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"What is a Libertarian?" - John Stossel Show

That, at least, is not fiat money.
Which is one reason the government came down hard on them. But that's the topic of another thread.
 
Which is one reason the government came down hard on them. But that's the topic of another thread.

Yes. And an intersting one at that.
 
There are consevative governments and liberal governments, has there ever been any libertarian governments?

Governments inherently don't like to empower individuals. They'd much rather empower themselves, and we allow them the ability to do it. Vote for candidates that wish to empower the individual instead of wanting to complicate his/her life.
 
Follow the money, honey. Libertarians are a wholey owned subsidiary of the no good sons of Birchers.

Covert Operations
Read more The billionaire Koch brothers’ war against Obama : The New Yorker

Koch Industries - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

These two brothers, Charles and David Koch aren't just bad for your health, they're just plain bad, as in Anarcho Totalitarian bad. It's time the country knew who is really footing the bill for all the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-regulations, anti-environment, anti-climate change, anti-human, anti-Obama, anti-American people, and the so called tea party bowel movement. It's none other than the suck Koch brothers and they are single handedly destroying this country.

Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2010 | OpenSecrets

I do follow the money, very closely. Based on this data, I would vote for a republican before I'd vote for a democrat.
 
I was quoting William F. Buckley's interpretation of the Koch brothers libertarian philosophy. So I'm just guessing but I think the way Buckley meant Anarcho Totalitarian" was, "no government, corporate control." So Libertarians better be careful what they wish for or they might just get it. Cuz, these guys mean business with a capital B. I'm already seeing their anti-tax ads on TV.

When has a corporation ever held control over YOUR life? How about the government?
 
conspiracyq.jpg

The Koch brothers are too busy fighting with each other to do much damage.

Well, it is my understanding there are four brothers and two have complete control over Koch industries and the other two were bought out and no longer involved in the business. The two that control Koch Industries, David and Charles can and are doing a lot of damage not only to the environment but to the entire country.

I didn't see the picture you posted, so what was it of?
 
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When has a corporation ever held control over YOUR life? How about the government?
When the corporation built and tried to hide it's shoddy product and their product injured and/or killed people. Or when the corporation poured millions of gallons of chemicals into water system and people got chronically sick. Or when the corporations pollute the air and people can't go outside or breath without inhalers. Thats how a corporation can hold control over MY life.

The local and state government directly effects my life a lot more than the federal government. Does that answer your questions?
 
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When the corporation built and tried to hide it's shoddy product and their product injured and/or killed people. Or when the corporation poured millions of gallons of chemicals into water system and people got chronically sick. Or when the corporations pollute the air and people can't go outside or breath without inhalers. Thats how a corporation can hold control over MY life.

The local and state government directly effects my life a lot more than the federal government. Does that answer your questions?

Hmmm.

The corporation built and tried to hide what shoddy product from you that injured and/or killed who? And which which water system did you find millions of gallons of chemicals and who got sick? Which polluted air from which corporation did you breath that forced you to rely on inhalers for daily oxygen intake?

Where any of these instances tried in court? Did the corporations pay for their damages, and were they forced to clean up their mess?

And I understand that local and state government can affect you tremendously. But at least you're free to move to another local or state area that may offer you the freedoms you desire. When the fed blankets the entire country with a one-size-fits-all policy or regulation, it can have devastating consequences on everybody, and there would be no where to go in this world of jealous nations.
 
A libertarian government:

Defends the nations borders. That's the principal reason free people form governments.

Protects people's freedom to own property, by enacting and enforcing laws that punish physical aggression, theft, and fraud.

Establishes an honest judiciary system that judges criminals and metes out their punishment, and also serves as the independent body that enforces civil law and interprets contracts.

It's not hard establishing a libertarian government. The hard part is limiting the human beings who become the government from acquiring and wielding power outside libertarian limits.

Libertarian government does not exist to "do good" or to "help people". That's the job of the individual person who wants to be that way.

Libertarian government does not exist to "protect people from themselves". Libertarianism says that if some damn fool wants to stick firecrackers up his ass and set them off, that's his business. It's also his business to pay the doctor who sews his ass back together.

A libertarian government will say that it's wrong for a man who works to be forced to pay the support of those who will not work. Captain John Smith said that at Jamestown Colony long ago, as this nation was being formed.
 
