They certainly have undermined our economy and national security. The Libertarian Party is the third-largest political party. The definition is someone who wants to screw, smoke dope without government interference and not pay taxes. Historically the party opposed all of the FDR reforms, was isolationist and supported open borders.
Many of the libertarian heroes, like Ayn Rand, after condemning "altruism" and public benefits, wound up receiving governmental benefits like Medicare and Social Security.
Fascism goes way back before Hitler, about 7,000 years at least. It has existed under many names, like monarchy, feudalism, pharaohs... Anytime a few have controlled any government, you have privatized the government and you have fascism!
You are so right. Libertarianism is based on an insane lie. Show me one Libertarian that raises his family and household with no regulations? It is absurd. It would only produce chaos, human suffering and destruction. In the micro and the macro. If they actually believe their other absurd lie, that corporations are people, then why don't they want these "people" to adhere to the laws which they gladly want enforced on actual people? What they really want is no regulations against themselves, and lots of regulation against anyone that would threaten their wealth.
Our Country originally limited the lifespan of a Corporation to 70 years after which it was to be broken up. That obviously didn't last. But there was still a death penalty available for criminal enterprises. FDR planned to break up some of the big Nazi Corporations like IG Farber and Krupps. Unfortunately he died before he could take action and Truman didn't have a clue about his plans.
Appreciate your argument of never worked and never will concerning Libertarian-ism.
One of the favorite things I have read was an excerpt from a woman's diary that lived on the prairie circa 1900. She spoke about how much she loathed a few of the men that were part of her county.
This woman and these men were the actual "rugged individuals" Libertarians talk about. They were eking out a living from farming. The point she made in her writing was about how she had to take them in from time to time. The storms were brutal and life-threatening. Providing food, a fire, and a place to sleep to someone traveling to get supplies or do some business in town was a GIVEN.
They simply had to put-up with each other to survive. Thankfully, the good people in Florida are basically doing the same as I write this. They aren't asking you at the shelter if you are Republican, Democrat, or a Libertarian.
No one on this planet will escape the devastation of our climate crisis. Libertarian ideas got us into to this mess, but they sure as hell won't help us survive it!
Off this specific topic but in the ballpark---did you see the Dems in the House trying to censure Rep. Clay Higgins yesterday? He posted some vile racist rhetoric about the Haitian refugees on X-itter.
You can find info at rollingstone.com-"GOP Rep. Bashes ‘Vudu’-Practicing ‘Thug’ Haitians in Wildly Racist Rant".
There is no such thing as a free market. Markets are human creations, put together by those who own and control capital. Libertarians talk about free markets as if they grow naturally in the wild like a rare animal. They say we mustn’t frighten or startle the free market with taxes and regulations lest it run away and hide. It’s ridiculous. Libertarian thinking is sociopathic thinking. Their use of the term “free market” is like a magician misdirecting the audience. Amassing such obscene levels of wealth, as has Zuckerberg, comes out of a hoarding disorder where he will never have enough. The amount of wealth Zuckerberg, or any billionaire, controls is light-years beyond the amount of innovation, hard work, and productivity that they have, or will ever, contribute to our society. It isn’t earned. It is simply cornered cash flow. We have every right to moderate their business activity through strong regulation (which makes us safe and protects our environment), and to cull any distorted accumulation of wealth through taxation. FDR’s new deal tax policy is the proper steady-state tax policy for a stable, humane, capitalistic economy.
There has not been one capitalist Nation without any socialism in the last 7,000 years that has provided for its people, that was not a third world living hell on Earth!
Only the sadistic maga cult members are stupid enough to believe the billionaires propaganda being spewed on all of our airwaves!
Religion has been used to mentally cripple the populations for thousands of years and keep them right wingers!
A test needs to be given those who vote. Just ask two questions. 1. Is the fate of man up to himself or is it up to God? A follow-up question needs to be. If f God does not want man to think, why did God give man a brain?
The right must blame God for all of their problems then, as well as the gays, the woke, the communists, other races, other religions and non-religions... The right hates good and wallows in evil, and are bat ship crazy, and are unfit to vote or own guns.
“Please name one country, anywhere in the world, any time in the last 7000 years, where libertarianism has succeeded and produced general peace and prosperity?”
The question is so absurd on its face, one is led to answers equally absurd. I vote for the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.
The Duchy of Grand Fenwick is a monarchy led by the Duchess Gloriana XII. In the novel The Mouse That Roared, she is a young woman of twenty-two, and marries Tully Bascomb. In The Mouse on the Moon and The Mouse on Wall Street, she is in her mid-thirties. In The Mouse That Saved the West, she is forty-two, and Tully has been dead for some time. In the 1959 film version, she is a parody of Queen Victoria who is still wearing mourning for her husband, Prince Louis of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who has been "missing" from a tiger hunt for 27 years. In the film, she thinks the President of the United States is Calvin Coolidge, and she owns the only motorcar in the Duchy–a 1920s' hand-cranked model. This is not so in the original books. It is not known whether she has any children.
