LadyhawkAZ laid out why libertarians have little overlap with Dems or progressives.

[Skidmore]

She gave me permission to post this in a separate thread for your perusal, edification, comments, etc. It is taken from this thread, http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4886387. Her points deserve to stand alone because of the importance of their content.

Don't forget abortion and homosexuality

Yay for Libertarians waving the wedge issue banner of Look How We Support Freedom! And then there's the rest of the stuff in the background:

http://www.ontheissues.org/Libertarian_Party.htm

Libertarian Party on Budget & Economy

Reduce taxes, spending, and eliminate controls on trade. (Jul 2000)
Abolish all regulation of banks in favor of free market. (Jul 2000)
Pass constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. (Jul 2000)

Libertarian Party on Education

Let parents control all educational funding. (May 2008)
Poor kids end up at worst schools in current system. (Nov 2000)
Separation of education and State. (Jul 2000)
End compulsory busing & compulsory education. (Jul 2000)
School Choice
Support a market in education to provide more choices. (Nov 2000)
The state should stay out of education. (Jul 2000)
Treat private school funding the same as public schools. (Jul 2000)


Libertarian Party on Energy & Oil

Oppose government control of energy pricing and production. (May 2008)

Libertarian Party on Environment

Gale Norton is ‘giant leap’ for environmental sense. (Jan 2001)
Government is the worst polluter. (Nov 2000)
The parties responsible for pollution should be held liable. (Jul 2000)

Libertarian Party on Free Trade

Remove governmental impediments to free trade. (May 2008)
Prosperity will come from unrestricted free markets. (Jul 2000)
Abolish all trade barriers and agreements. (Jul 2000)
Abolish all trade barriers and trade agreements. (Jul 2000)


Libertarian Party on Government Reform

Repeal laws which restrict voluntary financing of campaigns. (May 2008)
The government should keep “hands off” the economy. (Jul 2000)
Abolish the Department of Energy. (Jul 2000)

Libertarian Party on Gun Control

Affirm the right to keep and bear arms. (May 2008)
Repeal all gun control laws and regulation of weapons. (Jul 2000)

Libertarian Party on Health Care

Restore and revive a free market health care system. (May 2008)
Government should not be in the health insurance business. (Jul 2000)

Libertarian Party on Jobs

Union activity by choice only. (Jul 2000)
No welfare & no restrictions on work. (Jul 2000)

Libertarian Party on Social Security

Replace the Social Security system with a private system. (May 2008)
Privatize Social Security. (Jul 2000)

Libertarian Party on Tax Reform

Repeal the income tax and abolish the IRS. (May 2008)
Repeal all income taxes, & the 16th Amendment. (Jul 2000)

Libertarian Party on Welfare & Poverty

Non-profits more effective than government at “safety net”. (Apr 1999)

That's the danger: all this "You're a progressive who opposes the drug war/opposes NSA spying/ supports abortion etc, so do we! Look how much we have in common!" goes straight to that, all that stuff above; the stuff no one really talks about because they're too busy discussing legal pot and Snowden. Libertarianism is not a good philosophy nor a progressive one, and it's not healthy at all for the country to allow them to paint themselves as such.

[Spazito]

1. The list is excellent, the facts made clear...

Thanks for making LadyhawkAZ's post an OP, it is definitely worth standing on it's own.

K & R

[GeorgeGist]

2. Its the new scam ...

now that Trickle Down is disgraced.

[TeamPooka]

3. Fuck Ron Paul and all the Libertarians including his son Rand.

[Demo_Chris]

7. Rand is not Libertarian, he is a Social con riding his dad's coat tails. nt

[Bjorn Against]

16. Ron Paul was pretty much the same way

Ron Paul was extremely anti-choice and he opposed the seperation of church and state, he was only libertarian on certain issues but he did not believe in a woman's right to control her own body.

[YoungDemCA]

21. The thing is...you see a lot of the same racism, sexism, and anti-poor bigotry from Libertarians...

...that you see from a lot of Republicans in general.

