Actually, that’s been the case for just about exactly 16 years. I watched it happen in real time.
I went through a libertarian phase in the 80s and 90s, mostly because I couldn’t reconcile my anarchist sensibilities with the fact that humanity just isn’t ready to do entirely without authority. I eventually just gave in and shifted to anarchism, since it’s really the only position that’s consistent with my principles, and I just treat it as more of an ideal toward which to strive than an actual immediate goal.
In any event, I knew the libertarian movement of the era. It was more right- than left-wing even then, but it was primarily libertarian, exactly as the term implies - primarily focused just on minimizing political authority.
Then came the Tea Party.
The first Tea Party protests were organized by actual libertarians and were specifically against the Wall Street bailouts in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis that Wall Street had essentially single-handedly caused. And notably, they were against the Bush administration.
But then, shortly after Obama’s victory, with a suspiciously well-timed and widespread boost fron the legacy media reporting on an even more suspiciously well-timed on-air comment by Jim Cramer, the Tea Party was recast into a Republican protest against the left. And it almost immediately transformed from a series of protests against the Wall Street bailouts to a traveling right-wing carnival of hate. (And conveniently enough, the focus on the Wall Street bailouts completely vanished).
While I saw that happen I didn’t recognize the near-immediate Overton Window shift it triggered until I noticed a sudden influx of libertarians on anarchist forums. And they all had the same story - they had abandoned their libertarian forums because they had been taken over by angry, stupid Republicans.
And that became the status quo. The former libertarians mostly settled into their own sub-community of “anarcho-capitalists” and the libertarian movement is now pretty much just angry, stupid Republicans who are only marked out by the fact that they lean more into corporatocracy and militarism than religious fundamentalism and social war.
It sucks having the libertarian party co-opted, the last 4 years the libertarian candidates have been even more Christo-fascist than the Republicans. Happened to the sane average Republicans, and the left wing Democrats as well. Everything is coming up Corpo-kleptocracy.
I watched it all go down too. I even read reason and thought it was reasonable. I would even use cato as a reference.
After the bail outs I was sick of the political status quo too so I started doing my own research and reading. That’s when I found the Libertarian party of US.
That year Gary Johnson was running and there was a lot of debate about open borders, pro-choice, and Just general libertarian ideology. So i soaked it all in.
Then I came across Oscar Wilde’s soul of man under socialism which really opened my eyes to post scarcity life. I was shocked to realize that capitalism wasn’t freedom at all. That we are all lied to think this is how it’s supposed to be. The word libertarian means something completely different elsewhere in the world.
That’s when everything that I thought was libertarian started to become what it is now, cesspool of hate.
Libertarians have abandoned the principles of liberty since as long as I’m alive
Mongoose! Even better!
Antifascist Mongoose!
No, that’s not the best Gadsden flag parody. Far from it. Here’s some better ones:
Appropriate account.
As a European I see these for the first time, where do they come from? Usually I see eagles, donkeys and elephants with US stuff
It’s (based on) the Gadsden flag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsden_flag
Bald Eagles are the US national bird, elephants are the Republican mascot, and Donkeys are the Democrat mascot. The subject here is a parody of the Gadsden Flag, which is linked in the other comment.
Here’s some of my set
Thanks, those are great too! 😁
“No flying for me” is one I haven’t seen before but it’s definitely a classic
Thought that robot one should have said “STAB!” until I looked closer.
Here’s a parody by me, made when I was much more naive and Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid just came out.
Don’t forget
Wait, “Gadse” is used outside [email protected] ??
It’s a typo. The original “Don’t tread on me” Flag is called the “Gadsden Flag”.
Maybe you were joking, I didn’t know this and I think it’s pretty funny how well the typo fits!
I wasn’t joking. I always assumed it was just a joke on mispronouncing Katze in a funny way.
Libertarians denying their conservatism so they can act wicked online while propping up Christian nationalism in the real world is happening!
