If I had the chance to explain libertarians to John Stewart

excellent post deprave. "the smallest minority in the land is......the individual." Amen.

Beansly said:

Something about this and most libertarians seems to lack compassion. I'd probably consider myself a libertarian if it wasn't for that felling.

Click to expand...

I think it depends upon your definition of compassion. I just received my 5 gallon pin from the Red Cross. I volunteer One day a month at the V.A. medical center, I typically give 95% of my harvest to those in need. I give more time doing free work for Senior Citizens than anyone I know. I take responsibility in my family and community. I don't really see why I have to subsidize every human on the planet in need because their party, family, or community are too lazy to do so. One thing I know for sure, your statement shows that you miss the point of what it means to be a true Libertarian. I completely want to separate my self from Democrats and Republicans in that I reject the notion that money must be extracted from one set of peoples, to pay for the irresponsibility of another. Hey, you want to show me how compassionate you are?, join me on a Saturday morning replacing a toilet for a senior. Help me push some wheelchairs at the V.A., stop by the Red Cross an donate every 3 months. Join me by working overtime so you can help a neighbor pay their rent, help me collect for food pantry's. I invite you to tell me of your great compassion.

chickengutz said:

I think it depends upon your definition of compassion. I just received my 5 gallon pin from the Red Cross. I volunteer One day a month at the V.A. medical center, I typically give 95% of my harvest to those in need. I give more time doing free work for Senior Citizens than anyone I know. I take responsibility in my family and community. I don't really see why I have to subsidize every human on the planet in need because their party, family, or community are too lazy to do so. One thing I know for sure, your statement shows that you miss the point of what it means to be a true Libertarian. I completely want to separate my self from Democrats and Republicans in that I reject the notion that money must be extracted from one set of peoples, to pay for the irresponsibility of another. Hey, you want to show me how compassionate you are?, join me on a Saturday morning replacing a toilet for a senior. Help me push some wheelchairs at the V.A., stop by the Red Cross an donate every 3 months. Join me by working overtime so you can help a neighbor pay their rent, help me collect for food pantry's. I invite you to tell me of your great compassion.

Click to expand...

Way to go chickengutz. Charity starts with compassion by the individual for the individual.

Is that what you did?
looks to me like all you did was make yourself look
Uniformed
stupid
and hateful........again

To be Libertarian you are inherently compassionate, you must be, believing in people is essential to being compassionate...Loving Humanity is a very important part of being a libertarian, especially a left libertarian where its the people vs the government and the corporate.

As a libertarian is hard for me to see the compassion in authoritarianism, centrist, republican, democrats...its just not there, Compassion nor Passion. They have the gull to call us in-compassionate, the most passionate ones of all, talk about Irony.




More left libertarian views and ideas:

Work Sucks
[video=youtube;6ArkJmUOIqM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ArkJmUOIqM[/video]


Direct Democracy

[video=youtube;Vu8J_UKKa-c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu8J_UKKa-c[/video]


Noam Chomsky - A linguist and Socialist Libertarian

[video=youtube;wriQGI5NGOM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wriQGI5NGOM[/video]

Something else worth mentioning, although it should be obvious, its not..as many people are taught differently. If you take this graph..



And draw a line straight across the middle. Above that line you would have as John Lennon would say "Power to the People". Below that line is Power to the government. In drawing this line and making this distinction, you are making quite a few things immediately obvious. One of things being that 100% of Libertarians support "Power to the People" or "We the People" or "Humanity".

Below that line somewhere in the center in a very small gap lies...our current politicians. Leaving only a few inches between the furthest left and the furthest right.

Now, brace yourself because what I am about to say here is guaranteed to be taken to heart:

Also below the line in various places lies the public sector and even the private sector. The idea that any of these institutions cross the line to become solely in the interest of "We the people" is false, Id argue that its impossible, because these are entities created by us they are not breathing living humans. Yes, they are maintained and operated by living breathing real humans but its really just that simple, these entities DO NOT represent "We the People" as a whole. Obviously they do sway left/right/up/down based on the many factors but they all sit below the people because they do not ALWAYS have our best interest in mind NECESSARILY. The one exception here would be a union which really is just a mob of people so that does follow the interest of some people very specifically so a union could be anywhere on the graph really.

