said somewhat differently....

The two major parties are fairly clearly defined... and they both want the government to enforce their beliefs and they go about forming 'majorities' in order to accomplish this. I think anyone that argues with that is foolish. Individuals within those parties of course vary widely.... but there is nothing inherently 'liberal' about that.

The libertarian 'party' as you note is a fringe/niche 'party', poorly organized (as one would expect of a party that supports your right to believe whatever the hell you want) and no real clear political identity as it doesn't wield sufficient clout to demonstrate it... but the very definition of being a libertarian is to support individual liberty as opposed to supporting the will of the majority. It is inherently 'liberal'.

and yet here you are saying the exact opposite... that a group of people whose primary raison d'etre is to support individual liberty somehow doesn't believe in the freedom of minority opinions/classic liberalism?

Y'all don't support individual liberty. You guys think "liberty" is the freedom to discriminate against others.

You want to gut the govt of all protections against workers, minorities, and the environment and yet have the brass balls to claim you support the environment, minorities, and workers.

Libertarians simply hate govt and with that comes a hatred of govt protection of minorities

(07-06-2017 02:41 PM)john01992 Wrote:  You want to know why Libertarians will never get to 5%? Because I'm 100% right. You guys are by no means moderate or liberal and you ideology is too dumb and stupid to actually work in reality. It takes arrogance to believe a lot of the crap you spew (specifically that u are the only ones who believe in rights) which is why even with the Ds and Rs producing the two most dislike candidates in decades the Ls only further embarrassed and made a complete joke out of their party in 2016.

wow...

and I'm supposedly the condescending and arrogant prick?

(07-06-2017 02:49 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(07-06-2017 02:41 PM)john01992 Wrote:  You want to know why Libertarians will never get to 5%? Because I'm 100% right. You guys are by no means moderate or liberal and you ideology is too dumb and stupid to actually work in reality. It takes arrogance to believe a lot of the crap you spew (specifically that u are the only ones who believe in rights) which is why even with the Ds and Rs producing the two most dislike candidates in decades the Ls only further embarrassed and made a complete joke out of their party in 2016.

wow...

and I'm supposedly the condescending and arrogant prick?

Well it's true. If you can't get 5% with HRC and Trump as your opponents your entire party is fricken hopeless and useless. Libertarian policy is so dumb that their views are incompatible with modern govt.

It's funny watching Paul have to suddenly explain why he didn't mean to propose a drastically slashed CDC budget when the Ebola crisis was going on. A libertarian wants to simply gut govt while being oblivious to the protections it provides

You're proving that I wasn't spewing drivel...

(07-06-2017 02:47 PM)john01992 Wrote:  Y'all don't support individual liberty. You guys think "liberty" is the freedom to discriminate against others.

Wow... again telling me 'what I think'

I said... You confuse personal opinions with political agendas. I can believe that something is horrible, and yet not insist that the government step in to stop it... because it's not my business.

I stand by that in contrast to your belief.

I support the right of racists to discriminate only to the extent that I also support the rights of people to discriminate against racists. I've made my position very clear and it isn't at all what you think. The power to control them is the power to be controlled by them.

(07-06-2017 02:48 PM)john01992 Wrote:  You want to gut the govt of all protections against workers, minorities, and the environment and yet have the brass balls to claim you support the environment, minorities, and workers.

a) show me where I said I support the environment, minorities and workers? I didn't. Unlike you, I specifically try not to pick and choose winners and losers. You're proving my point.... especially in that you have to claim i said something i never did.

b) show me where I said I want to gut those projects... oh yeah, you can't do that either.

(07-06-2017 02:49 PM)john01992 Wrote:  Libertarians simply hate govt and with that comes a hatred of govt protection of minorities

more lunacy and completely counter to anything I believe

Government serves a very important purpose, but it ISN'T to decide who wins and loses based on popularity. It's to protect individual freedom and liberty, which is in direct conflict with your claim.

(06-30-2017 06:56 PM)miko33 Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 05:07 PM)umbluegray Wrote:  I used to consider a Libertarian.

Now I consider myself a Founder's Libertarian.

I differentiate that from contemporary libertarianism regarding how we qualify personal choice.

Our Founders advocated for self-government within the confines of moral absolutes as opposed to moral relativism.

As a contemporary libertarian I might say that the individual should be free to smoke marijuana if he or she so chooses. It's a personal decision left to the individual.

In reality, that decision has a very significant impact on others. Those others include family members, friends, employers, and society in general.

Once I have to pay taxes due to another person's individual choice then I am impacted by that person's choice.

If I'm impacted then I should have a say.

The founding fathers set up a secular gov't deigned to minimize encroachments against life, liberty and property. Aside from that, they had very little to say about moral absolutes. Some founders were Christians but many were not (deists and atheists). Those moral absolutes were left to the states if they wished to pursue that.

That is one interpretation that historians have shared, but it is not the only one.

Consider that the various colonies sent representatives to the Constitutional Convention and that those representatives had taken the oath of office of their respective states. Each of those newly formed states had their own constitutions which included an oath of office. Those oaths of office included acknowledgements of and belief in Christianity.

Founding Father after Founding Father have made statements regarding the role of Christianity in the foundation of America.

The SCOTUS acknowledge the same in its famous Organic Utterances decision.

Odd... You have people on both sides of the aisle calling for secession or 'revolution' and yet you're just fine with the status quo.

The biggest reason they'll never get to 5% (not saying I specifically agree with that) is that the two parties won't let them. They have too many people like you willing to shout down others in support of the status quo, AND they control the entire process.

