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The ACA was based on Republican Romneycare. It was a major overhaul of the system, but it is far from the system a true liberal would have wanted. One reason for the enactment of the ACA was to get medical costs and expenses under control which is a rather old time conservative notion of paying as you go.
Just because romney ran as a republican doesnt mean romney care is a conservative idea.
To begin with, we need to distinguish references to The Libertarian Party in The US from the philosophical/political term, libertarian. I'm not aware of any "leftists" who claim to be part of The Libertarian Party given that The US Libertarian Party is an overtly conservative proposition.
In most of the world (The US and Canada being the primary exceptions), the term libertarian is understood in the context of its leftist, anti-statist roots-- i.e.- libertarian socialism = philosophical anarchism. Libertarianism doesn't fall along the axis of political right/political left, but rather on an axis of authoritarianism/libertarianism. One can hold beliefs anywhere on the left/right spectrum, and still be an authoritarian or a libertarian.
Unlike authoritarian socialists, libertarian socialists don't advocate for state control of the means of production. Rather, they pursue worker control of the means of production. As such, they are decidedly anti-capitalist, but also stand in opposition to any form of state control. Technically speaking Marx was philosophically of this mindset. While he believed that both capitalism and state socialism were necessary parts of the social evolution of humanity, he ultimately supported the "withering away of the state".
If you accept, agree with, or champion the government interfering in otherwise non-aggressive, peaceful actions/speech of the individual, you are not a libertarian, you don't lean libertarian, and you're not even in the same hemisphere as libertarians.
Let us examine an issue and see why neither champions are libertarians, despite their claims to the contrary:
Abortion - the Right wants it outlawed (generally) and the Left wants it totally unrestricted (generally). It's obvious why the Right's position is "un-libertarian", they seek to tell the individual how to behave and wish to use law/force from the State to do so. OK, no sweat. But the Left is just as "un-libertarian" because don't just want abortion to be unrestricted, they also wish to control the behavior of any individual in the abortion drama, such as forcing OB/GYNs to perform them or lose their license, forcing employers to fund abortifacients or forced to close their business, using taxpayer money to fund abortion (otherwise known as making people pay for stuff they disagree with) and they too seek law/force to enforce their will on the individual.
The libertarian view of abortion is that it is an individual choice, left completely with the individual and the provider of that particular medical procedure. If those two actors in the voluntary trade agree to mutually beneficial exchange, then so be it. Philosophically, we can argue whether this particular service is horrific, but if we do not interfere with either actor in the voluntary trade both find agreeable, liberty is preserved. Nobody should be forced to fund the person requesting the service, nobody should force the provider to provide the service, etc. Remove any and all force inside and outside the exchange, then you're on libertarian ground.
What's funny about the abortion debate is that the Right's point of view is actually more libertarian on net. They seek to tell only the two actors in the exchange what they cannot do, while the Left seeks to tell not only the provider what they must do, but everyone else in the country EXCEPT the person seeking the abortion. On net, the Right is actually promoting less tyranny.
There is absolutely nothing about the right wing that is against equality. There is absolutely nothing about the left wing that is against hierarchy. Nor is there anything about the right wing that is for hierarchy or about the left wing that is for equality.
Yes, there is.
Communism is about ensuring that everyone has everything they need to make something of themselves... education, health, social support, etc. In a perfect communistic society (the extreme left), all social, ethnic, racial and economic barriers vanish. Communism is the very definition of equal. If someone has more than someone else, they are obligated to share. If someone tries to take more of the resources for themselves, they are ostracized from the company by the shareholders (being the workers). True communism has never existed-- the USSR was at best a work in progress and at worst a totalitarian nightmare not much better than Hitler's corporatist state... and it was thoroughly inefficient. But that doesn't mean that it was the only possible form of communism. State capitalism isn't communism.
