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An Irish Libertarian Party

24567…12

Comments

  • #32
    Dirk Gently
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,779 ✭✭✭Dirk Gently


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    Was it the state that turned 40 american banks into just 4 in under 20 years. Perhaps a little regulation to ensure there's no such thing as too big to fail? No?

    By the way, criticising the Irish state doesn't there for prove libertarianism is a utopia. It's just a really obvious observation of a small corrupt crony system. We have a small population and a small elite who literally know, went to school and socialise with each other, be they politicians, corporate or media.

    There's a dog lying at my feet at the moment, the dog is black, there for because I observed the dog is black Libertarianism is the answer?


  • #33
    _Gawd_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 410 ✭✭_Gawd_


    FreudianSlippers wrote: »
    I would disagree. Most libertarians usually favour some form of school voucher or education tax credit system. So, yes, you would have to pay for the school; however that money would still emanate from the government - thus keeping costs down and services up.

    You're wrong there I'm afraid.

    A minority of libertarians would see this system introduced. Libertarians want total freedom - supplying the government with a revenue stream i.e - taxation to pay for these schools is blasphemy!


  • #34
    _Gawd_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 410 ✭✭_Gawd_


    Dirk Gently wrote: »
    Was it the state that turned 40 american banks into just 4 in under 20 years. Perhaps a little regulation to ensure there's no such thing as too big to fail? No?

    If you think we have a free market banking system I want whatever you're smoking.


  • #35
    Jimoslimos
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,930 ✭✭✭Jimoslimos


    It's not an ideology I agree with, but a libertarian party would have a better chance at becoming established here than the UK or US for example, where the voting system is biased towards the two major parties.


  • #36
    _Gawd_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 410 ✭✭_Gawd_


    Canvasser wrote: »
    Libertarians are just nutters who are too selfish and greedy to take part in society.

    Why do you think collectivism is the only way by default. You are aware that all people don't view the world through your eyes. I'm not in the least bit patriotic for example - if an Irish person is killed overseas, my blood doesn't boil because I don't see it as a personal attack against me. I'm an individual and I see the world through those eyes. That's why I see no reason to pay into any ponzi scheme my "community" demands of me.

    I just want to be left alone.


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  • #37
    Blowfish
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,112 ✭✭✭Blowfish


    RichieC wrote: »
    So without regulation, what's to stop the guy with the most money buying up all the small companies?
    What's the problem if they do?


  • #38
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 38,989 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #39
    K-9
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43,302 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    Canvasser wrote: »
    Libertarians are just nutters who are too selfish and greedy to take part in society.

    Mod

    Comments like that aren't acceptable on the Politics forum.
    Please read the charter on the main page.

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • #40
    southsiderosie
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,560 ✭✭✭southsiderosie


    Canvasser wrote: »
    Libertarians are just nutters who are too selfish and greedy to take part in society.
    Canvasser wrote: »
    Well f*ck off and live in the woods then and spare the rest of us your sh1te.

    MOD NOTE:

    Canvasser, don't post in this thread again.


  • #41
    Channel Zero
    Closed Accounts Posts: 333 ✭✭Channel Zero


    _Gawd_ wrote: »
    That's why I see no reason to pay into any ponzi scheme my "community" demands of me.

    I just want to be left alone.

    What if you become sick and cannot provide for yourself and your family?
    Would you still want to be left alone? To be at the mercy of charity?


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  • #42
    southsiderosie
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,560 ✭✭✭southsiderosie


    Canvasser wrote: »
    Actually it's "libertarianism" that shouldn't be acceptable in politics and the mods on here are just showing their outrageous right wing bias again.

    MOD NOTE:

    Banned.

    As an aside to other posters, if someone has clearly been infracted, please do not engage with those posts on-thread. Flamewars are an annoying distraction for everyone.


  • #43
    RichieC
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,331 ✭✭✭RichieC


    Blowfish wrote: »
    What's the problem if they do?

    So what happens when all the wealth concentrates and our entire lives are dictated by a single mega corporation, or two?


  • #44
    Endless Nameless
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 138 ✭✭Endless Nameless


    _Gawd_ wrote: »
    It's no use.

    There have been attempts to establish such a party but it's near impossible to bring it forward. Since 2010 in particular we have seen the ILP, IDP and others try to get off the ground but to do that you need money and money has to be brought into the party. When this occurs, the people that have paid bring their own collectivist policies into the programme book and so ends the libertarian party - a classic case of this were the Democrats were their new platform that was just released looks nothing like what their original platform was a few years back. But there are thousands of us out there...freedomireland have a website as well as the Irish Liberty Forum. I believe CSP have some libertarian views economically but they're very socially conservative.

    I think libertarianism is a newly discovered worldview in this country so I'd suspect mostly young people describe themselves as libertarian or even know of austrian/chicago economics. Ireland in a way has no ideology per se (although no ideology can be described as an ideology?!)...all they care about is pleasing the parish community and getting re-elected. I've been to numerous political meetings over the years and in every single established party, it is quite literally zombie like follow the leader type stuff - nobody has an opinion. It's actually dangerous to have an opinion in FG for example, you just have to follow the whip and sure, what point is it to get involved if you've to shut your mouth and have no input. Your only worth to these people is to hand out drivel in fliers and canvass.