Anyway, that got a little wild and off the point really, the point is that all libertarians represent the interest of the people and humanity, while conservative and liberals are more like 50/50.

So I really want to touch on this a bit to explain the evolution of libertarianism as I understand it. There is of course many 'branches' but I will look at the evolution of one branch in a generalized manner.

Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets.[1][2]

Click to expand...

You might be surprised to know that the modern day libertarian party evolved from liberalism! YES! LIBERALS! To trace the evolution into modern day libertarianism you land at "Classic Liberalism"

The modern Libertarian Party started in about 1971 in Protest to the Vietnam war. It evolved from Neo-Liberals which in turn evolved from "Classic Liberalism".

Classical liberalism developed in the 19th century in Europe and the United States. Although classical liberalism built on ideas that had already developed by the end of the 18th century, it advocated a specific kind of society, government and public policy required as a result of the Industrial Revolution and urbanization.[3] Notable individuals who have contributed to classical liberalism include Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo.[4] It drew on the economics of Adam Smith, a psychological understanding of individual liberty, natural law and utilitarianism, and a belief in progress. Classical liberals established political parties that were called "liberal", although in the United States classical liberalism came to dominate both existing major political parties.[1] There was a revival of interest in classical liberalism in the 20th century led by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek.

Some call the late 19th century development of classical liberalism "neo-classical liberalism," which argued for government to be as small as possible in order to allow the exercise of individual freedom, while some refer to all liberalism before the 20th century as classical liberalism.[6] Libertarianism is a modern form of neo-classical liberalism.[7]

The term classical liberalism was applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier 19th-century liberalism from the newer social liberalism.[8] Some conservatives and right-libertarians use the term classical liberalism to describe their belief in the primacy of economic freedom and minimal government. It is not always clear which meaning is intended.[9][10][11]

Click to expand...

Jimminy CRICKET! Democrats and Even "Hippies" are essentially founded on what we know as libertarianism with a strong belief in human rights! Yes thats right...The baby boomers that call themselves democrats ARE SWIMMING IN LIBERTARIAN PHILOSOPHY! THATS THE BIG GUISE! WHILE THE Republican's CALL THE LIBERTARIAN PHILOSOPHY "CONSERVATIVE VALUES"! HAH! THE DEMOCRATS CLAIM IT AS THEIRS ALSO WHEN THEY CLAIM HUMANITARIAN ISSUES! Well no shit...They are after all ....made up of humans...and on their human side they are libertarians..when they do represent the people..So they cut it right down the middle ...It divides all American "humans"(or libertarians) as Democrat or Republican.....Works out pretty nicely for them....

The Shocking TRUTH is ---As Humans and especially as Americans- We are all at the very least 50% Libertarian!

So once you view this simple history of philosophy and politics. I hope you can begin to understand how they have divided us into this sort of mishmash of ideas and how 'The Machine' has taken the upper-hand. It is at its core consequently an unintentional psychological warfare against humanity and we are all partly responsible.

Looking at the past it seems we have been much more united, increasingly becoming more and more divided. Even the civil war, as far as political philosophy was concerned, we were less divided during the time of the civil war then we are now(again as far as political philosophy ONLY). The parties argued essentially which party was more libertarian then the other. Now liberty is just tossed aside as the corporate world and special interest set the issues.



Increasingly Libertarians and Liberty are made out to be outcast or even demonized. They have even been called "Terrorist'' or as the Obama administration put it quite bluntly "Lone-Wolf Terrorist: - They are usually libertarians - Loners - Individualist" they try to train us that to be a libertarian means that you are some kind of cold blooded heartless killer. Please Do not fear Liberty...