Libertarians: They're Just Like Us? Playboy Investigates FreedomFest

'This is what the vortex of evil looks like.'

Dreamstime

If you browse Salon at all these days, you have probably seen the headlines. "America's libertarian freakshow: Inside the free-market fetish of Rand Paul & Ted Cruz." "I was a troll on the white dude-bro Internet: The dark side of gaming, libertarianism, and guns." "My Personal Libertarian Hell: How I Enraged the Movement and Paid the Price." And on, and on, and on.

Are libertarians really that awful? That's the tongue-in-cheek question Playboy's Joe Donatelli intended to answer when he set out for FreedomFest in Las Vegas last week:

This is what the vortex of evil looks like. A well-dressed man onstage in a ballroom at Planet Hollywood is talking about investment in rare metals. Knut Andersen of Swiss Metals has come to the annual FreedomFest conference in Sin City to share investment opportunities with libertarians and other freedom-loving nuts.

Nuts? Oh, yeah. If there's one thing the political left and right in America agree on – strongly – it's these libertarians. They're the absolute worst.

Salon has called libertarians a "cult" and a "freakshow" and "crazy" and a "con" and a "scam" for "petulant children," and those are just some of the headlines it has used since 2014.

New Jersey's Republican Gov. Chris Christie says libertarians are "dangerous."

How dangerous? Human YouTube comment Ann Coulter says libertarian voters are "idiots" who should "drown."

Slagging libertarians is so commonplace online that Washington Post criminal justice blogger Radley Balko keeps a running list of all of Salon and Alternet's libertarian headlines going back two years. It stands at 140 and counting.

Donatelli's full article—which pokes fun at the crazies while giving the non-crazies their day in court—is well worth a read. He concludes with some context from Cato Institute Vice President David Boaz:

Cato's Boaz says the big libertarian tent synchs with the belief that peaceful people should be able to do whatever they want to do. There are a lot of people who want to do a lot of things, and the people who really, really want to do a lot of things with no one to bother them—they're different than you and me.

"I don't want to drink raw milk, but some people do. I don't want to smoke marijuana, but some people do," Boaz said. "It's also true that a lot of Republicans still want to fly the Confederate flag, and only a few years ago it was the Democratic Party that put the Confederate flag on top of the South Carolina statehouse. Bernie Sanders looks at a world full of Venezuela and Greece and says, 'Let's be more like those countries.' Who are the crazies?"

For more dispatches from FreedomFest, read Matt Welch's brilliant takedown of conference speaker and implausible Republican candidate Donald Trump here.

Comments

[Almanian - TRUMP THIS]

whatever

[Wizard with a Woodchipper]

"If you browse Salon at all these days,..."

You lost me there.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Jesus Robby died so that you may live.

[IceTrey]

They banned me three times.

[GILMORE, Haiku Pornographer]

impossible.

Salon, to my knowledge, bans no one.

[Pan Zagloba]

If there's one thing the political left and right in America agree on ? strongly ? it's these libertarians. They're the absolute worst.

So Nikki made it into Playboy, in the worst possible way!

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

She could make it into playboy the right way.

[Pan Zagloba]

I agree. I'm sure she could write a kickass article.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

They could do a "libertarian women" spread...and t=it woudl just be a bunch of blank pages. Amirite?

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

That's quite the fortuitous typo, I'm thinking. Tit. Heh heh.

[Pan Zagloba]

Amazing typo. Near John-level perfection!