The lower House of the Duchy's Parliament, The Council of Freemen, is democratically elected. In The Mouse on Wall Street an upper House of Parliament, akin to the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, is mentioned to exist.
The nation has two political parties, the Dilutionists (or Her Grace's Loyal Opposition), led by David Bentner, and the Anti-Dilutionists, led by Count Mountjoy, the Prime Minister. The names of the parties reflect their positions on whether to dilute the wine exports of the Duchy. The positions of leadership are hereditary. In The Mouse on Wall Street, the Dilutionists are also referred to as the Labor Party.
Hail Fredonia. Groucho portrays the newly installed president of the fictional country of Freedonia. Zeppo is his secretary, while Chico and Harpo are spies for the neighboring country of Sylvania. Relations between Groucho and the Sylvanian ambassador deteriorate during the film, eventually leading to war.
Apparently Fredonia fit the definition of "anarchy" which is similar to if not congruent to "libertarian."
That's a excellent series of Books. I love how Grand Fenwick declared war on the USA, because California copied their Wine Label and ruined their economy. Unfortunately they unexpectedly won the war by accident. Best satire of the USA fighting the Soviet Union ever. Did you read Feast of Freedom also? Leonard Wibberley was hysterical. Just for a side note: William Hartman was the aid to Peter Sellers' Tully Bascom and after the film became the first Doctor Who.
David Koch ran for President on the Libertarian Party in 1980. I attended a meeting then in Tacoma, WA where they were trying to recruit members. Quite the sales pitch, the then represented themselves a economic and social libertarians. They almost had me until, their advocacy of a gold standard came up. I knew that such was not only a Fraudulent Standard https://www.amazon.com/Fraudulent-Standard-Arthur-Kitson/dp/1016342489, but because the USSR had adopted a 100% gold standard, that it had opted out for perpetual depression (a shortage of money)
Since then the Libertarian Party and Libertarians have dropped the social libertarian pretense, and are all out economic pirates, for that is what Libertarianism is piracy and libertarians are fascist brigands.
I will add that Article 12,of the 1936 Soviet Constitution is pure libertarian "if you don't work you don't eat".
I appreciate the exposition, and you added to my knowledge base (I didn't know it was Cecil B DeMille, that was responsible for her rise to fame. DeMille made a movie The Fountainhead, there was tilogy on Atlas Shrugged, besides being a hypocrite she based her hero's on a pscyhopatic killer William Edward Hickman namely Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street, Hickman shows up again as Roarke and Galt.
What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"
This echoes almost word for word Rand's later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: "He was born without the ability to consider others." (The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' favorite book -- he even requires his clerks to read it.) https://www.learnreligions.com/ayn-rand-sociopath-who-admired-serial-killer-3975225
One question for you though. What has the fact that she was atheist have to do with anything, except religious people always throw that fact front and center.
You know Hitler was a good Catholic boy, and had an excellent relationship with Pope Pius XII, Cardinals, Bishops and even the Lutheran church. It was the Catholic church that sustained the Rat Lines that NAZI's used to flee to Argentina.
Hmmm. I know that the High Unholy Supreme 6 believe in the Jesus myth and use it as an excuse to resurrect a Christian theocracy, and given that the High Unholy 6 are rad trad Catholics, I can only imagine that is what they have in mind. If so then there will be another war between them and the Dominionists/NAR factions.
Please clarify something for me. Do you believe in a creator?
The idea is appealing and has been the source of much mischief, but it leads to more and more strife and suffering, because men actually create a creator in their own imagine. Know the man, know their god. The creator is a sock puppet.
We might argue over that.
Let's go to the last paragraph,
then your assessments of what Republicans mean by freedom were likely too generous. Here is what they mean: 1. The freedom to tell people what to do. 2. Freedom from being told what to do.
We really don't know what others really think. We know what we think. We really don't know the motives of others either. You seem to advocate torture as a means of getting to the truth. That doesn't work either, as people will say anything to stop the pain. How many thousands of people, especially women, have died because someone under pain blurted tout their names as witches. Just one example.
As regards the freedom of telling other people what to do. We have that already, as regards the freedom from being told what to do. That doesn't make sense. If you can stop a person from being told what to do, they you have imposed your will on them, and that is not freedom.
We are being told what to do all of the time, and we have the ability (the freedom) to ignore them, often at cost., sometimes not, some would tell me to subsidize them and their lifestyle by giving them money, especially in collection plates. I chose not to, but they infer that there is a cost to my ignorance and disobedience.
