This is a response to my buddy that posted this video on my facebook. The video is linked above in its entirety as it was posted to me. Facebook seemed to be broken and I couldn't get it posted there.
[start]
I'll just break down this video for you too. Let me start off by saying he took the 1980 platform of the Koch brothers libertarian run. Parties transform over time. The democratic party was once the conservative party in the USA and the republicans the liberal. This is a platform from almost 40 years ago. Who were the democrats 40 years ago? What about the republicans? Totally different parties. This platform he's describing is the Tea party platform and Thom Hartmann knows it, and he's being dishonest on purpose. I mean.. I could do a similar video about the democratic party and how their platform in the 60's was all about George Wallace and his stance in Alabama.
"Would you be more free if we limited education?" No one is talking about limiting education. This is a logical fallacy called "Loaded question".
"If we limited government and the streets weren't safe, would you feel more free?" Same logical fallacy, and I'd be shocked if you, as a person of color, didn't see right through this. What makes you feel more fear. A white man in a suit, or a white man in a police uniform? I'm saying not the police are bad, I'm just showing you that this is a BS question to ask.
"..its a scam and some of them know it". No libertarianism means protecting consumers from unjust interference in the marketplace. This includes preventing monopolies and price fixing etc.
On the Koch election platform. A bunch of straw man arguments. One guy isn't the libertarian party, and even if he was unless he came out and said "I am trying to remove this restricts so my billionaire buddies can get rich" You (and the "reporter" don't know his intent). Furthermore NO WHERE in libertarian dogma is there a statement of intent for helping people get rich. Its actually the opposite as you can't corner the market (which takes regulation... as in a government).
"Die in the gutter". Dude.. anytime you hear this kind of talk in a "report" you can know with certainty that the report is a scam.
"Libertarians want to abolish social security" Yes, for sure. This is not to screw over americans, its because Libertarians feel that most people can handle their own money better than the government. This is sort of played out by the FACT that the government (and I think almost 100% of which was headed by republicans) have taken something like 3+ TRILLION dollars out of it to use on other things that they won't be paying back. You seriously think don't MORE OF THE SAME THING IS BETTER???? Who wants to "give it to wall street"? I've never seen this argument ANYWHERE before. I think more likely it would be split in the form of a tax return check to citizens.
I love that he says "Libertarian Banksters". Thats a ridiculous thing to say. Its trying to tie Libertarians to wall street subconsciously and I think you're falling for it. Banks do NOT want libertarian leadership. They'd lose an IMMENSE amount of power if the federal reserve was audited.
"Screw society". LOL Nice straw man logical fallacy. Libertarianism isn't Anarchy, and its not Fascism. Its not corporations first at all, and corporations DEFINITELY don't want anarchy. Can you imagine what might happen to Yahoo if we were an anarchy and people got the news that YAHOO had let some agency read everyone's emails?
"Tax evasion". Tax evasion is illegal. Tax avoidance is not illegal. What I mean to say that if you owe the government you pay or you go to jail/get fined. There are specific rules about paying taxes and if you follow those rules well, too bad. Who's fault is this though? Is it the libertarian government we have that presides over tax law? No, its not. We can of course go a step further in talking about taxes too. At what percentage point does getting taxed go from 'responsible to society' to 'authoritarian oppression'. If you had to pay 100% taxes on your income would you be ok with that? My guess is you would with some conditions (100% of your food/housing/protection/entertainment/other needs are fulfilled). I would too, but then ask yourself.. how hard would you be willing to work for your money if it wasn't yours. What if you weren't able to get a job you liked, would you still work hard? If so, do you think everyone around you would? I can say about myself is it depends. Meaning if the only job I could get was cleaning sewers and hard work meant more time in sewers, no I wouldn't work hard. If you would still work hard you're more of a libertarian syndicalist (think Noam Chomsky). What if money started getting allotted to a group or organization that say... hired child prostitutes for warlords in other countries (like here in the US)? What if they determined that you could only have 2 kids and another other children had to go work in labor camps, or had to be killed (China in the recent past)? If you say to me that these things can't happen then I'll just know you've never read any history books. What if the government with 100% of the money decided that Arabs were bad and needed to be deported or executed, or Jews, or multiracial people weren't pure, or gay folks (Germany less than 100 years ago). You can't predict who's going to come into power in the future.. or can you? Centralizing power means we're literally ONE person away from a nightmare.