They just don't appeal to Christianity to justify their reactionary, regressive views. They just admit they're selfish, but then say that selfishness is noble.

[truedelphi]

4. As someone tabling on a local issue, here is where Progressives and

Last edited Wed Apr 30, 2014, 04:01 AM - Edit history (1)

Even most Americans agree - end the Drug War.

I personally feel: if the Democratic leadership had not possessed such antiquated viewpoints on the Drug War issue for so long, many people who fell into the lib camp would not have gone there.

[Skidmore]

5. I think that most DUers agree with ending the drug war, but that is one issue.

There are a host of other issues on which this DUer will never find common ground with libertarians. BTW. I consider myself to be liberal and progressive and I firmly believe that these are not mutually exclusive.

[truedelphi]

10. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

When an individual is working on one specific issue, it is irrelevant for the sake of that issue to be concerned with other issues.

I mean, i am not sitting at table for hours on end in order to have libertarians convince me of the rightness of all their other issues. But if they agree with me on my issue, I am more than willing to have them sign on the bottom line.

When I am sitting at the table, in the hot sun, what is important to me is to end the Pro-Big Prison and Big Prison for Profit, Big Pharmaceutical hold on our society, by ending the Drug Wars.

[RainDog]

45. Another issue liberals can talk with libertarians about

is basic minimum income.

Their reasons have to do with reduced govt. bureaucracy - b/c, honestly, the "state" is never going to fall away - this utopian idea has been floated by both right and left - and it simply isn't going to happen. Only the most rigidly ideological refuse to look at compromises that create some of what they want, but not all.

It's possible to talk about streamlining govt. services by putting all of them under one umbrella of a basic minimum income. They can also provide ideological cover for themselves by noting Milton Friedman and other conservatives, not just liberals, have supported the idea.

The issue then, however, is what would be an adequate basic minimum.

The one other area is common ground with techie libertarians who support open internet and freedom of expression. Liberals who oppose censorship based upon the history of negative impacts of the same for marginalized groups throughout history can find common ground on this issue as well.

But, beyond those three - nothing else seems to be shared, as far as big issues go - education etc. - tho some liberals do want voucher schools b/c of the issue of deterioration of public schools with white flight. However - I don't think vouchers solve that problem, really - the problem is racism - and libertarians have no answers for ways to address systemic racism.

[truedelphi]

59. The points you are making are excellent. One experience I would share - I lived in

An African American community, in East Palo, Alto Calif., and anyone above poverty level there was fully committed to sending their children to private schools, even if doing that meant the family would have no out-of-area vacations or cutting back on other needed things.

The idea that only white people would benefit from school vouchers, a belief many liberals express, is not at all true.

And there are a lot of of complex facets to racism. I mean, I don't think anyone seriously believes that if Oprah Winfrey had had children, that those kids would face discrimination in terms of getting into the college of their choice (assuming they had decent grades) or getting jobs (or probably helping mom in owning and running a huge entertainment empire.)

Nor would Barack and Michelle Obama's kids face any problems like that.

I really think we need to look at discrimination in terms of social classes, and income, and not skin color.

[RainDog]

60. Education has been the traditional route to a better life

for people of any group - which is why the current changes we're going through, and have been going through with relocation of jobs for cheaper wages and the loss of jobs to automation is so terrible for this nation - because - what is this nation other than the people - not that capitalists think this way.

But who will care for the elderly, who will educate the children, who will repair the roofs, etc. etc.

I understand what you're saying about class - it's a way to unify all sorts of groups - women are also most adversely affected by low minimum wage jobs - but within the gender issue, even, African-American women still face more challenges as a group than white women - tho, individually, it's hard to see when everyone is out for him or herself.

so - I think things can't just be about class issues because the reality is that systemic racism - and sexism - still impacts groups within those categories at greater rates - especially in difficult economic times.

To point out a few outliers who have been able to beat the system at its game leaves out the vast, vast majority of people who are the same as everyone else - with an added barrier for their opportunities.