You might have noticed that most of the right-wing arguments on here are about not 'giving my hard earned money to some lazy immigrant' or some such thing... that's because right-wingers feel that by virtue of what they perceive to be hard work/innate superiority, they deserve a larger share of the pie than other people. That is hierarchy. It develops naturally in the jungle between predators and prey. It develops on Wall Street. It develops in high schools. It develops in Nazi Germany where Hitler sets the rules and everyone follows them and whoever does the best job of following them gets ahead. It develops in a libertarian society where everyone is 'free' but really only the strongest rise to the top. If you're not ensuring equal opportunities for everyone by guaranteeing them all the same standard of medical care, education, and economic potential, then you are supporting hierarchy.
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Originally Posted by kidkaos2
Stalin was absolutely a left wing statist. But so was Hitler. Hitler was not a right wing statist. Leaving eugenics and the holocaust aside and viewing the Nazis purely as a political party, they were about individuals being subservient to the state, the discouraging of religion, having corporations answer to the government, universal healthcare, etc. All left wing ideas.
1. Hitler was absolutely far right. The fascist state isn't a government but a private corporation that owns the media, the roads, and the military, with a few plum production roles doled out to privileged private interests who are given absolute freedom to run their businesses however they wish so long as they are in line with the state interests. The workers had NO rights at all, zero ownership of the means of production, no trade unions, etc. A corporate state is the exact opposite of a true communistic state.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
Quote:
Originally Posted by kidkaos2
There are in fact no right wing statists. Sure there were right wing statists back when Louis XVI still had his head. But times have changed since then. The modern right wing is about limited government. In this century, "right wing statist" is an oxymoron.
Not all right wingers are anarchists or libertarians... where are you even getting this?
You don't even seem to realize that the Green party is the only true left-wing party in the US and also supports decentralization/limiting government. But of course, they don't support Ron Paul-style decentralization, where the government is essentially a meaningless, neutered waste of money that lets the corporations do whatever they want... they still want there to be rules about say, turning the Great Lakes into a dumping ground for mine tailings.
I've already explained why Nazi Germany is right wing, and considering the Green Party hopefully you'll realize that centralization/decentralization has nothing to do with left/right and can be a part of either a right wing or left wing party's platform.
The two mainstream American political parties' platforms have evolved so that the GOP claims to support tax breaks and the Dems claim to support more taxes (neither of these are true and the two parties are in fact so similar that voting is basically pointless)... it isn't some universal condition of politics that if you start up a left wing party you need to be in favor of centralizing power. This is what you're being conditioned to think by the mainstream media... pretending that the two parties are light years away from each other when in reality they're almost carbon copies of each other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kidkaos2
I have seen the whole equality vs hierarchy thing before, and the theory is invariably proposed by liberal intellectuals. You yourself being a case in point, with your "swallow any bs Fox News tells you" comment. Unfortunately for you, the times of conflict over rule by an aristocracy versus rule by the people are over. The Era of Enlightenment is long past. In modern society, left/right is absolutely about more/less government. The relatively recent attempts by liberals to redefine the political spectrum as being all about equality, and setting themselves up as the champions of equality of course, is merely the latest chapter in the unending saga of leftists trying to create a moral high horse for themselves to sit on.
No, in the US left/right is about more/less government.
And you seem to be taking offense to the idea that leftists think they're doing something good... it's more about your need to feel morally and intellectually superior at the expense of actually understanding what you're deriding. It's a pretty common thing on this forum.
The reason people think the left NEEDS to be about more government is because parties like the Greens are derided, not taken seriously or dismissed as communism therefore bad in McCarthyist fashion... or tree-huggers or feminazis or some other Limbaugh/O'Reilly scorn buzzword that always makes the righties chuckle and feel superior. Voters are attracted to power and money, and the Greens don't project that... they come off as hippies or hopeless idealists, even though their ideas are the most intellectually sound and socially responsible out of any of the parties in the US.
That simplistic perspective kills genuine discussion, and forces a sort of conformity where people like you refuse to admit that it could be anything except the typical left vs the typical right and you're either one or the other.
Last edited by Spatula City; 08-12-2014 at 08:24 AM..
I have seen many leftist to claim to be left leaning Libertarians.
Here is why the is a oxymoron. Leftist want more power to the state and for the state to have more control while Libertarians want maximum personal liberty and the least amount of power to the state and control of the state in our lives.