[Limpee Wiltstock]

I think that crasy fool Chesteron (KC*SG) treated on this subject pretty well. Men, constitutionally, are inclined to live and let live, with some sense of community. Women are by nature autocratic and narcissistical as the narcissisticallest fuck.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

And I know several cases of some kindly old gentleman out for a stroll getting harrassed by women in cars demanding to know what he's doing walking round their neighbourhood (regardless if it's his neighbourhood as well). Only a couple times have I or somebod I know got similarly approached by a man, and it was always when it turned out the stroller had wandered onto the accoster's property. Nor do men feel the need to first get themselves into an automobile before approaching a pedestrian. Once I had a woman get in her truck in order to confront me when I was walking past her fuckinass driveway. I used to try awnsering such qu?sti?nes truthfully. Now, my standardised response is, "Looking for food.", and which I recommend to other men who still practice the ancient rituals of walking round recreationally. As a further part of this, I ought to continue ranting about the fact that in the past ten years it's gone from just walking around being an acceptable enterprise to being something suspicious and worthy of condemnation in and of itself, even if no evil intent is demonstrable: like we all ought to only gambol about when we going somewheres specific and then preferably by some sort of automotive carriage. Only preverts and faggots go for a stroll, is the typical sentiment it seems to me now.

[Almanian - TRUMP THIS]

gambol

Hey, Mary

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

It's been a while, eh?

[PapayaSF]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footpad

[Inigo "Chip" DuBois]

Yet another reason to never again live in the suburbs.

[Inigo "Chip" DuBois]

It would be page after page of independent, strong, smart hotties with no need for Playboy's typical heavy-handed airbrushing.

[Kristen Bids No Trump]

I'd do it, but nobody (except the squeeze) wants to see that shit.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I guarantee that men would enjoy seeing her hoo haw. Guarantee it.

[Pan Zagloba]

Jesus, PM, This Is Why etc.

Well, that and the body odor thing.

[Gojira]

Fuck all your SJW cock-sucking social signaling, Robby.

I hope you get dick cancer. For real.

[Gojira]

p.s. You're more physically attractive than I am. Just sayin'.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Are you reverse negging him to try and get dick pics??? He's a newlywed, you homewrecker!!!

[Gojira]

No, I was just sayin'...for a friend. Yeah, that's the ticket.

[juris imprudent]

Human YouTube comment Ann Coulter

[stands and slowly applauds]

[commodious spittoon]

*joins clapping, at a slightly higher tempo*

[Nick W B]

I'm definitely saving that.

[Antilles]

It's ironic that people who feel entitled to cradle to grave coddling by the government at other people's expense (as opposed to practicing self-reliance and personal responsibility) dismiss Libertarians as 'children.' Who are the true children in this scenario? The projection and lack of self-awareness is mind-boggling.

[DesigNate]

Whatever you do, don't wade into the comments on the "Boo hoo, Libertarians were mean to me after I tried to say that the state of Honduras is totally because of libertarian policies and not the Drug War and the kind of corruption found in most 3rd world shitholes." story. My god, the stupidity.

[Antilles]

The problem is that most people don't understand what Libertarians really believe, and that we're just Republicans who like weed and getting laid--only we're far more selfish and evil and actually want to see people die in the street. That belief says more about them than us...

[Kristen?s Vermeer]

In addition, every non-libertarian I have ever met, upon learning I am a libertarian, proceeds to tell me what I believe. Not ask me - tell me.

[Antilles]

Yes. And even when you try to correct them and express what you actually believe, they call you a liar.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Wot can you say to folks who don't even know what "belief" means?

[Scarecrow & WoodChipper Repair]

I read a progtard explanation of individualism which suddenly made sense: individualists want to force everyone to let individualists do what the individualists want to do, regardless of how it affects other people. It makes sense, in a bizarre statist kind of way; if all you know is government forcing people to do what others want, the only way you can understand individualism is as a government forcing people to do things, and the non-aggression principle is meaningless blather, since how else can government force the bad naive ignorant masses to do what is right? Since it's a logical impossibility that even progtards can understand (how can all those different individuals make the same government force everybody to do different things), no wonder they think libertarians are, literally, insane.

It also emphasized that progtards really do think they are acting in humanity's best interest, as oppose to libertarians, who are acting in their own selfish interest. It was an enlightening moment.

I'd love to find one of them to argue with over the definition of individualism.