That's one reason I think an ADEQUATE basic minimum would help to address the idea of reparations, but in such a way that white males don't feel left out - those who haven't had opportunities, or made mistakes that had long term impacts - but when any program is something that benefits all, more are likely to sign on to the idea.

The idea, overall, is to achieve greater redistribution of wealth from a very few to the many without the power to impact laws, regulations, etc.

Because the goal, really, is to help white middle and lower class people understand that their struggle relates more to those who have been routinely discriminated against, rather than the divide and conquer of white resentment politics. People really have NO IDEA how routinely racism is expressed - so they don't see how they don't have the same barriers - so, to say.. here's something that can lift all boats - that, to me, is a way to break the hold on white resentment. Those who get media attention are always those at the two extremes, for the most part - those who are famously wealthy and those who are stuck in cycles of poverty and crime.

The vast majority of people of any color are simply trying to create a decent life for their families - and they don't make the news - they're the silent majority - across a spectrum of cultures.

But if you relieve some of the anxiety of white people who are also trying to survive, it creates an opportunity to talk about the way their struggle is also the struggle of others - amplified. With our dog eat dog economic system - the rich feast while everyone else scrounges for crumbs from their table.

[lumberjack_jeff]

42. Decriminalizing pot would earn the support of 20% of libertarians.

Would it alienate an equal number of soccer moms? I don't know.

[RainDog]

43. The "just say no" era of soccer moms is over

The drug war folks say that's it's not getting as much traction any longer because the issue has moved from status-anxiety among the middle class who feared for Johnny's/Johanna's chances to get an education and job to the issue of medical uses - including some children - Gupta made the case for this clear to all Americans.

But here's some guesses about the causes of change -

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/ghost-of-just-say-no/361322/

One likely answer is they have less incentive to protest: Fewer high-school kids smoke regularly. In 1978, nearly two in five high-school seniors (37.1 percent) said they had used marijuana in the previous 30 days, according to the University of Michigan’s annual Monitoring the Future survey. Last year, barely more than one in five (22.7) said they had. This figure has changed little since the mid-'90s.

Another likely answer for the decline of the parents movement is the success of medical marijuana. Talk with anti-pot leaders, and to a person they say the advent of medical pot in the mid-'90s reoriented the debate. Sue Rusche, co-founder of National Families in Action, said the tide turned after “three billionaires stepped forward—George Soros, Peter Lewis, and John Sperling—and funded so-called medical marijuana.” Like Lowe and Cohen, Rusche suggested that medical marijuana changed the national conversation over weed from a behavioral issue involving teenagers to a quality-of-life one involving mostly adults.

Scholars agree. As Jonathan P. Caulkins, a former co-director of Rand’s Drug Policy Research Center, wrote in Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know, “The big change in marijuana consumption over the last half dozen years does not pertain to youth. Rather, it is the very substantial increase in the number of adults who use marijuana daily or near daily.” The share of adults who use pot regularly has risen to 8 percent from 7 percent in 2006. Also, the share of adults who have tried pot has risen to 38 percent from 24 percent in 1977.

The increase in the share of adults who have used pot has also made Americans more accepting of the drug. As William Galston and E.J. Dionne Jr. pointed out in a Brookings study last May, “demographic change and widespread public experience using marijuana imply that opposition to legalization will never again return to the levels seen in the 1980s.”

[truedelphi]

46. Thank you for this educational post.

Eye opening.

And I can back up whatever the experts are saying based on stats, with the many "anecdotal" stories I hear each day. "I never cared for people using pot, on account of, you know, stoners in High School. but then my ____ (Cousin, ex-husband, uncle etc) had terminal cancer and the pot was the only thing that allowed them to have an appetite and eat anything."

Also several people attributed pot to helping cure the relative's cancer.

