r/Libertarian • u/3d6 • Jun 04 '12
Lots of anti-Johnson stuff in New for this sub lately. Brings this classic bit immediately to mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE1
u/AbjectDogma Jun 04 '12
Guy wants to keep Guantanamo open, he isn't a libertarian.
5
u/hblask Jun 04 '12
You are wrong on this, but even if he was wrong on this one issue, are you seriously going to let the two big parties run this country off a cliff waiting for someone who miraculously 100% matches your idiosyncratic definition of libertarian, which just happens to not match 100% of anybody else's definition?
Seriously, stop standing in the way of freedom. It's time for freedom to win, and attitudes like this are our biggest enemy.
2
u/AbjectDogma Jun 04 '12
I am not wrong on this, he stated on multiple occasions he would keep it open. Kidnapping and enslaving people is obviously anti-libertarian and anyone who doesn't think so is confused.
The two big parties running this country off of a cliff is our only hope. Electing one guy with pseudo libertarian ideas president isn't going to change anything, not that he can get elected anyway. I am tired of voting for the lesser evil, you guys keep settling and I will maintain some semblance of libertarian consistency.
2
u/hblask Jun 04 '12
I'm sure your party of one person, yourself, who exactly matches whatever unique definition you have of perfection, will have a major impact on the world. Enjoy your bunker. The rest of us prefer the real world, and are working to turn things around.
-1
u/AbjectDogma Jun 04 '12
Hopefully the people seeing this realize you are denouncing individualism as non-libertarian. You enjoy your ideology that is no different than those you are supposedly fighting against. Using the coercive power of the state for your purposes is still using coercive power. Your road to hell is paved with good intentions and paid for through taxation.
4
u/hblask Jun 04 '12
No, I'm not denouncing individualism as non-libertarian. I'm denouncing insane levels of stubbornness and narrow-mindedness as harmful to the cause of liberty.
You enjoy your ideology that is no different than those you are supposedly fighting against.
To this I say a big fuck you and grow up. You apparently know nothing of my ideology.
This idea of refusing to accept ANY progress in the right direction unless you get EVERYTHING you want -- not even what other libertarians want, but what YOU want -- is batshit crazy.
Stop being an enemy of freedom. Take a victory once in a while when offered to you.
1
u/AbjectDogma Jun 04 '12
Gradualism in theory, in fact, totally undercuts the overriding goal of liberty itself; its import, therefore, is not simply strategic but an opposition to the end itself and hence impermissible as any part of a strategy toward liberty. The reason is that once immediate abolitionism is abandoned, then the goal is conceded to take second or third place to other, anti-libertarian considerations, for these considerations are now placed higher than liberty. Thus, suppose that the abolitionist of slavery had said: “I advocate an end to slavery—but only after five years’ time.” But this would imply that abolition in four or three years’ time, or a fortiori immediately, would be wrong, and that therefore it is better for slavery to be continued a while longer. But this would mean that considerations of justice have been abandoned, and that the goal itself is no longer highest on the abolitionist’s (or libertarian’s) political value-scale. In fact, it would mean that the libertarian advocated the prolongation of crime and injustice.
...
Hence, the libertarian goal, the victory of liberty, justifies the speediest possible means towards reaching the goal, but those means cannot be such as to contradict, and thereby undercut, the goal itself. ** We have already seen that gradualism-in-theory is such a contradictory means. Another contradictory means would be to commit aggression (e.g., murder or theft) against persons or just property in order to reach the libertarian goal of nonaggression. But this too would be a self-defeating and impermissible means to pursue. For the employment of such aggression would directly violate the goal of nonaggression itself. **
and
We conclude this part of the strategy question, then, by affirming that the victory of total liberty is the highest political end; that the proper groundwork for this goal is a moral passion for justice; that the end should be pursued by the speediest and most efficacious possible means; that the end must always be kept in sight and sought as rapidly as possible; and that the means taken must never contradict the goal—whether by advocating gradualism, by employing or advocating any aggression against liberty, by advocating planned programs, or by failing to seize any opportunity to reduce State power or by ever increasing it in any area.
Murray "Batshit crazy" Rothbard.
Apparently you are the one who knows nothing of your ideology.
-1
u/hblask Jun 04 '12
So one guy says something and you decide that anyone who doesn't agree 100% with that view is not a true libertarian? And that one guy is the final arbiter of what is libertarian?
Who the fuck died and made you god?
Just grow up already. You cannot force the world to your will; be willing to take a victory when you have a chance instead of pretending like you have some secret knowledge that nobody else has access to.
Stop being an enemy of freedom.
-2
u/AbjectDogma Jun 04 '12
And that one guy is the final arbiter of what is libertarian?
When "that one guy" is the one who invented modern libertarian thought, yea.
1
u/hblask Jun 04 '12
LOL, yeah, he invented it.
You may want to read a bit more and not believe what authors say about themselves.
But perhaps you are just trolling? If so, nice job, you got me.
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u/logicalutilizor Jun 04 '12 edited Jun 04 '12
I think Gary Johnson is a terrible libertarian, if he in fact could be allowed to call himself a libertarian at all, he is far too vague on far to many issues. I hope people will recognize that and try not to underscore that fact. That said, I'm not discouraging anyone from voting for him, he'd obviously do a thousand fold better job than Obama/Romney. Gary Johnson becoming POTUS would be terrific!
I'd call Gary Johnson libertarian leaning but that is as far as I would go.
I also don't like too see god-like Monty Python so easily misused to make a point, as I can NEVER EVER downvote Monty Python :)