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| what is this thing? |
What do Lao Tzu, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, Robert Heinlein, Denis Leary, Trey Parker, Clint Eastwood, Danny Elfmann, Bruce Willis, Penn & Teller, Drew Carey, Kurt Russell, Tom Selleck, Howard Stern, Dennis Miller, Chris Rock, Jimmie ‘JJ’ Walker, Neil Peart, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jimmie Vaughan all have in common?
They’re all Libertarians.
Try this quiz. Do you . . .
- Oppose all forms of censorship?
- Think the Federal gov’t is ridiculously bloated?
- Oppose special treatment for any gender or race?
- Believe military service should be voluntary?
- Oppose all laws regarding sex & marriage between consenting adults?
- Support drug legalization?
- Oppose overseas invasions?
- Think America’s militia kicked Britain’s arse in the 1770s?
- Disapprove of corporate subsidies?
- Think gov’t “no-fly” passenger lists don’t counter terrorism?
- Agree that abortion must remain a personal decision?
- Favor free markets and trade?
- Believe teachers should be paid more?
- Support incentives for non-profits instead of welfare?
- Believe in the Bill of Rights?
.
If so, maybe you’re a Libertarian too.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
You can like JJ! Like him all you want. But you know if TJ was around today. He’d have his long hair in a pony tail tucked under his knitted african-colored cotton woven hat, baggy green doctor pants, mexican poncho, and berkenstock’s tapping on the hacky sack smokin’ a bit fat chronic with his 7th removed black cousins, daddy-o!
Hillary Rocked tonight. Go Dems! Go TJ. He’d be votin’ for Barrack O. Yeah: instead of Tobacco he’d be groin’ hemp and selling it out of the van outside of his VW van on interstate that crawls through New Mexico. Get enough money to head to the next Fish Concert and then find a place to squat in the upper north west while matriculating some class on women’s studies. Whoooooooooooo. Go TJ.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I like your points, Scotch – In most areas. Some, I’d have to say “yeah, but”. For the most part, though, I’m glad you did bring up the notion that Libertarianism in your operational term-definition has a wide spread meaning.
My perception was always one of severe industrialization with hardly any government intervention and on that point I’d disagree. From the Libertarianism point of view, are you sure you want to travel down the road of a fractured perception/definition of what Libertarianism is all about? Sounds like you may be opening up yourself to being pointed as a European Socialist who invites too many parties and decision makers of what’s what. In other words a party who can’t make a friggin’ decision on how to cross the street.
There are points I can cavil on with you philosophically; but, since I’m tired of dealing with fuctards, and wanting to leave teaching, I have to get back to my studies – so that I may have a better life. See, LIBERTARIANISM in action.
I like this blog and will be posting more and more within it as time goes on. I also feel validated that – you – who is the director of this site has deigned to speak to me directly.
I think you broach good topics that make people think. And to this, I think this to be of utmost importance. I also like the common man’s verve that you sneak into the twist of things, which creates a bit of the gregarious,guffaws and commotions that breaks us free from our fucking mundane lives.
For that, my man, I tip my hat and give you two thumbs up.
Or, as Larry Flint would say: “You get four cocks up!”
August 26th, 2008 at 10:43 am
to mr. hmm, i think it’s irrev. whether thomas jefferson would be a libertarian today. the question is: did he embody lib ideals in the 1770s? and he did: his support of separation of church & state, state rights, limited fed govt, and the “natural right” of colonists to govern themselves are all libertarian ideals. libertarianism can be social, political, economic, or a combination; one doesn’t have to be a total lib to fall into the libertarian spectrum. you could be liberal economically, but not liberal socially. picking apart every aspect of TJ’s life to determine his total “technical” lib fitness is a waste of time.
the sweeping list of successful or inspiring libertarian names provided illustrates either people who have claimed their affiliation with libertarian ideals explicitly (since libertarian became a term), or who just embodied them in some way at some time. it’s informational for people who are interested in something beyond the 2-party system, not an argument for who belongs to what in what degree.
sure, Ayn Rand & Hamilton & Smith could be added, but so could 10,000 other names and life is short.
re: privatization of armies, whole books have been written about this, so i’m not going to address it. read about it if you want the mechanics. in this age, a privatized army is just a model. we can’t have it at the federal level in a nuclear age – nobody is gonna trust bubba’s militia to protect an ICBM from rusky paratroopers. but that doesn’t mean the model is bankrupt. limited smaller militias make sense today as much as they did in the 1770s. that’s basically what guardian angels are, although they’re unarmed – protecting ordinary citizens and serving as witnesses. and although not organized, responsible gun owners generally serve the same decentralized defensive purpose, insofar as they can protect those around them from criminals and crazy cops alike.
re: jj, he’s got my respect. smart & hilarious as hell, world famous, huge career, continues to do standup, and success coming out his ears. i’d settle for 1/10th of his magic, or to have my face associated with dynomite. check out his site — he’s got a nice blog.