The political left's fundamental premise is the state controlling the life of the individual - this is the opposite of liberty. Thus, you cannot be a left leaning libertarian.
Please tell us why this is not a complete contradiction?
Many are confused on the differences here. Is it libertarian to support legalization of marijuana? On a federal level, yes it is libertarian to support that. It is not libertarian to support this on a national level, as states should be allowed to make their own determination.
Is it libertarian to support gay marriage? No, its libertarian to support no state sponsored marriage whatsoever.
Its about limited federal government, extremely limited. We tried that on a vast scale, and it didn't work. A weak central government does not have the ability to hold the nation together.
I am libertarian on some issues, others I am not. I take each issue as it comes, and this is why I don't affiliate with any party.
Because libertarians often want gay marriage and drugs to be legalized, to use two examples, liberals with a limited capacity for critical thinking see that as being similar to them.
They don't comprehend that the specific points where liberalism and libertarianism agree are not philosophical similarities, but rather specific points where diametrically opposed philosophies lead to the same conclusion on a limited basis.
Like I said in another thread, it's like how both the managers and the auto workers union at Ford would be happy to see restrictions on the importation of foreign cars, but that does not make business management and labor unions similar. America and the Soviet Union both banded together to defeat Hitler, but that did not make America and the Soviet Union compatible allies.
The liberal may applaud the libertarian for wanting to dismantle the ban on gay marriage. But then the liberal will look on in horror as the libertarian proceeds to dismantle the ban on discriminating against homosexuals as well. Because the libertarian has no interest in gay rights per se, but simply wants government power out of things entirely. The libertarian will be more than happy to let the gay couple get married, and will be equally happy to support the cake and dress makers' rights to refuse service to that gay couple. Some liberals don't get this.
Except for the fact that you have no clue what Libertarianism really is you are 100% right!
Seriously, Gunlover, you really do need to take a couple of college courses on political science. You will them realize that the Democratic party is more a center right party then a leftist party. The Republicans have pushed the country so far right, that the Democrats only seem leftist by Tea Party rightists standards.
Addressing your list:
1. ACA was based on the Republican Romneycare.
2. The right has these 2nd amendment delusions that someone is coming into their bedrooms to take their guns. They really do need to seek some good psychotherapy on this issue.
3. Amnesty started with Reagan and open borders has been a Republican staple for years until very recently.
You have the same mistaken ideas that many "Mainstream" Republicans are anything approaching conservative, at least with regards to fiscal issues and the role of government. Much of the party is centrist, bordering on leftist. It's just that the Democratic party is so radically far left, beyond much of what Marx or Stalin proposed, that Republicans look "conservative" in comparison. Amnesty is not a hallmark of conservatism. Neither is state-sponsored religion; rather that is a traditionally liberal function co-opted by the neo-cons. Consistent conservatives are for restricting the size, power and most importantly spending of government, and support a non-interventionist foreign policy.
Quote:
Through the 1950s and early 1960s, the future neoconservatives had endorsed the American Civil Rights Movement, racial integration, and Martin Luther King, Jr.[20] From the 1950s to the 1960s, there was general endorsement among liberals for military action to prevent a communist victory in Vietnam.[21]
Neoconservatism was initiated by the repudiation of coalition politics by the American New Left: Black Power, which denounced coalition-politics and racial integration as "selling out" and "Uncle Tomism" and which frequently generated anti-semitic slogans; "anti-anticommunism", which seemed indifferent to the fate of South Vietnam, and which during the late 1960s included substantial endorsement of Marxist-Leninist politics; and the "new politics" of the New left, which considered students and alienated minorities as the main agents of social change (replacing the majority of the population and labor activists).[22] Irving Kristol edited the journal The Public Interest (1965–2005), featuring economists and political scientists, which emphasized ways that government planning in the liberal state had produced unintended harmful consequences.[23] Interestingly enough, many early Neoconservative political figures were disillusioned Democratic politicians and intellectuals, such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who served in the Nixon Administration, and Jeane Kirkpatrick, who served as President Ronald Reagan's UN Ambassador.
