re: I know a lot of you don't like libertarians, but this might open some eyes;

Try reading Reason and listening to guys like Nick Gillespie and Robbie Soave. They are more than willing to accept responsibility for failures and take a beating.

Republicans and Democrats want the game rigged so that they get the advantage to win but also make sure there are soft landings for them and their friends

quote:

---

Of course it does. If you aren't voting for someone who can win, you're surrendering your vote to whoever ends up winning.

---

Only a dumbass equates the two.

And that has zero do to with your post

quote:

---

The country was founded by people with shared culture/beliefs who were expected to act in good faith.

The country today is nothing like this.

---

Yeah, the further we move away from it, the worse off we get.

Government created the welfare queen, the welfare queen did not create the government.

quote:

---

If you mean individualism, I understand that the founders tilted that way rather than collectivism.

I like the tilt to as small a government as can be practical. The more moral and self disciplined the people, the less government you will need.

I'm saying that libertarianism in its purist form where there is only the individual doing what he wishes breaks down in the real world because of the sleeping problem. The individual is out there working, building, accumulating wealth with no government telling him what to do, but eventually he has to sleep. And while he's sleeping other individuals will come and take his stuff.

So, he has to work out something with others and engage in some mutually beneficial arrangements, dare we say, a little collectivism. That way his wealth is secure but he has to trade some of it for that security.


Full tilt collectivism on the other hand has a motivation problem. Since it obliterates the individual, there is no wealth to trade for protection because what's the point of creating wealth you can never own? It will eventually fail because it is too poor to defend itself from the richer and more advanced tribe down the road.

As Aristotle taught us, the golden mean matters. Virtue is achieved when the opposite forces of Collectivism and individualism are balanced.

---

Collectivism treats people as group identities and is ignorance. That our rights are not determined as individuals, but rather to the groups we belong to. This is pure ignorance IMO.

Individuals have rights and that's it. They also have their own characteristics, not some group stereotype where you get to pick and choose which attributes belong to them to suit your agenda and bias.

But individuals can come together to form groups. That's freedom of association. And within those groups they can choose for themselves how to live and be a community.

That's not collectivism at work and I don't think I would agree on calling it that. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't think of collectivism to mean those things.

Some people may choose to have more local government, and some may choose to have less. It's the act of being able to choose that determines individual liberty. Where I live now I am perfectly content with the balance we have in services and the quality of services compared to our tax rates. When I lived in California for a decade I was not at all content with it, quite the opposite.

quote:

---

Telling you the truth =/= lashing out

---

When you find the truth, it'll be the first time itt. Here you are, lashing out at reality:

quote:

---

Only a dumbass equates the two.

And that has zero do to with your post

---

quote:

---

But individuals can come together to form groups. That's freedom of association. And within those groups they can choose for themselves how to live and be a community.

---

It seems that we are pretty much agreeing. When people form groups and pool resources for the collective benefit (police, roads, sewers, etc.) that is a degree of collectivism balanced against individualism for mutual benefit.

That would not be an example of hyper-collectivism, like communism would be.

quote:

---

It seems that we are pretty much agreeing. When people form groups and pool resources for the collective benefit (police, roads, sewers, etc.) that is a degree of collectivism balanced against individualism for mutual benefit.

That would not be an example of hyper-collectivism, like communism would be.

---

But it's voluntary and that can only work on the smallest of scales. You can't freely join or leave otherwise.

My house is dictatorship even. Sure as hell not good to have that on a larger scale.

quote:

---

Neither one survive long out in the wild.

---

It's never been done 'right'

fortunately we have the brilliant mind to get it done 'correctly' thist time

Kamala