    Ireland is not a libertarian country by and large - we're a reactionary island living on the periphery of a totalitarian authoritarian union that says how high when told to jump. The best we can do is support the big libertarian poster boys in the states and with a bit of luck, Ron Paul has awakened many people to continue the fight into the future.


    How much money would actually be necessary? If a specific constituency was picked, with volunteers given quotas about going from door-to-door to tell people about a candidate, and with some money pooled together for flyers, pamphlets and election posters I'm sure getting one candidate elected would be viable.

    At least for a first election to get the party off the ground.


  • #45
    _Gawd_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 410 ✭✭_Gawd_


    Channel Zero wrote: »
    What if you become sick and cannot provide for yourself and your family?
    Would you still want to be left alone? To be at the mercy of charity?

    The free market doesn't exist. A lot of people disregard libertarianism because they think everything would continue the way they are today and that everything would remain expensive. If you couldn't work, you'd be foooked without government but that's not the case in the free market. Let me tell you why.

    Firstly, I am on your side..I want lower prices in healthcare. I just differ that I think government cannot provide that. Now, if we had a free market, there would be no practitioner licenses - so instead of going to the GP and paying 50E standard, the doctors and individual health brands (like Spar) would be fighting for your service so they would cut a deal with you and charge you 10E.

    Now, add in medicine. Most medicine is by prescription only (this is government intervention). You can't get medicine without paying the doctor (someone is paying him either you or the taxpayer). In a libertarian society, there would be no prescriptions because you could buy anything over the counter. So say I have the same complaint as you. I simply cut out all the GP expenses and go straight to buy the appropriate medicine for myself that will help me.

    Now, with no government, doctors don't share the money...they fight each other driving down prices. REAL competition in healthcare. We are free to cut deals with doctors and even buy insurance from the deregulated market.


  • #46
    Jimoslimos
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,930 ✭✭✭Jimoslimos


    If libertarians want to argue that everybody should take personal responsibility for their own healthcare and the burden shouldn't be carried by the state - I disagree - but can understand the point.

    If they want to make the case that universities shouldn't be funded out of the pulic purse - again I disagree - but can see the principle behind the argument.

    However in order for any of these to make sense then surely you need to assume that everybody has had equal opportunities in life - not so if you remove free healthcare for children and privatise education fully.

    It creates a class system whereby your education/healthcare from a young age is determined by that of your parents.

    I say this as a healthy unmarried childless male


  • #47
    _Gawd_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 410 ✭✭_Gawd_


    Endless Nameless wrote: »
    How much money would actually be necessary? If a specific constituency was picked, with volunteers given quotas about going from door-to-door to tell people about a candidate, and with some money pooled together for flyers, pamphlets and election posters I'm sure getting one candidate elected would be viable.

    At least for a first election to get the party off the ground.

    Well you'd have to pick certain talking points relevant to that particular community. While we could get a person elected in Dublin on marijuana legalisation, it would be difficult to convince farmers that their welfare money was going to dry up.


  • #48
    Blowfish
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,112 ✭✭✭Blowfish


    RichieC wrote: »
    So what happens when all the wealth concentrates and our entire lives are dictated by a single mega corporation, or two?
    In order to maintain their position, they'd have to produce the best quality goods/services at the lowest price points.

    If they weren't and were attempting to buy out all of their competition, naturally enough they'd fail.
    Jimoslimos wrote: »
    It creates a class system whereby your education/healthcare from a young age is determined by that of your parents.
    Only if you assume that everything needs to be paid for up front.


  • #49
    Dirk Gently
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,779 ✭✭✭Dirk Gently


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    Actually I want a state to regulate and actively break up monopolies, without that I think we end up with too much power and wealth concentrated in too few institutions. Concentrated wealth is bad for the economy.

    Ironically I think I'm more libertarian than you and the other 5 internet libertarians, in that when I follow the logic through I can't help but come to the conclusion that your ideology will eventually create a super state to protect those with concentrated wealth from the rest of society which is now void of any safety nets to pacify them. Society exists whether libertarians chose to acknowledge it or not. I assume libertarians will maintain a police and legal system to protect private property rights? I don't see that police force being anything but colossal considering the entirely predictable trajectory of society v's those accumulating wealth unregulated.

    Just as communism was suppose to wither away the state, libertarianism will also fail to whither the state as it will need it to impose the ideology.


  • #50
    _Gawd_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 410 ✭✭_Gawd_


    Dirk Gently wrote: »
    Actually I want a state to regulate and actively break up monopolies, without that I think we end up with too much power and wealth concentrated in too few institutions. Concentrated wealth is bad for the economy.