There is always "something" telling us what to do, or not do. Laws, society (social traditions, culture, family, friends, parents, "authority".
Yeh, OK I know better that to have a discussion with a believer, secular or sectarian.
One thing I know about people is that they create their creator in their own imagine. Know the man, know the creator.
BTW, Thomas Paine was a man of his age, as was Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, et al.
Voltaire had quite a bit to say about this creator.
As the saying goes, Whatever floats your boat.
One thing I have noticed about believers is that are very adamant about their beliefs,to the point of anger and violence when they are refuted and rejected.
Libertarianism meet Hurricane Helene. Libertarianism meet the people I have lived among. There aren’t enough jail cells for them and if you want someone killed then those for profit prisons offer healthcare to people with life threatening illness. Have to keep the prisoner alive to be paid!! The show “Shameless” depicted this except the guy just punched a cop.
And remember the French Revolution?? All those guns available to Americans and all that money. Who needs to listen to some snot ass mayor when the money is there for the taking. Libertarianism is how war lords come into being - as Thom is pointing out.
Beware of rich kids who have everything handed to them on a silver platter, they think they are entitled to everything that they haven't earned. Think Trump, Musk, Kock (intentional spelling) bros. Zuckerberg and Gates are a different breed, they owe their success to the work of others. Jobs finally figured out why Gates was hanging around so much in the beginning but it was too late. So it's no surprise that these guys embraced libertarianism, it allows them to be better than anyone else. Who cares if it destroys our society, I got mine. And many of them are preparing their escape bunkers for when libertarianism meets its final conclusion. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich
Liber-Tyranny, Liber-Terrorism, and Fibber-tarianism are also accurate names for what Thom has presented.
Wordsmith fun aside, there is not a single advocate of their selfish philosophy who takes full "personal responsibility" without government regulations - as they love to call it - for even the basics of life in a civil society. The Romneys, Pences, Bushes, Musks, Zuckerbergs, Rands, and Ryans all rely on society's great connectivity and interdependencies for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, electricity, etc.
Not a single one of them can EVEN take Full Personal Responsibility for their daily bathroom-business! They all make use of the facilities, equipment, systems and materials provided by hundreds of workers, business owners, and government health and safety regulations.
They need to Flush these crackpot 'libertarian" notions back to the conservative's cesspool of lies, cons, and dead-at-birth ideological scams.
...BTW, I think "libertarian" is yet another deceptive con to boost the disproven and failed notion that "low taxes on the wealthy creates jobs." Everyone's most annoying deadbeat billionaire libertarian, Qelon Musk disproved that when he spent $44 Billion of his taxpayer funded wealth to buy Twitter and immediately fired thousands of workers.
ps, their philosophy gained enough mass and momentum to be a destructive force when Reagan declared "government is the problem".
Because I have 30+ years of serious shamanic work, my perceptions of what is being dissected in this article are beyond the pale. It is very difficult to provide solutions to problems that most people find to be insane because they have no reference points in their mind-body construct to allow them the abilities to digest and understand. However, this doesn't dissuade me. Eventually, the truth will prevail and planting seeds is what people like me do. So...here goes:
The problem with all financial, political, religious and social theories offered up these days is that they all refuse to acknowledge the basic fact that all of them are at war with their environment. All wealth accumulation, under any of the popular labels used today, rise from the extraction from and the war upon a planet upon which they exist. Consequently, none of them will ever adequately meet the real needs of the people because not one of them possess any substantive power. Their power is artificial and manufactured through illicit means that rob the spirits of the people of the necessary nutrition needed. Artificial power only last a short time before it implodes upon itself. The only power that provides real strength and lasting results is birthed from a Co-creation with the Creator and Mother Earth. Go ahead and argue your fascist, libertarian, capitalist, or socialist ideological boondoggles, but they all share one common trait...they never last and bring suffering to the people. Of course, I also realize that any ancient cultures that have actually managed to use a co-creative attitude and approach have also cratered. However, that is another discussion. The reality is that until we learn to embrace real power that doesn't source from ourselves, we will continue to pay the price and pass the bill to the children.
Some fiat currency is the product of salesmanship. Has no intrinsic value Has no relation to mother earth. IOUs and promissory notes may not even be enforceable.
Libertarianism is one of two basic rationales that have served Western imperialism from the conquistadores to the slave traders to the robber barons to today's tech bros. The other, which rears its ugly head in the form of manifest destiny and frequent moral panics, is what we now call Christo-fascism. They come along like El Nino and La Nina, sometimes both at once, often causing massive harm.
