TO: Horse
From: Rog
HORSE:
How odd - I came up as left-liberal - closer to libertarian than extreme
left-liberal. Not that the
test will tell you much as it steered away from the more difficult areas of
abortion, euthanasia,
capital punishment etc. The one thing that most of these surveys don't seem
to cater for is
that most choices will have various proviso's attached.
ROG:
The attached links imply that Libertarians support the right of the 1st two
and would avoid giving the government the power to do the latter. IMO.
H:
Conscription - not a good idea for various reasons. If you have an army, and
let's face it the
main role of an army is to perfom violent acts and not to act as
peacekeepers, then you want
one that does it's job properly when it needs to. Most conscriptees won't be
happy about
performing violent acts or being put in situations where they might get
killed and hence do
not operate as efficiently as a volunteer army.
R:
This was Jonathan's argument for the opposite. You certainly have a cynical
view of military "defense" !
H:
Media Control - Unfortunately the comms media (radio, TV, press, Internet) ,
as with many
industries will abuse the power that it has (which is enormous, Rupert
Murdoch hasn't built his
empire for fun) and will need at least some controls put on it. I agree that
these should be
minimal but there should be some. Is it acceptable to be slandered by
Newscorp? Should
advertisements contain outright lies? Should paedophile activity be accepted
on the net?
R:
The libertarian position (as I read it) is to allow virtually anything as
long as it doesn't harm others. Deceptive advertising, pedophilia and
slander do harm others and need to be suppressed.
H:
Freedom of movement - how do the US contingent feel about this, given that
you have some
of the most repressive immigration conditions in the world (probably about
the same as the
UK though to be fair). Personally I'm quite happy for complete freedom of
movement, no
borders whatsoever and would quite happily do away entirely with the concept
of country,
nation etc.
R:
This country is great because of the steady stream of immigrants, imo. Of
course, we can only handle so many at once. (Oddly enough, very few people
seem to want to leave here.) In general I would like to see more than we
currently allow in. (my family is, in full disclosure, comprised primarily
of recent immigrants)
H:
Subsidies to business - None whatsoever to privately owned sector but quite
happy about
subsidising services such as transport, utilities etc. but I don't think
these should be in the
private sector anyway.
R:
None whatsoever.... I agree. The only thing more dangerous than bad
government is bad government alligned with bad special interests (business,
unions, lawyers, etc).
H:
Free Trade and tariffs - virtually every western country has plenty of
tariffs. There is no such
thing as free trade mainly because all the coutries (without exception) that
profess to support
free trade generally mean in one direction only - their own. Europe and the
States could not
survive without the incredibly repressive tariffs and import restrictions
they impose on many
foreign imports and it's a gross hypocrisy to suggest otherwise.
R:
Tariffs are a parasite on free enterprise. The lower the tariffs, all other
things being equal, the greater the economic benefit to both parties
involved. The wealthiest countries usually have much lower tarrifs than the
poorest. In the US, our major trade disputes are over a few insignificant
high profile topics (genetic engineering, etc) except with Japan. (Due to
the perception that Japan -- which is turning into an economic wreck --
won't import).
H
Minimum Wage - if a firm won't pay the generally pathetically low minimum
wage on offer in
most countries then as far as I'm concerned that firm should be shut down. If
it can't pay the
minimum wage it'll shut down soon enough.
R:
The minimum wage is the lowest amount allowed by government in a country. How
can it not be paid? In general, minimum wages are a tax on corporations that
employ the low skilled. The economic response to excessive minimum wage is
of course to just take your business somewhere else. If you want income
transfers, this may not be the most prudent way to accomplish it. (though it
isn't the worst either)
H:
End Taxes - yeah, right! Ok who's gonna go first? Who's going to pay for the
military to
protect you from the invading hordes that will overrun you?
R:
You make jest! For you obviously don't think the military is for defending.
In America, about a bit more than a third of workers (the lowest earning
third) pay no income tax. The top 10% pay the majority of taxes (over half)
here.
H:
Entirely privately funded foreign aid - this is the funniest one yet. First
you screw them then
you help them. I seem to remember some time back reading that those coutries
that receive
foreign aid generally pay at least 10 times the same amount back to the
countries that
provide the aid. Perhaps this could be seen as a discount scheme.
R:
What is this screwing? I suspect most foriegn aid is simply a way to
purchase favoritism from ruling elites in the process of exploiting their own
people.
H:
What is odd about a number of the questions is the language that's used and
the
assumptions made.
Subsidies to business - does this include the huge subsidies to the
military/aerospace
industries. Forty billion dollars for the stealth bomber!!! Someone somewhere
just got
shafted.
And how much did we and the French pay for Concorde? The Eurofighter?
As far as I can see this is no more than welfare for the already wealthy.
R:
That is the point of the Libertarian argument. They don't condone aerospace
subsidies (neither do I)
H:
Other examples of this abound and as has been pointed out what you mean in
the US by
Socialist and what a European means are completely different.
R:
You may have talked yourself into believing that American Libertarians
believe in some things that libertarians don't believe in.
Rog
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