This is along the lines of Kelvin Silvia’s thread, and I’m not trying to steal his thunder here but this is something I’ve been wondering for a very long time and it’s not really the same topic as his was.
At any rate, let’s say that you can’t be a libertarian, it’s out of the question, it doesn’t exist, what ideologies do you believe you would have fallen into because they are appealing to you? Because they play into your prejuduces and view of the world.
For instance I would have remained a moderate conservative. I find the idea of slight regulation to curve the “excesses” of captialism along with a minimal welfare state, backed up by private charity as being very appealing, the Rand-esque vision of a world in which the state only prevented major abuses or tragedies and where the creme of the crop rose to the top and made their fortunes since they were of greater stuff than the common man.
If libertarianism hadn’t existed, I would have invented it. I was a libertarian before I even knew what it meant, having moved from left to right and been disatisfied with both, and spent some time in limbo thinking I was simply someone with whom no one agreed.
I was thinking of doing the “cheating” answer like xahrx, but if I had to give a true answer it would be Neodoxy’s answer. It’s pretty dang easy to be a moderate conservative. I mean, Golden Mean fallacy and BAM you don’t really have to worry too much about anything.
There is no such thing as a true answer to an impossible hypothetical. And I told the truth; I withdrew. Did it before I knew what libertarianism was. Luckily before I completely withdrew the web took off and I found some similar minded people. But, had that not happened and I lived in a world where for some unknown reason certain indeologies weren’t allow to develop, I think I would have done what I did; which was to simply say "Screw it!’ and slowly withdraw from the rest of society when it came to issues poitical.
What kind of “libertarian” is excluded? Can I be an an-cap, a voluntaryist, a Misean mutualist, a Stirnerite? Maybe I’ll be a Platonic aristocrat or a Hegelian. If all else fails I’ll simple be a Thorean Transcendentalist, or a Nietzschean, or simply an individual anarchist.
ya, i was a libertarian before i knew what it was, but i always categorized myself as a republican to the bones. Even when i learned i was a libertarian i didnt acknowledge it because the libertarian ideals were the same as republican to me (with a little hippyish feel to it/i dont want to be a part of mainstream society). Now ive changed a number of views since i found the mises institute and have become more of a pure libertarian.
i was a foreign interventionist - i believed in heavy counter intelligence to minimize blowback (be able to manipulate foreign nation’s policy without them knowing it was us), and if we were forced to goto war no mercy send in the MARINES and destroy everything. Carpet bomb the rest. So obviously this is a LAST resort. The only wars i would of agreed with were the American revolution, wars fought in self defense, going after bin hiden, and WWII. I would also agree with any operation to retrieve American hostages. Virtually everything else was wrong to me. I just got out of the Marine Corps beginning of this year and it is still difficult for me not to agree with foreign intervention.
i believed in a government military in the National Guard sense. Also I believed that there should be a government run military leadership/counsel. I thought all ground troops (the troops actually doing the operations) should of been privatized. It never made any sense to me that we send in kids to fight the wars when we can have total professional badasses do it 10x more efficiently. I also believe that these people willing to give there lives for their country should be paid top dollar which government cant do/isnt doing.
I hated cops/still do and thought they should of been privatized too, though i believed a government oversite was necessary to ensure the privatized police force followed laws and procedures.
I’m 100% prolife now. Though I always knew it was immoral I just didnt believe in infringing on other peoples POSSIBLE rights. Pretty much this is too big of a moral issue for a single person/government to make rulings on.
i believed in public run and operated roads. I just never even gave that a second thought for some reason.
100% Pro-life? Not to derail the thread, but at my initial brush with these forums I fluctuated wildly on the issue until I came down solidly on “pro-choice.” Again, I don’t want to delve much deeper, but I wanted to say this.
Don’t bow to false idols, don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t murder, don’t be a hipocrite, your genitals should be private, creating human life should be taken seriously and it starts at conception.
Agnostic Christian as always. Jesus was an anarchist.
Going from where I was to an Anarcho-libertarian was such a small step that I honestly don’t remember it.
Remember, this merely a thread asking what ideologies sort of naturally appeal to you besides libertarianism. Anyway, I don’t know what a Humean is, a Burkean would be fine and more or less fits in with my own moderate conservatism which is close to mainstream classical liberalism.
I will be a fascist here. Fascist party ftw!!! (but im not a jew hater)
In my thread ill be an anarcho leftist.
I told my aunt how the housing bubble happened today, the whole artificially low interest rates was able to fuel all the loans and drive up demand etc etc.
Her thought on this is because people had a crazy animal spirit trend to get houses and that is why (i guess thats plausible but not the root cause), but she wouldnt understand how artificially low interest rates helped fuel that.
You’re not Marko!