Minimum wage laws: Minimum wage doesn't work in that it doesn't provide a living wage, and while a minimum wage does work to help the economy it actually starts to hurt the economy at a certain point. This is one of a very few places where I diverge from the libertarian party. There should be a minimum wage to a point. However "screw the workers" is a logical fallacy and not the point of cutting it. The point of cutting minimum wage is to let the market dictate what your working value is. If you work at McDonalds you're going to get paid as low as you can get hired for, and if you're a logistics master (or whatever you are) you're going to make bank. Its simply about allowing supply and demand to dictate. I see the point in this but I also see that sometimes people get stuck and have to take what they can get. HOWEVER, this overlooks the fact that there are many solutions that are better than taking a minimum wage (or low wage) job. We can talk about these at length if you wish. Also, see my below answer about 'relief to poor programs'.
Public education. This is just simply a matter of looking at the results. 12 years of free education qualifies you to MAYBE be able to get a minimum wage job. We're getting a HORRIBLE return on investment from the DoEd. Adding college would only make it worse especially given the amount of people that would get a degree in 'sports management' or 'psychology' or some other flooded field. The fact is a department of education WAS a great idea many years ago. Now its not. Technology solves many problems. One thing it solves is education. You can get a 100% free education from K through college TODAY. Now the K through probably sophomore in HS stuff requires an adult be present to push you through, but beyond that it just takes a little effort. Technology has basically solved this issue. As an example my 3 year old kid is learning algebra and geometry in a free ipad app. Its a video game and he doesn't know he's learning it, but he is. He's also learned to READ several words from watching free youtube videos. He can count to 40, knows numbers exist up to a trillion, and knows many words and sentences that he's learned from watching videos on our smart TV. Now, I realize I have a smart tv, and an ipad, and good internet access but keep in mind the point of a free market is actually to push the price of products DOWN while improving quality because thats how supply and demand work.. unless you have a government price fixing by taxation and other barriers to entry into the marketplace. Also, if you or anyone you know whats links on how to get good free education through a masters degree, let me know and I'll get you some info.
EPA:
I'm a fan of this agency, and I think (as well as well known libertarian dogma states) that protecting consumers is a good thing. While the party might at the moment be trying to abolish this agency I think they'd see its one of the legitimate uses of government if lobbying were abolished.
DOE:
This is about market economics and pricing. If there was competition.. TRUE competition for how much money energy costs i think you might see a ton of energy companies turning to renewable free sources. What you'd in effect be paying for would be the wires and cables that would be needed to deliver said energy... Over time though most people will probably get 100% of their own energy from solar sources (solar panels and windows for homes and cars and factories etc). This is a department that had a good purpose at one point and I think we've now just about solved this. Freeing up the market around solar energy might just push us over that edge and the side effect would be a MASSIVE drop in green house gases.
DoT:
Public roads.. You want to sell your products in another town, city, state, etc? The cost is you.. the corporation that wants to sell.. you have to build PUBLIC roads. Too much merch being destroyed by bumpy roads? Too many transportation vehicle repairs needed because of bad roads? Great Corps XY & Z.. Go fix the roads when its economical for you to do so. How would that be for consumer protection? No DoT needed.
FDA:
Legitimate use of government. Protection consumers. What they want to do away with is barriers to entry in the marketplace that the FDA often places BECAUSE of corporate lobbyists.
Relief to poor programs: http://www.libertarianism.org/columns/libertarian-case-basic-income
See.. we just think that poor people are probably smart adults who got a bad hand. Instead of INFORMING THEM how they're going to live, we say, let them make their own choices.
The civil rights part is laughable. Come on dude you didn't really fall for this video did you??? Who cries louder for the bill of rights than libertarians?
