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Question: At what point does the average statist admit that the libertarians (s)he has been belittling for so many years as tin-foil hat crackpots were far more

Question: At what point does the average statist admit that the libertarians (s)he has been belittling for so many years as tin-foil hat crackpots were far more savvy about the nature of the state than they were? Answer: never

wonderzombie 13y ago
Stopped clocks, once a day, etc. ;) In all seriousness, though: civil liberties are one of the very few areas where libertarians and liberals (I presume "statist" was meant to be a jibe) can agree. Liberals were in fact among the groups pissed off about the PATRIOT Act, FISA, et al, during the Bush years. By this point, nearly a decade later, I'd resigned myself to the fact that nobody cared. I can't decide if I'm pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised that this is finally getting more attention.
- _delirium 13y ago
  Yes, civil-liberties advocates have been on this particular horse since before the term "libertarian" even came into widespread usage. Various kinds of attempts at dragnet surveillance, at various scales, have been an active issue of controversy going back decades (e.g. in the McCarthyist era), and civil-liberties groups like the ACLU have been pretty consistent in opposition.
te_chris 13y ago
Yes, never, because a completely unaccountable corporatocracy is not a suitable replacement. Social democrats like myself believe in the power of a transparent, strong, supportive, accountable and fundamentally democratic state and are not going to give up fighting for it. This isn't an argument to blow up the state in favour of an alternative which has proven itself often to be worse than the state in matters of privacy and libterty, it's a call to increase the public pressure for reform.
- adventured 13y ago
  Good luck combining a strong government, with an accountable one. Political power tends to corrupt toward not wanting to be accountable.
flyinRyan 13y ago
Oh stfu about libertarian bullshit. Show me another first world nation anywhere on the planet that is libertarian. Show me any libertarian nation of any kind that isn't awful. You know the US concept of "libertarian" doesn't exist outside the US? That's because the rest of the world realizes it's useless.

wonderzombie 13y ago

Stopped clocks, once a day, etc. ;) In all seriousness, though: civil liberties are one of the very few areas where libertarians and liberals (I presume "statist" was meant to be a jibe) can agree. Liberals were in fact among the groups pissed off about the PATRIOT Act, FISA, et al, during the Bush years. By this point, nearly a decade later, I'd resigned myself to the fact that nobody cared. I can't decide if I'm pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised that this is finally getting more attention.

_delirium 13y ago
Yes, civil-liberties advocates have been on this particular horse since before the term "libertarian" even came into widespread usage. Various kinds of attempts at dragnet surveillance, at various scales, have been an active issue of controversy going back decades (e.g. in the McCarthyist era), and civil-liberties groups like the ACLU have been pretty consistent in opposition.

te_chris 13y ago

Yes, never, because a completely unaccountable corporatocracy is not a suitable replacement. Social democrats like myself believe in the power of a transparent, strong, supportive, accountable and fundamentally democratic state and are not going to give up fighting for it. This isn't an argument to blow up the state in favour of an alternative which has proven itself often to be worse than the state in matters of privacy and libterty, it's a call to increase the public pressure for reform.

adventured 13y ago
Good luck combining a strong government, with an accountable one. Political power tends to corrupt toward not wanting to be accountable.

flyinRyan 13y ago

Oh stfu about libertarian bullshit. Show me another first world nation anywhere on the planet that is libertarian. Show me any libertarian nation of any kind that isn't awful. You know the US concept of "libertarian" doesn't exist outside the US? That's because the rest of the world realizes it's useless.