That’s been happening for decades. Libertarians have only ever existed because the Republicans used to be tacitly against racism.
we need a badger version
Libertarian? Isn’t that just Conservative with extra steps?
Libertarians, at least in the US, are all about being selfish. “why should I pay taxes to fund schools, I don’t have kids” types. It’s all “me, me, me.”
Insufferable wankers.
Republicans are like that too but they also enjoy telling everyone else what they should be doing. They want to control other people’s access to healthcare, punish them for being the “wrong” faith, sexuality, race, etc.
No, it’s actually less steps. It’s conservative except your brain stopped developing at 12 years old.
No, in theory libertarians are pro-choice, pro-LGBT, pro-drugs, pro-open borders.
Not saying that American Libertarians believe those things, but libertarianism specifically supports things that are non-conservative social issues.
What about in practice?
Depends on.
At best you get people like Pipkin Pippa, who’s actually way more progressive than your average conservative, but has the same flaws as other similar people, such as
- not understanding “the paradox of tolerance”, thus tolerating more than a few nazis in her audience, which ultimately lead her being accused being a nazi (which she seems to be angry for, both at her fans who have clipped her out of context (save for the antisemitic joke, which is a real bad look even if just meant as a joke), and the people that ran with it);
- really likes the Tu Quoque fallacy (argument from hypocrisy), especially when it involves social issues, but at least she upholds conservatives rather than painting their hypocrisy as “humanity” instead;
- and having her own biases that are normal for the other more conservative libertarians except she doesn’t actually want to outlaw such activities.
(I really hope it’ll only poorly age in a positive way)
Then you have people like Áron Ecsenyi, leader of the Hungarian Le Az Adók 75%-ával Párt (Down with the 75% of the taxes party), whose only libertarian view is whining about taxes and techbro stuff (he had an EV project that went nowhere), otherwise he is a bitter incel, really likes the censorship laws of Fidesz (especially the “child” protection law, as he likes to whine about gays in media), and his party is likely just there to test the waters for Fidesz whenever selling the healthcare to friends and family. Yeah, he also thinks the abysmally low age of consent of Hungary is somehow too high.
Then you have various actual nazis, like Richard Spencer, Hans Christian Graebener, etc., who don’t even believe in free speech anymore.
Outside of the US, yes, there are real libertarians.
American Libertarian policies from that article:
Its cultural policy positions include ending the prohibition of illegal drugs, advocating criminal justice reform,[14] supporting same-sex marriage, ending capital punishment, and supporting gun ownership rights.
Conservatives have over the last couple years taken to labeling themselves as Libertarian to avoid the stigma of being Republican, but have never actually voted for a libertarian.
They’ve(Republicans) taken to calling themselves libertarian(Right libertarians) yes. But they’ve also managed to infiltrate and take a significant chunk of power from the libertarian party.
Full disclosure, let’s not pretend that Libertarians are any good, even if they are in favor of some good things.
We should eliminate the entire social welfare system. This includes eliminating food stamps, subsidized housing, and all the rest. Individuals who are unable to fully support themselves and their families through the job market must, once again, learn to rely on supportive family, church, community, or private charity to bridge the gap.
The party supports ending the public school system.[161] The party’s official platform states that education is best provided by the free market, achieving greater quality, accountability and efficiency with more diversity of school choice.
The party also contends that free markets and property rights (implicitly without government intervention) will stimulate the technological innovations and behavioral changes required to protect the environment and ecosystem because environmental advocates and social pressure are the most effective means of changing public behavior.
The Libertarian Party opposes all government intervention and regulation on wages, prices, rents, profits, production and interest rates and advocates the repeal of all laws banning or restricting the advertising of prices, products, or services.
The Libertarian Party favors a free market health care system without government oversight, approval, regulation, or licensing. The party states that it “recognizes the freedom of individuals to determine the level of health insurance they want, the level of health care they want, the care providers they want, the medicines and treatments they will use and all other aspects of their medical care, including end-of-life decisions.” They support the repeal of all social insurance policies such as Medicare and Medicaid and favor “consumer-driven health care”.
