The rise and fall of the libertarians?

[Rad]

Trump has contradicted himself at every juncture. You cannot take anything he says at face value. This is a man who supported the War in Iraq, and indeed called for an invasion of Iraq, in the media, before it happened. Link. He has called for "boots on the ground" (what he means is US soldiers: humans, not boots) to fight ISIS. Link. He has called for troops to remain in Afghanistan. Link. He has called for strengthening our military, already the largest on the planet. He has called for bombing oil fields in Iraq. He has called for stopping Iran's nuclear program "by any means necessary", and has called for a pre-emptive strike on North Korea. Link.

How are any of these positions liberty positions? They are pro-war, ultra-war-hawk positions which would/will involve the US in even more overseas military quagmires.




Johnson called for a 43% reduction in military spending. This is exactly what needs to happen. We need to bring our troops home from overseas entanglements. Any of the LP candidates have a better foreign policy than Donald Trump, who of course has two positions on any issue.

People project their wants on Trump and Bernie. There are leftist that see through Bernie: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/16/blood-traces-bernies-iraq-war-hypocrisy/

Bernie supports Obama's kill list. I think Ron Paul had a smart message that united everyone. Corporations/banks have the system that protects themselves from capitalism with government help, the country is broke and money is wasted on wars which create more enemies for ourselves, and that we have lost our freedoms. He wanted to start by cutting spending by 1 trillion dollars. I think Victor Gold nails one of the main reasons Ron Paul was popular: https://youtu.be/HYQDwHPSF5A?t=4m47s

 

[Ronin Truth]

I was a libertarian before Ron Paul came along. I liked and respected Ron, but I was never hugely excited about what he was doing. 70%-80% of the people supporting Ron were not libertarian in any meaningful way. And the people Ron did encourage to become libertarian didn't necessarily learn the right lessons.

Rand was the best libertarian shot probably ever but his chances were were still low single digits. The excitement for libertarianism was always overstated.

There is value in keeping ideas alive and conversing with like minded people. It doesn't take that many people to shift policy. You could have looked back at many points in the 20th Century and be very pessimistic. But a small number of free market intellectuals changed world history for the better.

Me too.

+Rep!

 

[Bryan]

.


Please keep the discussion civil and on topic. This thread isn't about any candidate or their political views. Thanks.

Here we have someone fresh off of a temporary ban, and who came back with a vengeance, as you yourself admitted.


Now, everyone knows that Hitler was no globalist, beyond his desire to take the globe from the globalists. Yet he started a war that didn't end in his lifetime, and destroyed his own nation with it. And every schoolchild knows it.

There's no reason for a libertarian to rewrite history in this manner. But it certainly does qualify as a sales pitch for Trump, doesn't it?



Let's imagine for a moment that LLS is considering rejoining us, and is lurking at this very moment. Is the admission that Trump is trying to steal the world's oil, combined with a contention that he's trying to do it as efficiently as possible, going to entice her to log in and join the conversation?



Painting with a broad brush (is a Sanders supporter not capable of deciding that socialism is bad, but war is worse?), insulting potential supporters, and nakedly promoting Trump (and not using any provable facts to do it).



Since when is it a given that the antiwar faction is afraid of 'third' parties, and what is there about Mr. Conquer the Middle East and Take Their Oil is going to attract the antiwar faction?

Our best hope to form a winning coalition, and your best hope of restoring traffic to this place, lies in forming coalitions, and the antiwar group is about as big and active a group as any of us could ever hope to coalesce with. Would it not be wise to make this place attractive to them, now that their horse is about to be eliminated from the race?

Trump people have about a hundred echo chambers they can hang out in. Those who are here, therefore, are pretty likely to have an agenda. And a coalition for liberty is not it.

On its own, you are correct, that would not project what we want but consider the following... A Trump supporter wants to see what the Paul people are thinking and comes to the site, reads that message and is saying "That's what I'm thinking!". Then comes the liberty rebuttal to puts everything in place in a nice logical fashion. Confronted with the big picture the Trump supporter then gives pause and has to reflect on the merits of their position; they know they can't win a debate against someone who knows the issues.

So the point is, there can be value in an intellectual discussion of the ideas. If that message was put forth on the site with no rebuttal in its own corner, elevated to the front page or otherwise glorified it would be a big problem, but that's not what's happening. So good discussion has merit.