When the corporation built and tried to hide it's shoddy product and their product injured and/or killed people. Or when the corporation poured millions of gallons of chemicals into water system and people got chronically sick. Or when the corporations pollute the air and people can't go outside or breath without inhalers. Thats how a corporation can hold control over MY life.

The local and state government directly effects my life a lot more than the federal government. Does that answer your questions?

You live in a place where you have to wear a gas mask to go outside? Where is that?
 
Hmmm.

The corporation built and tried to hide what shoddy product from you that injured and/or killed who? And which which water system did you find millions of gallons of chemicals and who got sick? Which polluted air from which corporation did you breath that forced you to rely on inhalers for daily oxygen intake?

Where any of these instances tried in court? Did the corporations pay for their damages, and were they forced to clean up their mess?

And I understand that local and state government can affect you tremendously. But at least you're free to move to another local or state area that may offer you the freedoms you desire. When the fed blankets the entire country with a one-size-fits-all policy or regulation, it can have devastating consequences on everybody, and there would be no where to go in this world of jealous nations.


Koch Industries produces and puts formaldehyde in pressed wood and insulation that is used to build homes and offices. David Koch, was appointed by Bush to sit on the advisory board of the National Cancer Institute while his company Koch Industries spent millions to lobby against classifying formaldehyde as a cancer causing carcinogen. Formaldehyde off gassing in homes and offices would have a direct effect on the quality of my life and yours.

Company Owned By Cancer Research Donor Lobbied Against Designation of Formaldehyde as Carcinogen - ProPublica

Formaldehyde | Indoor Air Quality | US EPA

I have a vested interest in where I live and in my country, so if you don't like my exercising my constitutional rights to protect my health and property, then likewise, you are more than free to move yourself to a country that doesn't have environmental/consumer protections and regulations or the protected right to free speech.
 
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Well, suit yourself. But based on that data I would never vote for a Libertarian that had any connection to the Birchers or was even remotely funded by the Koch brothers.
The only time I ever even hear about the Birchers is at gun shows. I haven't seen them in or around anything libertarian. I'm surprised they're even still around. They can probably have their convention in a phone booth.
 
Well, suit yourself. But based on that data I would never vote for a Libertarian that had any connection to the Birchers or was even remotely funded by the Koch brothers.

So, you'll NEVER vote for a democrat or a republican or a libertarian, right?

And nobody cares about the Birchers! The Birchers are not even representative of the Libertarian philosophy. Libertarians are non-religious, and some of the more famous libertarians were down-right atheist. Try being an atheist member of the JBS.
 
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Koch Industries produces and puts formaldehyde in pressed wood and insulation that is used to build homes and offices. David Koch, was appointed by Bush to sit on the advisory board of the National Cancer Institute while his company Koch Industries spent millions to lobby against classifying formaldehyde as a cancer causing carcinogen. Formaldehyde off gassing in homes and offices would have a direct effect on the quality of my life and yours.

Company Owned By Cancer Research Donor Lobbied Against Designation of Formaldehyde as Carcinogen - ProPublica

Formaldehyde | Indoor Air Quality | US EPA

I have a vested interest in where I live and in my country, so if you don't like my exercising my constitutional rights to protect my health and property, then likewise, you are more than free to move yourself to a country that doesn't have environmental/consumer protections and regulations or the protected right to free speech.

That simply isn't true, because the EPA classified it as a known human carcinogen in the late 1990s, and Koch is not the only company to use the substance in construction material. Formaldehyde is used extensively in the Woodworking and cabinet-making industries. Formaldehyde is used in the glues which bond particle-board together. The particle board is used underneath wood veneer and plastic laminate. Cabinets, bank counters, and veneered & laminated woodwork of all sorts, use particle board containing formaldehyde under the plastic laminate and wood veneer. And generally, the levels of formaldehyde that housing residents are exposed to is quite low. There's more of a danger with the woodworkers who are being exposed to the fumes of heating the glue underneath the wood veneer.

You seem to really hate Koch, and that's fine. I personally don't see any reason to like them, based on their track record. But how about some other industries? Just for the sake of not beating a dead horse, can we move on to discussing another evil, greedy corporation?