[Antilles]

I think it boils down to the fact Libertarians trust people to do the right thing if left alone. Proggies don't trust anyone, because they know in their heart that they themselves are bad people but they believe everyone else is worse and must be controlled.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

I don't trust people to do the right thing at all. In fact I think it's virtually certain they'll do the wrong thing, and that wrong thing invariably means dictating what I can do. The only way I'm going to be left alone is if I leave others alone.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

If you recognise the vicious and stupid nature of men, th'only reasonable conclusion is that they can't be trusted to tell each other what to do.

[Scarecrow & WoodChipper Repair]

It does, but what was a revelation to me was that progtards simply can't conceive of a society not run by a government, even a government they despise. I guess that was as bizarre a concept to me as no government is to them.

[Zeb]

I have a hard time imagining a realistic society in our future that doesn't have something a lot like government, and I consider myself an anarchist. But government doesn't have to run everything. Those people can't even accept the proposition that force isn't necessary to create a decent society.

[Inigo "Chip" DuBois]

I'm basically an anarchist at heart as well, but I'd happily settle for a minarchist state. Even that seems like a pipe dream mostly. I'll be happy if, in my lifetime, we get something like a benign neglect devolution, sorta like what the Talking Heads sang about: "And as things fell apart, nobody paid much attention."

[AKrumbach]

Personally, I like to tell people that I am an anarchist because the growth of the internet and international trade agreements are upending the 17th century Westphalian model of government and we need to remove these outdated elements from our modern social systems.

It's hilarious and almost sad how fast progessives will switch from ignorantly agreeing with you to "you're a monster" after you explain precisely what that particular treaty established....

[Limpee Wiltstock]

That's the defining assumption of progressivism. That and abolition of the residue of the medi?val social structure, without regard for whether any part of it had any intrinsec valor.

[paranoid android]

I think it boils down to the fact Libertarians trust people to do the right thing if left alone.

Not at all; I usually expect people (myself included, of course) to do the stupidest, most vulgar, most self-interested thing possible. It's why I don't want any of these people to rule me.

[DesigNate]

So much ^this^.

[Cyto]

Exactly this. I know I'm not smart enough to make decisions for your life (an epiphany that surprisingly few people seem to have reached), even if I happened to be smarter than you. And I'm quite certain that even if most pols weren't idiots they'd still be in no position to make decisions regarding my life.

It must be a divergent brain circuitry that leads a small minority of people with the understanding that they'd rather not have anyone telling them (or anyone else) how they have to live their lives. Because most people seem to find the imposition of their will on others an irresistible calling. The unanimity of condemnation of libertarians by partisans on the left and right lets you know that we are a group of abnormals with divergent thought patterns. As obvious as it is to us that we shouldn't be controlling each other's lives - particularly under threat of violence - it is an idea that is pure evil in the minds of the vast majority.

[Eman]

"I know I'm not smart enough to make decisions for your life (an epiphany that surprisingly few people seem to have reached)"
I just like this phrase. the disgust with which people respond to the word "libertarian" is ridiculous. i guess people having different opinions is a more explicit part of libertarianism so it would appeal to people who appreciated that, which is something your typical republican or democrat does not. this world would be horrible and boring if everyone thought the same way i did, but that's really the ideal for some people

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Ay, and admitting this, we are left with the bald fact that there is no ethically preferable alternative to letting people proceed unviolently howsoever as they may've wished. That and that only the libertarians and their anarchist relations are willing to face the fact that individual choice is all there is, whether for good or ill. The simple fact is that collectivism is delusional. There is no collective. There is no society. There are only individual men and their cocksucking individual choices. So no matter how may one wish that it weren't so, it is, and there's no alternative. Unless one buys into Jungianism and his fuckinass "Gestalt" and the akashic records and all that bullcrap.

[Pro Libertate]

Precisely the problem with statists is that they claim that people can't be trusted, people need direction, people are greedy and stupid. . .all while pretending with all of their hearts that the government isn't made up of people. For them, especially on the left, they think labeling a group and deeming it good destroys the individual failings of its members.

And don't give me that best and brightest crap. No one really believes that. Some of the worst people in this country are in politics, which rewards unethical and often illegal behavior without much punishment, even when they get caught. They regularly say and do dumb things, and government incompetence is a fact we all live with. Even when officials aren't idiots or even particularly unethical, partisan politics is usually the basis for decision-making--not what's just, not what's right for the community or the country, just what helps their side win.

[Zeb]

Yeah, I've heard that a lot. Libertarians and market reformers want to force their policies on unwilling populations. Well, that's not exactly it. And in any case, if government has a legitimate role, it is to use force to stop people using force to hurt other people and take their shit.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Ay, but a state in full ain't necessary for this. Government is entirely possible in the absence of the state and taxes. Services rendered. And there was some simpler ways employed on the US frontier (and amongst the primitive Germans), systems of government that really required very little in the way of taxation or ready force. In old Montana law, for instance, th'only persistant office of police power was that of sheriff and for everything else special constables was appointed for the carrying out of a specific, clearly defined action, appointments brought into being mainly through the actions of regular citizens. At the same time, prosecutions were expected to be initiated if not carried through by aggrieved parties and not by some lordling of the statist aristocracy. An old case of those days I remember we had to study was a rape prosecution in which the charges were initiated by the rape victim herself, who had to write out all the initial filings and press charges herself.

[Tony]

Most people don't want to live in a society in which everyone fends completely for himself. Thus, if you want to have that sort of society, you either have to convince a lot of people to vote for it, or you have to impose it by force. You want to pretend it's not a model of society at all, that it's some kind of default non-society. Yet it's not a way human beings in any numbers have ever lived.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Humanoids have lived almost the entirety of their period of existence in an unstatist system. In fact, traditional societies exhibit a sense of community where the modern societies tend towards authoritarianism, with almost no sense of community. Which is probably why you (or those who wrote the handbook employed by your handlers) assumes that an unstatist society is unfeasible--since there's little or no sense of community in modern statist societies; so naturally it's assumed that if the state was to just wither off and die away that everyone would descent into the brutishness and stupidity of folks like John, whereas the end of authoritarianism would in fact call forth the renascency of the motherfucking community.

[Inigo "Chip" DuBois]

Exactly. They've found skeletal evidence that cave people with severe deformities and badly healed bone breaks were taken care of into old age by their community. Yes, that's right: the cavemen didn't pay taxes so that these folks could be hidden from view in some bureaucrat-mandated subsidized public cave system. Only stingy, hard-hearted progs imagine that many would starve without government. It's thier projection, as usual.

[PapayaSF]

Tony's error (of the moment) is to think that libertarianism means "everyone fends completely for himself." I can't tell if this is a straw man or a misunderstanding, but in case it's the latter:

Libertarians are in favor of voluntary cooperation. We're even cool with people getting together and forming a socialist commune... voluntarily.

Again, voluntary cooperation.

On some level you already grasp the utility of this. After all, the government does not assign us friends and sexual relationships. OMG, we're "fending for ourselves"!! And yet, somehow, voluntary cooperation works out.

[Tony]

And how is voluntary done on the scale of hundreds of millions of people? Do we ask everyone for their opinion every time we do anything? Or do we set up some sort of institution to organize this massive collective will?

[LynchPin1477]

I'm honestly asking: What sorts of things do you think it takes hundreds of millions of people to do? Over half the income taxes are paid by less than 5% of the population. Yes, payroll taxes and sales taxes equalize things to a degree, but payroll taxes aren't funding giant cooperative projects like roads or wars, and sales taxes are at the state and local level...much smaller.

So maybe 16 million people pay the majority of the taxes that actually go towards these big projects. But no one individual projects requires the contributions from those millions of people. And there certainly aren't hundreds of millions of people doing the actual work.

So again, what exactly requires something on the scale of hundreds of millions of people?

[LynchPin1477]

All of which is irrelevant anyway, because the answer to this question:

Do we ask everyone for their opinion every time we do anything?

Certainly could be "yes". We do that right now through markets. You buy what you want. You express an opinion. If enough people have the same opinion the thing you bought probably stays around. If not it goes away. That's pretty easily scalable and the principle works equally well outside of profit-driven consumer markets.

[Suellington]

Asking millions of people would not be necessary. People do, people act. That is the ask. If it is peaceful and voluntary and non coercive then humans have agreed on a path other humans should not interfere. You don't need to go full ancap to see how moving towards non coercion and Liberty is of primary importance.

[LynchPin1477]

you either have to convince a lot of people to vote for it

Which is sort of the fucking point. You realize that, right? You are commenting on a website that is trying to peacefully convince people to support libertarian policies.

When was the last time you saw someone here advocating for some sort of libertarian dictatorship?

[Tony]

All the time, implicitly. Bet there are comments hostile to democratic choice on this very board.

I don't care if you believe strongly in your radical set of policies. Just tell me how we get there, and if we arrive at a different place tell me that it's just as legitimate on democratic grounds.

[kbolino]

Just tell me how we get there

Stop voting for corrupt politicians? It would be a good start.

[Brian]

LynchPin1477: When was the last time you saw someone here advocating for some sort of libertarian dictatorship?

Tony: All the time, implicitly. Bet there are comments hostile to democratic choice on this very board.

If you think "comments hostile to democratic choice" equals "libertarian dictatorship", then you're stupid.

Oh, I'm sure you have a memorized authoritarian/tyranny rant about libertarianism, but if people bristling under wonderful democratic choices is enough for you to start whining about tyranny and authoritarianism, then you're really just stupid.

Apparently, when you complain about the drug war of the Iraq war, the implicit "but it's democracy so I'm fine, in a way, with how pissed I am" somehow has special meaning to you. Probably because you're special.

[Old Man With Candy]

Bet there are comments hostile to democratic choice on this very board.

And rightly so.

[LynchPin1477]

Democracy is the best process we have for deciding things in government. But it isn't self-justifying. Democratic majorities need to be restrained to protect minority rights. That's not calling for a libertarian dictatorship.

So I don't care if you think something is "just as legitimate on democratic grounds." That has no inherent value. You tell me if you can legitimize it in some way beyond might makes right and then we can talk.

[Sapient Mulch]

"I'd love to find one of them to argue with over the definition of individualism."

I have. They simply regress to: "Don't you get it??! We can all be different but do and support the same things!! For the good of all of us!!!"

It never occurs to them that I might not want to do or support the same things. If I admit that to them, just like 'fessing up to being libertarian, I am immediately "othered", and I prepare to be ostracised.

C'est la vie.

[Sam Haysom]

No one has ever classified libertarians as republicans who like to have sex. It's important to have a basic sense of understanding and "oh those libertarians must be getting laid a lot" isn't it. More like do libertarians buy hand lotion by the gallon or by the barrel.

[DesigNate]

Mrs. Designate says "Fuck you Sam."

[kbolino]

More like do libertarians buy hand lotion by the gallon or by the barrel

Ooh, sick burn. It's a good thing that the world is a popularity contest and not a test of merit, Sam, otherwise you might be found wanting.

[DesigNate]

Prime example: Tony.

[croaker]

I don't actually want to see people die in the streets.

OTOH, I do want to see certain superannuated government officials processed by a woodchipper. Starting with the ones who wipe their ass with the First Amendment.

[Inigo "Chip" DuBois]

And the second, third, and fourth. Oh, and the fifth -- at least on campus. Oh hell, they wipe themselves with the whole BoR and the constitution in general. Ironically, the same constitution they have sworn to uphold and defend against enemies foreign and domestic. Oathbreakers = politicians.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

"more selfish and evil" as in "more creative and less vicious".

[Tony]

The libertarians. Children want nothing more than to be free of their support network, too stupid to realize that they'd run into traffic and die without it. A modern state is simply a universal insurance program to deal with the realities of life. What could be more adult than insurance?

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Personal fucking responsability and the manhood to face the horrors of existence without flinching, and, preferably, as I was y-taught by faren min og mor mi, with a smile and a careless, flaunting laugh.

[PapayaSF]

If the costs of your "insurance" are bankrupting you, and it's not even doing a good job of "dealing with the realities of life," then your insurance sucks.

