Why the time has come for Conservative Libertarianism

[TEPO]

Well as for dependency, I think the Hispanic population in the US has mastered the art. I was asked by a Mexican friend of mine if it was really true that white people push their kids out of the house at the age 18… . I thought that was funny.

But whether or not families depend on each other for survival or not, let’s make it clear that societies were created in the first place for increased chances of survival -because survival is naturally a team effort. It stems from the tribe. Just like in the bible.

But tell me this… What would the hunters of a tribe do if one of the men refuses to hunt…? Would they still feed him…?

Or what about a tribe who’s top hunters refused to let half their men hunt because they knew they could hoard most of the meat for themselves…?

In either case, there would need to be two hunts. You get what I’m saying…?

 

[TheRealJuliane]

But that’s where the social Conservative part (God) seems to balance the moral relativistic nature of pure Libertarianism.

Are these the Catholic Libertarians of which you speak? Because the Libertarians I know and have met along the way, are usually “spiritual and not religious,” or are some other religion such as Pastafarian.



This really is the first I have heard of any organized “God” element of the Libertarian Party. You sure they aren’t just pretending so they can “pass” as Republicans?

 

[TEPO]

…And for the record -no I do not believe that the teachings of Jesus can be used to form an economic policy… Or even to hint one way or the other. Jesus Himself even says they are seperate in the gospels.

Natural Law -perhaps maybe…

 

[TEPO]

Are these the Catholic Libertarians of which you speak? Because the Libertarians I know and have met along the way, are usually “spiritual and not religious,” or are some other religion such as Pastafarian.



This really is the first I have heard of any organized “God” element of the Libertarian Party. You sure they aren’t just pretending so they can “pass” as Republicans?

No, I think we’re making it right now… Maybe we should call it something else.

 

[EasterJoy]

Well as for dependency, I think the Hispanic population in the US has mastered the art. I was asked by a Mexican friend of mine if it was really true that white people push their kids out of the house at the age 18… . I thought that was funny.

But whether or not families depend on each other for survival or not, let’s make it clear that societies were created in the first place for increased chances of survival -because survival is naturally a team effort. It stems from the tribe. Just like in the bible.

But tell me this… What would the hunters of a tribe do if one of the men refuses to hunt…? Would they still feed him…?

Or what about a tribe who’s top hunters refused to let half their men hunt because they knew they could hoard most of the meat for themselves…?

In either case, there would need to be two hunts. You get what I’m saying…?

Well, first off, let’s start with your Hispanic friend. My brother lived at home until he was in the neighborhood of 30, and he wasn’t sponging off of my parents. He lived there as an adult and contributed as an adult, just as my MIL lived with us after she sold her house. It’s called interdependency, and families who practice it are scandalized by the idea that you’d need or want to kick an 18 year old out of your house. One of my brothers did that, too, but as you imply, he had an 18 year old dependent who was neither continuing his education nor getting a job. I don’t know about Hispanics or anyone else, but taking a break for working was permitted for about 2 weeks in our family. At that point, Dad would find something that needed doing to keep you busy! Other than occasional vacations that everyone would get, from the time you are tall enough to get forks onto the table until you’re too old to clear dishes off of it, you’re expected to make yourself useful! It’s a matter of personal dignity as much as it is a matter of fairness to everyone else.

Those are the twin considerations that I think balance out how healthy interdependence differs from an unhealthy (and unsustainable) dependence. The practical problem in our times is this: For independence to work, you have to have knowledge of yourself and each other, care for yourself and each other, and honesty with yourself and each other. When a society gets very large and connections are less obvious, the percentage of people who don’t know each other, don’t care about each other, and who are willing to lie to each other and themselves gets higher and higher. The misconceptions go up, the shared values upon which agreements about how much interdependence is appropriate–how much contribution and what kind does a person with self-respect expect of himself, herself, and others?–go down.

We live in a pluralistic society. Everyone wants to answer those questions in their own way. That’s all find, but it is not an easy situation in which to find a just and charitable way for everyone to live together and care for each other.

 

[EasterJoy]

Well as for dependency, I think the Hispanic population in the US has mastered the art. I was asked by a Mexican friend of mine if it was really true that white people push their kids out of the house at the age 18… . I thought that was funny.

But whether or not families depend on each other for survival or not, let’s make it clear that societies were created in the first place for increased chances of survival -because survival is naturally a team effort. It stems from the tribe. Just like in the bible.

But tell me this… What would the hunters of a tribe do if one of the men refuses to hunt…? Would they still feed him…?

Or what about a tribe who’s top hunters refused to let half their men hunt because they knew they could hoard most of the meat for themselves…?

