I know this is super late, but I looked in The Lounge again and Dejavu is still blahblahing and posting some YouTube videos he sees trying to enlighten us to Libertarianism, so in case I feel like replying to any of that in the future I might as well post something here again. Basically, I will just number every paragraph/point you write - I'm too lazy to quote everything.
1. Ideology is a quality, rather it can be a quality. It depends on hows it is used and what it concerns. It can be used as a compass ideally, and as a strict blueprint negatively. A strict blueprint is negative because whenever something doesn't fit into its nice and neat ideal representation of reality, that tends just to be ignored - which can be disastrous.
2. I'm 22 and never had a credit card....so don't be so general. Credit is not always a bad thing as long as it is responsible. What you are really arguing about is consumerism gone awry - which is really just irresponsibility. I'm all for responsible decision making, and I don't think that the ability to be responsible or irresponsible is intrinsic to any particular institution (business or government).
3. I think the Libertarian movement is like many political movements that leads to political parties - snake oil salesman. Too busy focused on pointing out faults in a simplistic fashion and selling their panacea. I don't see what is so special or original about them. Moreover, I feel their emphasis on individuality and individual choice which is well-meaning does not end as favorably as they see it. As I stated many times over and over again is that focusing on the individual is beneficial, but is also dangerous when it begins to erode concepts of the group, which in the end erodes things like responsibility and community. People become less likely to associate themselves with the other person when they are trained to think about how their interests are paramount.
4. Give me something more substantive than "Don't Knock it Til you Try It" we both know that draws retarded parallels. Moreover, although NAFTA, CAFTA, EU, etc. are not global and are protectionist in a negative definition like that it is a shift considering how isolationist some countries like the US once were. Like many things dealing with the economy, it is often best to phase rather than shock the market.
5. I can only assume "make your own policy mistakes". Because I am still, and most people are still held responsible for their actions. I mean if I don't go to work today, the government isn't going to step in and say "he is to be absolved of all guilt". We aren't living in the exact opposite ideological world here. Honestly, I feel if I had to be responsible for any decision made ever in the United States policy wise I'd be overburdened to just live my life. If you want to sit in a voting booth or in a town hall a couple hours everyday, be my guest, but I'll keep doing what I am doing.
6. So why should I vote for a Libertarian to sit in Washington? How is that not a contradiction with what you just said?
7. Yeah, because George Soros made millions of dollars sitting in the aisle at the supermarket deciding if he really needs Tide versus Store Brand detergent. Moreover, even such a basic principle as that assumes a particular rationale of human decision making that is not absolute.
8. I don't like micromanagement either, but I don't like no management either - if the shadow banking practices are any inclination of how people deal with massive amounts of money outside of regulation.
9. I think you missed my major point: risk does not disappear the moment the government dips its put its fingers in the vestal virgin of the market. While bailouts does lower risk assessment significantly, things like better bank regulation does not. And as I said, I think people do think some of these companies should fail, and I do not think some companies are "too big to fail" but I do believe putting fences to reduce avalanche danger and damage is better than not doing it. Ironically, wanting these businesses to collapse sounds eerily similar to Marxist, Dependency theorists like Wallerstein more than anyone else.
10. I am assuming that is all theoretical because as you have said, unregulated economies have not existed. So I'd like to see the source of your theory rather than a summation. Moreover, I'd like you to compare this to given data on long and short recession/depression cycles worldwide and in the US, and if you could give me a particular interpretation that fits into your point about those fluctuations. Point being even on data given that you can touch and see from real events there is often different interpretations. Why should I take your paragraph of brief summation over a much more nuanced reality?
11. Didn't ask you about this, didn't say anything to the contrary occurred, so not going to respond.
God dammit, the rest of this shit is too long and redundant. My main point is that a lot of things people see as so completely different are often more similar than they believe. People telling them otherwise are spin doctors trying to pawn their particular false particularity. I think this is what you are doing by buying into Libertarianism, the same way I think a Marxist does it by joining a Communist Party. Moreover, you package it and try to feed it to forum goers here through poor YouTube and Blog pitches you found when I don't know, you were at work bored. Hell, I mean all the government does is attempt to aggregate interests and carry out policy based on that aggregation, which can undoubtedly be skewed by personal all-too-human failures, and to do so they collect taxes and have a budget. To me that sounds like trying to ascertain the need for a product in a market and try to create that product, this process is sustained by keeping a budget and bringing in income. Right now only a small percentage of the US wants to buy into Libertarianism, I don't need Billy Mays-Hays here yelling at me to buy it.
