I can’t believe this is even brought up as if bush and obama have to be the same. they both put more and more power into government hands. one with use mainly of welfare means - the other mainly to increase military might. both destroy a society. both are evil. both do nothing out of liberty. both feed upon each other - that’s significant to understand. They both feed upon each other. And obama isn’t only about welfare sure the u.s. is an empire and it needs to be maintained with war. bush is not mainly about war for he maintained and grew the welfare state too. The party propaganda is NEVER what the party actually does in D.C. Do I really need to explain this stuff or is this argument about something else? let me know so i can stop.
No, that’s exactly my point. They’re not the same. Bush was the worst president in 80 years, Obama is the worst president in history. Bush never shot down contract law, and didn’t support a neo-smoot-hartley act (cap and trade). I don’t want to go over this again. Obama is Bush to the second power.
No, they both increased welfare, and both supported military might.
Indeed.
Stop. Because so far no one has addressed any of my points whatsoever. Marko’s only capable of calling people “red state fascists,” whatever that means, and appeals to emotion in every single response. Furthermore, he keeps talking to me as if I’m some kind of Sean Hannity fan boy. My Proposition is simple, libertarians sided with liberals during Bush’s presidency because they were anti-war, and they were useful to us. Unfortunately, the liberal anti-war movement went away as soon as Bush left office. Now it’s time to vote republican and stop the insanity. Was I a democrat? No. Am I a republican? No. Is Ron Paul really a republican? No. The facts are just the facts–Obama is the biggest statist we’ve ever seen.
It’s not their positions I’m interested in, since those change whenever their leaders want them to change. I’m only interested in their rhetoric. When people spoke out against Bush, I joined them, and now I will do the same for Obama.
There is only one major power in the western world. To be a major power you first have to have an independant foreign policy. France, Germany and the UK are auxiliaries of the Empire. But yes, they are fascists. Of the Blue State variety.
Russia and China are not part of the western world. Neither are they properly Fascist. At the very least they lack the requirement of expansionist militarism. (Corporatism alone is not sufficient.)
Of course it is a sufficient condition. War is the health of the state. Give war long enough and it will bring you all the ills of statism.
They are as evil and as dangerous. Albeit each for slightly different reasons.
False choice. The neocon administration of Bush jr. and their “compassionate conservatism” expanded the welfare state by leaps and bounds.
Everything. You can not 100% of the time serve power and be anything but 100% evil. You can not be 100% evil and be a lesser evil to anyone.
I think you think the neocons are a lesser evil. I think it is a dangerous position to have.
They have no opinion. Don`t you understand that? Do you honestly think the neocons give a damn if the Democrats nationalise the healthcare for the plebs?
There is nothing neocon ideology has to say on healthcare. It is solely a matter of daily politics to them.
I don’t know about worse in history. Nixon was pretty bad. FDR was pretty bad (and he had many acts down to rationing legislated). Then there’s Lincoln too. But I will agree that bush and obama are in the same terrible league.
I never side with either side. I never have and never will. I was tired of government and walked away as far as I could bravely muster beginning when I was a teenager (when I was conscious of such a thing as government and all of its stupidity). It’s all a farse and to side with one side or the other is what I nicely call getting dirty. I never understood these kinds of ‘siding’ dialogues by those of liberty. I don’t think I ever will. And in fact, I don’t really think I want to corrupt myself and understand why these happen.
it’s a bit upsetting. it’s like watching family going down the wrong path in life and i can’t do anything about it. it bothers me, but that’s my fault and nobody elses. i feel when people get into these ‘siding’ dialogues (siding with this party or that party in government) are threefold (1) walking away from liberty; (2) distorting the dialogue and bringing up a red herring to what might be more productive and truthful topics that spread what ‘we’ want in our heart of hearts, ie. threads on Austrian economics, justice, etc… (3) disingenuous to what the individual really wants and thus corrupts everything, similar to selling the soul to the devil if you get my drift.
thanks for answering. i’ll stop.[:)]
No one is walking away from liberty; our ideals and convictions don’t change, we’re merely agitating the system–shaking it up. We could sit around all day and talk about the ideal world, but that’s not gonna get us anywhere (though, I’ll admit that this may not get us anywhere either). We could call any and all nonRothbardians statist and fascists, but (a) it’s simply wrong, and (b) it’s counter-productive.
Nonsense. Libertarians in the Bush years never went around calling liberals the lesser of two evils.
And if a neocon were in charge right now he would be the biggest statist (among US presidents) jet. And the neocon who will come after Obama will be jet a bigger statist.
So far you have only been speaking up for neocons.
It is possible to make an argument that every next president is worse than the one before him. Because every next president commands a bigger leviathan. But this is not the argument you are making. You are making the argument that right now putting a neocon (a “lesser evil”) in charge would be an improvemnt.
i understand ‘shaking it up’. i shake it up with plenty of people outside of the forum. it’s that one word “siding”. that bothered me. the whole system needs shaken up. not just the neo-cons. there’s plenty of in-roads into all parties involved in the government system. there’s plenty of ways to shake up dem’s or repub’s, etc… i would say ‘siding’ though is a corruption of my position.
Lew Rockwell did..
Because the Neocons aren’t in power. I want to use them, not side with them–siding was a poor choice of words.
Furthermore, your position against war seems to be a combination of (1) economics, and (2) morality. Now, they’re both obviously true, but the second one is pretty weak when confronting neocons like Mark Levin. They’ll probably respond with, “well is it moral to spill acid on the faces of children, and rape women?” Or, “was it moral for Sadam to boil people alive, or gas millions?” Basically they’ll take the utilitarian view and try to show how our intervention leads to a greater net good.
Shaping public opinion is important.
(3) regimentation of society
Ok, Wilderness, I’m sorry for saying he’s picking the “right” side.
I’m on Levin’s side and if that makes me a fascist in your mind, so be it.
notice. not once in my posts in this thread did i mention the word “fascist”. but that’s only because i don’t readily know if i can accurately define the term so i stuck to points i’m clear on.
I don’t think that by calling Progressives the lesser of two evils, that we cede anything more then just saying ‘well in our current state of affairs people A would be better then people B. Of course if we were in power then things would be a lot better’ It’s not like we allied with them by making such a statement. They still have their failings.
‘Oh…, I want to externalize the costs to others only for things that I want, but not for the things that they want.’
This basically summarizes the political philosophy of yours and Mr. Levines.
With people like you and Mr. Levine, who needs socialists.
Who are these Progressives? Any names for example?
Currently or during the Bush Administration? Some are still there that were there before.
to go into the government paradigm, even by saying, doesn’t cancel the context. i’m trying not to corrupt what I think.
You are wrong thrice. The definition is rather standard, it is meaningful and fits governments like say, the german, american, british, french, and italian governments, among others.
You can argue that today the american establishment is less fascist than say, nazi germany, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is fascist. I think that people who are throwing the word fascist around are throwing it accurately.
Actually that ^^ is not off the mark.
Oh really.
It’s not my fault you don’t want to support Israel.
Israel isn’t special. There’s humans roaming many places on this earth.
It’s not special to you, perhaps. But I think you said in another thread that you’re Italian. So I would expect that Italy might be more important to you than Israel. I mean maybe not, I have no idea.