Talking Libertarianism

This is from the 1988 GOP platform:

“These liberals call America’s prosperity an illusion.”
“That is the liberals’ way of replacing collective bargaining with congressional edicts about what’s good for employees.”
“Despite opposition from liberals in the Congress, we have at least slowed the expansion of federal
control.”
“Republicans believe . . . that the God-given rights of the family come before those of government. That
separates us from liberal Democrats.”
“In the 1960s and 1970s, the family bore the brunt of liberal attacks on everything the American people
cherished.”
“We will not allow liberal Democrats to imperil the other gains the elderly have made during the Reagan-Bush Administration.”
“Homelessness demonstrates the failure of liberalism.”
“Despite opposition from liberal Democrats, we’ve made a start.”
“It was fueled by the liberal attitudes of the 1960s and 1970s that tolerated drug usage.”

The 1992 platform:

“Yet, in 1992, when the self-governing individual has overcome the paternalistic state, liberals here at
home simply do not get it.”
“For more than three decades, the liberal philosophy has assaulted the family on every side.”
“That is why today’s liberal Democrats are hostile toward any institution government cannot control, like
private childcare or religious schools.”
“Over the last several decades, liberal Democrats have increasingly shifted economic burdens onto the
American family.”
“Indeed, the liberal Democrat tax-and-spend policies have forced millions of women into the workplace
just to make ends meet.”
“We also believe that powerful unions and liberal special interest groups should not be the driving force in education reform.”
“Decades of liberalism have left us with two economies.”
“That is why liberal Democrats have fought us every step of the way, refusing congressional action on
Enterprise Zones until Los Angeles burned—and then mocking the expectations of the poor by gutting that critical proposal.”
“This is the legacy of a liberalism that elevates criminals’ fights above victims’ rights, that justifies soft-on crime judges’ approving early-release prison programs, and that leaves law enforcement officers powerless to deter crime with the threat of certain punishment.”
“We note that those who seek to disarm citizens in their homes are the same liberals who tried to disarm
our Nation during the Cold War and are today seeking to cut our national defense below safe levels.”
“But liberal Democrats still control a rigged machine that keeps on spending the public’ s money.”
“We stand with farmers against attempts by liberal Democrats to repeal the laws of economics by dictating
price levels and restricting production.”
“We oppose any attempt to impose a carbon tax as proposed by liberal Democrats.”
“Liberal Democrats think people are the problem.”
“Although the average family of four now pays $1,000 a year for environmental controls, liberal Democrats want to tighten the squeeze.”
“Rather than admit their mistakes of the past, the same liberal Democrats who sought to disarm America
against the Soviet threat now compound their errors with a new campaign—half audacity, half mendacity—to leave the Nation unprotected in a still dangerous word.”
“However, we oppose liberal Democrat attempts to place women in combat positions just to make an
ideological point.”

You can Google the GOP platforms for these years and search the page for the word liberal. They pretty much substituted liberal for socialist.

We shouldn’t have to qualify liberal or liberalism but yes, Classical Liberalism. The real shame is that in this age of identity politics and its attack on western civilization, the thing that can save us is the the thing that has been tainted. If you say, “liberalism is the answer to identity politics,” people will look at you and ask, “but aren’t they the liberals?” I find it almost disgusting when I hear people refer to Antifa as liberals. But then again, who is saying it?

1 Like

yea, exactly. They are masters at tainting and confusing the language. It’s an effective tactic - Thanks for the transcripts - reading through it I vaguely remember GOP using that phrasing.

1 Like

This essay is a few years old, but never more relevant.

1 Like

The workings of my political mind. I really hate little unenforceable rules.

sign2

People with active diarrhea are responsible for shutting the gate, which seems like an awfully big responsibility for such a small number of people.

If you have diarrhea, it seems like someone else should shut the gate, since you probably need to get yourself to the bathroom as fast as possible, right? Ha! Apparently they thought they’d combine two mandatory signs here.

Posting of this sign is mandatory in at home owner’s association/ or public pools in CA. We seem to love unenforceable government micromanagement.

1 Like

Maybe the gate they’re referring to is the sphincter? It’s perhaps more subtle than saying “don’t poop in our pool.”

3 Likes

@Basement_Gainz!! I didn’t think of that! So yucky.

You guys talking about YouTube earlier reminded me. Do any of you watch Styxenhammer666? I can’t get behind a lot of what he says about Trump (and other stuff), but I swear, sometimes that guy says something really profound.

I stumbled across him a couple of months ago doing political commentary. Arrogant philosophy grad student type of dude who seems to have something against t-shirts. Into the occult. Describes himself as a Minarchist. I know it seems unlikely, but I’m a little bit hooked.

Is your husband aware you’re watching pron?

I thought some of you might like him. This is Jonathan Pageau. He’s an Orthodox Icon carver who talks about symbolism. The talk is 47 minutes, but if you don’t have the time, at 19:20 to 27:00 he talks about Emancipation or Control in Western Civilization. You could substitute Freedom for the Individual, with Authoritarianism. It’s dark, but it kind of blew my mind.

Also, he talks about the YouTube phenomenon of political pundits gaining in popularity from about 31:00 to 36:00. Rogan, Saad, Rubin, Shapiro, Styx, JP, etc… He makes some comments about the shift in people moving away from the MSM.

porn? You mean styx’s chest? Yes, he’s aware. LOL!

1 Like

Indeed, one of the main reasons I fell in with libertarians is precisely because their vision of the world is predicated upon squeezing areas in which politics operates to its minimum so we can get on with living our lives. Even if we live to be 200 years old (and we will, someday!), life will always be too short to fight over which celebrity should vote for which candidate. If a public figure wants to use her fame to advance this or that cause, issue, or candidate, more power to them. But as basketball legend and recidivist public nuisance Charles Barkley put it way, way back in 1993, “I am not a role model.”

Ha!

From:

2 Likes

I was just about to read that article … I <3 T. Swizz :wink:

2 Likes

From the article above. Cool story. Big surprise at how this goes down. OK, none of you will be surprised.

"In 1972, when I was 4, we moved to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. My parents had joined a commune there called Skymont. They wanted to raise us in a spiritual, utopian society away from the rat race and closer to nature.

We lived in a cabin, and all seven of us slept in one room. There was no bathroom, running water or electricity. I liked that I got to run around wild and free.

Everyone in the commune looked down on ownership and had to contribute their income to the common good. Before long, we wound up living in intense poverty. We were so poor, the government dropped off food for us. When I outgrew my shoes, it took my mother days to find a pair someone else had outgrown.

After four years, the commune failed to become self-sufficient and we left…"

1 Like

The WSJ recently ran this article about Millennials, with some discouraging stats like these.

"In his 2016 survey for Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, 42% of younger Americans said they support capitalism, and only 19% identified themselves as capitalists. While this was a new question in his survey, the low percentage of young people embracing capitalism surprised him. He had come here, in part, to better understand why.

"‘Maybe it had to do with the ‘American Dream,’ and how capitalism was correlated with it, but a lot of young people don’t believe in it anymore,” said Ana Garcia, a junior at the Elon event. “We don’t trust capitalism because we don’t see ourselves getting ahead.’”

"…Young people across the generations tend to be viewed as more left-leaning than their elders. Underlying the millennial generation’s leftward tilt is angst about the future, Mr. Della Volpe said. In a new smaller Harvard survey, released Tuesday, 67% of those polled said they are more worried than hopeful about the direction of the country. The fall survey sampled 2,037 peopled aged 18 to 29 in live interviews.

“If something unites these young people,” Mr. Della Volpe said, “it’s fear,” driven by their perception that they have limited economic opportunities and that society as a whole has become more unequal."

These were a couple of the Letters to the Editor written in response. Both good, but the second one by Stuart MacLean, really struck me. So true.

“Capitalism Fails to Win Over Millennials” (U.S. News, Dec. 7) really strikes a nerve. The statistics aren’t surprising considering that our educational system from elementary school through graduate school fails to teach American history, civics and true political discourse.

I would like to know where the people quoted in your article think their cellphones, social-networking sites, TVs, computers, cars and pumpkin-spice lattes come from. Which government agency created those? No, it was the creativity, hard work and risk-taking of people very much like themselves who brought us these innovations. Many of these companies have now taken on social causes and have made a difference. Why not consider joining this movement instead of looking for more ways the government can control your life?

Not once in my early years and then into my earning years did I ever believe that the government should provide for my well-being and have a major role in my life. I always believed the government had a responsibility to take care of those who were unable to help themselves or through no fault of their own had run into very hard times.

Janice Semanek

Fayetteville, Pa.

If what we have is capitalism, I’m against it too. I remember when our coins contained silver, nickel and copper. They felt and sounded real. Today their feel and sound ring hollow. Such is the condition of capitalism today; hollowed out by the spending of big government, aligned with big banks, big business and big labor. What we have is not capitalism. What we have is 100-plus years of incremental socialism backed by our Federal Reserve banking system. That’s not capitalism, it’s socialism. If millennials are disillusioned, they would be better served by investigating capitalism to find out what it is. If you’re going to disparage capitalism, find out what it means.

Stuart MacLean

Portland, Ore.

1 Like
1 Like

Correlation =/= causation. But these two things seem to be correlated often.

1 Like

Makes me think of Austrian school - the 2nd letter.

1 Like

What’s funny is how the defenders of capitalism respond with, “what you are judging isn’t REAL capitalism.” It’s just like the defenders of socialism saying that the USSR wasn’t real socialism.

Just like it… ::roll_eyes:

Yes. They both point to their ideolgies on paper and disregard their ideolgies in practice.

The difference is that capitalism’s problems are caused when bits and pieces and chunks of socialism sneak in. Meanwhile, socialism’s problems are caused by socialism.

4 Likes