One problem can arise from this, if the same arguments get hashed out over and over. Our solution to this is with "Site Issue Evaluations", where we have one master thread to contain the debate and derive conclusions. Once conclusions have been made it is then against the guidelines to repeat talking points around the site that counter the conclusions. Doing so will eventually get you banned.

For complete details on the "Site Issue Evaluations" protocol see:
www.ronpaulforums.com/content.php?1989


I agree on the point of building coalitions, and in effect we are working to that end. As part of the next step we are working to raise the level of site discourse, all the personal bickering and fighting have to end. We can focus on issues without this, this is a barrier for a lot of people.

As for what any one persons agenda is, that is something that no one will ever know across the board, instead all we can do it look at peoples actions and the fruit that they bring forth. Do the bring good things or not? The underlying goal of the Community Guidelines is to weed out people who bring forth bad fruit while allowing as much latitude as possible. Again, we're always open to ideas on how to better achieve our goals.

 

[Bryan]

Seems more than pretty obvious to me. Is "community" NOT a collectivist mindset with human group membership?

Shall we tackle authoritarian Internet forums based on liberty, next?

Thanks for clarifying. From my view there is a big different between viewing people as being part of some group vs. viewing people in a group in a negative manner. There is nothing negative about saying that people who signed up for this website are a part of the "site community", it's a label to convey a concept in a simpler manner and allows us to communicate better.


However, if someone says "all people who signed up for the website are dumb." then they are making a sweeping generalization with some arbitrary negative attribute. Such sweeping and negative generalizations are problematic in multiple ways and have no intellectually foundation.

 

[Bryan]

Either this site is a place where the disaffected can be brought together and rallied in the cause of liberty, or this is Trump Echo Chamber #284. It is unlikely to be both.

The policy of this issue was resolved with the Trump Evaluation.

 

[Smitty]

. The underlying goal of the Community Guidelines is to weed out people who bring forth bad fruit .

Good idea. There's enough leftists contaminating this place without encouraging the Bernie Sanders Socialists to start hanging out here.

You might as well change the name of the place to "The Trotsky Forums" if you do that.

 

[Ender]

Apparently not, or you would have been gone long ago. (Mod edit) anyone who doesn't hate Trump and is not willing to run around here lying about his positions.


Maybe you are the person who can pull the left together to get rid of Agenda 21, locally, and the like. We certainly need people to do that.


Trump is anti-globalist. You need to watch that video.

My experience is that YOU are the (mod edit).

There is absolutely no reasonable way to discuss Trump- Trump supporters will not allow "discussion"; we must all conform to his greatness or we are called SJWs, leftist, communists, Hillary lovers, etc.

 

[Ender]

Good idea. There's enough leftists contaminating this place without encouraging the Bernie Sanders Socialists to start hanging out here.

You might as well change the name of the place to "The Trotsky Forums" if you do that.

Just proved my point- again.

 

[Smitty]

Just proved my point- again.

That's nice.

Have a good day.

 

[Ender]

That's nice.

Have a good day.

You're welcome.

 

[Kade]

When I was an activist libertarian in college, we most closely identified as Anti-authoritarian. If that is the claim, then certainly, we have lost everything.

 

[Bryan]

I was a libertarian before Ron Paul came along. I liked and respected Ron, but I was never hugely excited about what he was doing. 70%-80% of the people supporting Ron were not libertarian in any meaningful way. And the people Ron did encourage to become libertarian didn't necessarily learn the right lessons.

This has been seen as a major lost opportunity, we had peoples attention and did not capitalize on it. This is something that has to be structurally fixed. It's part of what need to be done and part of what I am calling the Liberty Blueprint:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?494373-A-new-site-vision-a-new-era

 

[luctor-et-emergo]

This has been seen as a major lost opportunity, we had peoples attention and did not capitalize on it. This is something that has to be structurally fixed. It's part of what need to be done and part of what I am calling the Liberty Blueprint:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?494373-A-new-site-vision-a-new-era

I'd say it's more our fault than RP's fault. Ron definitely did everything to make people understand what liberty actually means. I think a lot of people want to get some kind of 'victory' out of politics. I personally don't want any such victory, it's nice, for a day or so... I just want to be left alone, for the most part. I think that's where the major difference is between those who supported Ron for the 'wrong' and 'right' reasons. From our perspective that is, I don't think intentions are judge-able in this regard. I'll respect the fact people want some kind of authoritarianism as long as they don't put any effort into actually achieving it.