And I specifically said that if you weren't happy with the local area in which you currently reside, there are many places to go in America. Each state is truly unique, and every county and town is even more personable. That's the great thing about decentralization. There's plenty of room for some states to experiment with new ideas while a complete freedom of mobility allows the individual to settle where he or she wishes to call home. However, if you continue to empower the central government over the state government, then you're asking for blanket conformity. And if the country ever becomes that discouraging, across the board, there are few places left to go in this world of jealous nations. I NEVER said you should pack up and leave the U.S.A. if you're not happy. I was making a comparison of federalism and decentralization.
 
I especially like one point by the lady in the second video: we should open up cottage industries and make them legal!

Interesting videos. I enjoyed seeing how Libertarians present themselves when they are allowed to expound their ideas unchallenged. I know that the people on the show only represent one branch of libertarianism, the right-wing, pro-capitalist version, but their particular take on liberty, especially in relation to social inequality and treatment of the poor was astonishing in its lack of analysis on where responsibility for the welfare of the people comes from. One contributor made the issue really clear. They believe that the way out of poverty is through one of two routes: growth-based, free-market economic models - if the economy grows, everyone benefits, with no real answer to the question: if the economies fail to deliver growth, what then? The second route is family - families helping familes, ignoring the question, if you have no family, what then?

The boogie man for this kind of libertarian is the Government. Not one of them addressed the issue of the corporate control of the everyday lives of the individual. The intrusions into everyday life of privately-owned corporations are as many and as severe as Government intrusions. Your kid goes to a private school? A private corporation controls your kid's education. You want to eat food that's healthy and safe? Private corporations work everyday to limit the choice of food outlets in many medium- and small-sized communities, places where a generation ago you'd choose from three or four butchers or greengrocers on the high street, you now have just one major chain supermarket, which has put the small suppliers out of business, providing no choice of product. The list of examples of the control exerted by the corporate culture over private lives is inexhaustable and these right-libertarians have no agenda for freeing the private citizen from this privatized version of Big Government.
 
So, you'll NEVER vote for a democrat or a republican or a libertarian, right?

And nobody cares about the Birchers! The Birchers are not even representative of the Libertarian philosophy. Libertarians are non-religious, and some of the more famous libertarians were down-right atheist. Try being an atheist member of the JBS.
Have you ever heard of Cleon Skousen?

Willard Cleon Skousen (January 20, 1913 – January 9, 2006) was an American author and conservative American Constitutionalist and faith-based political theorist. He was also prolific popularizer among Latter-day Saints of their theology. A notable anti-communist and supporter of the John Birch Society,[1] Skousen's works involved a wide range of subjects including the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, and even parenting.[2] His most popular works are The 5,000 Year Leap and The Naked Communist.....snip


In fall of 2007, political commentator Glenn Beck began promoting The 5,000 Year Leap on his show, describing it as "divinely inspired" and written by someone "much more intelligent than myself".[32] That book claims that the U.S. Constitution was actually based on Christian virtue as well as Enlightenment philosophy.[8] Skousen's son Paul Skousen asked Beck to write the foreword for a new edition of the book. Texas Governor Rick Perry has also promoted the book.[33][34]

After Glenn Beck began promoting Skousen's The 5,000 Year Leap in March 2009, it went to number one in sales on the Amazon.com charts and stayed in the top 15 throughout the following summer. In September 2009, the book was being sold at 9-12 Project meetings and was often used as source material for 9-12 Project speakers.[8]

Cleon Skousen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interview with Katie Couric (at 1:45): "How would you describe your brand of politics? I don't know, ummm... libertarian, but I hack the libertarians off... I still believe in a strong national defence. Though I'm becoming more and more libertarian every day. YouTube - Glenn Beck.

Give it what ever label you want, but there's not a lot of difference between what Cleon Skousen preached and what the JBS preaches: "the commies are comin, the commies are comin." Fred Koch was co-founder of the JBS and his sons were raised as JBS Libertarians. The Koch brothers fund Reason Magazine whose editor, Nick Gillispe is the guy in your avatar and who wrote the "The Official Koch Industries Reply..." to Jane Mayer's article, "Covert Operations" in the New Yorker, an investigative journalist magazine. Charles and David Koch have their fingers in almost everything the US government does or doesn't do, especially when Bush was president. But now that Obama is president they are hell bent on destroying him. Anyway, I must say, for a Libertarian you don't seem very aware of who is the driving force behind all your opinions.


The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html?_r=1
 
And nobody cares about the Birchers! The Birchers are not even representative of the Libertarian philosophy. Libertarians are non-religious, and some of the more famous libertarians were down-right atheist. Try being an atheist member of the JBS.

