Under Bush I was a anarcho-socialist. Now I'm a libertarian?

First of all, I realize the topic title may mislead some people. But it's more about people's perception of me rather than what I really am. I opposed the powerful elite when I was under Bush. I made no hesitation when I debated with other people to express my dislike for powerful special interests.

I will admit that my views have changed a bit- with regards to class, like in the past I used to want a classless society, and, now I realize that's kind of a bit naive given the division of labor in society we have now. But I've never been a socialist. I was a populist under the Bush administration. I hated corporate interests then and I still do now. I don't think corporations are part of a free-market society since they're legal entities guaranteed by the government.

I continue to oppose the bailouts and I continue to oppose when the government creates policies that favor corporations. I oppose it when a corporation does something that's bad, and, I oppose the government when it does something bad as well. I continue to oppose the government's illegitimate wars in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq, and, their illegitimate interventions.

Yet, I'm doing the same thing that I was under the Bush administration. My criticism of the Obama administration has virtually been the same minus a few differences with regards to Barack Obama's personal ideology. And yet, now I'm considered an anarcho-libertarian all of a sudden. Just because I want a limited government, and, I want the government to stop doing the things that it's doing.

I remember not too long ago during an American Government class I took right around election time people in the class thought I was a socialist or communist or something. Now people who I talk to think I'm a libertarian. I sympathize a lot with libertarians... but I wouldn't consider myself one.

Does this happen to anyone else? Perhaps they'll consider me a socialist once again when a Republican comes into power.

I don't really like labels either.

We cannot really escape them though, as far as I can tell.

Maybe we should just label ourselves "Humans", because all of these other labels fail us.

At some point in time these political labels will fail in their prejudice.

I doubt anyone is really 100% exactly like their labels anyways.

The Human label works well though, and is very hard to debunk.

[edit on 7-4-2010 by muzzleflash]

[edit on 7-4-2010 by muzzleflash]

Exactly,

It doesn't matter if your values have changed or not. Supporters of D & R will label you as part of the "other side". That is the gimmick.... If you are for "common sense" and NOT for the policies of "Our Guy" then you are a BAD Tea-bagger, Libertarian, anarchist, greenie, whatever.

You MUST conform to R or D!
You MUST choose the R or D side, doesn't matter if they continue the same policies... they are different _javascript:icon('')


Corruption is Corruption but people don't care as long as "their D or R side" is in power.... I am beginning to believe that people in general are really, really stupid.

Democrats and Republicans are like freeking Sports teams! It is the same game but the attitude is "I am routing for my team"! Doesn't matter if that game is bankruptcy or worse as long as my team wins and everything "bad" that happens is the "other" teams fault!

Originally posted by infolurker
Exactly,

It doesn't matter if your values have changed or not. Supporters of D & R will label you as part of the "other side". That is the gimmick.... If you are for "common sense" and NOT for the policies of "Our Guy" then you are a BAD Tea-bagger, Libertarian, anarchist, greenie, whatever.

You MUST conform to R or D!
You MUST choose the R or D side, doesn't matter if they continue the same policies... they are different _javascript:icon('

')


Corruption is Corruption but people don't care as long as "their D or R side" is in power.... I am beginning to believe that people in general are really, really stupid.

Democrats and Republicans are like freeking Sports teams! It is the same game but the attitude is "I am routing for my team"! Doesn't matter if that game is bankruptcy or worse as long as my team wins and everything "bad" that happens is the "other" teams fault!

I agree. I don't understand how people continue to vote for the same two parties as if there will actually be a difference.

Republicans in power, people complain, vote in the democrats.

Democrats in power, people complain, vote in republicans.

It is just a never ending cycle. It repeats itself over and over again. Yet people never learn. Perhaps it is time for an independent candidate. An independent candidate who isn't in bed with the corporations. An independent who doesn't succumb to greed or corruption. Sadly, the republican part and the democratic party are the only political parties that garner any attention. The independents are usually left in the dust because they lack the necessary funding to compete against the big dogs on campus.

That is why the political process throughout the western world needs to be overhauled. Wealth should not dictate success in the political arena. This is why we have the problems involving corruption that we do today. Money makes the world go 'round. Politics included.

reply to post by muzzleflash


I'm coming to the conclusion that the real problem is all about self identification and labeling. I'm not confused about how I feel or "what I am" - but unlike a bunch of folks, I don't feel the need to identify with any group or ideology. Or I'm a schizo dichotomy to the nth degree. A lot of people can chart "where they are" politically on a chart and I need a mobius strip to start with.

gj
edit spelling

[edit on 7-4-2010 by ganjoa]

An old wise man once told me never die or kill for anything you believe in. I was young and asked what was wrong with him, didn't he have any passion. He looked at me and said in 10 years you won't have the same beliefs. I was like yeah right. Sure enough 10 years later many well held beliefs have changed.

Life is about exploring beliefs, seeing where they benefit you and everyone else, discarding them, adopting new beliefs, until you arrive at not needing any belief. You start looking at the world with an understanding that all people are blinded by their own beliefs. Beliefs are what has caused war and distress throughout the ages.

Quite frankly, when we get done with beliefs we know they are all BS, and yet still valuable for another in their life path.

Labels are the reality we place ourselves within.

Under circumstance A you are one thing and under circumstance B you are another. It relies upon the relativity upon which you have been placed into. That is; what outsiders have labeled you as such.

