy would be preferred.

-If tobacco is legal, I see no reason for cannabis to be illegal, so I would legalise it to wipe out the black market in it's trade.

-I'd legalise prostitution, with regulation put in place to make sure STDs don't spread and human trafficking isn't allowed.

-Living in Australia, I'm disgusted by practically all of the politicians' stance on Asylum Seekers. They're referred to as Boat People and made to seem sub-human. I would set up centers around Australia's entry points (The northern coast) and the Asia-Pacific (Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, etc.) where people can be processed for asylum and if they don't pose a risk to the society through diseases or violent intentions then let them in, there's plenty of land free, why not?

Next election, I'll probably be voting for the Greens, because Labor in Australia under Gillard is deplorable and the Liberals are just as bad. I'd vote Sex Party, but they aren't represented in my electorate :P

What is Gillard's/Labour's platform currently? I try to keep track of what all the major countries are doing politically, but i don't know much about Australia in that regard.

Probably "It's all a plot by Indonesia to invade us."

Most Austrlians seem oddly parnoid about Indoneisa.

Edit: Or now, if i'm remembering correctly, I think it might be that they deport them to other countries, not nessisairly where they came from?

Labor's platform at the moment is largely to send 800 of our refugees to Malaysia for processing and resettlement in exchange for 3000 of their processed ones for resettlement here. It doesn't make much sense to me as it's  practically a people swap where we end up taking more. The Carbon Tax too, which I agree with for the most point, except for the opening price of $23 per tonne of carbon, which I think is too high compared to other countries and will just make our industry less competitive.

I never got the whole "OH NO INDONESIA IS COMING!" thing either :P All Indonesians that I've met have been really nice people. Having really strong relations with them is very important for our future security too, as if anybody wants to invade Australia, they have to go through Indonesia first. (Though I don't know who could feasibly do it, even the Japanese during WWII admitted that an invasion of Australia was implausible)

Yeah, i saw that after I posted.

If I had to guess, I'd imagine it's a matter of "Not rewarding refugees/human traficers."

That way you can not accept those who are activly trying to come to your country, but avoid the cruelty of sending them back where they came from.  Hoping it would cause refugees to instead try other countries since paying to come to Australia will likely end up with you in Malaysia or some other country.

Many human trafickers smuggle people like this, and then force them to work their debts off in crime.  Not really possible if the destination ends up being somewhere else.

Does seem, somewhat morose though, trading humans as if they were baseball cards.

I'll speak for myself, not on behalf of the general "anarcho-capitalist community".

First and foremost, before we even deal with answering your premise, we have to make some big assumptions. The first is that your premise is true. Has labour been made mostly redundant? Evidence of diminishing demand for labour is easily contested. Why? Because each and every year, despite rapid increases in the development and roll-out of this job-stealing technology, the number of jobs increase.

If you look at places which have high amounts of unemployment, it's not because of technology, it's because of other factors: such as globalisation, which moves low-productivity jobs to low-cost areas; resource diminishment (such as towns based around old mining industries); or bad policy which forces jobs out of the area, either through competitors killing the local uncompetitive businesses (like Detroit's car industry Vs Japan and South Korea), or just plain-old, people can't afford the rig-marole of setting up businesses or hiring people.

So, there's the first problem with your question. It is very hard to find hard evidence that technology causing unemployment... some jobs may be destroyed, but many new jobs are created. And this is the important part. As the capital stock increases (that is, more machines that can do more things), the price of goods and services relative to wages decreases (this is because the machines reduce costs, reduced costs means more supply, more supply means lower prices). As incomes increase, people demand more and more goods and services, creating jobs in other areas.

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The second problem with your premise, which is one that I won't go too far into, is that it assumes that if technology does kill jobs, that Government would actually be effective at dealing with this issue. How? It seems to me that all the Government can do is destroy jobs and destroy wealth. I mean, what exactly is Government going to do in a world without jobs? Wave a wand, and "legislate" new jobs out of nowhere? If there are no jobs, what revenues are there for the Government to collect to even deal with this issue, if they were capable in the first place?

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So, if we assume that both of those things are true (and this is a big jump), what is my view on how we would deal with this?

Well, first, I'm going to make a prediction: the demand for jobs will start declining, and continute declining at a faster rate, than the supply of jobs ever will. What do I mean by this? Before the industrial revolution, the capital stock of the economy was exceedingly low. As a result, most people had to work all their lives just to provide them with enough for shelter, clothes and food/water. And, I mean, all their lives. Families sent their children into work as young as possible, so that the child could contribute to the income of the family. A lot of people seem to be of the belief that the world was just full of evil people and bad parents back then. This is not the case. The fact of the matter is, if the family did not have working children, then the whole family would starve. They needed all of that labour just to eat. People worked from childhood until the day they died. Dawn to dusk. 7 days a week. The whole of their lives.

When the industrial revolution began, and continued, the capital stock started increasing greatly. As a result of this, not only did incomes and quality of life start improving, but the demand for jobs to decreased. Children started leaving the work force (and subsequently entering education... which started off very short, lasting until only 12 years of age, or so... and has now increased, for most, to finishing in their early to mid 20s). Later, things like weekends kicked in. Public holidays. Retirement. Vacation allowance. So, not only did incomes improve, working conditions, lifespan, child mortality, etc., etc. but people worked less.

I mean, if we look at things. People used to demand work for around 95% of their lives... a significant portion of society now only demands work for around 50-60% of their life. I expect this trend to continue in the long run, and demand for work to always decrease.

So, my argument is that: even if your premises are true (and I don't believe them to be), and the number of jobs start decreasing, the  amount of people willing to do those jobs will decrease even faster.