Well, clearly quite a lot of Libertarians care about the JBS. Are you being deliberately flippant or consciously misleading when you say, "Libertarians are non-religious"? Which libertarians? What branch of the philosophy? What, all of them? Perhaps your particular sect are, but I'm guessing you aren't the spokeman for Libertarianism (TM) worldwide.
 
That simply isn't true, because the EPA classified it as a known human carcinogen in the late 1990s, and Koch is not the only company to use the substance in construction material. Formaldehyde is used extensively in the Woodworking and cabinet-making industries. Formaldehyde is used in the glues which bond particle-board together. The particle board is used underneath wood veneer and plastic laminate. Cabinets, bank counters, and veneered & laminated woodwork of all sorts, use particle board containing formaldehyde under the plastic laminate and wood veneer. And generally, the levels of formaldehyde that housing residents are exposed to is quite low. There's more of a danger with the woodworkers who are being exposed to the fumes of heating the glue underneath the wood veneer.
I'm not really interested in a long discussion about formaldehyde to derail the topic. You asked me how corporations directly effect my life and I gave you an example using the Koch Industries to prove my point. Whether or not you accept my answer is not my problem because the fact of the matter is corporations can and do directly effect my life and yours, whether you care to admit it or not....

How Senator Vitter Battled the EPA Over Formaldehyde’s Link to Cancer - ProPublica

Eww gawd, Sen. David Vitter, that figures, now there's a real ahem, "family values" <cough, cough> republican if ever there was one. Not.


And I specifically said that if you weren't happy with the local area in which you currently reside, there are many places to go in America. Each state is truly unique, and every county and town is even more personable. That's the great thing about decentralization. There's plenty of room for some states to experiment with new ideas while a complete freedom of mobility allows the individual to settle where he or she wishes to call home. However, if you continue to empower the central government over the state government, then you're asking for blanket conformity. And if the country ever becomes that discouraging, across the board, there are few places left to go in this world of jealous nations. I NEVER said you should pack up and leave the U.S.A. if you're not happy. I was making a comparison of federalism and decentralization.
Thanks, but I think I'll stay right where I am and fight for what for what I believe in, cuz that's just the way I am. And as far as decentralization goes, no thanks. I like the idea of a central government protecting my rights and personal freedom from the infringement and tyranny of the states. So thank God for the Constitution and the central government that enforces it or my state would be the nuclear waste dumping ground for the world and all it's natural wonders and resources would be long gone into the hands of a few self serving, no good SOB's that think they own the state legislature and can do anything they want, where ever they want and to whoever they want.
 
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Well, clearly quite a lot of Libertarians care about the JBS. Are you being deliberately flippant or consciously misleading when you say, "Libertarians are non-religious"? Which libertarians? What branch of the philosophy? What, all of them? Perhaps your particular sect are, but I'm guessing you aren't the spokeman for Libertarianism (TM) worldwide.
Ron Paul is religious, but he doesn't use his religion to get elected or beat people over the head with and I respect him for that.
 
The only time I ever even hear about the Birchers is at gun shows. I haven't seen them in or around anything libertarian. I'm surprised they're even still around. They can probably have their convention in a phone booth.
Well, maybe you just weren't paying attention.....


".....Worried about hyperinflation, social unrest or even martial law, she and her Tea Party members joined a coalition, Friends for Liberty, that includes representatives from Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project, the John Birch Society, and Oath Keepers, a new player in a resurgent militia movement...."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/us/politics/16teaparty.html?pagewanted=1&hp

You can check the Friends for Liberty's affiliates and see the John Birch Society are on their list, and right below it, the Libertarians-Washington.....
Friends For Liberty

...The reaction to Obama has also radicalized parts of the conservative movement, giving life to conspiracy theories long buried and strains of thinking similar to those espoused by the John Birch Society and other right-wing groups in the 1950s and '60s. ....

The rise of the Tea Party movement is a throwback to an old form of libertarianism that sees most of the domestic policies that government has undertaken since the New Deal as unconstitutional. It typically perceives the most dangerous threats to freedom as the design of well-educated elitists out of touch with "American values."

In its extreme antipathy to the power of the federal government, this movement may prove to be threatening to the Republicans in what should otherwise be a good year for the party...

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/75680/birch-and-barry
.
 
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