Originally Posted By ecdc <a href="http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/03/29/welcome-to-the-freest-state-in-america-north-dakota/" target="_blank">http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/03/29...-dakota/</a> I think this sums it up very nicely. According to prominent libertarian think tank Mercatus Center, the most free state in the union is...North Dakota. Freedom is apparently solely defined by low taxes and lack of government regulation. It is not defined by abortion (where it's essentially illegal) or gay rights. It's positively, absolutely not defined by quality of life, access to art or culture, crime, or onerous working conditions. Freedom too often is defined by libertarians solely as lack of government interference, without any appreciation of how that can be a double-edged sword when it comes to true freedom and the pursuit of happiness.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Exactly. And the least free state, according to them, is New York. Again, because of government regulations. The thing is, they don't really differentiate between government regulations that make sense and those that don't. Me, I don't think a North Dakotan is "more free" than me because, say, he's "free" to get his drinking water from sites that could have been polluted because ND allows far greater levels of pollution (and laxer laws to clamp down on violators when they do break even the weak regulations they have). I see freedom more along the lines of "freedom to drink clean water." And as a gay man, guess where I feel more free in general?
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Well, true Libertarians (including Ron Paul) feel the government should stay the heck away from "moral issues" too. No, I would not have voted for Paul, but I would have taken him over Romney any day.
Originally Posted By ecdc <-----Would choose New York over North Dakota even with a gun at my head (which is easy to get in North Dakota).
Originally Posted By ecdc >>feel the government should stay the heck away from "moral issues"<< The same problem remains, however. While they see government intrusion in gay rights as a moral issue, I also see government failure in healthcare as a moral issue. It's still a matter of narrowly defining freedom or "moral issues." Libertarians are often middle- to upper-class people who are fairly well off and take their freedom for granted. So it's not a coincidence then that they are overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly white, and overwhelmingly middle-aged. Demographically, they are people who have never had to worry about their rights under the government, so they're clueless when other demographics do.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I don't buy that North Dakota is Libertarian. It is hard-core conservative, pure and simple.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer And of course North Dakota is one of the welfare states that takes in more in federal spending than it does in taxes. If it truly were a libertarian wonderland then that would be the case. They got twice as much in tax dollars than they contributed. <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/americas-fiscal-union" target="_blank">http://www.economist.com/blogs...al-union</a>
Originally Posted By RoadTrip If government didn't have laws restricting people because of "moral issues", it wouldn't be a problem in the first place. Gay marriage would have been possible long ago. Health Care is a mess... I don't know what I think about it. I think the British model (including "rationing") makes some sense, In the past week I've probably had $5,000 in medical expense which will have to be covered by my insurance. I've had urine and blood tests, a visit to my nephrologist, a visit to my surgeon, a chest CT scan, a pulmonary function test and an ultra-sound of my carotid arteries. And that does not count the visit to my pulmonoogist, a cardiologist and an echo-cardiogram last week. Why all this stuff? I am supposed to have surgery to correct a hernia... fairly minor surgery that will be done on an out-patient basis. Are they trying to minimize their exposure to lawsuits if something should go wrong? Are they truly concerned about my health? Or do they just like the fact that I have damned good insurance that will pay almost anything? You tell me. P.S. None of the tests indicated any problems.
Originally Posted By DDMAN26 Here's been the view I've come around to the last few years. I believe personal freedom and personal responsibility go hand in hand. As far as I'm concerned, do whatever you want(as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else), just don't expect the tax payers to pay for it.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Libertarians are often middle- to upper-class people who are fairly well off and take their freedom for granted. So it's not a coincidence then that they are overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly white, and overwhelmingly middle-aged. Demographically, they are people who have never had to worry about their rights under the government, so they're clueless when other demographics do.<< Yep!
Originally Posted By DDMAN26 Or maybe we don't butt into people's personal lives like Liberals or Conservatives tend to do. We don't tell people who to marry, what religion to follow, what to eat, what to drink, how to raise your kids, we believe to just leave people alone.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>we believe to just leave people alone.<< That's the upside, and it's all just grand. The downside is libertarian philosophy is largely based on a myth of an equal playing field. But here's the thing: We basically had what libertarians want from government for a whole lot of years. It produced robber barons, child labor, few safety standards, tenements, discrimination against blacks, Jews, and Asian immigrants, exploitation of women, among a myriad of other social ills. The libertarian belief that the market will right itself (that people won't buy from manufacturers who use child labor, that they won't tolerate discrimination) turned out to be bunk then, and it remains so today. Only government regulation remedied those issues.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer The libertarian ideal is exemplified in nations without a government. I hear real estate is cheap in Somalia right now. I'd rather live in Norway, myself. A strong government, a sense that we're all in this together, and a belief that no one should be sick or die simply because they don't have money is a far better lifestyle than "every man for himself" as far as I'm concerned.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<The libertarian ideal is exemplified in nations without a government. I hear real estate is cheap in Somalia right now.>> I don't agree with that. Although I'm not a Libertarian, those I know do not want NO government. They want Federal Government restricted to those activities outlined in the Constitution. For the most part I don't know that would be bad. Let's face it... most of the landmark changes in the U.S. supporting liberalism in the U.S. have not come from the Congress. They have come from Supreme Court decisions... Roe v. Wade (abortion), Brown v. Board of Education (segregation), and the pending decision on gay marriage. The Constitution isn't a bad governing document. Certainly better than the legislation a bunch of idiots like Boehner and McConnell would come up with.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 "I don't agree with that. Although I'm not a Libertarian, those I know do not want NO government. They want Federal Government restricted to those activities outlined in the Constitution." Fair enough. Tom may have overstated it. But ecdc didn't. We had pretty much what the libertarians wanted in the robber baron era, and for an awful lot of people, it wasn't pretty. Not just minorities, but working people in general. Only the dreaded government regulations remedied the problems. Sure, some regulations overreach, and some make sense when enacted and are still in place when they no longer do. So you deal with that. You don't make government an evil to be resisted at every turn.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>those I know do not want NO government. They want Federal Government restricted to those activities outlined in the Constitution.<< That sounds nice and Amurcan and all, but they're essentially the same thing. As with religion, any political movement that falls apart in the face of reality has it wrong.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>any political movement that falls apart in the face of reality has it wrong.<< Succinct and very well said, as usual. I may even reuse, with attribution to Mawnck Enterprises, LLC.
Originally Posted By EighthDwarf The odd thing about libertarians is that they are often to the right of conservatives yet think of themselves as centrists. Just because they are moderate on a few social issues. Give me a true centrist party please.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Just because they are moderate on a few social issues.<< What does it say about our political system that when Rand Paul decided to filibuster over drones (over a fake, manufactured issue, might I add) that liberals everywhere acted all stunned. "What?!? This guy I don't normally agree with agrees with me on one issue!" SWOON! And for a day or two, suddenly Rand "No Civil Rights Legislation" Paul is a hero.
