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How are libertarians "right-wing"? Some libertarians could be described as extreme "left-wing" depending on being social or economic libertarians. I think it is

How are libertarians "right-wing"? Some libertarians could be described as extreme "left-wing" depending on being social or economic libertarians. I think it is better to not have such a simple dichotomy of "left" vs "right". People have political beliefs, those beliefs can be very complex, and the consistency of the beliefs depends largely on the perspective of the person. Having a simple "two sides" lined up against each other is overly simplistic and has lead to people being shoehorned into "us vs them" and feeling pressured to adopt the beliefs of the group they are closest to, which results in less diversity of political beliefs. I don't think even a circle of beliefs is enough, the degrees of freedom in political beliefs is enormous, which literally encompasses most of the things people believe about the world. It can't really be boiled down to a spectrum of two sides.

heleninboodler 4y ago
Libertarians are funny because most other ideologies can find some reason to view them in a bad light, but I think the reasons to view them as right wing is that they commonly have attitudes like, "regulations are bad," "taxes are theft," "leave me and my guns alone," "fuck the poor" etc. They're often proponents of private roads, private schools, private emergency services, and so on. This all offends the left. And of course, they offend the right with their lack of interest in policing people's personal lives. I sort of consider myself a libertarian who sees the need for a social safety net, regulations, strong consumer protection, education, infrastructure, emergency services, and healthcare. You know, a democrat. :D
autoexec 4y ago
There is often a lot of overlap between libertarians and the far right, including the racist faction of the right. A libertarian might say for example that a hospital, school, or restaurant should be allowed to operate as "whites only". I think the vast majority of people identifying as libertarians would fall farther on the right side of the spectrum than the left with economic/pro-corporate/small government views being the primary driver. As for not having a left/right spectrum of political views at all, I think it's somewhat inevitable in a (de facto) two party system, but it's worthwhile to acknowledge that virtually nobody is going to fit comfortably on one side or the other. People have tried for ages to come up with more nuanced multi-axis representations of where people fall within political spectrum, but even then it often just works out to carving out specific flavors of left/right.

heleninboodler 4y ago

Libertarians are funny because most other ideologies can find some reason to view them in a bad light, but I think the reasons to view them as right wing is that they commonly have attitudes like, "regulations are bad," "taxes are theft," "leave me and my guns alone," "fuck the poor" etc. They're often proponents of private roads, private schools, private emergency services, and so on. This all offends the left. And of course, they offend the right with their lack of interest in policing people's personal lives. I sort of consider myself a libertarian who sees the need for a social safety net, regulations, strong consumer protection, education, infrastructure, emergency services, and healthcare. You know, a democrat. :D

autoexec 4y ago

There is often a lot of overlap between libertarians and the far right, including the racist faction of the right. A libertarian might say for example that a hospital, school, or restaurant should be allowed to operate as "whites only". I think the vast majority of people identifying as libertarians would fall farther on the right side of the spectrum than the left with economic/pro-corporate/small government views being the primary driver. As for not having a left/right spectrum of political views at all, I think it's somewhat inevitable in a (de facto) two party system, but it's worthwhile to acknowledge that virtually nobody is going to fit comfortably on one side or the other. People have tried for ages to come up with more nuanced multi-axis representations of where people fall within political spectrum, but even then it often just works out to carving out specific flavors of left/right.