What % of the so-called alt-right were just plain ol' libertarians before?

Razer rayzer at riseup.net
Mon Nov 21 19:21:50 PST 2016



On 11/21/2016 12:49 PM, Steve Kinney wrote:

THIS!

> Libertarians see absolutely nothing wrong with the very rich "gaming
> the system" for personal advantage in every way that having a lot of
> money to spend makes possible.  This leaves everyone else on the
> losing end of every deal that was supposed to be "fair and honest"
> under rule of law.  Perhaps this explains why the Libertarian Party
> was co-opted by well funded right wing extremists around the turn of
> the century and has been working under their direction ever since.
> What may have been a disruptive influence on national politics is now
> only a propaganda platform, pushing political discourse to the Right
> as far as it is able.  If you are too smart for the RNC, the
> Libertarians have a better idea - and the same domestic economic
> agenda, both functional and fictional.

Rr

>
>
> On 11/21/2016 01:11 PM, jim bell wrote:
>
> >> In the United States, 500
> > billionaires presently own about 1/2 of the capital assets;
>
> > Did they obtain them legally or illegally?  If illegally, enforce
> > the law.  If legally, change the laws if necessary.
>
> Under the jurisdiction of State institutions created for the benefit
> of the very rich, anything they agree among themselves to permit is
> "perfectly legal."  That includes running a rigged house game
> supported by massive deception and economic coercion, and assuring
> that theirs are the only games in town.
>
> >> to retain
> > control of those assets they need a legal system that defines
> > their rights of ownership and enforces them,
>
> > I thought that personal property is to be considered a "right",
> > rather than a "privilege".  I guess you have a different opinion.
>
> Libertarian ideology relies heavily on false context.  When people
> hear "personal property" the think "physical objects under my control,
> and the fruits of my personal labors."  This context is not comparable
> to possession and trading of legal instruments defining ownership over
> geographically dispersed industries, vast tracts of land, anticipated
> profits from as yet unexploited resources, etc., in locations occupied
> and facilities operated by what the commies call "wage slaves."
>
> In the U.S., most people's personal property is actually a collection
> of legal instruments specifying the rent they pay on a finance
> company's car, a mortage company's house, etc.  Low wages plus
> expensive Real Estate creates forced dependency on land lords for the
> majority of Americans.
>
> >> civil Courts to arbitrate their
> > internal disputes and legitimize abuses of power against
> > outsiders,
>
> > Again, if there are genuine problems, fix them.
>
> How?  By litigating against offenders whose ability to pay attorneys,
> expert witnesses, etc. exceeds one's own by five or more orders of
> magnitude?  By lobbying for changes in the law, in competition with
> these same offenders, their massive financial resources, and their
> long standing alliances with dominant political and Deep State factions?
>
> >> civil infrastructure built and maintained at public expense to
> >> support
> > the productivity of their capital assets
>
> > Numbskull Obama said, "You didn't build that!".  A factory-owner
> > may have a road in front of his factory for transportation.  But
> > the government didn't pay for that road:  The people who paid
> > gasoline taxes (including the factory-owner) paid for that road.
> > Ascribing all this infrastructure to "the government" misleads.
>
> Ah so:  Taxation is payment for services rendered when that supports a
> Libertarian argument, otherwise not.  :D
>
> >> , and a propaganda regimen to
> > persuade the rest of us that this is all for the best.
>
> > Blame the MSM.  I do.
>
> I blame full saturation propaganda operations paid for by the ruling
> class who also happen to own the "mainstream media," working hand in
> hand with State propaganda assets and of course, the organized efforts
> of our DemoPublican Party which itself represents the interests of our
> ruling class.  Political controversies in the mainstream occasionally
> reflecting differences of opinion among dominant factions with regard
> to whose commercial interests should be favored at the expense of
> other commercial interests; but maintaining the integrity of ruling
> class control and expanding same is a goal shared by the DemoPublican
> Party as a whole, as is locking out participation by competing Parties.
>
> > From:
> > http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-dat
> a
> > × // //
>
> > "The Top 50 Percent of All Taxpayers Paid 97 Percent of All Income
> > Taxes; the Top 5 Percent Paid 57 Percent of All Income Taxes; and
> > the Top 1 Percent Paid 35 Percent of All Income Taxes in 2011"
>
> > I consider this to be evidence of a very serious problem.
> > Actually, a big set of problems.  You won't see it, however.
>
> Libertarian ideology relies heavily on cognitive bias and false
> assumptions.  The argument presented above is persuasive - as long as
> a "normative" distribution of assets and incomes is assumed.  But in
> reality, a fraction of 1% of the population dominates in both income
> and assets.  The models presented above does not have sufficient
> resolution to accurately describe the subject matter addressed.
>
> Check this high resolution model out:
> http://www.lcurve.org/
>
> Note also that "income tax" applies to personal income, not capital
> gains.  Personal income as understood by John and Jane Q. Public is
> only a small fraction of what members of our ruling class "make" in
> the course of a successful year.
>