to mr. teacher, TRS sounds a hell of lot better than social security. but how much can a teacher’s income of $40K compare to a corporate making $100K with a 401K plan that offers corporate matching of, say, 6%? a good saver working at a corporate job is going to walk away with a hell of lot more cash, and probably be able to retire earlier and with more wealth if that’s the goal. sure, a teacher gets more time off, but a with flex time, no lesson plans, up to a month off at some jobs, and the cash to travel more, the corporate is comparable on a lot of points.
but let’s not compare the two, because you underscore my point with TRS — that we can’t rely on the govt, the cliche that SS is broken, and that working people get more with privatization. i know several teachers in L.A. who make over $80K per year plus decent health insurance at private schools. finding those jobs is hard because it’s so competitive — and that’s the whole idea. privatization means you have to offer a better product in order to survive. you have to self-improve in order to draw interest in a crowded field. and so quality goes up. but add to this the libertarian ideal of smaller and more efficient govt, and you wind up with lower taxes that mean more savings and more wealth no matter what your bracket.
let’s not quibble the merits of libertarianism here. there are sites dedicated to that. for anyone visiting who believes america’s founders wanted something better than what obama and hill and mccain are pitching, check these out:
great intro articles on libertarianism
libertarian bob barr for president
libertarian party web site
August 25th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Dude,
I teach and don’t think I make piss poor money. We get better benefits than most in corporate America. Oh, and if you can survive the little fuctards for 180 days, you also get another little bonus that no one really thinks about, but is oh so crucial.
Check this out: Teachers pay into a fund called TRS – Teacher’s Retirement System. It means instead of putting your money (6.5%) into Social Security, teacher’s put it into TRS.
What does this mean to us and to someone who works in corporate America and pays into Social Security.
Here are the highlights:
1) Teachers have access to the money they put in to TRS at anytime. Namely when one quits teaching or retires, one can get access to all the money.
2) Corp. America people who work for private corporations can never get full access to their social security until they retire.
3) One can never get their social security or total social security that they paid in and get one lump sum. Nope.
4) TRS or governmental workers can pass their retirement money to their loved one’s when they kick the bucket.
5) Social Security People: when you die, your fuckin’ check dies. Your loved ones don’t get shit. even if you die at 60.
So, don’t feel so sorry for us. When you amortize our pay out to a 12 month level we get paid more than per capita than what we get. Meaning, during July and August we can work and make more money.
Oh and don’t forget: besides getting Summer Break to kick it and relax or work and make more bucks, we get 1 full week off for Thanks Giving; 2 Weeks off for Christmas; and another week off for Spring break. We also get major national holidays off that some smaller and larger corps don’t give to their employees.
So, don’t worry about us. Oh yeah, you and yours don’t get the kick out of the taxes you put in for your children’s education. Please don’t feel sorry for us. Feel sorry for yourselves.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Jimmy JJ Walker can’t even spell libertarianism. He just wants to have “free enterprise” so he can buy his “Chronic” without whitie in badges arresting his skinny ass.
“Yeah Thelma, I want government off our backs so I can buy my weed without uncle sam taking it from me and putting me in the can. Now, where’s my welfare check?”
“Well JJ. If you want to buy your “Chronic” without the government on your ass, you also have to give up your rights to eating the governments cheese (welfare check)”
JJ retorts: “WhatCHU Talkin’ bout, Willis?!!!?”
Oops, wrong black dude. That’s Arnold’s line!
August 25th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
I don’t think you can “fatuously” lump all those cats in the same boat my man.
I can’t think that if Thomas Jefferson were around today, him being the agrarian fool that he loved to be, he wouldn’t be playing hacky-sack with some north western suburb Seattleans stoking on a fatty saying that he’s gonna vote for Barrack Hemmings…I mean Barrack Obama.
Remember: it was his federalist nemesis Hamilton that made America what it was today. A bastion of Capitalism.
Is TJ, technically, a liberterian? one could argue that his bill of rights, state’s rights, and no centralized government points in that direction. One could call it a sort of organic free style libertarianism. But if Hamilton didn’t take the reins and tell TJ to go fuck himself, then we would’ve reverted back to some sort of mottled hogge-podge of agrarian fuedalesque type of society in which Britian, France, and Spain would’ve come in and taken advantage of this decentralized garbage can of a vision that T. Jefferson had promoted.
Those power houses of the time during of our nacency would have joined together and spread our legs open (real wide) and collectively fucked us like Freddy’s Momma.
Ok, so we beat Britian with some cheap ass guerrilla warfare – just like the Vietnamese did back in the sixties and just like the desert assholes are doing to us in Iraq. But, if you had France, England, and Spain making some major plans to take over and fortify this continent, do you think our continental army could defeat them?
So please my man: take uncle T. J. out of the libertarian file. while you’re at it, put in Ayn Rand; and Alexander Hamilton. A. Hamilton did centralize shit but he was pro business and pro industrialism… when one thinks of libertarianism, one usually thinks of in non-organic type/pro industrial terms. Just like your boy Adam Smith.
Or perhaps you subscribe to a multicultural-hybrid operational term of Libertarianism?
Just: thank fuck you didn’t add Bill Maher’s name to the list.