I’d be interested in how The Chicago School of Economics became neoliberalism. What makes neoliberalism anything different than the free market capitalism of Milton Friedman?
“I don’t want to abolish free market capitalism. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
Susan, the truth is that were it not for capitalism, none of us self righteous would be walking the earth, and those who would be, would be living in a 15th Century world.
Capitalism isn't the enemy, human nature is, men slaughter each other in the mad scramble to be the MFWIC.
Sad truth is that altruism, eqalitarianism are rather modern constructs.
When you sit in a sports stadium, watching two teams pummel each other, (or watching it on TV, you are engaging in a sanitized version of the gladiator games.
...and if it weren't for socialism (like gov handouts, subsidies, bail outs, corp law, tax breaks, etc.) in America, capitalism would have burned itself out in its own flames.
Disagree. Capitalism certainly has had a dynamic role to play but its long past time to embrace the regulated capitalism of the social democracies of Scandinavia.
Disagree with what Susan. I totally agree with you. Yes Capitalism does have a role to play, but it also has to be regulated. I was talking of unregulated, out of control Capitalism of Libertarians, the corporate masters.
Then why did you disagree with me in the first place?
Here is what you said: Disagree. Capitalism certainly has had a dynamic role to play but its long past time to embrace the regulated capitalism of the social democracies of Scandinavia.
By the way we do have a very weak form of regulated capitalism, and has gotten weaker and weaker, thanks to the Supreme Court
Thom Hartmann has written a book about it. It started with Marbury v Madison,onto Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, then Buckley v Veleo, two years later 1st National Bank of Boston v Bellotti, and finally like boiling a frog, Citzens united.
First Justice Marshall usurped the powers of congress, enabling it legislate from the bench, then corporations were given rights, and finally corporations were declared people, except you can't jail and execute a corporation.
Actually the Tarzan Myth has turned out to be pretty harmful, humanity has survived and prospered as a group endeavor which includes altruism and caring. Numerous studies in Anthropology and Primate Groups supports this. A different but great book to read is A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solint. She explores the actions people take during a disaster which is quite opposite to what the Elites, Media and Government say will happen. That book gives me hope for the future.
Did I mention the Tarzan myth, your referencing of it has me puzzled?
Altruism exists in nature, it is manifested differently in quadrupeds and bipeds.
It is essential to the survival of the pack, herd, tribe, and at root it is instinctive as it means survival of the self. The golden rule thing.
A word about disasters. I was working in Aptos, CA Oct 19, 1989 when the Loma Prieta Earthquake hit. Aptos is about 5 miles from the epicenter, I watch the ground heave up and down like waves in the ocean and concrete telephone poles sway like palm trees.
At first everyone banded together, but as time passed, this cohesion started to wear off.
We lost electricity and that part of the California Coast (off Monterey Bay, was closed off because of earth slides, and all of the focus was on San Francisco.
They say that the veneer of civilization is only 72 hours thin, I got to watch that.
The only stores that could keep operating were the liquor stores, they had old fashioned mechanical cash registers in the back, an set up shop in the parking lot, and soon had sold out their entire stock.
The cohesiveness started to break down after 48 hrs. At first everyone was running around trying to help, but with no food, water,electricity it became every person for themselves. Fortunately PG&E came through and between 48 and 72 hrs electricity was restored.
The problem with food was, that without refrigeration perishables spoiled and without electricity and gas, food couldn't be prepared, so bread, fruit and veggies like carrots quickly disappeared. Those with propane grills cooked up all of their meat in the first 24 hrs.
There were only two casualties, Robin who died when the roof of the Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company collapsed on her, and a shopper at Fords Department story from the same.
An excellent post. I knew a self proclaimed Libertarian. His business card had 5 points on it. But they could have meant anything up to and including full blown socialism, depending on how you interpreted them
Libertarianism is used because fascism evokes Hitler and Mussolini. I believe libertarianism is a fast track to full blown fascism.
They certainly have undermined our economy and national security. The Libertarian Party is the third-largest political party. The definition is someone who wants to screw, smoke dope without government interference and not pay taxes. Historically the party opposed all of the FDR reforms, was isolationist and supported open borders.
Many of the libertarian heroes, like Ayn Rand, after condemning "altruism" and public benefits, wound up receiving governmental benefits like Medicare and Social Security.
Fascism goes way back before Hitler, about 7,000 years at least. It has existed under many names, like monarchy, feudalism, pharaohs... Anytime a few have controlled any government, you have privatized the government and you have fascism!
You are so right. Libertarianism is based on an insane lie. Show me one Libertarian that raises his family and household with no regulations? It is absurd. It would only produce chaos, human suffering and destruction. In the micro and the macro. If they actually believe their other absurd lie, that corporations are people, then why don't they want these "people" to adhere to the laws which they gladly want enforced on actual people? What they really want is no regulations against themselves, and lots of regulation against anyone that would threaten their wealth.
