I want to smash the state and smash business owners.
I should clarify, I want to ensure that government remains small and so does business. Why is it automatically assumed that lovers of liberty, individual freedom, and small government, automatically like big business? Big business is just as bad as big government
I agree with you. Business should be small and independently run. We should be a nation of entrepreneurs, rugged individualists, and independent shop owners / farmers. This is how it was for a long time in our society. This is actually the natural order of things. Big business has only ever really been able to stand up and exist with the specific aid of government, through subsidies and unfair tax codes.
We don't need socialism, or "taxation on the rich" we just need a return to freedom and small government. Socialism and big government and centrally planned economies are a HORRIBLE idea because it's putting more power in government, which is exactly the corrupt entity that made this mess.
Also, I understand the reasoning of "reaganism saved us from the cold war" and it was reaganism that made "corporate america" what it became. And I understand the reasoning of having to compete with china today. But the soul of the country is also dying, and we're facing as much of an existential threat within our own borders, from self-hatred, as we do from anywhere else. So yeah, we need to shrink the damn govt. We need borders. We need military. We need protections from genuine violent mobs. We don't really need that much else DESU, the rest just makes everything harder.
>We don't really need that much else DESU, the rest just makes everything harder.
Agreed, and I'm fine with a part of the federal government specifically being there to help regulate trade internationally to ensure the protection of American business. Almost like they're a friend who intervenes and tells you whether or not you should make a trade. In fact, in this regard, I might be open to more government influence in the market if they were truly benevolent.
But as far as I'm concerned, we cannot trust our government, and we cannot trust our businesses. They're too large. Which is why I think the federal government of the USA (I'm aware of the irony) that protects the powers of the individual is so important.
welcome to the libertarian-left
a hard money standard accomplishes both those things op.
>small government
> libertarian-left
>small government
>libertarian
>small government
>left
Why do you consider this "libertarian left"? I consider myself a libertarian and very much on the same page as OP based on things he said in the OP and here . I think of myself as very much a "right-winger" though. And the libertarian ideas I have are mostly just extensions of the very conservative, Alex Jones-ish right-wing libertarian culture of the 90s that I grew up in.
Everytime I talk to someone from the libertarian left, or listen to them talk, they don't ever seem to make any sense. Open borders. No military. Brutally authoritarian and sociopathic communist mobs, when you get really far to the left. They basically are trying to set their own society up for existential doom.
This is how I feel. There is almost no real such thing as "libertarian left". It's more or less just a meme used by people who want to destroy the fucking USA. Like legit straight up destroy it. Either because they viscerally hate it, or because they want to institute the USSR 2.0.
>trips of truth
libertarian lefts are actually just native americans before we showed up.
What you lolbertarians fail to understand is that the world is too dangerous for your ideology to exist without a powerful state protecting it. You think the terrorists aren’t going to run over your snek fantasy without DHS and NSA protecting you? Think again. The big government NEEDS big corporations to provide the products and services necessary to keep you safe from harm. Don’t be so foolish.
Which they pretend was such an idyllic society, and I have heard them cite such an existence as an example of "communism actually working". Except......they have god damn slaves, kept women as property, raped and pillaged everything in sight, tortured humans for entertainment, literal human sacrifices, dark and psychopathic religious authoritarianism and fundamentalism and all sorts of other shit. Oh yeah, and BTW then they got invaded and destroyed. So much for not having a federally back military, right? So much for the "IF ISIS CAN DO IT SO CAN WE!" argument.
And of course, there was some variability tribe by tribe in terms of how egregiously and barbarically they acted, but basically they were all really backwards, fucked up barbarians.
I am pretty much a great advocate for state power and more control over society from the community level, but to deny the necessity of some kind of federal organization is outrageous. And I can't talk to these people either. I try to talk to them, and I think to myself "I'll probably get along pretty well with them cuz we both value freedom and distrust government"
But no. They don't actually care about "freedom" at all, they are legit just psychos who hate the USA and want it to be legal to steal, rape, murder and they want to vilify anyone they deem as being "on the right". IDK. It sucks. There used to be a shitload of those people on this website a couple years ago, thank god they all seem to have gone somewhere else cuz they were cancer.
