Perhaps it is somewhat, but I don't think I'm very libertarian, because while I'm entrepreneurial, I'm also not laissez faire. Big, complicated societies on a "closed" (I'm thinking of the environment here) planet, whose citizens wield increasingly powerful, read affective, technologies, in a world populated by similar competitors, require for self defense, internal and external, big, complicated administration.
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Perhaps it is somewhat, but I don't think I'm very libertarian, because while I'm entrepreneurial, I'm also not laissez faire. Big, complicated societies on a "closed" (I'm thinking of the environment here) planet, whose citizens wield increasingly powerful, read affective, technologies, in a world populated by similar competitors, require for self defense, internal and external, big, complicated administration.
I agree, and it's precisely because of big government. My number one argument against big government has always been that industrialists always come take it over! It will only cease to occur when big government ceases to exist... You are nutz if you think that big government will exist and that big business wont come buy it out... The only solutions are 1) small government or 2) marxism. Now, only 1 of those models has been empirically functional. I know which one I'm voting for...
i could be wrong, but i do not believe libertarians believe in NO government regulation. i think they would he hard pressed to refuse government control over sectors that only the government can properly execute. military, for instance.
additionally, government regulation is needed in certain sectors and across the board on limited items to assure citizens are rightfully protected from businesses run amok.
but the difference between libertarian type government and the government we have today can be measured in Astronomical Units.
an unfortunate side-effect, but i do agree. i also think that you guys (those opposed to the tea party) tend to overstate the "outcry" on regulation quite a bit, or if you do not, then you are improperly associating it with the tea party.
once again, the tea party, first and foremost, wants a stop to out of control spending and a return to fiscally sound policy. and no, before you go there, bush wasn't fiscally sound.
No we don't. That would be an Anarchist. Libertarians believe in small and limited government...
Ricter is a fool to think these hypothetical "large and complex" administrations would not also be bought out and corrupted the same way our current institutions have been. You aren't going to change human nature. As long as there are large government institutions, there will be corrupt government institutions. The only rational solution is to deliver optimal individual freedom. Until we accept that the only way to prevent large bureaucracies from becoming corrupt long term is to prevent the existence of large bureaucracies altogether, there is no hope. The ones which remain should be highly transparent. Much of America is now realizing this, hence the Tea Party...
For example, have you ever read the Hong Kong tax code? It would take only a few minutes, the WHOLE TAX CODE is probably only 25 pages or so long!!! Now THAT is change you can believe in!
Ricter is a fool to think these hypothetical "large and complex" administrations would not also be bought out and corrupted the same way our current institutions have been. You aren't going to change human nature. As long as there are large government institutions, there will be corrupt government institutions. The only rational solution is to deliver optimal individual freedom. Until we accept that the only way to prevent large bureaucracies from becoming corrupt long term is to prevent the existence of large bureaucracies altogether, there is no hope. The ones which remain should be highly transparent. Much of America is now realizing this, hence the Tea Party...
For example, have you ever read the Hong Kong tax code? It would take only a few minutes, the WHOLE TAX CODE is probably only 25 pages or so long!!! Now THAT is change you can believe in!
Therefore, it would not be all that surprising that the Tea Party got some of its funding from the large-entity beneficiaries of their rhetoric. Not directly, of course, but through "third party" think tanks and "concerned groups." With the requisite flag waving, of course.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/24/tea-party-climate-change-deniers
http://www.energyboom.com/policy/eu...ding-tea-party-climate-change-lobbyists-us-se
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/articles/?storyId=36163
http://www.campusprogress.org/artic...rs_banking_on_tea_party_to_destroy_health_ca/