"Class Warfare"

[Cardinal Fang]

Anyone in these forums? Any data showing a nationwide pattern? If you're just talking about your circle of friends, you realize that that's meaningless.

Those names were not from my circle of friends. They were a rhetorical slap-in-the-face for the silliness of the original question. If you are meanwhile not aware of a massive increase iin the numbers of people claiming all of a sudden to be libertarians, you haven't been paying any attention.

Even if that was true, how would that make them phonies?

What makes them phony is the fact that they are not now and never have been libertarians. They are mere right-wing rubes who were cheerleaders for all nine yards of the neocon agenda, but after seeing a dismally failed economy piled on top of dismally failed wars, they are not willing to face the music or endure any of the we told you so's that they so richly deserve. So the smarmy little cowards try to hide out behind the best nearby cover they can find, and that's where 100% of their latter-day libertarianism comes from. Never came across any of those folks?

 

[Cardinal Fang]

I believe his point is Bush drove many conservative minded people towards libertarianism,, but that in of itself does not make them phonies.

Au contraire. It merely adds neocons to the phoniness list. They weren't real neocons then, and they aren't real libertarians now. Cheerleader-bots they could rightfully claim to be. But not much else.

 

[Cardinal Fang]

then there are people like you who try to pretend that the rich should pay more because they use more

Have you noticed any correlation between the posting of such arguments and the incidence of your own false claims that the rich derive trivial benefits from government spending? Sometimes you even betray your own understanding of the insincerity of such claims by refering to "direct" benefits.

 

[ARealConservative]

Au contraire. It merely adds neocons to the phoniness list. They weren't real neocons then, and they aren't real libertarians now. Cheerleader-bots they could rightfully claim to be. But not much else.

You are a new person around here so you can continue to speak from ignorance if you like, but I know for a fact that many people like me were extremely critical of the foreign policy in the last decade. Progressives once agreed with me on these issues, but now that Obama is waging the same basic policy, everything seems to be smoothed over.

So I disagree very heavily on who the actual phonies are.

 

[haymarket]

Do you have any evidence to back up those accusations?

Sure - just look at how the Libertarian party has done in the last several presidential elections. Just look up how many members of Congress got voted in on the Libertarian Party ticket. Just look up how many members elected to State legislatures have got elected on the Libertarian Party ticket.

 

[mpg]

Those names were not from my circle of friends. They were a rhetorical slap-in-the-face for the silliness of the original question. If you are meanwhile not aware of a massive increase iin the numbers of people claiming all of a sudden to be libertarians, you haven't been paying any attention.


What makes them phony is the fact that they are not now and never have been libertarians. They are mere right-wing rubes who were cheerleaders for all nine yards of the neocon agenda, but after seeing a dismally failed economy piled on top of dismally failed wars, they are not willing to face the music or endure any of the we told you so's that they so richly deserve. So the smarmy little cowards try to hide out behind the best nearby cover they can find, and that's where 100% of their latter-day libertarianism comes from. Never came across any of those folks?

I know very few self described libertarians, and the ones I know have been libertarians since the 80s. I think that the vast majority of libertarians don't even realize that they're libertarians.

 

[Catawba]

So the military is part of the government? Whodathunkit?

I don't know what your smartass comment is supposed to mean.

 

[mpg]

Everything I have read about libertarians is that they believe in a small government. Spending almost as much of the rest of the world combined on the military is not small government.

Barry Goldwater was pro-choice on abortion. According to your logic, he wasn't a conservative.

 

[Catawba]

Barry Goldwater was pro-choice on abortion. According to your logic, he wasn't a conservative.

Small government is the predominate philosophy of the Libertarian party. Pro-life is not the predominate philosophy of the Conservative party.

Besides:

"Throughout the 1970s, he opposed abortion on demand and taxpayer funding of abortions."

The Claremont Institute - The Goldwater Myth

 

[mpg]

Small government is the predominate philosophy of the Libertarian party. Pro-life is not the predominate philosophy of the Conservative party

You can be in favor of a small government and a large military because the military is only part of the government, just as pro-life is only part of conservatism. Did I really need to explain that?

 

[Catawba]

You can be in favor of a small government and a large military because the military is only part of the government, just as pro-life is only part of conservatism. Did I really need to explain that?

We spend almost as much of the rest of the world combined on military. What other government program do we spend as much on as the rest of the world combined?

 

[mpg]

We spend almost as much of the rest of the world combined on military. What other government program do we spend as much on as the rest of the world combined?

None that I know of. Why do you ask?

 

[Catawba]

None that I know of. Why do you ask?

Just trying to get you to see what the biggest and most wasteful part of our government is.

