I've grown so very tired of Whiplash Willy and his opportunistic self interested rants that I've decided to point out the short sighted, selfish and moronic platforms cited in the libertarian party's website.

Here's the link so you can verify that I'm not making this stuff up by just pulling it out of my arse.
http://www.lp.org/issues

1. End Welfare
None of the proposals currently being advanced by either conservatives or liberals is likely to fix the fundamental problems with our welfare system. Current proposals for welfare reform, including block grants, job training, and "workfare" represent mere tinkering with a failed system.

It is time to recognize that welfare cannot be reformed: it should be ended.

We should eliminate the entire social welfare system. This includes eliminating AFDC, 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.

I cannot fathom the depths of selfishness necessary in an individual to take such a stand against their fellow citizens.
The libertarian party consists mainly of pampered elites living on inherited fortunes, yet somehow they feel the moral authority to dictate how the poor should live.
This, of course, is closely tied to their belief in drastically reducing if not totaly eliminating income taxes.
By making the poor a scapegoat for having the nerve to wish to feed themselves, the libertarians can stir up hatred for the needy by focussing anger upon them and deflecting anger from themselves for their self interested greed and refusal to help their fellow citizens.

"Let them eat cake" comes to mind when I think of the attitudes expressed in their website, and we all know what happened to the last person to say that.

Placing the poor at the mercy of private charities, churches and family doesn't eliminate the problem or the expenses associated with it.
The funding will still be necessary, whether from government or private sources.
The difference being government's ability to spread help more evenly throughout the nation.

The private sources will have the resources in a few regions but most areas of the country will be spread too thin to protect those in need.

3. Tear down barriers to entrepreneurism and economic growth
Almost everyone agrees that a job is better than any welfare program. Yet for years this country has pursued tax and regulatory policies that seem perversely designed to discourage economic growth and reduce entrepreneurial opportunities. Someone starting a business today needs a battery of lawyers just to comply with the myriad of government regulations from a virtual alphabet soup of government agencies: OSHA, EPA, FTC, CPSC, etc. Zoning and occupational licensing laws are particularly damaging to the type of small businesses that may help people work their way out of poverty.

In addition, government regulations such as minimum wage laws and mandated benefits drive up the cost of employing additional workers. We call for the repeal of government regulations and taxes that are steadily cutting the bottom rungs off the economic ladder.

According to this, everyone wishing to set up a porn shop next door to Whiplash Willy will have the opportunity.
Once those pesky zoning laws are eliminated, I'm quite sure he will be receiving all kinds of congratulatory messages from the other neighbors in his gated community.

Maybe, after the libertarians do away with the EPA, the porn merchants operating next door can also open a toxic waste dump out back of the store.
Who needs regulations that hinder the free market in all it's wisdom?

Of course I'm only joking about this because eliminating the EPA and industrial regulations is only to make it easier for the wealthy factory owners to dump in the poorer areas where the citizens won't have the resources to fight the big corporate pigs.

Another example of their total Marie Antoinette mindset is the elimination of minimum wage protections.
What kind of selfish bastards would spend their life in inherited splendor while denying some poor slob a minimum wage?

Again, thoughts of the French Revolution come to mind when reading this garbage.

4. Reform education
There can be no serious attempt to solve the problem of poverty in America without addressing our failed government-run school system. Nearly forty years after Brown vs. Board of Education, America's schools are becoming increasingly segregated, not on the basis of race, but on income. Wealthy and middle class parents are able to send their children to private schools, or at least move to a district with better public schools. Poor families are trapped -- forced to send their children to a public school system that fails to educate.

It is time to break up the public education monopoly and give all parents the right to decide what school their children will attend. It is essential to restore choice and the discipline of the marketplace to education. Only a free market in education will provide the improvement in education necessary to enable millions of Americans to escape poverty.

This policy is designed to entrench and institutionalize poverty, not help citizens escape it.
Once these pigs remove even the minimum wage protections and start to privatize all schools, the families living in poverty will be unable to scrape together enough bus fair for their child to attend the school of their choice.
Never mind the fact that the wealthy kids will be attending schools priced so far above the means of even those parents with "so called" good jobs.

I don't think there's going to be any danger that Whiplash Willy's children will be rubbing shoulders with some poor sharecropper's child in school.

Social Security
Securing Your Retirement

Politicians in Washington are stealing your future.

Every year, they take 12.4% of your income to prop up their failed Social Security system - a system that is heading toward bankruptcy.