[kbolino]

The fact that all of this "insurance" that apparently only government can provide used to come from various and sundry non-governmental sources is immaterial to Tony, probably with the hefty intellectual argument of "but slavery and discrimination!"

The idea that correlation and causation are distinct concepts is completely foreign to the "I fucking love Science!" crowd.

[ant1sthenes]

The modern state is simply a universal protection racket, whereby people are shaken down for more than they can afford in order to provide "security", primarily against the state's own thugs who would otherwise react violently and punitively (very little protection is provided against non-state thugs, except indirectly when a little murder would entertain the state's thugs).

Some of the shakedown proceeds are used to buy the loyalty of the poor, who can be bought cheaply and don't have enough to take for it to be worth the effort. The rest are divvied up among the enforcers and bosses and whatever corrupt industries are in bed with them or helping them launder their money.

[LynchPin1477]

Children want nothing more than to be free of their support network, too stupid to realize that they'd run into traffic and die without it

Fuck off. There are over two centuries of theoretical and practical arguments undergirding libertarianism. This isn't something we just started to spout off for the fuck of it one morning because someone sent us to bed without cookies.

[kbolino]

If everyone is a child, where do the parents come from?

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Yeahr and who can't interact with nebod else except in the parent to child (or vice versa) paradiggem.

[Wizard with a Woodchipper]

"This is what the vortex of evil looks like."

I don't about that, but I do know that vortex of derp was much of the commentary in the Richman article earlier this morning. Yeesh.

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[Kristen?s Vermeer]

This was run through Google translate from Japanese to Latin to Swahili to German to English.

[commodious spittoon]

Reports of AI gaining self-awareness have been greatly exaggerated.

[Hamster of Doom]

Why else would Adolph try to mimic an ESL speaker right after a slew of Trump articles? I ask you.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Expect for that last translation.

[Old Man With Candy]

Expect for that last translation.

Yours too, eh?

[rts]

I had to look up where .tk domains come from: Tokelau. Today I learned something...

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

It's ground zero for internet fraud.

[GILMORE, Haiku Pornographer]

Hey let's build a mosque there

[Acosmist]

Libertarians think libertarians are the worst?

[AlmightyJB]

They have a point.

[GILMORE, Haiku Pornographer]

"Radley Balko keeps a running list of all of Salon and Alternet's libertarian headlines going back two years. It stands at 140 and counting."

Radley = the only man more badass than Donald Trump

[Crusty Juggler]

In your mind it is like this man never existed.

[GILMORE, Haiku Pornographer]

Steven Segal became a traitor when he defected to be with his secret lover, Vladamir Putin

[Rockabilly]

The progressives (P) have had their way since the progressive era.

The 1st P president was Woodrow Wilson, who got the US involved in WWI. The P vote was instrumental in passing prohibition, because the P did not want people to drink.

The second P president was FDR - who still gives a boner to the P. FDR gave us the social security mandate, the obamacare of it's time. FDR also put Japanese Americans in concentration camps, signed the marijuana tax act, and lorded over WWII

Another P president was LBJ, Vietnam was was his thing. Nixon was a P, continued the Vietnam war and gave us more big government via EPA.

As far as I can see, the R party never curtailed any P programs. Social security, big governmetn agencies this and that, taxes, fees, fines, rules and regulations.
NSA, CIA, FCC, FDA, DEA, etc, etc, it's all because of the P.

And still the P has an endless list of complaints, mostly involving making government even bigger with more rules and regulations, fees, fines, taxes, and mandates. Mandates from the pro-choice P.

Henry David Thoreau would tell the P to fuck off.

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.

[GILMORE, Haiku Pornographer]

WHOO HOO VOTE TRUMP

[NotAnotherSkippy]

EPA was Nixon.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Sorry, misread.

[tarran]

Hoover was a progressive.

[C. Anacreon]

Hoover sucks.

/Vacuum cleaner ad

[In League with the Dark Ones]

Woodrow Wilson invaded 11 countries 21 times, including the Mexico (3 times), Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the USSR.