 

[TurtleDude]

Just trying to get you to see what the biggest and most wasteful part of our government is.

your assumption that biggest=most wasteful is specious. It also ignores the fact that military expenditures are both constitutional and have lead to many secondary benefits. SPending on NASA, and aerospace created tons of ever decreasing in cost CNC machinery that have now revolutionized civilian markets

 

[Catawba]

your assumption that biggest=most wasteful is specious. It also ignores the fact that military expenditures are both constitutional and have lead to many secondary benefits. SPending on NASA, and aerospace created tons of ever decreasing in cost CNC machinery that have now revolutionized civilian markets

The constitution specifies defense, not world hegemony. Check with some libertarians to learn the distinction between the two.

 

[TurtleDude]

The constitution specifies defense, not world hegemony. Check with some libertarians to learn the distinction between the two.

So who elected you general of the armies so as to give you expertise on when one turns to the other?

 

[Catawba]

So who elected you general of the armies so as to give you expertise on when one turns to the other?

I go with the libertarian distinction. Spending as much as the rest of the world combined is not necessary for defense. You don't know any libertarians you could ask?

 

[TurtleDude]

I go with the libertarian distinction. Spending as much as the rest of the world combined is not necessary for defense. You don't know any libertarians you could ask?

The war that is the biggest waste of resources is the war on poverty. But I have called for removing lots of US military personnel from other nations. We don't need a big force in GErmany these days for example

 

[Catawba]

The war that is the biggest waste of resources is the war on poverty. But I have called for removing lots of US military personnel from other nations. We don't need a big force in GErmany these days for example

We didn't spent a fraction on the war on poverty that we have spent on the military industrial complex and veterans care for life.

 

[TurtleDude]

We didn't spent a fraction on the war on poverty that we have spent on the military industrial complex and veterans care for life.

we have created millions of dependency addicts which cost us billions that you can not account for

from the crime to those who are wards of the state not paying taxes

 

[Catawba]

we have created millions of dependency addicts which cost us billions that you can not account for

from the crime to those who are wards of the state not paying taxes

Not paying a living wage for full-time work is what creates poverty. The "job creators" prefer that you pay taxes to supplement their wages.

 

[Neomalthusian]

Not paying a living wage for full-time work is what creates poverty.

Poverty is not "created" by inaction on the part of governments or companies. It exists naturally as a consequence of being idle or stupid. Sit there and do nothing, and poverty will invariably result. Be stupid with your resources (e.g., exchange them for temporary gratification), and poverty will invariably result. People in poverty are responsible for their poverty.

 

[Catawba]

Poverty is not "created" by inaction on the part of governments or companies. It exists naturally as a consequence of being idle or stupid. Sit there and do nothing, and poverty will invariably result. Be stupid with your resources (e.g., exchange them for temporary gratification), and poverty will invariably result. People in poverty are responsible for their poverty.

There are only 3 ways to avoid poverty:

working full-time for a living wage
welfare
crime

Take your pick!

 

[Neomalthusian]

There are only 3 ways to avoid poverty:

working full-time for a living wage
welfare
crime

Take your pick!

Don't dodge a confrontation of your previous silly post. There is no one "creating poverty" out there, except the people who are living in it because of their own inaction or stupidity. I have enough money that technically I could hire someone to do something for me. Is the fact that I DON'T an act of creation of poverty upon someone who is unemployed and might perform that hypothetical job duty for me? Of course not.

If anyone out there is "creating poverty," it's the morons who are already pretty much living in poverty and opting to have children despite deplorably insufficient means to adequately provide for them. The breeders are the poverty creators, if anyone is.

By the way, a great deal of criminals and people receiving welfare are under the poverty line. So welfare and crime are not actually "ways to avoid poverty." You're just making it up as you go, as usual.

 

[Catawba]

Don't dodge a confrontation of your previous silly post. There is no one "creating poverty" out there, except the people who are living in it because of their own inaction or stupidity. I have enough money that technically I could hire someone to do something for me. Is the fact that I DON'T an act of creation of poverty upon someone who is unemployed and might perform that hypothetical job duty for me? Of course not.

If anyone out there is "creating poverty," it's the morons who are already pretty much living in poverty and opting to have children despite deplorably insufficient means to adequately provide for them. The breeders are the poverty creators, if anyone is.

By the way, a great deal of criminals and people receiving welfare are under the poverty line. So welfare and crime are not actually "ways to avoid poverty." You're just making it up as you go, as usual.

How does one avoid poverty if he is not paid a wage he can live on for full-time work? Why do you suppose there are so many now with college educations working full-time jobs and receiving welfare. That's because there are not enough jobs that pay above minimum wage, regardless of education level, to hire everyone. You know those new jobs that Perry liked to brag about? Most of them were minimum wage jobs.

As long as people cannot work for a "living", we will have either welfare or crime. Its your choice.

For myself I prefer people working for a living.