Unfortunately we are left with some bad choices. An extremist left-wing Democratic party. A mainstream Republican party that has sold out to corporate interests and embraced traditional left-wing causes (support for criminal aliens an expansion of welfare) and a "conservative" wing that has been taken over in many ways by religious extremists of their own. There is no such thing as an intellectually consistent, fiscally conservative and socially "libertarian" party in this country. The Libertarian party is as close as we get...but they lack any real philosophical depth or focus. Even Ron Paul was a bit of a sellout-he was more than willing to accept any federal pork coming the way of his district.
If you accept, agree with, or champion the government interfering in otherwise non-aggressive, peaceful actions/speech of the individual, you are not a libertarian, you don't lean libertarian, and you're not even in the same hemisphere as libertarians.
Let us examine an issue and see why neither champions are libertarians, despite their claims to the contrary:
Abortion - the Right wants it outlawed (generally) and the Left wants it totally unrestricted (generally). It's obvious why the Right's position is "un-libertarian", they seek to tell the individual how to behave and wish to use law/force from the State to do so. OK, no sweat. But the Left is just as "un-libertarian" because don't just want abortion to be unrestricted, they also wish to control the behavior of any individual in the abortion drama, such as forcing OB/GYNs to perform them or lose their license, forcing employers to fund abortifacients or forced to close their business, using taxpayer money to fund abortion (otherwise known as making people pay for stuff they disagree with) and they too seek law/force to enforce their will on the individual.
The libertarian view of abortion is that it is an individual choice, left completely with the individual and the provider of that particular medical procedure. If those two actors in the voluntary trade agree to mutually beneficial exchange, then so be it. Philosophically, we can argue whether this particular service is horrific, but if we do not interfere with either actor in the voluntary trade both find agreeable, liberty is preserved. Nobody should be forced to fund the person requesting the service, nobody should force the provider to provide the service, etc. Remove any and all force inside and outside the exchange, then you're on libertarian ground.
What's funny about the abortion debate is that the Right's point of view is actually more libertarian on net. They seek to tell only the two actors in the exchange what they cannot do, while the Left seeks to tell not only the provider what they must do, but everyone else in the country EXCEPT the person seeking the abortion. On net, the Right is actually promoting less tyranny.
You are only stating one version of the libertarian view of abortion. The other libertarian view of abortion is that the fetus is a human being and therefore abortion violates the libertarian principle of nonviolence by terminating that person's life. That may not be your conception of abortion, or even the official stance of the American Libertarian Party, but your view is not "the" libertarian view of abortion. It's just your interpretation.
For the other libertarian perspective on the issue see:
You have the same mistaken ideas that many "Mainstream" Republicans are anything approaching conservative, at least with regards to fiscal issues and the role of government. Much of the party is centrist, bordering on leftist. It's just that the Democratic party is so radically far left, beyond much of what Marx or Stalin proposed, that Republicans look "conservative" in comparison. Amnesty is not a hallmark of conservatism. Neither is state-sponsored religion; rather that is a traditionally liberal function co-opted by the neo-cons. Consistent conservatives are for restricting the size, power and most importantly spending of government, and support a non-interventionist foreign policy.
Unfortunately we are left with some bad choices. An extremist left-wing Democratic party. A mainstream Republican party that has sold out to corporate interests and embraced traditional left-wing causes (support for criminal aliens an expansion of welfare) and a "conservative" wing that has been taken over in many ways by religious extremists of their own. There is no such thing as an intellectually consistent, fiscally conservative and socially "libertarian" party in this country. The Libertarian party is as close as we get...but they lack any real philosophical depth or focus. Even Ron Paul was a bit of a sellout-he was more than willing to accept any federal pork coming the way of his district.
Actually I think there is such a thing as an intellectually consistent, fiscally conservative, and socially libertarian party in this country. It's called the Reform Party. It is almost completely powerless, but it does exist.
Have never been nor could I ever support the Libertarians, yes they have some good ideas, problems is they also have some bad ideas. Funny thing is the OP asks how Liberals could be a Libertarian while ignoring the fact that the Libertarians are more aligned with Conservatives and the GOP than with Liberals or the Democrats, the question itself makes no sense.
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