Also, I appreciated the note of realism, as per acceding that some regulation of business might be necessary (hazardous waste disposal).
That makes me wonder:
-What about dangerous materials in products, like lead paint used in toys, or products that can explode, etc. etc?
-What about dangerous work conditions, like the lack of escape routes in case of fire?

I’m not looking for specific answers, BTW. I’m just pointing out that economic theories and political theories work best when they are just that – theories
Once they are implemented, real consequences occur and have to be accomodated.

A mojor consequence that theories can afford to ignore pre-implemantation is the affect on real people. If everything works out, we have achieved paradise. Paradise is not for this world, however.
Should enough people be negatively affected, they will not go quietly into the night. They will form a backlash. Whether their complaints are justified or not will not matter at that point. They will have their say and their impact.

With any policy, there are winners and losers. Not calculating the scope and impact of the losers is the major mistale of most over-ardent advocates of any theory. You can call them morons or moral degenerates, the losers will be there, living next door. You can’t wish them away.

Before I start wearing a political label, I would need to see the plan for dealing with the negative consequences, not just the accolades for the positive.
Listing the negatives of other political views is not a substitued for dealing with one’s own, BTW.

-

Libertarians have also been for tax breaks for corps, as well as often siding with the Big Box stores that ruin local economies

Most libertarians would prefer no tax on businesses. You may call it a tax, but businesses call it an expense. Another hurdle that must be cleared before a profit can be made. You want to slip in some hidden taxes on the little guy, keep taxing business.

Regulation, like taxes, has a fine line between being helpful and hurtful. Tax to high and you are basically eating your “seed corn”. Regulate to much, and your asking business, read special interest, to go to Washington to protect themselves. Just like a dog chasing its tale.

We have evolved away from a culture/form of government promoting personal independence to one of dependence. At the same time, technology and general affluence have made most people lazy and wimpish.

Thus, we want to have our way/beliefs granted, but most people have done little to succeed with that on their own. They need other people to grant them their wishes……and when those people don’t, they demonize them…..as does the five year old that doesn’t get his/her way.

This “collectivism” is needed by both the religious right and the socialist liberal.

Amen.

Yes, where I wrote “relating businesses” I meant to write “regulating businesses.”

I believe government has some role to play in regulation of business in that no business should be allowed to engage in fraud or pour hazardous waste into rivers or lakes.

The point I am trying to make in response to cosmo’s remarks is that there’s nothing inconsistent about Libertarians supporting positions that happen to favor businesses. Libertarians–by definition–oppose government regulation, so it’s only natural that Libertarians would be sympathetic to any business (regardless of how big it is or what it sells) that is having to abide by some arbitrary law created by the government.

There seems to be a knee-jerk response by some people against “Big Business” in that any business perceived to be too big and powerful must be “evil”–leading to the perception that anything the government does to regulate that business must therefore be “good.”

Such people must understand that there is world of difference between corporations like Haliburton, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and the pharmaceutical industry, which receive preferential treatment (i.e. no-bid contracts) from the government and spend billions of dollars to lobby congress to write laws in their favor versus corporations such as Apple and Microsoft, which make money by creating popular, innovative products which are then sold competively in the market place.

Cosmo criticized Libertarians for their supposed connection to corporations. But chances are, Cosmo’s local congressman (whether Democrat or Republican) is probably steering Cosmo’s taxpayer money to some corporation (through the earmarking process) as we speak. Some corporation out there is being subsidized by Cosmo’s congressman–not because that corporation has earned that money but because that corporation happens to be in the good graces of Cosmo’s congressman (or more likely, helped fund said congressman’s re-election campaign).

Libertarians are vehemently oppose this, because unlike pseudo-capitalists who claim to oppose welfare, Libertarians oppose all forms of welfare–including corporate welfare.

Libertarians have the reputation of being “fiscally conservative” and “socially liberal”, but that doesn’t mean that agree with Republicans on every fiscal issue or with Democrats on every social issue. It would be unfair to judge Libertarian’s stance on fiscal policy based upon supposedly “capitalist” positions of the neoconservative wing of today’s Republican Party.

Libertarians side with Big Box stores because they believe that government should not be in the business of relating businesses–whether their small business or big businesses.

I assume Nick means regulating. No regulation of business is of course a good thing. Businesses always do good and can always be counted on to not pollute, lie, manufacture shoddy products or do anything else that might harm other people. And of course since they would never do any of those things it’s perfectly reasonable to weaken government so that those businesses have absolutely no countervailing power to rein them in.

If you don’t like Big Box stores, it’s your right to boycott these stores and to support their competition. It’s not the government’s right to prevent such stores from existing.

Not even in the People’s Republic of Vermont.

Libertarians have also been for tax breaks for corps, as well as often siding with the Big Box stores that ruin local economies.

cos,

Libertarians supports tax breaks for everyone because they, on principle, oppose taxation and therefore want taxes to as low as possible. It’s not about being pro-corporation. It’s about being anti-taxation.

Libertarians side with Big Box stores because they believe that government should not be in the business of relating businesses–whether their small business or big businesses. Libertarians believe that the hysteria over Big Box stores like Walmart, who have every right to sell their goods to willing customers, is unfounded. And on that point, I agree with them.

If you don’t like Big Box stores, it’s your right to boycott these stores and to support their competition. It’s not the government’s right to prevent such stores from existing.