And if corporations are “people”, then they should be subjected to the death penalty when they do egregious harm. Just like real people.
Ah but there is the reason that they are not people, because real people die and they don't, David.
Beware of the zombies?
Eating your brain is definitely a corporate concept. Thanks for my chuckle of the day, Daniel.
Our Country originally limited the lifespan of a Corporation to 70 years after which it was to be broken up. That obviously didn't last. But there was still a death penalty available for criminal enterprises. FDR planned to break up some of the big Nazi Corporations like IG Farber and Krupps. Unfortunately he died before he could take action and Truman didn't have a clue about his plans.
Appreciate your argument of never worked and never will concerning Libertarian-ism.
One of the favorite things I have read was an excerpt from a woman's diary that lived on the prairie circa 1900. She spoke about how much she loathed a few of the men that were part of her county.
This woman and these men were the actual "rugged individuals" Libertarians talk about. They were eking out a living from farming. The point she made in her writing was about how she had to take them in from time to time. The storms were brutal and life-threatening. Providing food, a fire, and a place to sleep to someone traveling to get supplies or do some business in town was a GIVEN.
They simply had to put-up with each other to survive. Thankfully, the good people in Florida are basically doing the same as I write this. They aren't asking you at the shelter if you are Republican, Democrat, or a Libertarian.
No one on this planet will escape the devastation of our climate crisis. Libertarian ideas got us into to this mess, but they sure as hell won't help us survive it!
Off this specific topic but in the ballpark---did you see the Dems in the House trying to censure Rep. Clay Higgins yesterday? He posted some vile racist rhetoric about the Haitian refugees on X-itter.
You can find info at rollingstone.com-"GOP Rep. Bashes ‘Vudu’-Practicing ‘Thug’ Haitians in Wildly Racist Rant".
There is no such thing as a free market. Markets are human creations, put together by those who own and control capital. Libertarians talk about free markets as if they grow naturally in the wild like a rare animal. They say we mustn’t frighten or startle the free market with taxes and regulations lest it run away and hide. It’s ridiculous. Libertarian thinking is sociopathic thinking. Their use of the term “free market” is like a magician misdirecting the audience. Amassing such obscene levels of wealth, as has Zuckerberg, comes out of a hoarding disorder where he will never have enough. The amount of wealth Zuckerberg, or any billionaire, controls is light-years beyond the amount of innovation, hard work, and productivity that they have, or will ever, contribute to our society. It isn’t earned. It is simply cornered cash flow. We have every right to moderate their business activity through strong regulation (which makes us safe and protects our environment), and to cull any distorted accumulation of wealth through taxation. FDR’s new deal tax policy is the proper steady-state tax policy for a stable, humane, capitalistic economy.
Craig_S;
Great comment!
🎯
There has not been one capitalist Nation without any socialism in the last 7,000 years that has provided for its people, that was not a third world living hell on Earth!
Only the sadistic maga cult members are stupid enough to believe the billionaires propaganda being spewed on all of our airwaves!
Religion has been used to mentally cripple the populations for thousands of years and keep them right wingers!
A test needs to be given those who vote. Just ask two questions. 1. Is the fate of man up to himself or is it up to God? A follow-up question needs to be. If f God does not want man to think, why did God give man a brain?
The right must blame God for all of their problems then, as well as the gays, the woke, the communists, other races, other religions and non-religions... The right hates good and wallows in evil, and are bat ship crazy, and are unfit to vote or own guns.
“Please name one country, anywhere in the world, any time in the last 7000 years, where libertarianism has succeeded and produced general peace and prosperity?”
The question is so absurd on its face, one is led to answers equally absurd. I vote for the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.
Had to look it up. Clever!
I take it you can't name one?
Neither I nor any one else.
Your libertarian paradise is a fiction.
Rather like the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, eh?
Pinot Grand Fenwick 🍷😋
From wiki Not Libertarian.
The Duchy of Grand Fenwick is a monarchy led by the Duchess Gloriana XII. In the novel The Mouse That Roared, she is a young woman of twenty-two, and marries Tully Bascomb. In The Mouse on the Moon and The Mouse on Wall Street, she is in her mid-thirties. In The Mouse That Saved the West, she is forty-two, and Tully has been dead for some time. In the 1959 film version, she is a parody of Queen Victoria who is still wearing mourning for her husband, Prince Louis of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who has been "missing" from a tiger hunt for 27 years. In the film, she thinks the President of the United States is Calvin Coolidge, and she owns the only motorcar in the Duchy–a 1920s' hand-cranked model. This is not so in the original books. It is not known whether she has any children.