If you are an American earning the median income of $31,695 per year, and were given the option of investing that same amount of money in a stock mutual fund, you would retire a millionaire - without winning the lottery or a TV game show.

That million dollars would provide you with a retirement income of over $100,000 per year - about five times what you could expect from Social Security.

Even a very conservative investment strategy would yield three times the benefits promised by Social Security.

WOW
There's some serious math involved in this one to retire with $100,000 per year based on an annual income of $31,695.
Of course, you'd have to place the entire yearly income into the fund for over 31 years to reach one million dollars.
Under the libertarian new order, without minimum wage protections, I believe that the median income would very quickly drop far below this $31,695, so this too is deceiving and dishonest.
Seems the libertarians and their members such as Whiplash Willy aren't above telling flat out lies in their quest to recruit the masses to further their selfish desires.

Never underestimate the idle rich. They have the time and money to back their quest for more of your hard earned cash.
And they never spilled a drop of sweat to aquire theirs.

More later, it's getting very late and I don't want to put too much on Whiplash Willy's plate at one time.

Social Security
Securing Your Retirement

Politicians in Washington are stealing your future.

Every year, they take 12.4% of your income to prop up their failed Social Security system - a system that is heading toward bankruptcy.

If you are an American earning the median income of $31,695 per year, and were given the option of investing that same amount of money in a stock mutual fund, you would retire a millionaire - without winning the lottery or a TV game show.

That million dollars would provide you with a retirement income of over $100,000 per year - about five times what you could expect from Social Security.

Even a very conservative investment strategy would yield three times the benefits promised by Social Security.

WOW
There's some serious math involved in this one to retire with $100,000 per year based on an annual income of $31,695.
Of course, you'd have to place the entire yearly income into the fund for over 31 years to reach one million dollars.
Under the libertarian new order, without minimum wage protections, I believe that the median income would very quickly drop far below this $31,695, so this too is deceiving and dishonest.
Seems the libertarians and their members such as Whiplash Willy aren't above telling flat out lies in their quest to recruit the masses to further their selfish desires.

Never underestimate the idle rich. They have the time and money to back their quest for more of your hard earned cash.
And they never spilled a drop of sweat to aquire theirs.

More later, it's getting very late and I don't want to put too much on Whiplash Willy's plate at one time.

Lets not forget that if everyone invested which we wouldn't then the markets would be flooded with cash and stock prices would become inflated. Not unlike the stock market during the Bush taxcut years. This seems to worked incredibly poorly when only the elite throw cash at the market. I can't imagine what the markets would do if everyone got to invest and lose half their retirement in a 6 month period. Note: the Dow Jones went from 14000 to less than 8000 in 6 months. That is actual dollar value. Not a pretty picture. had we actually not handed tax cuts to the elite we wouldn't have seen this ridiculous unsustainable growth.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Protect Victims' Rights
Protecting the rights and interests of victims should be the basis of our criminal justice system. Victims should have the right to be present, consulted and heard throughout the prosecution of their case.

In addition, Libertarians would do more than just punish criminals. We would also make them pay restitution to their victims for the damage they've caused, including property loss, medical costs, pain, and suffering. If you are the victim of a crime, the criminal should fully compensate you for your loss.

This one really has me bamboozled.

First thing to make clear, wealthy people don't usually go out breaking into houses and cars. I'd feel rather secure in stating that the rate of crimes committed by the wealthy is lower than the rate of crimes committed by the poor.

A man with nothing, obviously feels he has nothing to lose by committing crimes.
Taking away minimum wage protections isn't going to help this situation, on the contrary, it will create even more desperate people willing to turn to crime to survive.

Whiplash Willy and the libertarians would have you believe that once convicted, this criminal is going to pay for the damages caused and losses incurred from the crime.

With what???
The man probably has nothing of value and no hope of aquiring anything of value through legal methods.
Yet, these boneheads are proposing in this platform plank that the victims of crime will be compensated for losses.

So we all agree that there's no blood in that stone.

My next question involves actually getting this victim compensation from a criminal who may actually own something of value.
How is it going to be done if the criminal isn't willing to part with his property? Libertarians claim everything is done voluntarily under their system.
Is the libertarian party going to stick a gun in his face?
Seems we've heard this gun in the face line somewhere before.
Oh ya, it was when our libertarian Whiplash Willy complains about government powers.

The libertarians can't have it both ways. Governments have power or they don't.
Is a libertarian government going to enforce it's rules with a gun in the face or a sternly worded letter?