In either case, there would need to be two hunts. You get what I’m saying…?

 

[TEPO]

Well, first off, let’s start with your Hispanic friend. My brother lived at home until he was in the neighborhood of 30, and he wasn’t sponging off of my parents. He lived there as an adult and contributed as an adult, just as my MIL lived with us after she sold her house. It’s called interdependency, and families who practice it are scandalized by the idea that you’d need or want to kick an 18 year old out of your house. One of my brothers did that, too, but as you imply, he had an 18 year old dependent who was neither continuing his education nor getting a job. I don’t know about Hispanics or anyone else, but taking a break for working was permitted for about 2 weeks in our family. At that point, Dad would find something that needed doing to keep you busy! Other than occasional vacations that everyone would get, from the time you are tall enough to get forks onto the table until you’re too old to clear dishes off of it, you’re expected to make yourself useful! It’s a matter of personal dignity as much as it is a matter of fairness to everyone else.

Those are the twin considerations that I think balance out how healthy interdependence differs from an unhealthy (and unsustainable) dependence. The practical problem in our times is this: For independence to work, you have to have knowledge of yourself and each other, care for yourself and each other, and honesty with yourself and each other. When a society gets very large and connections are less obvious, the percentage of people who don’t know each other, don’t care about each other, and who are willing to lie to each other and themselves gets higher and higher. The misconceptions go up, the shared values upon which agreements about how much interdependence is appropriate–how much contribution and what kind does a person with self-respect expect of himself, herself, and others?–go down.

We live in a pluralistic society. Everyone wants to answer those questions in their own way. That’s all find, but it is not an easy situation in which to find a just and charitable way for everyone to live together and care for each other.

But like I was saying earlier, we have people out of work for many reasons, including a bad economy… But I have a solution, it’s called the Dual or Split economy. It involves a dual monetary system.

The Dual economy, begins with donations and no federal money. First you create a monetary system –we’ll call it the AMERO. Once we set up exchange centers where the Dollar and the Amero can be exchanged we buy say an oil field as an example, with donated money. Everyone who works at the oil field gets paid in Amero’s where they can exchange them for dollars if they choose at the center located next to the field. Then we buy gas stations but only sell gas for Amero’s which will be transferrable with the dollar from inside the station.
The process goes on and on, and all the employees from clerk to operator to management to accounting will be paid in Amero’s. There will be no background checks, except for experience and everyone will be invited to work and get paid for every hour they put in, even the homeless. Everyone will make close to the same wages, and like a co-op, all the profits get divided up into the hands of the workers from top to bottom, bottom to top. There will be a set percentage of money that comes out of each check (like dues) put into swiss bank accounts for expansion purposes, overhead, health insurance, etc.
To work, one must be an American Citizen with a social security card. No passports, no visas.
When working, one must cancel all government aid such as food stamps, etc.
Once established, all corporate taxes must be cut dramatically across the board in the US.
Eventually, the only ones on welfare would be the handicapped and mentally ill.

It’s privatized/patriotic socialism working in tandem with government sponsored/globalized capitalism. Two systems under one roof… This way, we have choices. We can shoot for the stars, or we can work together.

But the best thing about it all -is that when people learn to work together, the morality of our nation would increase. …And along with more conservative laws put in place on the media, we would be a better “tribe”.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Why do we need a dual economy? I don’t get it.



What we need is for people to WORK instead of getting paid to do nothing. Get paid in dollars, spend those dollars in our current economy. We don’t need 2 monetary systems.

 

[EasterJoy]

But like I was saying earlier, we have people out of work for many reasons, including a bad economy… But I have a solution, it’s called the Dual or Split economy. It involves a dual monetary system.

The Dual economy, begins with donations and no federal money. First you create a monetary system –we’ll call it the AMERO. Once we set up exchange centers where the Dollar and the Amero can be exchanged we buy say an oil field as an example, with donated money. Everyone who works at the oil field gets paid in Amero’s where they can exchange them for dollars if they choose at the center located next to the field. Then we buy gas stations but only sell gas for Amero’s which will be transferrable with the dollar from inside the station.
The process goes on and on, and all the employees from clerk to operator to management to accounting will be paid in Amero’s. There will be no background checks, except for experience and everyone will be invited to work and get paid for every hour they put in, even the homeless. Everyone will make close to the same wages, and like a co-op, all the profits get divided up into the hands of the workers from top to bottom, bottom to top. There will be a set percentage of money that comes out of each check (like dues) put into swiss bank accounts for expansion purposes, overhead, health insurance, etc.
To work, one must be an American Citizen with a social security card. No passports, no visas.
When working, one must cancel all government aid such as food stamps, etc.
Once established, all corporate taxes must be cut dramatically across the board in the US.
Eventually, the only ones on welfare would be the handicapped and mentally ill.

