Matt Drudge: “It’s now Authoritarian vs. Libertarian”

It has always been this way. You're either free or you arent. All these pointless little squabbles between the two wings of the authoritarian party are just distractions which overtime poison the concepts of liberty and tyranny to the point which one beings to see aspects of tyranny as liberty. The perfect example being gay marriage. Government approval of interpersonal relationships being on the side of tyranny. Same sex or not, it's tyranny.

Seems like ever since Ron Pauls time in the limelight liberty has been experiencing an uptick in popularity with the dullard masses.

Lord knows I'd love to be free before I die but I dont want to get my hopes up considering the fickleness of the public.

Yeah, I would consider myself a centrist as well, I mean it doesn't make sense to me to support issues just because my political party happens to, that sounds like a terrible idea, especially if everyone is doing it instead of thinking.

Originally posted by johncarter
reply to post by Domo1

 

Having trouble deciding what football team you should cheer and support? Awww...decisions, decisions? It´s a bitch.

That analogy only works if under certain conditions. Like... players on both teams are secretly paid to simply take the ball and run it into the locker rooms so the coaches can take turns having their way with it.

We are the football, in case you didn't catch that.

reply to post by Domo1


All of the labels are a way to fool people into thinking they have some kind of political understanding, and also to allow debates to avoid real issues.

While we are discussing these kind of terms though, i'd like to have a look at the following; communism, capitalism, socialism, fascism, and democracy.

It is usual to apply one of these terms to a type of govt and expect it to be pretty much definitive, and unambiguous.

This is however a gross over simplification. While my following model is also a gross over simplification, it does at least break things into political and economic axes. Capitalism and communism can be placed on one axis - the economic axis, and fascism and democracy could be placed on another - the political axis.

Capitalism depends on a state that does not interfere in commerce, allowing free trading, low or non existent taxes and very low regulation and private property. Communism depends on a powerful state, with high regulation, high taxes and central planning of economy and lots of public property.

So if you have a look at the US for example, you can see that it is well past the halfway point along this axis towards communism.

On the political axis we can place democracy and fascism. This axis determines who controls the power of the state. While there are other sources of political power, dictatorships, religious leadership, monarchies and so on - in the united states the original basis of political power was representative democracy, yet more power is now falling into the hands of corporations who are effectively able to bribe the peoples representatives.

If we looked at the US we can see that a great deal of power is now in the hands of the executive branch, and that the executive seems to be aligned to the corporate interests (just an observation of mine).

So on the political axis I think that very little power is now exercised democratically - and most power is assumed by the corporate interests and the executive branch.

This makes the US a communist and fascist nation by definitions, regardless of what the media call things - it does pay to have a look yourself and actually work out what the reality is.

It is worth noting that all states generally exercise both capitalism and communism at the same time - though often communism is rebranded as socialism. It is the degree to which they exercise these that leads them to being generalized as capitalist or communist. Not all states exercise democracy, though the will of the people can be influential if they pose a risk of revolution or disobedience.

I had this all figured out 20 years ago,the last presidential election that I voted in I voted for Ross Perot, since then I have joined the other 2/3 of eligible voters who don`t even bother to vote.Give me somebody worth voting for and i`ll start voting again.
When you have only 1/3 of the eligible voters choosing between the best of two evils it`s no surprise that you end up with a country that is up to it`s eyeballs in debt,with high unemployment,high crime,and low morals.

Who writes the rules? The people in power. Who are the people in power? The wealthy.

Our founding fathers weren't a bunch of peasants. These men were well educated, land and business owners. Yes, they shrugged off a system they thought was unfair, unjust and oppressive -- but do you really, reeeeeallllly think they gave two rats asses about the house servants?

To this day the rich take care of the rich, the powerful enable each successive generation of powerful. Have you ever looked at the tax code?! Who benefits the most from all of the hard to understand loop holes? Certainly not us "normal working folks". To really take advantage of the "system" you need to own a business, or have substantial investments.

The more I learn about the workings of the corporate world, the more I see how buddy-buddy it is. Wealthy corporations pay off politicians to tack on loopholes, laws, and whatever else that benefits them. They in turn sometimes swap back and forth from private sector to politics to further their own agenda: power and wealth.

It should be: "Government for the wealthy and powerful, by the wealthy and powerful".

Because that is how it appears to me.

reply to post by Amagnon


Great post, glad to see a girl like you chiming in!

Just wanted to add that authoritarian government is any government that has a low threshold for enforcing laws with the threat of state violence. It really doesn't matter what the ideology is.

When government grows out of control there is also a deep interdependent relationship between the state and the suppliers of economic bounty. Cronyism is inevitable when this sort of conflict of interest exists.

We haven't seen actual capitalism in a long time.

We have authoritarian cronyism.