General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Just for the record, I want to get this off my chest. [View all]freshwest
(53,661 posts)Last edited Sat Sep 29, 2012, 04:49 PM - Edit history (1)
It's not talking just about being efficient in the government, because they want to get rid of all the things government does to uplift those who have been disadvantaged by the oppressors in the private sector. They want to be free of government telling them they can't discriminate, can't pollute, can't make their money anyway they want and the devil take the hindmost.
Charles Koch ran on the Libertarian Party ticket for POTUS as well as Ron Paul. The Koch family founded the John Birch Society, part of the racist patriot movement.
Libertarianism is the philosophy of Rush, Ryan, Romney and Teabaggers. They hate all liberals as their idol Ayn Rand did.
George Monbiot wrote how conservatives have elminated liberal libertarian beliefs is below. Give it a read and think about it. It helped me enunciate what I believe as a liberal in their language, which is all we hear on media:
How Freedom Became Tyranny
Rightwing libertarians have turned freedom into an excuse for greed and exploitation.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 20th December 2011
Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice?
In the name of freedom freedom from regulation the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws; big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor.
Right-wing libertarianism recognises few legitimate constraints on the power to act, regardless of the impact on the lives of others. In the UK it is forcefully promoted by groups like the TaxPayers Alliance, the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs and Policy Exchange(2). Their conception of freedom looks to me like nothing but a justification for greed.
So why have we been been so slow to challenge this concept of liberty? I believe that one of the reasons is as follows. The great political conflict of our age between neocons and the millionaires and corporations they support on one side and social justice campaigners and environmentalists on the other has been mischaracterised as a clash between negative and positive freedoms.
He goes into examples to explain this at the link:
http://www.monbiot.com/2011/12/19/how-freedom-became-tyranny/
I say further, in looking in libertarianism, that as the end result is privatization or corporatism, it is the pretty face of the the first step to total fascist rule as defined by Mussolini and warned about by President Roosevelt. It is the GOP plan. Another person who has spoken against them is Van Jones who has since gone into other realms.
Van Jones spoke the truth and was savaged by the radfcal right. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck until he became a distraction to what he was trying to do in the Obama administration.
Van Jones: Libertarianism Would Spit in the Face of Dr. King
Former White House adviser Van Jones on Monday defended recent remarks he made against "so-called libertarians" by saying, "I think we have to start punching back."
In a March speech to the Occupy movement in Los Angeles, Jones had called libertarianism a "despicable ideology."
"They say theyre Patriots but they hate everybody in America who looks like us," the former Green Jobs czar explained. "They say they love America but they hate the people, the brown folk, the gays, the lesbians, the people with piercings, ya know yall."
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/van-jones-libertarianism-would-spit-face-dr-
He hasn't gotten a fair interview as the media has pretty much blackballed him since then. But then, we don't have a 'liberal' media when we see such as Rush, Hannity, Beck and others being paid millions every year to fight us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Jones