If I didn't know any better, I'd assume these were my posts. I don't think these views are libertarian-left, either.
>And the libertarian ideas I have are mostly just extensions of the very conservative, Alex Jones-ish right-wing libertarian culture of the 90s that I grew up in.
So, without even getting into a discussion of what you believe, I think I might actually agree with you. But, simultaneously, disagree with you, and how, personally, I don't want to be attached to the culture you're speaking of. But, of course, the moment I start typing, I see . For the record, I don't consider myself a Libertarian.
You know why? You know why I ultimately rejected this argument? Cuz of the following reasons:
>Big government corporate slavery makes people feel miserable
>Big government corporate slavery deliberately makes people dependent and weak
>Weak and miserable people hate themselves
>People who hate themselves won't defend themselves or advocate for themselves
>Western society, living under this big government corporate system is committing mass suicide. Low birth rates, white genocide, not even willing to enforce borders.
>In order for the "we need corporations in order to build our military" argument to work, we need to actually USE the military
>Self hating society deplores the use of military for its own ends
>If we lived in a sane society, truly interested in preserving itself, we never would have let ANYONE else develop "the bomb". We would have used it first
>We would be acting militarily against China.
>We would be acting with even greater military force in the Middle East.
>Same for Russia, Africa, Europe, fucking Canada even
Basically the point is you can't make this "ALL FOR THE MILITARY!" argument when we sit on our military, letting the technology get outdated and outpaced by China, and REFUSE TO USE IT.
And our government wont USE IT because our population has become so weak and self-hating.
So yeah, you guys do have this logic, and I do see the point and logic in it, but there is also this flaw where it's not really working in practice. It's kind of like "real communism", it sounds nice and makes sense on paper, and you can imagine a scenario in which it works in your head, but then IRL it's a nightmare that just gets you fucking killed.
I say a libertarian nation of rugged individuals, with federal borders and military, would have the best chance of survival. The ONLY chance of survival I mean come on there is no doubt America is living through its decadent decline.
They fall hook line and sinker for the "noble savage" bait. The indians sucked. They still suck. They will always suck. I'm definitely a states first person. I think local government having precedence over states is a little much because then we would basically devolve into that exact set of behaviors but having the federal government micromanaging the way it does disables our ability to have differences based on our environments and differences to test out different governing structures to truly see what policies are based.
Agreed
Why has libertarianism become a cucked ideology of corporate bootlickers and muh "free market" shills? The spirit of 1776 and the whole nation of America was about liberty, not letting businesses impede upon the liberty of others.
>personally, I don't want to be attached to the culture you're speaking of.
It's my "culture". It's what I grew up with. The set of ideas that people generally held in the place where I was raised in the 90s. I wasn't raised in the south or some hick town either, BTW. I mean I was raised in a blue collar town on the outskirts of a big city. Not quite a suburb, not quite totally urban. There was sort of this attitude of "give me liberty or give me death" and the government was always the bad guy. Corporations, the media, they were full of shit too, but it was always the government pulling the strings and making the evil designs our rulers had on the world come to fruition. It was a good way to live because it made you strong. I dunno. I feel like if people back then could see what the country turned into today, they would all vomit. I guess when change happens slowly though people adjust to it more easily.
I would go so far as to say that big corporations being the primary funders of the military is simultaneously how it gets the goods it does to be so powerful but also why it gets used and abused into weakness. It's really not that difficult to defend a nation when most of your citizens are capable of defending themselves and your military isn't on an infinite conquest. Primarily, I would think that a federation of militias of each state pushing their research teams to work together would accomplish the r&d that we currently manage.
I still agree with all of your points, but, I rejected the Bush family for a completely different reason. You brought up
> Alex Jones-ish right-wing libertarian culture of the 90s that I grew up in.
I'd actually like to take it a step further and argue that the Bush family, with their ties to the military and private contractors, used their influence to dictate foreign policy in the US. I'm surprised that people even debate this, personally, given HW's position in the CIA, the CIA's influence in the Middle East, and both HW and W's efforts in the Middle East, and this isn't even mentioning W's chain of corporate corruption profiting off the war. However, much in the spirit of my OP, I don't think corporate corruption is the fault here, which is often to blame when discussing the issue with certain people. Some people think it was a "war for oil" under HW... It wasn't. The fact that it's been so well-disguised among the mainstream opposition is mindblowing. Again, this is another discussion though, but shows both corporations and government at fault, and the importance of keeping them small.
I grew up in a southern hick military family. Parts of my family were pretty high in, specifically, the Navy. That said, I'm not the kind of person to fly the Confederate flag, even though I understand the cultural heritage behind it. I would have supported the Union.
I pretty much feel thankful for George W Bush, lol. I really hated him back in the day, largely for all of the Alex Jones-y stuff, which was objectively real. I mean, he really was in the Skull and Bones Society, for example, and they really do pray to that big owl Moloch in the woods at Bohemian Grove, you know? And I saw this guy pretending to be a "christian" and that is what set me off on the "FUCK THIS SHIT!" path as a young guy.
But IRL as I've grown up I have been exposed to the truth of Islam and the ideology in the middle east. And it's true. They want us fucking dead and enslaved. It's not a right-wing talking point, sadly. I wish it were, it would make the world easier to deal with. but it's not. They are genuinely authoritarian religious zealots. And you know, thanks to Bush we don't have a nuclear Iraq today. People say "we didn't find any WMDs!" but there weren't any WMDs in North Korea back in 2003 either. And now we're going to have a nuclear Iran soon too. Saddam wasn't complying with the weapons inspections leading into the war, so he got invaded.
Bush wanted to invade NK and Iran back then too. He called them "the axis of evil" and I think given how things are geopolitically today, it's hard to argue that the USA would not have been better off cutting those threats off in the bud.
I totally get what you're saying and although I think we're on the same page on many points, it seems like we probably disagree on foreign policy. I absolutely agree that true, fundamental Islamists should hate the USA. But, realistically speaking, if we're going off scripture, and we're assuming America is Christian, so should Israel, and the Islamists shouldn't turn on us until the end times. I don't think this is too relevant though, because two of the biggest countries supporting Islam, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, are American and NATO allies. For the record, I don't want to be allies with these countries, but seemingly for different reasons than you. Iran is a weird country, because at one point, they hated both the USSR and the USA equally.
> And you know, thanks to Bush we don't have a nuclear Iraq today.
Which Bush do you mean? I'm kind of being facetious because there was quite a bit of propaganda pushed under both presidencies. And, before anyone jumps in and wants to argue this was a Republican problem, relax, Obama especially continued the wars in the Middle East. albeit more covertly, which is, arguably, more offensive. Most of the stuff coming out about Iraq was fake news. Did Saddam need to go? Yes. Did it happen the right way? No.
>but there weren't any WMDs in North Korea back in 2003 either
Interestingly enough about this, I followed the Syrian Civil War for a hot minute and came to the conclusion that, not a surprise, the USA and RUS were having yet another proxy war. In fact, to be completely honest, I feel like the USA and RUS treat themselves as sparring partners, which I don't think is healthy. Anyway, disregarding my personal conspiracy, when the Assad regime was accused of using chemical weapons, some of the chemicals were identified as being synthesized in North Korea.
> it's hard to argue that the USA would not have been better off cutting those threats off in the bud.
Here's where I think you and I have a real disagreement. I don't think the USA should have been involved with these countries, period, outside of facilitating trade. This isn't the Barbary Wars. As soon as it becomes the Barbary Wars (and, I hate to say it, I don't think 9/11 counts especially because I think it was an inside job, but, again, another discussion) I'm on board and I say we destroy the threat ASAP.