It’s privatized/patriotic socialism working in tandem with government sponsored/globalized capitalism. Two systems under one roof… This way, we have choices. We can shoot for the stars, or we can work together.

But the best thing about it all -is that when people learn to work together, the morality of our nation would increase. …And along with more conservative laws put in place on the media, we would be a better “tribe”.

How is your system different than that in, say, Cuba? Or do you mean something like a mega-kibbutz? In a secular society, why should people care about total strangers? When has a mutually-supportive utopia ever worked, outside a community founded on a common religion?

We all remember the Aesop fable about the ant and the grasshopper. In a nutshell, I see this as the basic problem we face in America, with our pluralistic ideas of freedom and work: Do we expect grasshoppers, to some extent, to become ants, do we force ourselves to watch the shortsighted grasshoppers starve, or do we make the ants the involuntary (and resentful) benefactors of the grasshoppers?

My big frustration is that it seems that right now it is too quickly assumed that an able-bodied hungry person must be a grasshopper, even though we all know that nothing could be further from the truth. Some of the very well-fed are slothful, and some of the very hard-working are destitute or one bad stroke of fate away from destitution, and yet in politics it is pretended that the well-off earned what they have and the badly-off have their own lack of industry or virtue to thank for their situation. That is such a lie.

 

[sw85]

The problems facing modern America aren’t economic, so the solution isn’t economic, much less monetary.

Even our economic problems are largely fiscal, so monkeying around with the monetary system won’t fix them.

And to the extent our economic problems are monetary, they largely concern credit policy, and so, again, monkeying around with the monetary system won’t fix them.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

The problems facing modern America aren’t economic, so the solution isn’t economic, much less monetary.

Even our economic problems are largely fiscal, so monkeying around with the monetary system won’t fix them.

And to the extent our economic problems are monetary, they largely concern credit policy, and so, again, monkeying around with the monetary system won’t fix them.

Agree. We need Jesus. The end.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

Why the time has come for Christian Democracy:

It is Catholic, and it’s always been the time for it.

The end.

 

[TEPO]

Why do we need a dual economy? I don’t get it.



What we need is for people to WORK instead of getting paid to do nothing. Get paid in dollars, spend those dollars in our current economy. We don’t need 2 monetary systems.

People can’t work when their jobs are being sent overseas -production jobs in particular… Now the service industry (the only industry we have left) is being handed over to illegal immigrants. Now we’re selling debt.

We need an additional monetary system because the dollar is expected to depreciate, which will cause more problems for the american poor/unemployed. Besides this, we would have a better chance of saving the value of the globalized dollar if corporations spent less in taxes. The markets understand this.

If our economy ever toppled completely, we would have mass chaos. Wouldn’t it be better if there was an additional system to fall back on just in case?

 

[TheRealJuliane]

No, the way to fix the problem is not to allow the dollar to depreciate in the first place. Your approach would complicate things and add more unknowns into the system. There are many simpler approaches before we create another complication.

Lower taxes, especially business taxes. Lower corporate taxes mean businesses come back home.

Remove governmental over-reaching programs such as Obamacare.

Restrict federal aid programs.

Recognize that many trades are dying for lack of good trainees and start promoting trade schools again. Not everyone needs to go to college.

Stop aborting future taxpayers.

I have many more, but this would be a good start. The first step is to repeal Obamacare and lower corporate taxes.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

People can’t work when their jobs are being sent overseas -production jobs in particular… Now the service industry (the only industry we have left) is being handed over to illegal immigrants. Now we’re selling debt.

We need an additional monetary system because the dollar is expected to depreciate, which will cause more problems for the american poor/unemployed. Besides this, we would have a better chance of saving the value of the globalized dollar if corporations spent less in taxes. The markets understand this.

If our economy ever toppled completely, we would have mass chaos. Wouldn’t it be better if there was an additional system to fall back on just in case?

Illegal immigrants are just taking jobs that Americans don’t want to have because they think they are above them (generalization here, of course).

With that said, it’s stupid that jobs are being outsourced.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

The founding members of the Libertarian Party quickly realized that pushing the legalization of pot wasn’t getting them where they wanted to go, so the agenda went underground. That is why you don’t see it heading up the issues as it did when the party was formed. It’s more acceptable to say you are “non-interventionist” than that you want drugs legalized. There are some savvy strategists within the Libertarian Party, no doubt. You can cite whatever sources you wish. Accuse me of libel if you wish. I am stating what I saw, heard, and read when the party was in its raw beginnings in Colorado. Had a lot of encounters with the Party back then. Many of my friends totally supported the party and did what they could to help. Of course the format has changed substantially over the years. The platform has evolved. But no one is going to tell me about the history when I lived it.

