What/Who is a John Birch Libertarian? (party, government, Libertarians)
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I look at neo-con as primary indicaing someone who has a Wilsonian foriegn policy outlook. This would include Cheney, Bush, Rice and much of the people around Bush (Powell being a notable exception). Barack Obama is another Wilsonian. Wilsonians have an absurd faith in the power of democracy to bring about peace and protect human rights even in cultures where democracy simply equates to tyranny of the majority.
I look at neo-con as primary indicaing someone who has a Wilsonian foriegn policy outlook. This would include Cheney, Bush, Rice and much of the people around Bush (Powell being a notable exception). Barack Obama is another Wilsonian. Wilsonians have an absurd faith in the power of democracy to bring about peace and protect human rights even in cultures where democracy simply equates to tyranny of the majority.
So how would you describe the two factions which were written about in the piece in the OP? There does seem to be a battle going on in the Republican Party......do you see any evidence of that....and how would you describe each side?
As opposed to Ron Paul Libertarians? Sometimes it's confusing to know what Libertarians want because there seem to be two distinct factions. Which one are you?
"By contrast the John Birch strain of Libertarians and their puppet show, the Tea Partyhate government, and engage in its destruction from within...Birchers don’t seek the government off of the back of all citizens, just the anointed few of the 1%. Bircher Libertarians want a government with no fiscal controls and low taxation, but with extreme social controls of the population to keep parts of society with whom they either disagree or those that they find distasteful under control and unequal."
OK, I'll bite. Birchers are totally different from Libertarians. Libertarians (try reading their web site) believe that government should not tell us how to live our lives. They are social liberals to the extreme. They oppose ALL wars.
Birchers are not Libertarians in any form or fashion.
Okay. Then you read the link and tell me how you would describe the two factions within the Republican Party who are battling for control of the Party. You say they are not "John Birch Libertarians".....what is your description of that faction?
The John Birch Society was founded by, among others, Fred Koch -- whose sons, as we all know, have been pouring millions into various Tea Party organizations, most notably "Americans for Prosperity."
So it's not inaccurate at all to associate the two groups. The John Birch Society's core principles read like a Tea Party manifesto.
The John Birch Society is as dead as Abbot and Costello ... There might be some new group of loose cannons running around trying to revive the name, but I haven't seen any evidence of Birch activity in responsible conservative publications in over thirty years.
For the record, the founder of the Jiohn Birch Society was Robert Welch (1899-1985), a businessman (Candy - Junior Mints and Sugar Babies, etc) from Indianapolis (home of the conservative Manion family - Dan Manion was a Reagan candidate for a Federal judgeship). The group istelf was founded in 1958, took its name from an American missionary killed in Mao's Communist China.
The group was dedicated to the extermination of organized Marxism- nothing more and nothing less. It probably reached its zenith in the winter of 1963-64 when it proclaimed the assassination of President Kennedy as a Marxist plot, via full-page ads in many newspapers.
At the time, I was in my early teens. While I worked for Goldwater in 1964, my serious political activity did not begin untill three years later when I went to college and became acquainted with Young Americans for Freedom, a more moderate mostly-economic conservative group founded in 1960 by National Review editor William Buckley, but quickly losing ground to the Objectivist reasoning of Any Rand and her disciples -- Alan Greenspan prominent among them during those years.
By the following year, most collegiate conservatives bolted at the concept of using the draft to "fight" Marxism 8000 miles away while it existed 90 miles from Florida. That led to the orgin of the libertarian movement, which included about half of YAF who walked out to that group's national convention in St. Louis on Labor Day weekend 1969. Future California congresman Dana Rohrabacher (46th district - Santa Ana/Huntington Beach) was among the dissidents, and three of the founding mermbers of the International Society for Individual Liberty - Philadelphia's Dave Walter and Don Ernsberger and Maryland's Jarret Wollstein - remain active to this day.
Not exactly a buch of geezers in American Legion garb proselytizing about water flouridation; You Lefties who keep screaming about "neocons" have no idea what you're ranting about. You're as paranoid as the original Birchers (and Sons-of-Birchers as well -- a tip of the hat to the late Dick Martin for that pun ).
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 08-30-2012 at 05:20 AM..
In this article the "liberals" Hayek refers to are now what are most frequently labeled libertarians while he labels the modern liberals as socialists. Hayek and Friedman did not give up the term liberal, as denoting an individual who valued liberty, easily.
I would say there is a similar divide between pro blue collar and diversity Democrats, not as pronounced at this moment.
Koch bros I think are much more libertarian-oriented. They were involved primarily with the Reason Foundation and Cato for years; only in recent times have they had much of a public profile. A few weeks ago I happened to watch Brian Lamb interview Virginia Postrel, from about 10 years ago. They were going over the list of Reason bigwigs and Lamb had never heard of David Koch, and had to ask VP how to pronounce it.
The left seems to need to have a devil against which to rail. Who cares if the Charles and/or David Koch are libertarian-oriented. Go ahead and slap the Bircher label on them...voila...instant devil. Notice that lefty posters almost never bother to distinguish between Charles and David Koch. They are treated as one big blob. When you're pushing a delusion anyway, why not.
Koch bros I think are much more libertarian-oriented. They were involved primarily with the Reason Foundation and Cato for years; only in recent times have they had much of a public profile. A few weeks ago I happened to watch Brian Lamb interview Virginia Postrel, from about 10 years ago. They were going over the list of Reason bigwigs and Lamb had never heard of David Koch, and had to ask VP how to pronounce it.
The left seems to need to have a devil against which to rail. Who cares if the Charles and/or David Koch are libertarian-oriented. Go ahead and slap the Bircher label on them...voila...instant devil. Notice that lefty posters almost never bother to distinguish between Charles and David Koch. They are treated as one big blob. When you're pushing a delusion anyway, why not.
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