> >> instead they pay accountants and attorneys to advise them
> > on how to avoid taxation.
>
> > I see absolutely nothing wrong with this.  If a person lost,
> > regularly, 30% of his income to burglary and theft, he'd see
> > nothing wrong with hiring some form of protection to see it reduced
> > or stopped. Naturally, people who don't think it's theft would
> > disagree, and would resent the fact he was trying to reduce that
> > theft.  Even more naturally, a person who actually benefits from
> > that theft would really, really hate the fact that the person
> > paying the taxes would even THINK about seeing them reduced, in any
> > way.
>
> Libertarians see absolutely nothing wrong with the very rich "gaming
> the system" for personal advantage in every way that having a lot of
> money to spend makes possible.  This leaves everyone else on the
> losing end of every deal that was supposed to be "fair and honest"
> under rule of law.  Perhaps this explains why the Libertarian Party
> was co-opted by well funded right wing extremists around the turn of
> the century and has been working under their direction ever since.
> What may have been a disruptive influence on national politics is now
> only a propaganda platform, pushing political discourse to the Right
> as far as it is able.  If you are too smart for the RNC, the
> Libertarians have a better idea - and the same domestic economic
> agenda, both functional and fictional.
>
> >> Political activists are presently running a "Fight For Fifteen"
> > campaign in the U.S., asking for a de facto 40% pay cut relative
> > to 1968's more or less "living" minimum wage.  How fucked up is
> > that?
>
> > I guess you're confused.  After WWII, America became the de-facto
> > manufacturer to the world.  Little competition.  Wages were
> > (relatively) high.  The rest of the world was, relatively, poor.
> > Most families got by with only one breadwinner, usually the man.
> > This continued through most of the 1960s, and even the 1970's.
> > Then Europe and Japan turned on as manufacturers.  Then Taiwan,
> > South Korea, Mexico, now China and India.  America has a great deal
> > of competition.  America's wages needed to be reduced to compete,
> > or at least they couldn't rise as much as they ultimately might
> > have done.  That is simple economics.
>
> I guess your definition of Libertarian embraces both NeoLiberal and
> NeoConservative agendas and policies.  That makes sense, as the
> synthesis of NeoLiberal and NeoConservative policy is Fascism - the
> foundation of Libertarian economic ideology.
>
> Europe and Japan became industrial powerhouses in the 1950s due to the
> aging industrial infrastructure destroyed in WWII being replaced with
> the latest and best facilities and equipment, with assistance from the
> Marshall Plan.  Military and economic alliances including NATO and the
> Trilateral Commission participants were firmed up at that time, as
> were strong trans-national alliances among the ruling classes of the
> nations involved.
>
> The collapse of the manufacturing sector in the United States was
> engineered by that alliance, by removing "protectionist" regulatory
> and tax policies to permit dumping on U.S. markets.  The principal
> objective was to break U.S. labor unions.  Exploitation of the
> resulting political power vacuum to facilitate a hard "Right turn" in
> U.S. domestic policy was also a major goal.  This program was
> successful, and income inequality began growing exponentially as the
> U.S. ruling class began looting the assets of the U.S. middle class, a
> process that is still ongoing today.
>
> The new manufacturing bases in Europe /created/ new middle class
> income brackets in those nations.  Looting of the asset base this
> post-WWII middle class started a couple of decades ago.  I hear it's
> going really well, and Fascism is now on the rise in Europe.
>
> > So, when you say,  "asking for a de facto 40% pay cut relative to
> > 1968's more or less "living" minimum wage", you are really railing
> > against the fact that America has had to begin to compete with the
> > rest of the world in manufacturing.   But either you don'[t realize
> > that, or you are pretending not to.  The world has changed, and not
> > for the worse. But if anything, this rise in manufacturing, outside
> > America, has actually resulted in a large increase in the standard
> > of living of the rest of the world.  What's wrong with that?  If
> > anything, it reduces "income inequality", measured on the entire
> > world.
>
> The world has changed, not for the worse but for the worst:  The
> enlightened stewardship of our economic ruling class, unchecked by any
> meaningful feedback from those ruled over, has driven exponential
> growth of toxic and resource-depleting industrialism worldwide.  We
> are now well past the point of no return and a global economic and
> population crash can not be avoided.  Our rulers are well aware of
> this, and their response to date has not included any but token
> efforts at mitigation, far more than counterbalanced by a mad dash to
> make more money faster and concentrate it into fewer hands before the
> game ends.  The rulers of today's world fully intend to rule the
> post-collapse world unchallenged, and for all time.
>
> If this means making the population crash happen sooner, massively
> increasing the early body count and destroying the means for recovery
> in presently habitable regions, so be it:  From a Libertarian
> ideological stance, one might say that the world is their property and
> they have a natural right to do with it as they please.  If you don't
> like it, sue them.  In their Courts, before Judges who appointed by
> their club.
>
> :o/
>
>

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