tnr.com — One mini-saga of the past decade has been the flirtation between progressives and libertarians. These two groups were driven together by common hostility to huge chunks of the Bush administration's agenda, such as endless, pointless wars and assaults on civil liberties. That's come to an end. Libertarian support for Democrats collapsed in 2008.
Feb 12, 2010 View in Crawl 4
vitriolandangstFeb 12, 2010
Only Conservatives and Jack-asses who never listen to ACTUAL living Liberals who aren't on TV think we are for a Mommy-state. Most of us are pretty pragmatic.We don't want government interfering in our lives, and we want it doing as little as possible -- that said, we are pragmatic and we know that we need traffic laws and stop lights and taxes to have transportation. The idea that you can have a 100% free market, no revenue going to the government, and no government rules is unworkable -- and it is treating the notion as more of a religious truth than looking at solutions and measuring results. If you want to TRY any Libertarian idea -- do it on a limited bases, and allow Liberals to try some of theirs -- then get out of the way. But we can't do that, can we? We want less military, and MORE public supports -- because investing in people pays off. So many people freak out and worry that w might have spent too much on a pregnant mother raising a kid, and they forget that we've spent 100 times more than that on the wealthy in the past 2 than we have on the poor and education, and any other "hand out" you care to mention. And the fact is, we do it about every ten years as "we learn a new lesson" -- or actually, the people with Power in the vacuum created by all this "hands of government" have taken advantage again.If you break up Big Business, I'll be happy to reduce Big Government -- but without real limits on corporations, there is nothing to protect us from people of power influencing the system.I look at MORE Liberal countries in Europe, and I plenty of good. But any nation that is MORE Libertarian or Conservative than America -- absolutely sucks. So on balance, I'm starting to think Socialism isn't something so bad -- but of course, that's another topic that has more opinions than facts.
j0phusFeb 13, 2010
It's interesting because it sounds like you trust corporations more than I do and we have the same issue with our representatives in the federal government. Where we stray there is room for respectable debate to which we wouldn't likely agree on, but we could find some nice middle ground. I think libertarians make great complements (in the mathematical sense of the word) to progressives. There are soooo many progressives that have just put their foot down and have left the democratic party the past few months. The republicans are impossible to work with and they clearly represent no one and the democrats have become ridiculous. I don't know how many conservatives have been leaving the republican party, but in the 2012 general, if enough people leave both parties, we might have an honest to god revolution in this country. If we did form a liberal third party, I hope to god we have level headed honest people like you to work with. That sounds so funny to say, because I so wanted to say fight against, but that is not how it would be at all, would it?.... How strange is that? Sorry I'm moderately high right now and about ready to sing kumbaya or something. Just to touch back on corporations, I don't care what their rights are, so long as they are separate from state in every way, like churches are supposed to be. I don't like corporate money flowing into our federal government. It isn't right and even if they can't vote, they have a ghost vote that is exponentially worth more than ours. Thanks for being so normal about it. I was kind of expecting you to be one of those teabaggers I see holding signs and foaming at the mouth. I'm so glad you guys aren't like that.
enantiodromiaFeb 13, 2010
Did I call someone a teabagger? I'm certain I did not.Did the mean people on the TV hurt your feelings? :(
herojonFeb 13, 2010
Not sure if this was a direct reply to me or more to Libertarians in general. So you base how conservative or liberal a nation is solely on social programs. Fair enough that was all I was asking. Now it seems you are assuming I am a hardcore libertarian tea party nut job. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm wouldn't even call myself a libertarian. I didn't cast a write in vote for Ron Paul. I don't align with political parties. I cast my votes on an individual basis and will only vote for someone I feel is trustworthy and doesn't have corporate funding feeding them. Now that that's out of the way, you seemed to rant but didn't even address anything I said directly. Instead you apparently were trying to shout what with your capitalized words here and there and your emphasis on adjectives and adverbs. Therefore, I'm not going to waste time trying to have a rational discussion with you since you seem to be set in your ways and locked into an agenda. No point trying to rationalize with someone who has that frame of mind.
card51shortFeb 14, 2010
OMG A RACIST CABAL OF POLITICIANS ARE TAKING OVER!!!1Junkyarddawg, seriously man, is anything NOT a right wing conspiracy of doom and evil to you? Do you realize how much of a conspiracy nut you sound like every single day on here?Oh, right, but it's the OTHER side...DEY MUSS ALL BE EVIL AND MY SIDE IS ALL GOOD1111!Very adult, civil, unbiased and rational thinking you have when it comes to politics!11MY SIDE = GOODDERE SIDE = BAD (and wacist!)
suricouFeb 14, 2010
"Liberalism is a mental disorder."That's exactly what Stalin said about his political opponents too. Then he had them locked up in asylums.At least you're taking your lessons from one of the most politically-skilled of the oppressive dictators. There's a man who knew how to stifle dissent effectively.
govtdoesnotworkFeb 16, 2010
They haven't stepped in very effectively so far. In both the Enron & Madoff cases, those who blew the whistle first (and were ignored by "professional" government regulators) were the competition. The government's response to incompetent regulation? More money for regulatory agencies + 0 fired. What could go wrong in the future, with "consequences" like that?
al3efromanMar 2, 2010
@kasha34 Please provide the actual quote