Category Archives: Libertarianism

The Big Picture Rumble The role libertarianism is playing in states seceding

By: AmericaIdeology

Read the rest here:
The Big Picture Rumble The role libertarianism is playing in states seceding - Video

Reagan Responds to Lindsey Graham about Libertarianism
Ronald Reagan responds to Lindsey Graham #39;s claim that Reagan wasn #39;t a libertarian. Reagan made the point that conservatism is essentially the same as liberta...

By: RLC SC

See original here:
Reagan Responds to Lindsey Graham about Libertarianism - Video

Most people would consider radical libertarianism and communism polar opposites: The first glorifies personal freedom. The second would obliterate it. Yet the ideologies are simply mirror images. Both attempt to answer the same questions, and fail to do so in similar ways. Where communism was adopted, the result was misery, poverty and tyranny. If extremist libertarians ever translated their beliefs into policy, it would lead to the same kinds of catastrophe.

Lets start with some definitions. By radical libertarianism, we mean the ideology that holds that individual liberty trumps all other values. By communism, we mean the ideology of extreme state domination of private and economic life.

Some of the radical libertarians are Ayn Rand fans who divide their fellow citizens into makers, in the mold of John Galt, and takers, in the mold of anyone not John Galt.

Some, such as the Koch brothers, are economic royalists who repackage trickle-down economics as libertarian populism. Some are followers of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whose highest aspiration is to shut down government. Some resemble the anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, who has made a career out of trying to drown, stifle or strangle government.

Yes, liberty is a core American value, and an overweening state can be unhealthy. And there are plenty of self-described libertarians who have adopted the label mainly because they support same-sex marriage or decry government surveillance. These social libertarians arent the problem. It is the nihilist anti-state libertarians of the Koch-Cruz-Norquist-Paul (Ron and Rand alike) school who should worry us.

Like communism, this philosophy is defective in its misreading of human nature, misunderstanding of how societies work and utter failure to adapt to changing circumstances. Radical libertarianism assumes that humans are wired only to be selfish, when in fact cooperation is the height of human evolution. It assumes that societies are efficient mechanisms requiring no rules or enforcers, when, in fact, they are fragile ecosystems prone to collapse and easily overwhelmed by free-riders. And it is fanatically rigid in its insistence on a single solution to every problem: Roll back the state!

Communism failed in three strikingly similar ways. It believed that humans should be willing cogs serving the proletariat. It assumed that societies could be run top-down like machines. And it, too, was fanatically rigid in its insistence on an all-encompassing ideology, leading to totalitarianism.

Radical libertarianism, if ever put into practice at the scale of something bigger than a tiny enclave, would also be a disaster. We say the conditional would because radical libertarianism has a fatal flaw: It cant be applied across a functioning society. What might radical libertarians do if they actually had power? A President Paul would rule by tantrum, shutting down the government in order to repeal laws already passed by Congress. A Secretary Norquist would eliminate the Internal Revenue Service and progressive taxation, so that the already wealthy could exponentially compound their advantage, as the programs that sustain a prosperous middle class are gutted. A Koch domestic policy would obliterate environmental standards for clean air and water, so that polluters could externalize all their costs onto other people.

Radical libertarians would be great at destroying. They would have little concept of creating or governing. It is in failed states such as Somalia that libertarianism finds its fullest actual expression.

Some libertarians will claim we are arguing against a straw man and that no serious adherent to their philosophy advocates the extreme positions we describe. The public record of extreme statements by the likes of Cruz, Norquist and the Pauls speaks for itself. Reasonable people debate how best to regulate or how government can most effectively do its work not whether to regulate at all or whether government should even exist.

See more here:
Communism, radical libertarianism fatally flawed

Green libertarianism
The WikiPlays article Green libertarianism is composed of Creative Common Content. The Original Article can be location at en.wikinews.org/wiki/Green_liberta...

By: willy wacko

See the article here:
Green libertarianism - Video

David Butler - Libertarianism and Freemasonry - PorcFest X
Exploring Freemasonry #39;s libertarian history, values and traditions. David Butler Senior Technical Account Manager, . Early mover - reformed Republican. | Mov...

By: RedPillRecording

View post:
David Butler - Libertarianism and Freemasonry - PorcFest X - Video

The Limits of Libertarianism
This video briefly explains the limits of libertarian political philosophy and how it sits alongside moral philosophy, with some comparison to political phil...

By: Duncan Whitmore

Visit link:
The Limits of Libertarianism - Video

Atheism and Libertarianism 3: Pascal #39;s Wager
The third video in this series, looking at the false-choice fearmongering of Pascal #39;s Wager in both religion and politics.

By: Shane Killian

View post:
Atheism and Libertarianism 3: Pascal's Wager - Video

Libertarianism in One Word
An excerpt of Hans-Hermann Hoppe #39;s second talk at the Mises Seminar in Sydney (http://www.mises.org.au/), entitled "A Private Law Society". Daily Bell: How would law and order be provided...

By: Conza88

Read the original post:
Libertarianism in One Word - Video

Is Rand Paul Libertarianism Compatible with Republican Ideology?
From the 2013 Aspen Ideas Festival session "Future of the Republican Party". The Republican Party has seen its share of fractures, factions, and disruption o...

By: AspenInstitute

Excerpt from:
Is Rand Paul Libertarianism Compatible with Republican Ideology? - Video

Exclusive: Libertarianism has gained new followers amid disclosures of excessive government surveillance. But this trendy ideology is filled with hypocrisy on principles and hostility to facts, having evolved from the Souths defense of slaveryand now resistant to the science of global warming, Robert Parry reports.

By Robert Parry

An inconvenient truth for libertarians is that their ideology of a minimalist U.S. government grew out of the Souths institution of human bondage, i.e. the contractual right of a white person to own a black person, and from the desire of slaveholders to keep the federal government small so it could never abolish slavery.

That is why many libertarian icons the likes of Patrick Henry, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson and the later incarnation of James Madison were slave owners who understood the link between the emergence of a strong national government and the threat toslavery.

The image of the Earth rising over the surface of the moon, a photograph taken by the first U.S. astronauts to orbit the moon.

More recently, libertarian political favorites, such as Ron and Rand Paul, have either opposed or criticized civil rights laws that, in their view, infringe on the rights of white businessmen to discriminate against blacks. Andlibertarian-oriented Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court and in legislatres across the country are gutting voting rights for black and brown Americans.

But an even bigger crisis facing libertarianism now and why the ideology is particularly dangerous is the existential threat from global warming and the urgent need for collective government action on a worldwide scale to reduce human output of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping chemicals.

The libertarian response to the overwhelming scientific consensus on this life-threatening reality has been either to deny the facts or to propose implausible free market solutions that would barely dent the crisis. Somedismiss the threatin mocking tones as some kind of statist conspiracy. Typical were sarcastic comments by the Independent Institutes Mary Theroux, writing: The climate crisis is real, its here, and its time for absolute power for Obama!

Theres also lots of sophistry and quibbling about the science. The preferred libertarian position adopts the pretense that the release of carbon dioxide by human activity contributeslittle or nothing to climate change.

Other libertarians accept the science but still cant bring themselves to recognize that a coordinated government response is needed. Anti-government ideology trumps even the possible destruction of life on the planet, a very real possibility given the likelihood of mass dislocations of populations and the availability of nuclear weapons.

Read more from the original source:
Climate-Denying Libertarianism