Protect Victims' Rights
Protecting the rights and interests of victims should be the basis of our criminal justice system. Victims should have the right to be present, consulted and heard throughout the prosecution of their case.

In addition, Libertarians would do more than just punish criminals. We would also make them pay restitution to their victims for the damage they've caused, including property loss, medical costs, pain, and suffering. If you are the victim of a crime, the criminal should fully compensate you for your loss.

This one really has me bamboozled.

First thing to make clear, wealthy people don't usually go out breaking into houses and cars. I'd feel rather secure in stating that the rate of crimes committed by the wealthy is lower than the rate of crimes committed by the poor.

A man with nothing, obviously feels he has nothing to lose by committing crimes.
Taking away minimum wage protections isn't going to help this situation, on the contrary, it will create even more desperate people willing to turn to crime to survive.

Whiplash Willy and the libertarians would have you believe that once convicted, this criminal is going to pay for the damages caused and losses incurred from the crime.

With what???
The man probably has nothing of value and no hope of acquiring anything of value through legal methods.
Yet, these boneheads are proposing in this platform plank that the victims of crime will be compensated for losses.

So we all agree that there's no blood in that stone.

My next question involves actually getting this victim compensation from a criminal who may actually own something of value.
How is it going to be done if the criminal isn't willing to part with his property? Libertarians claim everything is done voluntarily under their system.
Is the libertarian party going to stick a gun in his face?
Seems we've heard this gun in the face line somewhere before.
Oh ya, it was when our libertarian Whiplash Willy complains about government powers.

The libertarians can't have it both ways. Governments have power or they don't.
Is a libertarian government going to enforce it's rules with a gun in the face or a sternly worded letter?

I agree with You, Like where would an ex-con get a job that earned more than minimum wage? If It still existed in a loony Libertarian world that is, Delusional seems to apply also. (If one put Libertarians in a nature preserve or on a planet that was/is like a nature preserve as colonists and they went near the lions, the lions would kill and then eat them as the Libertarians would think we have nothing to fear, We're Libertarians, Lions don't give a squat about ones politics, Lions are organized and armed to the teeth(and claws), You're just prey to them and prey is to be killed and then eaten) Their form of government would be mostly toothless and couldn't survive for very long as any proverbial external threat would/could come in and wipe out any isolated resistance It encounters to the last. I'd rather have a strong government, If the Libertarians don't like It, They can leave if they want, Although I don't know where they'd go, Maybe Venezuela will take pity on them and allow some crazy gringos in?

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

The fact of the matter is libertarians are quite frightening and opportunistic.
At this moment in American history, they see an opening into which they wish to insert themselves and claim the position as the party of reason.

With the republicans falling apart and eating their own, many right wing non-thinking reactionaries will fall prey to this strategy.
That's why libertarians are so vocal in their critisms of governmental issues at this time.
The more unrest they can stir up, the more chances to reel in another new fish voter.

The libertarians are in reality just Corporatist Fascist Anarchists who spout freedom, liberty and less government, meanwhile, all of their policies are geared to enhance the holdings of the very wealthy elites by throwing the social contract in the garbage and removing anything that gets in the way of maximum profits for corporations.
This means doing away with the EPA, FDA and other departments with oversight and public protection responsibilities.

The fact of the matter is libertarians are quite frightening and opportunistic.
At this moment in American history, they see an opening into which they wish to insert themselves and claim the position as the party of reason.

With the republicans falling apart and eating their own, many right wing non-thinking reactionaries will fall prey to this strategy.
That's why libertarians are so vocal in their critisms of governmental issues at this time.
The more unrest they can stir up, the more chances to reel in another new fish voter.

The libertarians are in reality just Corporatist Fascist Anarchists who spout freedom, liberty and less government, meanwhile, all of their policies are geared to enhance the holdings of the very wealthy elites by throwing the social contract in the garbage and removing anything that gets in the way of maximum profits for corporations.
This means doing away with the EPA, FDA and other departments with oversight and public protection responsibilities.