The lower House of the Duchy's Parliament, The Council of Freemen, is democratically elected. In The Mouse on Wall Street an upper House of Parliament, akin to the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, is mentioned to exist.
The nation has two political parties, the Dilutionists (or Her Grace's Loyal Opposition), led by David Bentner, and the Anti-Dilutionists, led by Count Mountjoy, the Prime Minister. The names of the parties reflect their positions on whether to dilute the wine exports of the Duchy. The positions of leadership are hereditary. In The Mouse on Wall Street, the Dilutionists are also referred to as the Labor Party.
Maybe better, Fredonia. True Marxian (Groucho, Harpo, etc.)
Hail Fredonia. Groucho portrays the newly installed president of the fictional country of Freedonia. Zeppo is his secretary, while Chico and Harpo are spies for the neighboring country of Sylvania. Relations between Groucho and the Sylvanian ambassador deteriorate during the film, eventually leading to war.
Apparently Fredonia fit the definition of "anarchy" which is similar to if not congruent to "libertarian."
Hail, hail, Fredonia...!
That's a excellent series of Books. I love how Grand Fenwick declared war on the USA, because California copied their Wine Label and ruined their economy. Unfortunately they unexpectedly won the war by accident. Best satire of the USA fighting the Soviet Union ever. Did you read Feast of Freedom also? Leonard Wibberley was hysterical. Just for a side note: William Hartman was the aid to Peter Sellers' Tully Bascom and after the film became the first Doctor Who.
David Koch ran for President on the Libertarian Party in 1980. I attended a meeting then in Tacoma, WA where they were trying to recruit members. Quite the sales pitch, the then represented themselves a economic and social libertarians. They almost had me until, their advocacy of a gold standard came up. I knew that such was not only a Fraudulent Standard https://www.amazon.com/Fraudulent-Standard-Arthur-Kitson/dp/1016342489, but because the USSR had adopted a 100% gold standard, that it had opted out for perpetual depression (a shortage of money)
Since then the Libertarian Party and Libertarians have dropped the social libertarian pretense, and are all out economic pirates, for that is what Libertarianism is piracy and libertarians are fascist brigands.
I will add that Article 12,of the 1936 Soviet Constitution is pure libertarian "if you don't work you don't eat".
Fred Koch, David and Charles Father, made his fortune building oil wells and refineries for Stalin in the 1930's, and the USSR was on a 100% gold standard, so what do you think the model for Libertarianism is based on? Bolshevism/communism of course, it did not create a classless society, but eliminated the middle class, what Marx called the bourgeoisie, and created a New Class https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+new+class+djilas&i=stripbooks&crid=X7QRIVD0VU35&sprefix=the+new+class+djila%2Cstripbooks%2C282&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
I appreciate the exposition, and you added to my knowledge base (I didn't know it was Cecil B DeMille, that was responsible for her rise to fame. DeMille made a movie The Fountainhead, there was tilogy on Atlas Shrugged, besides being a hypocrite she based her hero's on a pscyhopatic killer William Edward Hickman namely Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street, Hickman shows up again as Roarke and Galt.
What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"
This echoes almost word for word Rand's later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: "He was born without the ability to consider others." (The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' favorite book -- he even requires his clerks to read it.) https://www.learnreligions.com/ayn-rand-sociopath-who-admired-serial-killer-3975225
One question for you though. What has the fact that she was atheist have to do with anything, except religious people always throw that fact front and center.
You know Hitler was a good Catholic boy, and had an excellent relationship with Pope Pius XII, Cardinals, Bishops and even the Lutheran church. It was the Catholic church that sustained the Rat Lines that NAZI's used to flee to Argentina.
Hmmm. I know that the High Unholy Supreme 6 believe in the Jesus myth and use it as an excuse to resurrect a Christian theocracy, and given that the High Unholy 6 are rad trad Catholics, I can only imagine that is what they have in mind. If so then there will be another war between them and the Dominionists/NAR factions.
Please clarify something for me. Do you believe in a creator?
The idea is appealing and has been the source of much mischief, but it leads to more and more strife and suffering, because men actually create a creator in their own imagine. Know the man, know their god. The creator is a sock puppet.
We might argue over that.
Let's go to the last paragraph,
then your assessments of what Republicans mean by freedom were likely too generous. Here is what they mean: 1. The freedom to tell people what to do. 2. Freedom from being told what to do.
We really don't know what others really think. We know what we think. We really don't know the motives of others either. You seem to advocate torture as a means of getting to the truth. That doesn't work either, as people will say anything to stop the pain. How many thousands of people, especially women, have died because someone under pain blurted tout their names as witches. Just one example.
