governments role in libertarian theory is to enforce property rights.

i feel like i am in uni again.

Partial, but true. And how does that happen? How does a libertarian policy government protect individual rights?

The majority of his policies would never stand a chance making it through Congress. His budget proposal would decimate funding for a lot of worthwhile projects. Not to mention erasing 1 trillion from the economy would shrink the economy by basically 1 trillion. There is no way the private sector would come close to filling that right away. The private sector already has trillions in cash. Even if you believe that is the appropriate size of the government in the long-run this would still be absolutely devastating in the short to medium run. That's not an emergency landing, that's a fucking kamikaze landing.

Let me clarify that, the average American Libertarian Party member's mindset in it's strictest sense. I'm aware that there are different types of libertarians. Shit, there's libertarian communists, but we're talking about the "keep your government hands out of my medicaid" libertarians.

It seems we could be headed for a kamikaze landing as it is:

Reuters - "U.S. rating likely to be downgraded again" (10/23/2011)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...79M2J120111023

At this point, I don't believe we have the luxury of asking whether or not something is "worthwhile." Instead, the question should be if it's absolutely necessary. :2 cents: His economic proposal is not as drastic as you're making it out to be. No cuts to social security or medicare, and decreasing defense only to 2006 levels. People are fed up enough that I could see something like this actually passing Congress.

Cutting the budget does not "erase" wealth from the economy. The government doesn't have any money which was not orginally taken from the economy though taxation, borrowing, or the "printing" (devaluation) of money. It doesn't create wealth, only redistributes it.

Radical budget cuts like that mean massive lay-offs for government workers, which means higher unemployment rates, which means less money flowing through the economy. Ron Paul would like to turn this recession into a depression based on his flawed ideaologies.


Aren't those the same credit rating agencies who gave a AAA rating to credit default swaps and CDOs? It's another lame attempt by wallstreet to bend the citizens of this country to their will and it's disgusting. Fuck those credit rating agencies.

Dude that's my point...lol
If anybody has to struggle to "understand" any political "theory" then it's not practical.

If a million people considered themselves to all be Libertarians...and one guy (like you for instance) tells them "no, you're not following libertarian theory"...
Then WHO is right?

LOL! I'm gonna go with the 1 million practicing "Libertarians" over the one guy talking "theory" everyday of the week.

You know what I'm saying. A political philosophy is only what people make of it. And Ron Paul is as close to what myself and millions of others believe to be Libertarian as we are going to see in this political season.

To ME...a Libertarian is someone who believes in freedom from govt. interference.

I don't believe the govt. has any rights to tell you what you can do with your own body for instance (drug use, etc.)
I don't believe the govt. has any rights to take my property or to tax me and give it to foreign countries in the form of foreign aid.
I don't believe the govt. has any rights to take my money and give it to poor people.

Those are just my thoughts. Nothing more. Arguments can be made against everything I said there. Good arguments. But bottom line is... i believe in individual FREEDOM.
And that's why I tend to think of myself as somewhat Libertarian...even if it doesn't fit a pre-conceived "theory" of Libertarianism. :)

I'm no American so I might not be eligible to comment, but maybe an outsider's comment is something that can point out some alternative thoughts. I think that you guys are focusing on small things in Ron Paul's policies. Yes, I think that abortion is a small thing, as well as marijuana legalization and other Ron Paul's points comparing to the big things such as wars that are bankrupting Americans and awful economic policy. These are the 2 main things that only Ron Paul amongst other candidates is addressing. If you can sort these two things out you can then debate wether or not to allow abortions and legalize marijuana and so on.

i have to say even some of the people who called themselfs to have Libertarian views sound kinda miss guided here.

1. as a person with Libertarian values i don't oppose world is globalizing, nations are closely started to know eachother , communication and information technologies are improving, this is not against Libertarian ideas but actually we're siding by it, because we support free trade and stuff.

2. i believe Bill8's statemen has made with good intention but his post is missing so many points.



Even though this earth had so many problems and political bullshit to overcome, we actually kinda going twoards Libertarianism and this wont be just in the hand of political parties but with technology and economy.

Some people here and commen have to learn that wellfare state has no place to live anymore, if anyone still saying otherwise and believing is misssleading Him/Herself or other people as welll, welfare state is going bye bye, people need to learn acting smarther, sorry to say this but if You have too mutch trust for government, don't cry when social state logic is completely gone or in an imurgency situation.

let me explain how we're going twoards Libertarianism and how actually we base our arguements to real events.

legitimet government: there is no legitimet government, as a humanity our needs and social evolution will clerify when the abolish state mechanism completely, but at first we have to reduce it's roll on individual's life, so firstly we should pull it the minarchy level.

how this will happen?

a. governments will have to compete due to globalism because pressed ones easyly can move somewhere else and and when governments lose well educated and rich ones, it's not good for them.

B. flexibility on economics, going twoards free market, reducing taxation,
more acception of gay and lesbian couples, a bit more flexible drug policy, privatization, alternative marriage contracts,destroying teocracies/dictatorships and and greatest invention of this age (internet),it's already happenning.

C. unlike some old fassion brains think police kinda privatized already, subdevisions/sub cities, Universities, companies have their own security staff, private security companies already handking this which You can see as biggining of a reality.

D. oil based economic and Nation states are collapsing, so this all kinda showing us that we need of a Livertarian understanding.


i also should mention that Robbie summed it up very well why we have Libertarian views on things :2 cents:

I already said that libertarian's cant govern - in part because it's a very demanding system that requires a smart well educated populace.

But, if millions of people think they are libertarian, but they are wrong, as any quick study of libertarianism will show them, that's an indicator of how stupid we have become as a nation, not a commentary on the original libertarian ideas.

We have allowed ourselves to distort - and allow the media and media owners to distort - the meaning of words, and to use language to deceive instead of to inform.

That's why libertarians can't govern - beause people WON'T be responsible for themselves, because they won't educate themselves, and because they passively allow others to distort their language and make them dumber than they have to be.

It's a shame too because actual libertarian theory and ideas are halfway interesting.

It doesn't matter really, arguably you are right, the people who are calling plutocratic republicanism "libertarian" do control the popular mind, so what we will get is this bastardized mutation that people call 'libertarian' but which is the exact opposite of the origianl 'classic' libertarianism and it's modern variants.

I don't think there's enough Ron Paul threads on the front page.