It sounds like short of the return of slavery they'd like a Confederate States of America instead, Except much weaker.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

More like pre-Constitutional America Articles of the Confederation America. Where states did what they wanted. Taxes were neither collected or payed voluntarily. Let alone an orginized national Military. The AOC Gov't is actually stronger than what the Libertarions want because at least the states had power. Under their design nobody would have power. You'd be better off calling them the Anarchy party

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

More like pre-Constitutional America Articles of the Confederation America. Where states did what they wanted. Taxes were neither collected or payed voluntarily. Let alone an organized national Military. The AOC Govt is actually stronger than what the Libertarians want because at least the states had power. Under their design nobody would have power. You'd be better off calling them the Anarchy party

And that sounds more like reality and they don't want that.
Lyndon LaRouse I think was a Libertarian(I'd first heard of Him as He was charged with Tax Evasion) and the US has one of those loonies all gussied up as a Republican, He's Ron Paul. the champion of the Flat Tax, How flat would a Libertarian based tax be? 0%

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Remove barriers to safe, affordable medicines.
We should replace harmful government agencies like the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) with more agile, free-market alternatives. The mission of the FDA is to protect us from unsafe medicines. In fact, the FDA has driven up healthcare costs and deprived millions of Americans of much-needed treatments. For example, during a 10-year delay in approving Propanolol Propranolol (a heart medication for treating angina and hypertension), approximately 100,000 people died who could have been treated with this lifesaving drug. Bureaucratic roadblocks kill sick Americans.

Whiplash Willy and his brainiac free marketeers would have you believe that departments like the FDA have only two objectives, to waste your tax dollars and kill innocent Americans.

To refer to the FDA as a harmful government agency completely ignores the history of snake oil salesmen preying on the gullible and the desperate.
Under the policies of the libertarians and their free market alternatives, you'd be whisked back to the days of travelling medicine shows complete with bottles of magic potions created with whatever was lying around at the time.

Instead of focusing on one poor example (insert doubts about the reality of the claim) think about the millions of lives saved and the suffering that has been avoided by the creation of the FDA.

Under FDA regulation, you can be certain that the list of ingredients in your medication does not include dog squirt.

I'm not convinced you sholld depend on the FDA... You should still do your own homework and tak to a doctor you trust.

Allegations that unsafe drugs are approved
Some critics believe that the FDA has been too willing to overlook safety concerns in approving new drugs, and is slow to withdraw approved drugs once evidence shows them to be unsafe. Rezulin (troglitazone) and Vioxx (rofecoxib) are high-profile examples of drugs approved by the FDA which were later withdrawn from the market for posing unacceptable risks to patients.

Troglitazone is a diabetes drug that was also available abroad at the time the FDA approved it. Post-marketing safety data indicated that the drug had dangerous side-effects (in this case liver failure). The drug was pulled off that market in the UK in 1997, but was not withdrawn by the FDA until 2000, before which time it is claimed that thousands of Americans were injured or killed by the drug.[26]

In the case of Vioxx, a pre-approval study indicated that a group taking the drug had four times the risk of heart attacks when compared to another group of patients taking another anti-inflammatory, naproxen.[27] The FDA approval board accepted the manufacturer's argument that this was due to a previously unknown cardioprotective effect of naproxen, rather than a risk of Vioxx, and the drug was approved. In 2005, the results of a randomized, placebo-controlled study showed that Vioxx users suffered a higher rate of heart attacks and other cardiovascular disorders than patients taking no medication at all.[28] Faced with numerous lawsuits, the manufacturer voluntarily withdrew it from the market in 2004. The example of Vioxx has been prominent in an ongoing debate over whether new drugs should be evaluated on the basis of their absolute safety, or their safety relative to existing treatments for a given condition.

David Graham, a scientist in the Office of Drug Safety within the CDER, testified to Congress that he was pressured by his supervisors not to warn the public about dangers of drugs like Vioxx. He argued that an inherent conflict of interest exists when the office responsible for post-approval monitoring of drug safety is controlled by the same organization which initially approved those same drugs as safe and effective.[26] In a 2006 survey sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists, almost one-fifth of FDA scientists said they "have been asked, for non-scientific reasons, to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information or their conclusions in a FDA scientific document."[29]

Allegations that unsafe food additives and processing technologies are approved
Food safety advocates have criticized the FDA for allowing meat manufacturers to use carbon monoxide gas mixtures during the packaging process to prevent discoloration of meat, a process that may hide signs of spoilage from the consumer.[30]

The FDA has been criticised for allowing the use of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) in dairy cows. rBGH-treated cows secrete higher levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) in their milk than do untreated cows. IGF-1 signalling is thought to play a role in sustaining the growth of some tumors, although there is little or no evidence that exogenously absorbed IGF could promote tumor growth. The FDA approved rBGH for use in dairy cows in 1993, after concluding that humans drinking such milk were unlikely to absorb biologically significant quantities of bovine IGF-1.[31] A 1999 report of the European Commission Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures relating to Public Health noted that scientific questions persist regarding the theoretical health risks of milk from rBGH-treated cows, particularly for feeding to infants.[32] Since 1993, all EU countries have maintained a ban on rBGH use in dairy cattle.