But I definitely think a lot of people who supported Ron suddenly saw someone, who was not a 'career politician' (yeah I know he was in congress for 30 years but he was never 'one of them', which is my point.), who was honest, who said things people liked. People may have supported him because they finally felt like there was someone who said things they thought, even though it may have been a very small part of the message.

It's something we can see on the forums here as well, a lot of people have different issues they are passionate about, there is nothing wrong about that but I guess on most issues we can find disagreement here. I don't think there's a real ideology around here, it's a mixture of different ideologies. The only thing we have going for ourselves, is that we respect each-other. For the most part that is. And I must add to that that I think a bit of adversity from time to time is good for a healthy relationship.

So yeah, the blueprint, framework... It's what we need, even though not everyone might agree with everything. Even if we just set a basic framework for what our 'ideology' is around here, we'll be clearer about ourselves. Being clear and making sure people understand where you are coming from is a powerful tool, one we have not wielded too much around here.

my 2cts.

 

[Ronin Truth]

I'd say it's more our fault than RP's fault. Ron definitely did everything to make people understand what liberty actually means. I think a lot of people want to get some kind of 'victory' out of politics. I personally don't want any such victory, it's nice, for a day or so... I just want to be left alone, for the most part. I think that's where the major difference is between those who supported Ron for the 'wrong' and 'right' reasons. From our perspective that is, I don't think intentions are judge-able in this regard. I'll respect the fact people want some kind of authoritarianism as long as they don't put any effort into actually achieving it.

But I definitely think a lot of people who supported Ron suddenly saw someone, who was not a 'career politician' (yeah I know he was in congress for 30 years but he was never 'one of them', which is my point.), who was honest, who said things people liked. People may have supported him because they finally felt like there was someone who said things they thought, even though it may have been a very small part of the message.

It's something we can see on the forums here as well, a lot of people have different issues they are passionate about, there is nothing wrong about that but I guess on most issues we can find disagreement here. I don't think there's a real ideology around here, it's a mixture of different ideologies. The only thing we have going for ourselves, is that we respect each-other. For the most part that is. And I must add to that that I think a bit of adversity from time to time is good for a healthy relationship.

So yeah, the blueprint, framework... It's what we need, even though not everyone might agree with everything. Even if we just set a basic framework for what our 'ideology' is around here, we'll be clearer about ourselves. Being clear and making sure people understand where you are coming from is a powerful tool, one we have not wielded too much around here.

my 2cts.

+Rep!

 

[younglibertarian]

I think we are "asleep" more then dead. Not as much motivation these days.

 

[Ronin Truth]

I think we are "asleep" more then dead. Not as much motivation these days.

Some are dead, some are asleep, some are not.

 

[r3volution 3.0]

Since the inception of the libertarian party in the 70's they struggled to gain ground or be noticed. They spent about 2 decades getting < 1% in national elections and never being included in the bigger conversations. It seemed Ron Paul was the libertarian break through that changed all of that. In 2008 he brought libertarianism to the main stream. He made the average politco second guess themselves. In 2012 He became a viable candidate for the nomination. The entire nation of political observers were talking about Ron Paul and Libertarianism.

Then he lost, and it all went away. Rand Paul ran for president, but he certainly didn't continue and libertarian legacy.

He did, actually.

What happened is that we discovered that most Ron Paul supporters were not libertarians.

They were just contrarians, vague "anti-establishment" people.

These people abandoned libertarian Rand for socialist Trump/Sanders.

 

[The Rebel Poet]

Trump will probably win and open the Pandora's Box for every manner of alternative candidate.

The Libertarian party has already rode the Trump-Train and doubled their support to a whopping 2%.

Um, people are not registering Libertarian to vote for Trump. That's not how that works. They are registering Libertarian because they see through The Trumptard and how dangerous he is. The LP is not "riding the Trump-Train" they are riding the wave of backlash against him.

 

[Petar]

Um, people are not registering Libertarian to vote for Trump. That's not how that works. They are registering Libertarian because they see through The Trumptard and how dangerous he is. The LP is not "riding the Trump-Train" they are riding the wave of backlash against him.

Same shizer.

When Trump is finished doing his thing, the Losertarian party may even end up being viable.

If the Losertarian party helps kill Trump in the cradle, their support level will continue to suck.

 

[The Rebel Poet]

Same shizer.

When Trump is finished doing his thing, the Losertarian party may even end up being viable.

If the Losertarian party helps kill Trump in the cradle, their support level will continue to suck.

There are times when even "here's your sign" is just not enough. The government will increase liberty under Trump, the Libertarian party can only grow by shrinking, war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.