    Ironically I think I'm more libertarian than you and the other 5 internet libertarians, in that when I follow the logic through I can't help but come to the conclusion that your ideology will eventually create a super state to protect those with concentrated wealth from the rest of society which is now void of any safety nets to pacify them. Society exists whether libertarians chose to acknowledge it or not. I assume libertarians will maintain a police and legal system to protect private property rights? I don't see that police force being anything but colossal considering the entirely predictable trajectory of society v's those accumulating wealth unregulated.

    Just as communism was suppose to wither away the state, libertarianism will also fail to whither the state as it will need it to impose the ideology.

    Libertarians differ on how far it should be pushed.

    Milton Friedman was a Libertarian but he argued the need for a state monopoly on money (I believe). The Libertarian Party advocates military, courts and police ONLY.

    On the more consistent end of Libertarianism, you have Murray Rothbard that said the State is the State and that ALL should be abolished. I'm a Rothbardian in every sense. It's just taking libertarianism to it's logical conclusion. I do admire Friedman though - I loved his lectures.


  • #51
    Jimoslimos
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,930 ✭✭✭Jimoslimos


    _Gawd_ wrote: »
    Now, add in medicine. Most medicine is by prescription only (this is government intervention). You can't get medicine without paying the doctor (someone is paying him either you or the taxpayer). In a libertarian society, there would be no prescriptions because you could buy anything over the counter. So say I have the same complaint as you. I simply cut out all the GP expenses and go straight to buy the appropriate medicine for myself that will help me.

    Now, with no government, doctors don't share the money...they fight each other driving down prices. REAL competition in healthcare. We are free to cut deals with doctors and even buy insurance from the deregulated market.
    Now I don't know about anyone else, but I'm happy enough with the current system of doctors/pharmacists taking responsibility for the well-being of their patients (not customers).


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  • #52
    _Gawd_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 410 ✭✭_Gawd_


    Jimoslimos wrote: »
    Now I don't know about anyone else, but I'm happy enough with the current system of doctors/pharmacists taking responsibility for the well-being of their patients (not customers).

    Jim, you shouldn't be happy...it's extraordinarily expensive. Government pushed prices UP, private enterprise pushed prices DOWN. Let people have some responsibility for themselves. We shouldn't bow down to a couple of incompetents that want to do harm to themselves.


  • #53
    karma_
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,797 ✭✭✭karma_


    _Gawd_ wrote: »
    Jim, you shouldn't be happy...it's extraordinarily expensive. Government pushed prices UP, private enterprise pushed prices DOWN. Let people have some responsibility for themselves. We shouldn't bow down to a couple of incompetents that want to do harm to themselves.

    How do you expect any of us to take the libertarian argument seriously, when you genuinely advocate nonsense such as that? What you propose for healthcare is so utterly absurd it's almost Monty Pythonesque.


  • #54
    Dirk Gently
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,779 ✭✭✭Dirk Gently


    _Gawd_ wrote: »
    Libertarians differ on how far it should be pushed.

    I noticed :)


  • #55
    Endless Nameless
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 138 ✭✭Endless Nameless


    _Gawd_ wrote: »
    Well you'd have to pick certain talking points relevant to that particular community. While we could get a person elected in Dublin on marijuana legalisation, it would be difficult to convince farmers that their welfare money was going to dry up.

    Well yeah, it wouldn't be too bright to pick a rural, socially-conservative area.

    But the situation doesn't seem as impossible as your first post painted it to be.


  • #56
    Technique
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,438 ✭✭✭Technique


    While full scale Libertarianism has never been tried, the evidence is there to prove that the more free an economy is, the more well off the citizens of that country are:

    http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

    I'd rather be living in a country at the top of that list than at the bottom.

    Whatever about full scale Libertarianism, I think that this country would be a better place if we tackled issues and problems from a Libertarian point of view.


  • #57
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 38,989 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #58
    Endless Nameless
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 138 ✭✭Endless Nameless


    karma_ wrote: »
    How do you expect any of us to take the libertarian argument seriously, when you genuinely advocate nonsense such as that? What you propose for healthcare is so utterly absurd it's almost Monty Pythonesque.


    The Flying Circus is my favourite tv show but I fail to see how they would make a sketch making fun of people who don't want excessive red tape and Government meddling in their healthcare and want to be able to acquire it more easily and at more affordable prices.


  • #59
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 38,989 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #60
    Channel Zero
    Closed Accounts Posts: 333 ✭✭Channel Zero


    _Gawd_ wrote: »
    The free market doesn't exist. A lot of people disregard libertarianism because they think everything would continue the way they are today and that everything would remain expensive. If you couldn't work, you'd be foooked without government but that's not the case in the free market.

    Leaving everything to the free market and destroying state involvement is obviously complete and utter lunacy. We've seen what happened under the tutelage of your compadre Mr Greenspan. And these types are of course still attempting to grasp the reigns of power by various means.

    Complete deregulation/privatisation of healthcare and pharma? A recipe for disaster. It's like leaving the foxes to guard the henhouse.

    Thanks but no thanks. I'd run down O'Connell St. naked myself if it means i don't get you guys coming door-to-door.


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  • #61
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 38,989 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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