The FDA has also been criticised for permitting the routine use of antibiotics in healthy domestic animals to promote their growth, a practice which contributes to the evolution of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.[33] The FDA has taken recent steps to limit the use of antibiotics in farm animals. In September 2005, the FDA withdrew approval for the use of the fluoroquinolone antibiotic enrofloxacin (trade name Baytril) in poultry, out of concern that this practice could promote bacterial resistance to important human antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin.[34]

The FDA has received criticism for its approval of certain coal tar derived food dyes such as FDC yellow 5 and 6, which are banned in most European countries. However, many studies of these compounds have failed to demonstrate heath risks. For example, a Japanese group found in 1987 that tartrazine was not carcinogenic even after being fed to mice for two years.[35] In addition, a German group found in 1989 that Sunset Yellow did not induce mutations that could lead to cancer in laboratory animals.[36]

The FDA has also been criticized for giving permission for cloned animals to be sold as food without any special labelling, although "cloned products may not reach the U.S. market for years." "Authorities lack the authority to require labeling of products from cloned animals."[37]

That's good advice if you have a doctor who has done all the testing on their own, but I fear you'll have a difficult time finding one.

A federal agency with oversight, standards and the power to remove unsafe or untested medications is vastly more preferable.

That's good advice if you have a doctor who has done all the testing on their own, but I fear you'll have a difficult time finding one.

A federal agency with oversight, standards and the power to remove unsafe or untested medications is vastly more preferable.

Of course, elimination of the neo-con republican libertarian profiteering invisible hand of the market types who decided to not enforce the regulations in order to help their close friends rake in greater profits needs to be done in order to restore your faith in the FDA.

good thread Rob, I would say that Checks And Balances have been created or sprung up for good reasons (on the whole)

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Join TeamACC

Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we are not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.

We don't often get much about Ayn Rand and her objectionable 'philosophy' in the U.K. so I nearly choked on my toast this morning when I found myself reading my paper and being told that her 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged is enjoying a popular surge. Well in the U.S. anyway.

I would have thought that the proponents of laissezz-faire capitalism would have crawled away with their tails between their legs..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/10/ayn-rand-atlas-shrugged

As their political base dwindles, these types of lifeforms become more shrill in their attempts to get the message out.
Just look how active some disciples have been recently even in here.

I'm hoping the bump in sales of this "book" are due to people wanting to learn to recognize how things got so very bad so quickly.
It's better to know the enemy and know what motivates them.

Ignorance of their methods is part of the reason the world is in such a damned mess.

Fortunately, there's Naomi Klein, Naomi Wolfe and Noam Chomsky, to name three of many thousands, getting the message out that counters this garbage.

We don't often get much about Ayn Rand and her objectionable 'philosophy' in the U.K. so I nearly choked on my toast this morning when I found myself reading my paper and being told that her 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged is enjoying a popular surge. Well in the U.S. anyway.

I would have thought that the proponents of laissezz-faire capitalism would have crawled away with their tails between their legs...

You're doing the same thing Es used to do sometimes, use the terms of free-market systems to refer to a hideously regulated and almost socialist non-free-market systems.

No proponent of laissez-faire capitalism would "crawl[] away with their tails between their legs" when they see the direct results of a badly over-regulated system because it isn't laissez-faire capitalism. The regulations that restrict and distort the American banking and finance system run into the 1000s of pages.

It's just massive and intrusive and expensive regulation, which means it's not laissez-faire capitalism at all and as a result, calling such a system "laissez-faire" is disingenuous at best.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

the last 8 years the Markets have been more free than they've ever been. Seems when markets go free cheaters come out of the woodwork. So freemarkets are an impossiblility due to the fact that the overwhelming urge to steal and take from others that comes along with handling large sums of money and having nobody looking over their shoulder. Seems the Mob used to run Vegas in much the same way. It's a shame that the Gov't stepped in and took that away from them. I enjoyed a $14.00 room in vegas. Now its very regulated and all is owned by corporations instead of the mob. The people still lose their money but instead of an Italian guy getting the loot we now have Corporations raking it in.

I digress. Must you go on about how great the Libertarians are or should we review what I posted on the other thread after you extolled their virtues. Please stop you are embarrassing yourself

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope