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Power Imbalance: The Difference Between Liberal and Libertarian Philosophy
Forbes ^ | Warren Meyer

Posted on 06/24/2011 2:04:13 PM PDT by ventanax5

Earlier this week, New York Times columnist and Princeton professor Paul Krugman argued that folks on the Left were better able to accurately reiterate competing (ie conservative or libertarian) economic and political positions than, say, the Right could outline the liberal position.

We will leave aside issues we might have with a Nobel Prize winning economist making such sweeping statements based on absolutely no facts. To a large extent, Krugman’s conceit is just part and parcel of the liberal hubris that they are smarter, better educated, and more empathetic than their political opponents (a conceit that is actually philosophically necessary for these former 1960′s anti-authoritarians to convince themselves they are justified in swinging the heavy club of the state).

We will also leave aside how absurd this statement is from many a libertarian’s experience. Readers as old as I am will remember the old Tootsie-Pop commercial where the owl can never lick the candy more than three times without biting into it. This is my experience with the Left attempting to mimic the libertarian position. They can never get more than three sentences into free markets and smaller government without saying “because all libertarians just want to see everything polluted and everyone get poor and die.”

(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.forbes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Education; Government; Politics
KEYWORDS: economics; government; left; liberal; libertarian; paulkrugman

1 posted on 06/24/2011 2:04:16 PM PDT by ventanax5
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To: ventanax5

Liberalism is a verb: Meaning to take; to steal a dollar from those who produce so you can give twenty-eight cents to those who do not.


2 posted on 06/24/2011 2:12:42 PM PDT by Patrick1 ("The problem with Internet quotations is that many are not genuine." - Abraham Lincoln)
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To: ventanax5

Most on the left today are dumbed down neo-Marxists who operate on feelings, not logic. They couldn’t even handle the concepts of actual Marxist doctine, but they accept the premises for the sake of “fairness”. Kids can easily grow up in some parts of America without ever knowing any conservatives, or being exposed to conseratism in any way other than mocking leftist charicatures. It is impossible though, even in the most conservative areas not for kids to be exposed (or brainwashed) by leftie teachers, media, etc.


3 posted on 06/24/2011 2:15:00 PM PDT by Hugin ("A man'll usually tell you his bad intentions if you listen and let yourself hear it"--- Open Range)
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To: ventanax5

Libertarian Philosoph is very simple. As simple and easy as the original Constitution. Liberal/Communist/Socialist/Progressivism however is very complex and convoluted. Since it does not ever work or produce the desired results or “expected” consequence it requires a PHD. Failures must be “explained” and complex remedies developed. In Liberalism the remedy can never be to eliminate the cause of the problem. Only more Liberalism. Over time the remedy becomes more and more complex and requires complicated conniving and lying in order to explain away the unintended results. Thus one has to be a genius with a high IQ to perform the needed calculations to cover up the failures and develop needed expansions. It is like a huge Rube Goldberg machine and the operator is involved in an evermore complicated train of reason. Until implosion occurs.


4 posted on 06/24/2011 2:19:09 PM PDT by screaminsunshine (Socialism...Easier said than done.)
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To: screaminsunshine

I had an interesting thing happen today on my way back from lunch.

I stopped at the Lafayette (CA) Trader Joe’s for some lunch on my way to the office and get a sandwich and a drink. When I walked out after paying for my food, an dredlocked Liberal in a yellow t-shirt that read “Amnesty International” asked me, “Do you want to help with women’s rights”. I politely told him no, but to call a nearby mosque for referrals.

He stood there dumbfounded.

I left.


5 posted on 06/24/2011 2:27:00 PM PDT by wac3rd (Somewhere in Hell, Ted Kennedy snickers....)
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To: ventanax5

Start with Marxist exploitation theory of labor. Add an epistemology of emotionalism. Add the premises that the nature of man is a helpless sacrificial animal and the nature of government is omnipotent and omniscient. Throw in the ethics of altruism and collectivism. Then add the delusion that government is the source of free and unlimited benefits. And finally add the attitude that the feelings and needs of some are a justification for the initiation of force against others and the violation of rights of others, and you have a clue to the mentality of a libtard.


