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Why Libertarians DOMINATE the net?
Lukac
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
I mean, I know like one in person (whom I met online, and he spends a lot of time online), but there are all sorts running around online that I come across.
Why is this? Are Libertarians really shy about their beliefs in person (somehow I doubt it)? Or do I happen to just frequent the sorts of places online that Libertarians would like? Or Are they just more vocal?
WHat about the anarcho-capitalists? it seems that they really exist only online
Why is this? Are Libertarians really shy about their beliefs in person (somehow I doubt it)? Or do I happen to just frequent the sorts of places online that Libertarians would like? Or Are they just more vocal?
WHat about the anarcho-capitalists? it seems that they really exist only online
Lukac on
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Similarly, I've always wondered why almost everyone online has an extremely nuanced view on their own religious beliefs that totally aren't associated with any mainstream ideologies.[/sarcasm]
The internet has a preponderance of universalists and objectivists.
EDIT: personally, I think having any kind of worldview that encompasses things like economic and civic theory is somewhat dangerous with some kind of education in those requisite fields.
Basically the internet's full of these guys:
despite the internet becoming a more mainstream place for everybody (see: Facebook), on some parts of the internet, especially in the nerdier parts (like this forum!) there's gonna be a lot of those guys
and to those guys, libertarianism and it's more retarded cousins seem pretty cool!
so they're really loud and outspoken and numerous
whereas
outside the internet, those kinds of dudes are often asocial, meek, snide, and espousing their views would require interacting with real people face to face and having to take responsibility for saying things like "well we should just stop helping poor people"
Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory
Espousing "Let the Poor die(or at least "Private Charity will prevent the poor from dying")" is a lot safer on the Internet, then in the real world.
Plus its a simple theory: "The Free Market will solve all ills if we just let it".
Without naming names, pretty much that whole explanation was derived from a specific "republican because I'm supposed to be" poster in a few political threads around here.
Interestingly, you don't see as much of the liberal equivalent, far enough left to be beyond the Democrat's scope and safe from blame when they screw the pooch. I think Pony's post gives a fair theory as to why.
additionally, how would you even identify them out in the real world? Are you just accosting people at coffee shops and asking their opinion on austrian economics?
also there's lots of these "let the poor fend for themselves" people in the real world, or have you not seen the republican party lately
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
As for the small business and independent contractor types, it focuses their anxiety on a single, definable enemy - government and its burdensome taxes. For someone who spends all their time obsessing about a very thin bottom line, the idea that eliminating taxes and regulations - which cost them a lot of money - is very appealing.
Of course, it's all bullshit, and their marginal businesses would fail even faster in a libertarian utopia. As with the small business hatred of minimum wage laws, the problem is less that there are evil government types trying to kill their businesses and more that we, as a society, encourage people to "take a risk" and become entrepreneurs when they really, really shouldn't.
It takes a lot of start-up capital, a solid business plan, a genuine demand for the product/service and the ability to ride through inevitable downturns to, as they say, "become your own boss." The vast majority of small business owners fail because they were never in a position to succeed in the first place.
And those people become libertarians because its easier to blame the government.
This is pretty much the short of it.
In more seriousness, I would be very interested to see if anyone has statistics on level of education/socioeconomic level compared to liberal/libertarian/conservative viewpoints.
It's been awhile since I've seen recent statistics, but the usually composite of a libertarian is white male, middle or upper middle class with a college education.
I don't have the graphs handy, but it goes something like:
- lowest income/education: trends Democrat, variances based on religion, race
- middle class: trends conservative, more GOP on the lower and more religious ends, more Libertarian on the higher end
- higher income: trends heavily GOP
- higher education: trends heavily liberal
the point is, both outlooks are pretty ridiculous and not at all realistic to someone who actually lives and exists and functions in the outside world. can't we all just meet in the middle? please?
My hypothesis (completely bereft of any actual evidence) is that level of education will be such that:
Least Educated: Conservative Values < More Educated: Libertarian Values < Most Educated: Liberal Values
Where Libertarian is a transitional state between being a Conservative and Getting A Clue :P
Face it, if anyone is going to buy into Objectivism, it's going to be white, middle class dudes who went from good schools into a business sector who's life blood/culture revolves around start ups.
The answer is in your phrasing of the question - the way that a bunch of fundamental misconceptions are phrased to make them seem like common sense truths - a hallmark of libertarian rhetoric. It's "no".
Back-to-work programs only work if there is suitable demand for jobs. Otherwise, it's just a smokescreen to allow government to kick people off public assistance, train them for nonexistent jobs and then blame them when they inevitably fail.
And since we've actually cut public assistance by a huge amount since the 1980s, doing so even more in the face of the worst recessions since the Great Depression would be both cruel and counterproductive, since it would further reduce the amount of capital in the economy and further depress demand, putting even more people out of work.
who's talking about cutting it? you may be speaking of the american system, of which, i'll be honest, i don't know too much about. i do know that in canada, we do take care of our citizens who have fallen on hard times, but one of our political parties (which seems a shoe-in for next federal eleciton) is espousing the belief that we should bump them up to a ridiculous degree. i don't know, that seems like it's not a very well-thought-out solution, just straight-up giving them more money on their cheques. then again, we don't have anything like food stamps or food-cards in this country to make sure people are spending their money appropriately, i think a simple step like that would go a long way to creating some kind of accountability in terms of how the funds are spent.
and, once again, i'm only speaking about cities which i've lived in and know well enough to make a judgment call on, but in my hometown (which i've just recently moved back to) there was a huge success with a back-to-work program about 2-3 years ago. then again, out here the job market is pretty much ALWAYS looking to hire new workers. may not be the same everywhere, but where it's possibly i greatly prefer tax dollars going into those kinds of programs (getting people work with the city, getting them PREPARED for work again, getting them into rehab/detox/treatment) than just blindly bumping up their take-home welfare.
i may just be jaded from seeing so many people abuse the system. and i'd be the first person to protest draining money from social assistance. what i'm saying is, that money could be better spent to help these people, rather than just throwing cash at them and hoping it figures itself out.