Plus there was a Red Scare, the Creel Committee, the Palmer Raids, and many other police state actions that took place under Wilson's administration. Wilson was reviled at the end of his term and Harding won with the largest share of the popular vote up to that time.

Under FDR's administration, many Wilson Administration officials returned to serve and their pasts had to be whitewashed, included the Governor-General of Haiti when Haiti was under US military rule -- Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt who claimed to know a lot about Constitutions since he had written Haiti's -- one that established American dominance over Haiti and gave the lighter skinned Haitians power over the darker ones.

[PapayaSF]

Did you know that at one point Palmer was a top Democratic presidential candidate?

[R C Dean]

Are libertarians really that awful?

[Looks around at commentariat]

Yup.

And Virginia Postrel agrees!

[Tony]

Bernie Sanders looks at a world full of Venezuela and Greece and says, 'Let's be more like those countries.' Who are the crazies?

I can tell you who the lying asshole is.

[Irish ?s ESB]

Are Venezuela and Greece more or less statist than the United States? Would Bernie Sanders like to have policies more like Greece or less like Greece?

It seems to be a fairly accurate representation of Bernie Sanders' positions.

[Tony]

No it doesn't seem that way at all and you goddamn well know it.

[Lord Humungus]

well then what does Bernie want? Please inform us.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

I second LH. Please, Tony, inform us.

[Tony]

I believe he's cited Scandinavia as his model. You know, that shithole.

[PapayaSF]

Sorry, Tony, the statism that has bankrupted Greece and Venezuela and Puerto Rico is in the same ideological basket as the "socialism" the Bernie professes. Own it.

[sloopyinTEXAS]

I'm not here to defend Tony but I will refute part of your statement, Papaya. The statism that bankrupted Greece and Venezuela is very different than the one tat bankrupted Puerto Rico.

PR was bankrupted because they weren't able to set their own fiscal policies. The other nations were able to choose their own path to hell. PR had theirs imposed on them by a US government that believes in one-size-fits-all programs.

[PapayaSF]

PR is a high-tax, big-government place with an extensive welfare state. The government subsidizes political parties, hotels, athletic organizations, and more.

[LynchPin1477]

I actually don't know it. Is Sanders in favor of expanding the welfare state? Universal state-run healthcare? Increased licensing? More burdensome taxes? Increased regulation that stifles creativity and economic growth? Honestly asking, don't know all the details of his platform.

[kbolino]

How is it going to happen, then? Last time I checked, Bernie Sanders is a politician, which means that the instrument through which he intends to achieve his social ends is the government. If he's going to adopt the same or similar policies, then one would presume the same or similar outcomes, no?

[Mr. Anderson]

Projecting my own history I would say most people called progressives have a shallow political philosophy, they may just not be interested. What you'll receive in most media, or even in school is political theory like -here is A. Is A good or bad? If it's bad we make it illegal, if it's good we love it. Drawing distinctions like I don't like this speech, but it should be legal, or pot, or guns or whatever is a bit more sophisticated. And reasoning out why some bad things (or things perceived as bad) should be legal takes more than just a passing interest for most.

Humanity took thousands of years to evolve that more enlightened philosophy so I don't necessarily blame people for not having it be intuitive. What's really scary is progressive leaders that have thought deeply about rights, and laws, yet still come away with essentially the same political philosophy of a child.

[Inigo "Chip" DuBois]

Even (older) children realize that not everything that's bad is or should be illegal. Shooting heroin is bad for you, but so is eating Twinkies for every meal. Yet there's no DEA going after Hostess.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

"Cato's Boaz says the big libertarian tent synchs with the belief that peaceful people should be able to do whatever they want to do. There are a lot of people who want to do a lot of things, and the people who really, really want to do a lot of things with no one to bother them?they're different than you and me."

'synchs'? Who is this joker?

And what the dickens does he mean by the last? That "you and me" has only a very weak drive to do only a very few things, with as much harrassment as possible? What this motherfucker he been smoking?