6 posted on 06/24/2011 2:34:44 PM PDT by mjp ((pro-{God, reality, reason, egoism, individualism, natural rights, limited government, capitalism}))
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To: screaminsunshine

Is libertarianism different from what we have seen in the traditional libertarian party platforms?


7 posted on 06/24/2011 2:36:13 PM PDT by ansel12 (America has close to India population of 1950s, India has 1,200,000,000 people now. Quality of Life?)
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To: ventanax5

I agree with krugman. The liberal economic theory is illogical and has no basis in macro-economics. It is an economic theory based on wishful thinking and denial of the real world.

One of the events that transformed me from a major liberal as a teen to a conservative was taking and excelling in economic course for my accounting degree.


8 posted on 06/24/2011 2:43:28 PM PDT by Raycpa
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To: wac3rd

Around here the beggars have to wear safety vests. They all have little cardboard signs requesting alms. I love to give them disgusting looks at the intersections they infest.


9 posted on 06/24/2011 2:46:39 PM PDT by screaminsunshine (Socialism...Easier said than done.)
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To: ansel12

No. Not that I am aware of.


10 posted on 06/24/2011 2:47:44 PM PDT by screaminsunshine (Socialism...Easier said than done.)
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To: mjp

You forgot to subtract logic and common sense from your equation.
LS=(CS-L-R)
If
LS=Liberalism/Socialism
CS=Common Sense
L=Logic
R=Reason


11 posted on 06/24/2011 2:54:42 PM PDT by screaminsunshine (Socialism...Easier said than done.)
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To: screaminsunshine

I can tell that conservatives do not approve of their platform, nor would the generations that founded this nation.


12 posted on 06/24/2011 2:55:34 PM PDT by ansel12 (America has close to India population of 1950s, India has 1,200,000,000 people now. Quality of Life?)
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To: ansel12

Welcome to the club. Why do they have the platform they do not approve of? Go figure. I have never been able to. I have been voting GOP for years out of fear of Rats but now I am an Equal Opportunity Terrified Voter. All dressed up and no place to go.


13 posted on 06/24/2011 2:59:39 PM PDT by screaminsunshine (Socialism...Easier said than done.)
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To: screaminsunshine

I was saying that true Americans, and the founding Americans would reject much of the libertarian agenda, as radical leftism.


14 posted on 06/24/2011 3:04:21 PM PDT by ansel12 (America has close to India population of 1950s, India has 1,200,000,000 people now. Quality of Life?)
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To: ansel12

OK I thought the Founders wrote the constitution. I did not realize it was the GOP.


15 posted on 06/24/2011 3:07:39 PM PDT by screaminsunshine (Socialism...Easier said than done.)
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To: screaminsunshine

I said that the founding generations would never approve of the libertarian party platform, nor would the current version of those generations, which is the conservatives.

Remember that early America was radically socially conservative by todays standards.


16 posted on 06/24/2011 3:24:38 PM PDT by ansel12 (America has close to India population of 1950s, India has 1,200,000,000 people now. Quality of Life?)
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To: ventanax5
The word "liberal" at one time meant the exact opposite of what it is taken to mean now. People, or at least Americans, who self-describe themselves as "liberal" kidnapped an otherwise noble word and twisted it beyond recognition. They have a form of schizophrenia which they express politically.

They lead and will brook no objection to their personal libertine and moral-compass-less existence. But if they don't have a trust fund to support it, or even of they do, they insist the productive among us should be enslaved and forced to foot the bills they run up. They hate "the man" but love "the state". They swear non-violence but publicly fantasize about murdering anyone who has the temerity to disagree with their "agendas".

They are diseased dogs who are too stupid and self centered to realize they are pushing those of us with the training, skill, and/or equipment to be genuinely lethal into a tight corner.

17 posted on 06/24/2011 5:05:09 PM PDT by katana
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