As regards the freedom of telling other people what to do. We have that already, as regards the freedom from being told what to do. That doesn't make sense. If you can stop a person from being told what to do, they you have imposed your will on them, and that is not freedom.
We are being told what to do all of the time, and we have the ability (the freedom) to ignore them, often at cost., sometimes not, some would tell me to subsidize them and their lifestyle by giving them money, especially in collection plates. I chose not to, but they infer that there is a cost to my ignorance and disobedience.
There is always "something" telling us what to do, or not do. Laws, society (social traditions, culture, family, friends, parents, "authority".
Yeh, OK I know better that to have a discussion with a believer, secular or sectarian.
One thing I know about people is that they create their creator in their own imagine. Know the man, know the creator.
BTW, Thomas Paine was a man of his age, as was Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, et al.
Voltaire had quite a bit to say about this creator.
As the saying goes, Whatever floats your boat.
One thing I have noticed about believers is that are very adamant about their beliefs,to the point of anger and violence when they are refuted and rejected.
Thom has often said, "Libertarians are Republicans who want to smoke dope and get laid." 😂
I've noticed that people will suddenly switch from Libertarian to socialist when they need something.
Libertarianism meet Hurricane Helene. Libertarianism meet the people I have lived among. There aren’t enough jail cells for them and if you want someone killed then those for profit prisons offer healthcare to people with life threatening illness. Have to keep the prisoner alive to be paid!! The show “Shameless” depicted this except the guy just punched a cop.
And remember the French Revolution?? All those guns available to Americans and all that money. Who needs to listen to some snot ass mayor when the money is there for the taking. Libertarianism is how war lords come into being - as Thom is pointing out.
Beware of rich kids who have everything handed to them on a silver platter, they think they are entitled to everything that they haven't earned. Think Trump, Musk, Kock (intentional spelling) bros. Zuckerberg and Gates are a different breed, they owe their success to the work of others. Jobs finally figured out why Gates was hanging around so much in the beginning but it was too late. So it's no surprise that these guys embraced libertarianism, it allows them to be better than anyone else. Who cares if it destroys our society, I got mine. And many of them are preparing their escape bunkers for when libertarianism meets its final conclusion. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich
Liber-Tyranny, Liber-Terrorism, and Fibber-tarianism are also accurate names for what Thom has presented.
Wordsmith fun aside, there is not a single advocate of their selfish philosophy who takes full "personal responsibility" without government regulations - as they love to call it - for even the basics of life in a civil society. The Romneys, Pences, Bushes, Musks, Zuckerbergs, Rands, and Ryans all rely on society's great connectivity and interdependencies for food, clothing, shelter, transportation, electricity, etc.
Not a single one of them can EVEN take Full Personal Responsibility for their daily bathroom-business! They all make use of the facilities, equipment, systems and materials provided by hundreds of workers, business owners, and government health and safety regulations.
They need to Flush these crackpot 'libertarian" notions back to the conservative's cesspool of lies, cons, and dead-at-birth ideological scams.
...BTW, I think "libertarian" is yet another deceptive con to boost the disproven and failed notion that "low taxes on the wealthy creates jobs." Everyone's most annoying deadbeat billionaire libertarian, Qelon Musk disproved that when he spent $44 Billion of his taxpayer funded wealth to buy Twitter and immediately fired thousands of workers.
ps, their philosophy gained enough mass and momentum to be a destructive force when Reagan declared "government is the problem".
What do you get if Chicago Economics marries White Supremacy? Neoliberalism.
Because I have 30+ years of serious shamanic work, my perceptions of what is being dissected in this article are beyond the pale. It is very difficult to provide solutions to problems that most people find to be insane because they have no reference points in their mind-body construct to allow them the abilities to digest and understand. However, this doesn't dissuade me. Eventually, the truth will prevail and planting seeds is what people like me do. So...here goes:
The problem with all financial, political, religious and social theories offered up these days is that they all refuse to acknowledge the basic fact that all of them are at war with their environment. All wealth accumulation, under any of the popular labels used today, rise from the extraction from and the war upon a planet upon which they exist. Consequently, none of them will ever adequately meet the real needs of the people because not one of them possess any substantive power. Their power is artificial and manufactured through illicit means that rob the spirits of the people of the necessary nutrition needed. Artificial power only last a short time before it implodes upon itself. The only power that provides real strength and lasting results is birthed from a Co-creation with the Creator and Mother Earth. Go ahead and argue your fascist, libertarian, capitalist, or socialist ideological boondoggles, but they all share one common trait...they never last and bring suffering to the people. Of course, I also realize that any ancient cultures that have actually managed to use a co-creative attitude and approach have also cratered. However, that is another discussion. The reality is that until we learn to embrace real power that doesn't source from ourselves, we will continue to pay the price and pass the bill to the children.
