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Most American libertarians are more concerned with property rights than with individual rights.
Call it the way I see it.
Define "individual rights". These days just about seem to be lumped as individual rights. The unalienable rights of a person per the Declaration of Independence is Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That's it. Fast forward to 2012, food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, broadband Internet, everything seems to be a "right". They are not. They are something you need to earn for yourself. When you say something like healthcare is a "right", then it means that you expect for doctors and nurses to be your slaves, to provide you that right.
"Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist." - John Adams.
The Greatest Generation was born into dire poverty and want. They fought a war none of them asked for. They left that war unable to find jobs and housing. Many of them never went to college and when they were able to they faced over-crowded classrooms. When housing became available they signed up for 30-year mortgages. Many of them never bought a brand new car in their entire lives. They took menial jobs, if necessary, to support themselves and their families. Many of them worked two and three jobs to make ends meet. They lived in a world of racial, religious and sexual discrimination. They had to pay taxes.
And yet they would never have dreamed of referring to themselves as the "Screwed Generation".
The Greatest Generation was born into dire poverty and want. They fought a war none of them asked for. They left that war unable to find jobs and housing. Many of them never went to college and when they were able to they faced over-crowded classrooms. When housing became available they signed up for 30-year mortgages. Many of them never bought a brand new car in their entire lives. They took menial jobs, if necessary, to support themselves and their families. Many of them worked two and three jobs to make ends meet. They lived in a world of racial, religious and sexual discrimination. They had to pay taxes.
And yet they would never have dreamed of referring to themselves as the "Screwed Generation".
Weird, huh?
Millennials are only "screwed" because they aren't going to be able to have the lives they were promised their entire growing up years. They are going to have a lower standard of living and much worse employment than baby boomers or Generation X despite the fact most of them have (worthless) college degrees. This generation has been screwed over by this system, but it isn't totally hopeless. They will just have to adjust to a new reality, which is going to be difficult because they have grown up getting everything they wanted, when they wanted it.
"We are the generation that continues to pay into Social Security with every paycheck but suspects we may never see the benefits of it."
They "suspect" that they will not see their benefits because they've been brainwashed into thinking SS is unmanageable by right wing/libertarian rhetoric.
IN FACT, it's a well run program with a small long term deficit that could be easily corrected by raising taxes on the wealthy who can well afford it.
How does this account for the vast majority of elderly who retire in poverty?
Most Americans DON'T WANT the US to become another European social welfare state.
Whether a country is "happy" or "free" is subjective.
Not to mention those countries are much smaller in both area and population than the US is and are not major world powers like the US. Just because something is feasible in those countries does NOT mean it's feasible here. To compare the US to those countries is comparing apples and oranges.
Germany is a welfare state?
I live in Germany.
They sure keep it well hidden.
Quote:
Originally Posted by whogo
Actually almost all of them have a lower standard of living and greater limits on speech. You have to be extremely stupid to fall for liberal lies.
And where would this be?
Anything but your opinion?
Remember the Bush "free speech zones"?
The Greatest Generation was born into dire poverty and want. They fought a war none of them asked for. They left that war unable to find jobs and housing. Many of them never went to college and when they were able to they faced over-crowded classrooms. When housing became available they signed up for 30-year mortgages. Many of them never bought a brand new car in their entire lives. They took menial jobs, if necessary, to support themselves and their families. Many of them worked two and three jobs to make ends meet. They lived in a world of racial, religious and sexual discrimination. They had to pay taxes.
And yet they would never have dreamed of referring to themselves as the "Screwed Generation".
Weird, huh?
Wow.
"The Greatest Generation" also experienced victory in said war and were lionized for their achievements (even if they were only support troops who never actually stepped onto a battlefield). They also experienced the Post-War economic boom and technological growth beyond their wildest dreams as a child. They went to those "over-crowded" classrooms and ended up becoming businessmen, scientists, doctors, and artists in numbers never seen before. Also, most of them ended up owning cars and the average car owned by an American in 1960 was younger than the average car owned by an American in 2012. They also ended up fully owning those homes about a decade before retirement.
What the f--k are you talking about? The "Greatest Generation" probably had the highest rise in quality of living from birth until death than any other generation in America (and most of the West as well). They went from the Great Depression to the one of the most prosperous periods in Western history in just over twenty years. Not this bleak dystopian wasteland your describing.
While from the way things are going, Generations X and Y are going to have the opposite. Born and/or raised in the prosperous 80s and 90s, coming of age in the contentious and uncertain 2001 and beyond with loads of debt and the weakening power of the West.
I'm regularly amazed at how many well meaning and thoughtful people are utterly lost on the topic of libertarianism. It is not anarchy as they would have you believe. That idea comes from the same mindset as those who equate democrats to communists.
I'm regularly amazed at how many well meaning and thoughtful people are utterly lost on the topic of libertarianism. It is not anarchy as they would have you believe. That idea comes from the same mindset as those who equate democrats to communists.
Libertarianism has the same root as both Liberalism and Conservatism. All three trace their roots to the Enlightenment thinkers who founded Classical Liberalism. Now, obviously they all had their breaks at certain points and all three are influenced by other ideas, but for the most part they are all children born of the same father.
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