The party supports the right of free persons to associate or not associate in labor unions and believes that employers should have the right to recognize or refuse to recognize a union.
The party supports the right of free persons to associate or not associate in labor unions and believes that employers should have the right to recognize or refuse to recognize a union.
If the company can simply ignore a union, then the union has zero power…
Nah, the power in a union is all about denying labor. A strike is the power of the people, not the legal framework which facilitates the talks.
Then the union members can strike until the company stops ignoring them.
Strike in multiple senses of the word
The “fuck my shit up fam” of political ideologies.
The problem being that they’re also fully in favour of allowing businesses to do whatever the fuck they want. Even an ideologically “pure” libertarian would support your right to gay marriage while also supporting the right of your landlord to kick you out onto the street for being gay. They’ll support legalization of all drugs, but also support your workplace being allowed to fire you for posting about weed on your social media.
Paying lip service to socially progressive ideas is meaningless if you also want to institute a neofeudalist society where every freedom is only really afforded to the wealthy.
Yes, totally agree. I’m just answering the question on how they differ from conservatives.
They are Republicans.
Those “classically libertarian” values are referred to as “liberal” values today
ah yes my “classically libertarian” brothers vote red up and down ballot. they claim to have those values so they don’t get the hose when they visit
I think you misunderstood me? My point wasn’t that libertarians have those values, because they clearly don’t. Modern Liberals have those values.
That’s good, because actual “right wing libertarians” are just liberals that want to feel special.
Lol so wrong.
I’d care about your opinion on the matter if you could define liberalism.
I’m more curious in your definition actually.
Generally, from what I’ve gleaned, if a left wing person is using Liberal in a derogatory way, then they are referencing ideologies that prioritize personal liberties and property over greater good. A liberal in that sense wouldn’t necessarily like socialist or communist policies that may have more taxes, regulations, or limitations to their personal life. I’m not claiming to be an expert, mind you.
The example I can think of (as I understand it), is say let’s use single payer Healthcare. Government takes over, taxes people more, and limits the options and choices of doctors. While in general a greater good, some people who prefer personal freedoms may be upset something that used to be covered or a personal doctor they liked doesn’t work under the new setup (like certain homeopathic or chiropractic not being covered as real medicine).
A liberal in this case may value their personal choices as more important. NIMBYs also count; like those who don’t want low income housing near their own homes. They may claim to want to support the poor and homeless, but object if it affects their housing values or makes them uncomfortable.
I’m not sure on this next, but I’ll add it anyway. The US in particular but other “liberal” countries as well have a history of exploiting weaker/less developed countries for our own comfort. Sure we all say we hate banana Republics and what the US did for those to work, but how many of us would willingly give up comforts we gain from that exploitation?
Sure bud.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
Huh, that’s weird. All of those values are the ones “libertarians” also claim to hold!
It’s almost like “libertarians” are a kind of liberal to people who know what the word means, instead of having a vague understanding that it means “Democrat”
Classical libertarians (like from the early 20th century) would be considered anarchists in today’s parlance (specifically anarcho-communists or anarcho-syndicalists)
I’m aware, I was referring to the values they listed specifically in their comment
It’s weird huh? You don’t really see any Libertarians protesting police violence. Or very many up in arms when the Supreme Court said that the President is above the law. I also don’t recall seeing any headlines about massive Libertarian protests when conservatives threw out decades of established law that a woman had the right to make decisions about her own body. And come to think of it, when Trump said he was going to revoke legal immigration statuses and do mass deportations, the Libertarians were pretty quiet about that too.
It’s almost like Libertarians actually like a government that treads all over them, and the Don’t Step on Snek flag is only about guns.
More like conservatives who like weed.
Without the religion
And somehow even fewer social safety nets
Gadsenflagge
My personal favorite:
I audibly laughed.
Drop the G
I love this!!
