I am the 99%

[John_James]

@Sphairon

Oh, come on, people, have some empathy, will ya? The “every-man-for-himself” mentality that oozes out in this thread is exactly what people misunderstand libertarianism for.

It’s not “every-man-for-himself”. That is a caricature invented by people who don’t like to be told they aren’t entitled to something they didn’t earn. The mentality is “every man is responsible for himself”. There is a big difference. The mentality is that to claim someone else owes you something just because they have more than you, or they have something you want, is asinine.

So some of these people have accrued student loans. Yes, they made the choice to go to college and apply for these loans. But their teachers, family, the media, banks and politicians encouraged them to.

Yes, and that sucks. But so does making any mistake. Does that mean other people are supposed to be obligated to bail you out of your bad choices? If your friends convinced you it was a good idea to try to rob a conveinience store, and that went bad and you ended up killing a guy and getting life in prison…we’re supposed to say “oh…well, I mean his friends encouraged him to do it, so…you know. Here’s a do-over. No prob.”

I don’t understand what exactly you’re advocating here.

Not all of them wasted their time and money on obviously unmarketable degrees.

And most of those people aren’t the ones complaining, now are they.

And how come student loans are the only kind of debt you cannot default on? This is clearly a rigged system set up for the benefit of the college and banking cartels. Stop blaming the poor saps that got suckered in.

So your position is what…that we should be blaming a third party for someone’s choices?

Others have severe medical conditions that they can’t afford to get treated. Why? Well, for starters, government severely restricts the market for medical services with their licensing requirements (and of course, many licenses have to be earned in the restricted medical school market - one rigged system feeds the others), it artificially increases the price of drugs with its patent laws and it destroyed the voluntary associations that made health care affordable for the working man a century ago.

Basically you mean all the people bitching got exactly what they wanted…it just so happens the actual outcomes of those policies were the exact opposite of what they intended.

@Sphairon

Libertarians should be staunchly opposed to the current US medical system and communicate this clearly.

They are. And they try to. But it’s a little hard to be heard over all the whining, bitching, and calling for more government regulation.

Then there’s people who lost their homes. Yes, they couldn’t pay the mortgage, so it’s technically not their homes anymore. But the current mess in the housing market is the making of Federal Reserve and FedGov policy. The system screwed these people over.

Again, because “these people” made it politically profitable for people in government to force banks to give loans to people who couldn’t pay them back. Politicians would not have been interested in lowering lending standards if it had saying things like “home ownership is at an all time high” and “we want everyone to own their home” had not been useful in getting them re-elected.

And the reason why many can’t find jobs is, of course, the economic hardship that is a direct result of the credit-induced boom-and-bust cycle.

Which the very same people we’re talking about made possible. But even if we choose not to hold them responsible for any of the blame for their current situation…I’m still not clear what it is exactly you’re proposing.

You see, instead of blaming these people for a situation they largely had no control over, how about offering them some hope that’s not based on the traditional leftist solutions?

In case you haven’t noticed, that’s what libertarians have been trying to do for decades. Ever heard of a guy named Ron Paul? I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t, seeing as he’s been largely ignored for the past 30 years. You might look him up though. It might help you to see how people don’t want to hear anything that’s not based in traditional leftist “solutions” centered around economically illiterate notions, egalitarian nonsense, and despicably audacious entitlement beliefs.

Or do you really think not staining yourselves with the problems of the ailing middle class for the sake of ideological purity will advance your position?

Again, how exactly are you suggesting libertarians “stain themselves” with the problems leftists and their ideas have created for everyone?