While one's personal beliefs could fall into a pattern that is easily labeled; it is just as easy to dig deeper and become aware that labeling someone using such a narrow understanding, denies the larger whole of the person.

Those that know me here, know that I try to remain as objective and neutral as possible. Sometimes my ideas and stances come out, but not in a way that exhibits talking points nor exhibits party line bull.

I speak for myself and only register as a Libertarian because California is a closed primary.

Originally posted by Frankidealist35
I hated corporate interests then and I still do now. I don't think corporations are part of a free-market society since they're legal entities guaranteed by the government.

This is only because you haven't taken the time to logically think through what is happening.

A corporation is nothing more than a group of people voluntarily acting together to produce something meaningful.

It is nothing more and nothing less.

Groups of people will act in their own self interest just as individuals will act in their own self interest.

There is nothing inherently wrong with people or groups of people acting in their own self interest. The problems ONLY arise when certain groups of people use the power of government to give themselves a market advantage that others do not have. This could be in the form of bailouts, handouts, grants, low interest loans, contract work, patent rights, tax breaks, favorable regulation, regulation that hinders competition, regulation that puts up barriers to market entry, copyrights, and other mechanisms of government force used to monopolize and consolidate power.

Only when government involves itself and grants special privileges to voluntary groups of people do they become problematic.

The problem is NOT with voluntary groups of people, the problem is with government.

For example, the banks are all cartelized. The government imposes a monopoly on currencies. The banks MUST use fiat federal reserve notes, and the lend rates of those notes are determined by a board of private bankers.

You don’t hate voluntary groups of people, you hate voluntary groups of people that use the force of government to achieve their goals.

Government is the problem.

reply to post by mnemeth1


Actually, corporations have a lot of government protections. They may be voluntary but corporations can rely on the government to help when they get in trouble. They don't have to worry about risks and losses like everyone else. When something bad happens to them they just pass the losses on to the tax payers. They love socialism. They're not just voluntary. They're also coercive institutions as well. And corporations have more rights than individuals or individual businesses- and that wouldn't have happened without the legal system, or, the supreme court helping them along the way. So no. They're not just a group of people voluntarily working together. They also seemingly have immunity from the law in cases when they harm other countries.

Originally posted by Frankidealist35
reply to post by mnemeth1

 

Actually, corporations have a lot of government protections. They may be voluntary but corporations can rely on the government to help when they get in trouble. They don't have to worry about risks and losses like everyone else. When something bad happens to them they just pass the losses on to the tax payers. They love socialism. They're not just voluntary. They're also coercive institutions as well. And corporations have more rights than individuals or individual businesses- and that wouldn't have happened without the legal system, or, the supreme court helping them along the way. So no. They're not just a group of people voluntarily working together. They also seemingly have immunity from the law in cases when they harm other countries.

I know corporations have lots of government protections. Did I not just explicitly say that?

Corporations are not coercive institutions, UNIONS are coercive institutions.

In my current employment I am FORCED to pay for union administration fees even though I do not want to be part of the union. That is coercive force.

Corporations have no power unless GOVERNMENT gives it to them.

The problem is with government, not voluntary groups of people.

reply to post by mnemeth1


You shouldn't blindly just hate the government for everything. Besides. It's not as if corporations don't deserve blame for any of this mess at all. I'll say what I said before and I'll say it again.

Corporations as we know them today would not exist with the free-market. You say that unions are coercive institutions, and, not that corporations are. You know why that is? It's because of government. Unions have been given their power because of the government, and, so have corporations.

Plus, corporations have achieved many of their powers by using the same tactics which unions have used, which the right despises as much. In order to be truly for the free-market, you have to also be against corporations. Corporations ARE NOT FREE MARKET INSTITUTIONS.

Over the following two hundred years, these ever larger corporations and their attorneys have been driving relentlessly, dynamically to erect systems of privileges and immunities that give the corporations themselves limited liability.

Their first big move was to take the chartering authority from the state legislature and place it inside an executive agency where chartering became automatic, shorn of the conditions the lawmakers once imposed.

Once chartering became automatic, perpetual and open-ended, corporate lawyers moved to have the courts – not the legislatures – turn corporations into “persons” for purposes of constitutional rights.

Their big breakthrough came with the Santa Clara case in 1886 when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed its summary headnotes to declare that the railroad in the case was a “person” for purposes of the 14th amendment. Through elaborations in later Supreme Court decisions, that meant that companies like Aetna, General Electric, Exxon and Lockheed had most of the same constitutional rights as real people like you.

Soon it was off to the races and the promised land of no-fault corporate behavior. Early in the 20th century, companies erected “no-fault” workers compensation schemes limiting damages for the horrors of worker injuries and workplace diseases in those mines, factories, and foundries.

Then came the steady erosion of shareholder rights and power, notwithstanding the securities acts of 1933 and 1934 which emphasized disclosure and anti-fraud rules. As owners, the shareholders have had little control over the corporations they “own”. The split between ownership by the stockholders and control by the corporate bosses, and their rubber stamp boards of directors, is now wider than the Grand Canyon.

With the limitless “business judgment rule” and the permissive corporate chartering goliath ensconced in the state of Delaware, shareholders don’t even have a vote as to whether their hired bosses should dissolve their company into bankruptcy.

www.nader.org.../archives/2121-Avoiding-Corporate-Liability.html