We have evolved away from a culture/form of government promoting personal independence

Or in the past, not interfering with or destroying this,

to one of dependence. At the same time, technology and general affluence have made most people lazy and wimpish.

Thus, we want to have our way/beliefs granted, but most people have done little to succeed with that on their own. They need other people to grant them their wishes……and when those people don’t, they demonize them…..as does the five year old that doesn’t get his/her way.

What we see with so many childish, self-absorbed bloggers, who like to bash so many things and write as though they believe they and their lives are the center of the universe (the comments that follow blog postings are more interesting than most blog postings themselves), is classic narcissism, characteristic of a two-year-old who never has grown up. They behave as though they truly believe the universe is centered around themselves, it is impossible to find fault with them, and any time they don’t get their way, it’s an outrage.

Far-left liberal teaching tells you that it’s only OK to piss on your own culture and the religion dominant in your society. Everyone else must be “respected”. Failure to comply makes you a racist. [...] A sort of condescension that in part causes the point above.

So true — on this site, TLV, included…

Orson Buggeigh:

The notion that everyone else is better than your own society can be a toxic element

(The nihilism and self-loathing, not merely neurotic, misplaced guilt, that is part of radicalised leftism since the 1960s)

Somebody:

I have dubbed it the Nanny Principal. Mankind must be governed. He is incapable of governing himself.

They want government to be not only their magic genie, fairy godmother, and Santa Claus, but first and foremost their surrogate parent — just one that is extremely permissive (ME, ME, ME) when it comes to personal behavior.

But they don’t want smaller government — just fewer restrictions on their personal behavior, while they want more interventionism about everything else, and in fact more government when it comes to some personal behavior — social engineering (forced “diversity,” forced conservation, and so on).

I agree, adding that overuse is an equal problem.

The obsession with political identities bothers me, though, and the fact that we talk less about ideas than about the people who have the ideas.

You’d have to give me a specific example. Libertarians believe very strong in property rights as being among our most fundamental individual freedoms, and as such, typically look down upon government regulations of businesses.

In terms of siding with corporations, the Libertarian Party has been a very vocal critic of the military industrial complex, corporate welfare, and agricultural subsidies.

I read a column by ultraconservative Bob Novak (of Valerie Plame fame) where he castigates Schwarzennegger for capitulating to the enemy. (not the terrorists- the Democratic majority in California) Novak would apparently prefer that the Gubernator stand on principle and achieve gridlock. But imo, he is a success story- a conservative who was flexible enough to actually rule as the majority wished.

Libertarians (small l) have the silent ‘civil’ in front of the term, something the Lib Party has forgotten.

Are you a real civil libertarian or merely a corporate shill, like the LIbertarian Party?

How is the Libertarian Party a corporate shill? They take far less campaign dollars from corporations than do the Democrats or the Republicans.

I think you’re confusing capitalism (which is what the Libertarian Party promotes) with corporatism (which is what Democrats and Republicans with close ties to big business, lobbying groups, and the military industrial complex promote).

Dave Barry for President 2008

Are you a real civil libertarian or merely a corporate shill, like the LIbertarian Party?

Again, the labels are not the problem, their misuse is.

Orson: ‘“Bush Derangement Syndrome” (BDS)’

The best fit for that are the tireless defenders of Bush, not his critics, as Bush has proven, esp. since re-election, that he cares not a whit of the people’s will. The last few years are wholly indefensible. After 9/11. through the first few mos. of the War, I gave Bush benefit of the doubt. But lie upon lie, demonization upon demonization- and it started with Bushco and Rove, and there’s no defending the man nor his policies. To even argue that his presidency has been merely weak is to show a total lack of American and world history. Even a few mos. ago, on this blog, i was still willing to argue Bush had rivals in Reagan, LBJ, and Nixon, for the worst Prez of recent times. But every day he allows the monstrous Dick Cheney to stay around, that he defends a liar like Libby, that he dooms Americans to utterly pointless deaths, and worst of all, does almost nothing to actually get the terrorists, shows that he is digging out gutters below gutters.

This does not make him evil, per se, but the worst and most incompetent Prez- likely so. That is not politics, but history speaking.

Austin: ‘I won’t say both are evil; I will say both are equally corrupt, though.’

So, I assume you’re through with the duolopy. Will it be Nader or Bloomberg in ‘08?

We have evolved away from a culture/form of government promoting personal independence to one of dependence. At the same time, technology and general affluence have made most people lazy and wimpish.

Thus, we want to have our way/beliefs granted, but most people have done little to succeed with that on their own. They need other people to grant them their wishes……and when those people don’t, they demonize them…..as does the five year old that doesn’t get his/her way.

This “collectivism” is needed by both the religious right and the socialist liberal.

As a libertarian, I have my own verbal epithet……a pox on both their houses!

Liberals/Democrats as the ’small, limited government’ party? Conservatives/Republicans as the ‘big government nanny-state’ party?

It goes on and on. As each party defines some position ‘X’, the other party simply takes the opposite view. If ‘X’ becomes popular, and the opposition comes into power, then they co-opt ‘X’ as their own, and the original party immediately then reverses and now opposes ‘X’.

It is grand theater, with the only goal re-election, majority status, and control of the Federal largesses to supporters.

I won’t say both are evil; I will say both are equally corrupt, though.