Mykonos

Lucifer, I can actually agree with you on a lot of points there. I've always been skeptical to communism for basically the reasons you stated, although I think we diverge at the point where you see more value in the individual while I see more value in the individual as part of the collective. And the collective to me includes people being able to reap the benefits that the state can offer them while being protected from the way the state can control them.

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'Not that Becktionary, the Rhyming Becktionary!'- Bender Bending Rodriguez

lucifer_sam

Exactly. You don't need to have the same interpretation of libertarianism that I do. So long as you are attempting to assure civil liberties for everyone, you're still going in the same direction as me. What more is there to argue about?

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first.am

hip hop bunny hop

Eh? The links are in my signature.

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Have mercy on the poor.

lucifer_sam

No, you silly man.

What arguments are you responding to? All I saw there was conservative dogma with no philosophical groundwork. Any response I make to that is going to be subject to your conceits as a writer, not a philosophical debate.

If you're familiar with these arguments, show me. Stop talking and say something.

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first.am

hip hop bunny hop

Eh? TAC isn't quite conservative dogma - it's the only major Paleoconservative publication out there, really. Wiki Link

Yes, and thank god for that! Philosophy as politics doesn't have a great track record, to say the least.

Anyways, three Libertarian positions (in the American context) I find to be retarded:

-returning to the gold standard
-advocating free trade
-advocating an open immigration policy

...although the creepy obsession with Ayn Rand makes my skin crawl, you claim not to read her, so...

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Have mercy on the poor.

Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra

Well, if immigration is open than we wouldn't have to hire illegal aliens because there would be any, and with everyone being paid minimum wage obviously it'd be a more balance labor market.

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Al Pacino = God

lucifer_sam

OK. I understand, you don't like philosophy as basis for politics. I'll try not going balls deep into it in this thread from here on out.

The gold standard was abandoned as a dissociative tool so that a globalized economy would be less susceptible to economic catastrophe. Libertarianism addresses this by advocating decentralization of public wealth. If the NYSE was split among (for the sake of example) 20 different city-states, that wouldn't be an issue.

Free trade and open immigration are necessary because they allow for the flux of wealth and labor between communities. If one is short on labor, and another wealth, an open migration & trade policy would allow those communities to meet their individual needs. As an economic strata, libertarianism is basically the idea of only using the resources of where you live & work to generate wealth.

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first.am

Mykonos

Open immigration policies are nothing if not beneficial. Immigration fills in for the people who aren't willing to work in the country they're accepted into while also generating more production from a higher workforce of workers skilled in areas that might not necessarily be readily available in a home population. Not to mention the fact that it's an incredibly humanitarian policy, allowing people to find asylum instead of making them die in whatever storm of suffering is sweeping over their country.

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'Not that Becktionary, the Rhyming Becktionary!'- Bender Bending Rodriguez

lucifer_sam

^ Couldn't have said it better myself.

Also, isn't Britain is trying to migrate further away from Socialism? You know, the "Big Society" thing, taking the burden off the government and pushing those responsibilities onto its individuals.

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first.am

Mykonos

It depends. Some people (mostly BNP/EDL yokels) have been calling for us to basically drop any pretense of remotely left-leaning policies and fall into the anarchic/objectivist society they want to see, but they get ignored most of the time. A lot of people have actually moved closer to the left way of thinking due to the recent riots, which demonstrated just how broken our society has become under capitalism.

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'Not that Becktionary, the Rhyming Becktionary!'- Bender Bending Rodriguez