Some fiat currency is the product of salesmanship. Has no intrinsic value Has no relation to mother earth. IOUs and promissory notes may not even be enforceable.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/050914/easy-way-measure-bitcoins-fair-market-value-doityourself-guide.asp
There's a sucker born every minute.
Libertarianism is one of two basic rationales that have served Western imperialism from the conquistadores to the slave traders to the robber barons to today's tech bros. The other, which rears its ugly head in the form of manifest destiny and frequent moral panics, is what we now call Christo-fascism. They come along like El Nino and La Nina, sometimes both at once, often causing massive harm.
I’d be interested in how The Chicago School of Economics became neoliberalism. What makes neoliberalism anything different than the free market capitalism of Milton Friedman?
“I don’t want to abolish free market capitalism. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
Susan, the truth is that were it not for capitalism, none of us self righteous would be walking the earth, and those who would be, would be living in a 15th Century world.
Capitalism isn't the enemy, human nature is, men slaughter each other in the mad scramble to be the MFWIC.
Sad truth is that altruism, eqalitarianism are rather modern constructs.
When you sit in a sports stadium, watching two teams pummel each other, (or watching it on TV, you are engaging in a sanitized version of the gladiator games.
How does one modify and change human nature?
...and if it weren't for socialism (like gov handouts, subsidies, bail outs, corp law, tax breaks, etc.) in America, capitalism would have burned itself out in its own flames.
Point made, and I agree there is socialism for the masters and socialism for the rest.
Disagree. Capitalism certainly has had a dynamic role to play but its long past time to embrace the regulated capitalism of the social democracies of Scandinavia.
Disagree with what Susan. I totally agree with you. Yes Capitalism does have a role to play, but it also has to be regulated. I was talking of unregulated, out of control Capitalism of Libertarians, the corporate masters.
If you say capitalism has to be regulated you are 100% agreeing with me! Thats exactly what I said.
Then why did you disagree with me in the first place?
Here is what you said: Disagree. Capitalism certainly has had a dynamic role to play but its long past time to embrace the regulated capitalism of the social democracies of Scandinavia.
By the way we do have a very weak form of regulated capitalism, and has gotten weaker and weaker, thanks to the Supreme Court
Thom Hartmann has written a book about it. It started with Marbury v Madison,onto Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, then Buckley v Veleo, two years later 1st National Bank of Boston v Bellotti, and finally like boiling a frog, Citzens united.
First Justice Marshall usurped the powers of congress, enabling it legislate from the bench, then corporations were given rights, and finally corporations were declared people, except you can't jail and execute a corporation.
Actually the Tarzan Myth has turned out to be pretty harmful, humanity has survived and prospered as a group endeavor which includes altruism and caring. Numerous studies in Anthropology and Primate Groups supports this. A different but great book to read is A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solint. She explores the actions people take during a disaster which is quite opposite to what the Elites, Media and Government say will happen. That book gives me hope for the future.
Did I mention the Tarzan myth, your referencing of it has me puzzled?
Altruism exists in nature, it is manifested differently in quadrupeds and bipeds.
It is essential to the survival of the pack, herd, tribe, and at root it is instinctive as it means survival of the self. The golden rule thing.
A word about disasters. I was working in Aptos, CA Oct 19, 1989 when the Loma Prieta Earthquake hit. Aptos is about 5 miles from the epicenter, I watch the ground heave up and down like waves in the ocean and concrete telephone poles sway like palm trees.
At first everyone banded together, but as time passed, this cohesion started to wear off.
We lost electricity and that part of the California Coast (off Monterey Bay, was closed off because of earth slides, and all of the focus was on San Francisco.
They say that the veneer of civilization is only 72 hours thin, I got to watch that.
The only stores that could keep operating were the liquor stores, they had old fashioned mechanical cash registers in the back, an set up shop in the parking lot, and soon had sold out their entire stock.
The cohesiveness started to break down after 48 hrs. At first everyone was running around trying to help, but with no food, water,electricity it became every person for themselves. Fortunately PG&E came through and between 48 and 72 hrs electricity was restored.
The problem with food was, that without refrigeration perishables spoiled and without electricity and gas, food couldn't be prepared, so bread, fruit and veggies like carrots quickly disappeared. Those with propane grills cooked up all of their meat in the first 24 hrs.
There were only two casualties, Robin who died when the roof of the Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company collapsed on her, and a shopper at Fords Department story from the same.
...or to the size where it doesn't run the government.
An excellent post. I knew a self proclaimed Libertarian. His business card had 5 points on it. But they could have meant anything up to and including full blown socialism, depending on how you interpreted them