I've been told I'm divorced from reality by leftists because I believe in limiting the power of government?
For example from the Westeros message board that trends further left from this one:
I find libertarian philosophy very neat and internally consistent...and almost completely divorced from reality.
I seem to be kinda busy today here...
this may be because [or may not] some of them are like me. This relates to something Z said in another thread not too long ago that I might have called silly except I think he was being extreme on purpose that "if gov't didn't interfere with business, business wouldn't need to lobby" [roughly].
How I, and the Libs I respect, see it is, just like a business with lots of stuff to protect will higher tough guys to guard it, the gov't is MY security firm. Yea, it's more complicated and they fuck up and there is corruption and it doesn't work AT ALL if we can't vote/have no rights/control over them...nevertheless, I don't look at the gov't as my NANNY, I look at them as my SWORD ARM while I'm busy trying to do other stuff. they have a job I've hired/paid them to do.
The Gov't should be as small as possible...but that is completely different from too small to do the job. Given the evolution of corporate size/influence/power, Gov't HAS to grow to do its job...but it wouldn't need, and wouldn't be, as big as it is if it weren't for infiltration by non-gov't concentration of wealth, power, and size...we wouldn't need clean air/water regulations if the polluters had just said "oops, we'll stop doing that...and here's the proof."
[spoiler]Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.[/spoiler] the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass. "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
I think the left tends to underestimate or outright reject the idea that government power is inclined to become tyrannical and arbitrary over time ("The Servant When He Reigneth"), and therefore ought to be regarded as the option of last resort rather than the preferred solution. And sometimes it the last best resort, in the case of single payer and certain indispensable regulations. But we cannot legislate our way to social perfection, the opposite is likely to happen.
Hell, I'm really not sure where I fit in then. I'm far more liberal than most when it comes to freedom and liberty. I'm far more liberal than most when it comes to due process. I'm far more liberal than most when it comes to the use of our military. About the only thing I can be called conservative about is fiscal policy.
I'm not sure how I tolerate myself.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
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"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
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"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
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Liberals...Conservatives...meh--they're both wrong and they are both to blame for the sorry state of politics, especially in this country. The two sides don't talk to each other; rather, they talk at each other in a neverending diatribe of "I'm right and you're wrong" or "Look how stupid the other side is".
Honestly, they sound like children and we who are moderate/Libertarian, the parents or responsible ones in my analogy, really just want them both to shut up and go to their rooms. We can't get anything done with them bickering and fighting all the time.
Ananda wrote:Stop being so intolerant of his judgementalism and intolerance! You've now declared war on family, hope and decency. I hope youre satisfied!
And freedom. Don't forget freedom.
"I would have gone to the thesaurus for a more erudite word."
-Hashi Lebwohl
Hashi, but the us has shifted so far right that they call a president who is right wing-light a socialist muslim. It's not really a 50/50 split. But, you are right in tvat the country seems to have lost its collective mind if you judge it by the for profit newstainment channel content that we see.
Monsters, they eat
Your kind of meat
And they're moving as far as they can
And as fast as they can
Ananda wrote:Stop being so intolerant of his judgementalism and intolerance! You've now declared war on family, hope and decency. I hope youre satisfied!
And freedom. Don't forget freedom.
Sorry... You freedom hating communist.
Monsters, they eat
Your kind of meat
And they're moving as far as they can
And as fast as they can
Ananda wrote:But, you are right in tvat the country seems to have lost its collective mind if you judge it by the for profit newstainment channel content that we see.
You are just jealous because we only have state-sponsored and censored commie-news!
"I would have gone to the thesaurus for a more erudite word."
-Hashi Lebwohl
Ananda wrote:But, you are right in tvat the country seems to have lost its collective mind if you judge it by the for profit newstainment channel content that we see.
You are just jealous because we only have state-sponsored and censored commie-news!
Busted!
Monsters, they eat
Your kind of meat
And they're moving as far as they can
And as fast as they can
Ananda wrote:Hashi, but the us has shifted so far right that they call a president who is right wing-light a socialist muslim. It's not really a 50/50 split. But, you are right in tvat the country seems to have lost its collective mind if you judge it by the for profit newstainment channel content that we see.
I suspect that the other culprit is the medium through which we are communicating right now--the Internet. In the good old days (pre-1995), people would have had to write to the newspaper or call a talk show to get their opinions widely disseminated. These days, any insane person with a high-speed connection can spread their weirdness on a host of forums, blogs, or social media sites. The Internet gives everyone a chance to be themselves and show the world just how much of an arse they really are.
That is a shame, really, because the Internet had such good potential. Oh, well....