No offense, but you really need to have brought up the "in Canada" part in your original statement. None of this is the case in the American system, where entire politic movements - the Republicans, the Tea Party and libertarians - are based around the idea of cutting social assistance, and you could not say with a straight face that we take care of people who have fallen on hard times.
none taken, simple misunderstanding. i'll be sure to make references to molson beer and tobogganing in the future.
like i said, i don't know much about the american assistance system but the little i do know basically scares the shit out of me, and i'm not sure how anyone could justify cutting funds further aside from the "my parents gave me $50,000 to start a business" crowd.
Well, the graphs don't agree with you necessarily, but I'd wager the people in the heavily democratic-trending low-education levels (some HS or less) don't actually have all that much ideologically in common with their counterparts in the similarly-trending upper-education levels (post-grad or better, not counting MBAs).
Whatever the case, the strongholds of conservatism (at least educationally) are people with HS diplomas, some college, or only undergrad degrees.
Libertarian might be the transitional state between "generally being a uneducated dipshit" and "understanding why we have to pay taxes and support the middle class."
That's a long, frustrating discussion. Way more of it than most people are comfortable admitting boils down to the fact that the Republicans have run a 40 year stealth campaign identifying public assistance with "undeserving minorities" despite the fact that the majority of recipients are white. It's how you get elderly whites who are surviving on multiple forms of government assistance publicly agitating against "government handouts."
Canada also doesn't have millions of middle class families being impoverished by health care costs. Those are the major cause of bankruptcy in this nation, beyond even job loss.
You know I'll echo libertarians being most crazy about trusting corporations. Liberals don't trust the government, we see it as a means to an end, a necessity because humans aren't perfect and won't work together for mutual benefit without motivation. It fills a demand for civilization.
The difference between the two ideologies of liberal and libertarian are that if a libertarian says "but the government's use of the TSA violates your constitutional rights!" a liberal will respond with "yeah you're right, that's bullshit".
Contrast to when a liberal says "but corporations can just use their power to fuck you over" a libertarian desperately tries to handwave it away or deny that it even happens (the old chestnut "we don't need the FDA because a company wouldn't risk losing its customers by poisoning them", despite that being empirically false)
Except that "the middle" is not the halfway point between those espousing a moderate-left welfare state and the extreme anarcho-capitalist libertarians.
I'm not up on my Canadian politics (because, as an American, I don't have to be!) but here in the U.S., "meeting in the middle" has been turned into "let's compromise between the moderately conservative positions the Democratic Party endorses and the radical conservative positions the Republican Party endorses".
I'm astonished
Lot of overlap in that demographic with small business owners and contractors, I imagine.
see, here, we have a political party for 'the middle'. it's called the liberals.
it seems to me that neither of the major political parties you guys are stuck with seem to really have the slightest interest in what's best for the citizens of the country they're supposed to be running (beyond purposes of propaganda and getting them elected, of course). and that makes me sad.
It's funny. The two most hardcore libertarians I know are a woman whose dad set up her in a landscaping business after he got tired of her lushing it up on his dime for more than a decade and a man who married into a retail appliance business.
I mean there's no shortage of historical examples of states that existed only for self-defense, law enforcement, and contract enforcement, used a gold standard, and had very minimal government regulations.
The internet is a boon to those who have a very shallow understanding of the world around them.
QED, the internet is full of libertarians.
I think, more accurately, Libertarians understand perfectly how their ideology affects them, and fuck everyone else who doesn't want to play along.
A small business owner who sells custom ipod cases and bitches about public education isn't thinking through his position - people without accessible education can't afford to buy things like ipods and if they don't have ipods they don't buy cases for them, so they want to burn down the whole concept of public education
Contrast to the liberal position of "we need to fix education its broken, someday, if it's politically viable" or conservative "we don't like that you teach evolution in class or the absence of money going to private schools in your system"
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I meant, "understands how it would affect them . . . tomorrow." As in, "hey, now I make 30% more money just by not paying taxes!"
Not as in, "Oh, shit, there's no way I can compete in the marketplace now. Corporations have too much money."
They would all become corporately controlled entities, and any time you used one of those services you would just become a debt slave. Public school for your children? Sure, just sign on the dotted line and our helpful credit department will get in touch with you about setting up a lifetime account for your child. See how medical bills are today, and apply that to every single necessary service.
Basically insert any cyberpunk dystopia without the flying cars and nanotechnology
It was kinda cute when he bitched about having to pay tolls on his commute.
"They want me to pay for this fuckin' road I'm using? What the hell?!"
Losing every single state primary/caucus (yes, while getting a plurality of delegates at the convention in some cases) really has their nest on fire right now.