I’ve given you evidence on two occasions and given you three opportunities to provide evidence to the contrary. You have chosen to maintain your view, without providing evidence.

Therefore, at this point, you are being willfully ignorant. It should be 100% clear to everyone in this thread that the person who ignores evidence and responds with personal anecdotes (rather than contrary evidence) is on the losing side of the argument. Game over.

 

[TEPO]

The problems facing modern America aren’t economic, so the solution isn’t economic, much less monetary.

Even our economic problems are largely fiscal, so monkeying around with the monetary system won’t fix them.

And to the extent our economic problems are monetary, they largely concern credit policy, and so, again, monkeying around with the monetary system won’t fix them.

Everything fiscal revolves around the dollar whether it’s taxes or credit… The Proposed AMERO is non taxable because it is not of the government… It’s credit is to be determined.

Also creating a new monetary system could either boost the dollar or would have little effect because the people using it would have already been withdrawn from the current economy.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

I’ve given you evidence on two occasions and given you three opportunities to provide evidence to the contrary. You have chosen to maintain your view, without providing evidence.

Therefore, at this point, you are being willfully ignorant. It should be 100% clear to everyone in this thread that the person who ignores evidence and responds with personal anecdotes (rather than contrary evidence) is on the losing side of the argument. Game over.

In your opinion. Personal experience still counts. And it’s not a game.

 

[TEPO]

No, the way to fix the problem is not to allow the dollar to depreciate in the first place. Your approach would complicate things and add more unknowns into the system. There are many simpler approaches before we create another complication.

Lower taxes, especially business taxes. Lower corporate taxes mean businesses come back home.

Remove governmental over-reaching programs such as Obamacare.

Restrict federal aid programs.

Recognize that many trades are dying for lack of good trainees and start promoting trade schools again. Not everyone needs to go to college.

Stop aborting future taxpayers.

I have many more, but this would be a good start. The first step is to repeal Obamacare and lower corporate taxes.

I agree with everything you say. Honestly.

But there is no law that says that indivuduals cannot start their own monetary system outside of the current government-backed one.

Those who will not hunt with the tribe must hunt on their own, and a tribe that does not allow all their men to hunt as a team should expect several hunts.

 

[EasterJoy]

No, the way to fix the problem is not to allow the dollar to depreciate in the first place. Your approach would complicate things and add more unknowns into the system. There are many simpler approaches before we create another complication.

Lower taxes, especially business taxes. Lower corporate taxes mean businesses come back home.

Remove governmental over-reaching programs such as Obamacare.

Restrict federal aid programs.

Recognize that many trades are dying for lack of good trainees and start promoting trade schools again. Not everyone needs to go to college.

Stop aborting future taxpayers.

I have many more, but this would be a good start. The first step is to repeal Obamacare and lower corporate taxes.

Taxes are not the only cost of doing business here. Check out the working conditions and compensation packages of Chinese factory workers some time, not to mention the strict environmental laws enforced by “factory” countries.

I submit that the problem is that we aren’t willing to settle for a standard of living that would allow the people making our goods and offering services to us to share anything like a similar standard of living with us, arrived at in a way that is sustainable for more than a few decades of American life. If that is what we wanted, we’d buy American, we’d buy from businesses that treated their employees well, and we’d be well on our way. We’d rather pay less for electronics, hotel rooms, and fresh produce, though, wouldn’t we?

If you’re going to repeal Obamacare, that is fine. It is not the only way to do it. Since it is illegal for hospitals to do a wallet biopsy before deciding whether or not to treat a critically ill patient, who pays for that? What about a 30 year old cancer victim with no insurance and no money? To treat or not to treat? Are children to be held responsible for the financial position of their parents in terms of the health care they have access to? Should people get free health care because they are old, regardless of their ability to pay their own way? Answer those big questions: is there any level of health care to which a person is entitled merely by virtue of being human, if not who does get it, and who pays for that, how much do you pay those who provide it, what are we willing to pay to continue to improve care, and you’re over half-way to answering what health care will cost and who gets to pay for it. How we do that is a subject for the imagination.

How are you planning on restricting federal aid programs? No one ever gets elected any more without saying they’ll do it, but it gets sticky when they have to cough up details. It is a lot like the health care problem. It is easy to say the cat can be more easily evaded if someone were to put a bell on the cat’s neck, but with any plan the devil is in the details.