The Ebola Crisis? Lol..... yep... never let a crisis go to waste... The fact that there was a scare means that all funds in the entire department are inviolate.

You are funny Ham and not in a good way

The only one who seriously want sucession here is GTS

Again, you add words that I didn't use... I said 'the aisle'. I didn't say 'on here'. I also didn't say they were especially serious, hence my putting 'revolution' in quotes.

People on both sides of the aisle are very upset about the system and calling for significant changes to it. Do you deny this? I can show you threads 'on here' (if this is your only source of information) where people have quoted articles in major media outlets and political figures and activists calling for significant changes in things like eliminating the electoral college, breaking Cali up into 5 states and secession of either cali or Texas (or both). They don't have to be particularly serious to reflect a general frustration with the two party system. Bernie certainly tried to shake up the left (came far closer than anyone would have suspected), and Trump absolutely shook up the right.

The obvious point I'm making (and it goes along with the theme of the thread) is that the two-party system appears to have left a lot of people out in the cold. It GAVE us the two horrible candidates you note, but it seems you're not ready to accept any changes to it.

IMO, classic liberals have been left out. That means individual liberty libertarians (like me) AND social activist liberals (like Bernie/my son) in favor of this 'gray' hodge-podge where despite all of the arguments about the fringe... the actual differences in policies aren't that great. Certainly they impact different groups, but in aggregate it's all the same. As I said, despite being quite personally conservative, I favored Bernie over Trump.

RINO's DINO's... whatever. They're all about the process and the power... not about making things better.

No. The only person I've ever seen seriously want it either in the media, in life, or on here is GTS. Since when has secession ever been a mainstream view? Like I said ur so niche and out of touch it's ridiculous

Why do you routinely do this?

again with the words 'seriously' and 'on here', which a) is a matter of perspective and has no real definition and b) I never said.

I also never said anything about 'mainstream'.

There were probably 50 threads on here and hundreds in the media about eliminating the EC after the election

There's a thread on here now with 100,000 people in Texas and 30,000 in 5 other states who are serious enough about it to sign petitions... as we've seen, Presidential elections (much less anything smaller) can turn on far fewer votes.

I've seen estimates where millions of Bernie voters 'stayed home' rather than vote. 100,000 come out for their likely alternative in a few states and she's in the White House.

There are articles in the LA Times, National Review and Business Insider about California seceding
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/...story.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/californi...-us-2017-2
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/442...-secession

Here is a ballot initiative in the state to break it into 6
http://www.sixcalifornias.com/

I'm not saying they go anywhere... I'm merely pointing out what thousands of articles and numerous polls have stated and that is that 'unhappiness with the political system' is quite high.... arguably as high as its ever been.

Here's Gallup in 2014
http://www.gallup.com/poll/166985/dissat...works.aspx
Sixty-five percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the nation's system of government and how well it works, the highest percentage in Gallup's trend since 2001.

and according to this general satisfaction poll, in 2017 it's routinely been in the 70's and even in the 90's
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1669/General-...untry.aspx



So you can continue to act like I'm spouting silliness and for some un-demonstrated reason you're somehow 'above' me, yet you still bother to lower yourself to engage in name calling... OR you can accept that the idea that large and it seems increasing numbers of people are dis-satisfied with our two party political system.


Not to mention that just because you THINK 'libertarian' means 'racist anarchist' doesn't make it so.

WTF does secession have to do with the EC and WTF did secession have anything to do with the original conversation?

Really?

The OP is about there being 4 parties rather than the traditional two.

We're talking about people's discontent with the 2 party political system represented by that... the status quo.

Eliminating the EC shifts the balance of power from the smaller states to the larger ones
Breaking up California shifts the power from the larger cities to the smaller ones
Both are examples of people unhappy with the 'balance of political power'

secession is the ultimate statement of dissatisfaction.

Conversations about eliminating the EC or seceding from the union or breaking up states is ALL ABOUT demonstrating people's disconnect to the status quo/the two party system... reflected by the comment...
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with one another......."

What, if not 'dissolving political bonds' IS the growth of more parties/splintering of the original two (the OP) or seceding from the union or breaking up states based on political influence?
Whether you are dissolving them with the GOP or DNC (splintering into different parties) or USA (secession) or California (breaking up a state) or even England, you are dissolving the political bonds which have connected us

(07-07-2017 09:57 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Really?

The OP is about there being 4 parties rather than the traditional two.

We're talking about people's discontent with the 2 party political system represented by that... the status quo.

Eliminating the EC shifts the balance of power from the smaller states to the larger ones
Breaking up California shifts the power from the larger cities to the smaller ones
Both are examples of people unhappy with the 'balance of political power'

secession is the ultimate statement of dissatisfaction.

Conversations about eliminating the EC or seceding from the union or breaking up states is ALL ABOUT demonstrating people's disconnect to the status quo/the two party system... reflected by the comment...
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with one another......."

What, if not 'dissolving political bonds' IS the growth of more parties/splintering of the original two (the OP) or seceding from the union or breaking up states based on political influence?
Whether you are dissolving them with the GOP or DNC (splintering into different parties) or USA (secession) or California (breaking up a state) or even England, you are dissolving the political bonds which have connected us

all I'm gonna say in response to your post ==>

because as a certain math symbol now tells me, you are incredibly thinned skinned.

I hoped I could have helped you with my recent interaction but it appears you are beyond help.