[RainDog]

53. It's interesting that mj use is little changed in teens since the 1990s

because that's when medical marijuana laws were first enacted (1996)

studies show, as well, that legalizing (medical) marijuana doesn't result in an increase in teen usage.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11701960

The time when nearly half or more than half of all teens used mj recreationally was also when the tail end of the baby boomer generation was making its way out of high school - so one reason for that increased usage was most likely because of older siblings in college, etc. who also used - because more students in higher grades, even now, use marijuana, as far as percentages go, so those would maybe account for usage levels then.

Lester Grinspoon, a psychiatric doctor and professor at Harvard, iirc, was very anti-mj until his son developed leukemia in the 1970s. His son was in high school or middle school and was wasting away because of chemo - this is one cause of death for anyone with cancer undergoing chemo. Grinspoon heard about using mj for cancer - but it was actually his wife who went to the local high school and found some for their son. His son was able to eat and keep food down with the mj - and it was so helpful the doctors told Grinspoon their son could smoke it in the office before his chemo treatments.

I think we're seeing a larger-scale version of that with parents now whose children deal with conditions like Dravet's syndrome, other forms of epilepsy, MS, and autism. People are actually picking up and relocating their families to CO from non-legal states. Parents will do just about anything they can for their children.. that's my experience, too (tho not with mj).

[woo me with science]

56. Corporate Democrats would not have to worry about Libertarians at all

if they would crawl out of their corporate Masters' pockets for long enough to own the issues they SHOULD own, including ending the police and surveillance states, ending the drug wars, and ending the relentless warmongering for profit.

[truedelphi]

58. ^^^^^^^^^^ n/t

[Tarheel_Dem]

6. As Thom Hartmann used to say, "Libertarians are just Republicans who wanna smoke dope & get laid".

[pnwmom]

14. And today's Republicans are Libertarians who want to control women's bodies

and send people to jail for smoking pot.

[Tarheel_Dem]

22. +1

[Ikonoklast]

29. Maybe that's why Greenwald liked Gary Johnson so much.

That and Johnson is pro-gay marriage.

Ignoring all the rest of what Johnson stands for and actually did as New Mexico governor.


As governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson cut taxes on the rich while cutting social services for the poor.

He tried to pluck money out of public schools and funnel it in to private school vouchers.

He vetoed a minimum wage bill.

He signed in to law a late-term abortion ban.

He won’t affirm a belief in global warming, and says even if it is happening that the effects are exaggerated and too much money is being wasted on it. And he

Johnson vetoed a bill that would have continued the collective bargaining rights of public employees. He did the same thing to public employees in New Mexico that Scott Walker did in Wisconsin.


Another "Libertarian".

[Tarheel_Dem]

30. Exactly. I read a great piece, a few years back, and was stunned to see that GG...

supported Johnson. Much like his support for the Iraq War, Citizens United, and his lack of a response to the machinations of his BFF, Putin, he is no friend to liberals. This acceptance of Libertarian bullshit on this site can be traced back to Occupy, which at its roots, was a Libertarian movement. I'm hoping that the admins are keeping their eyes open so as not to diminish the original mission of this board.

[Number23]

32. Yep. Everything that affects them is the most important thing EVAH Stuff that affects everyone else?

Not so much.

Heh. I predict few recs for this OP, this being GD and all.

[LadyHawkAZ]

34. "...but are successful at neither one."

[Tarheel_Dem]

44. !!!

[herding cats]

8. Sometimes people are too easily distracted by one or two issues.

It takes a lot more than one or two issues, in reality, to make a platform. If the Libertarians want to support one or two of my core beliefs and vote the same as I do on occasion, I'm fine with that. I will not support a Libertarian ever, though. Their platform is leaps and bounds away from too many issues that are vital to me.

[hfojvt]

9. LITTLE overlap

not the same thing as NO overlap.

[Skidmore]

11. Did I say that there was no overlap?

In my opinion, there is not enough overlap for me to vote for a libertarian candidate given their platform.

[ZombieHorde]

12. Marriage equality, pro-choice, ending the war on drugs, and anti-war stances

make them worlds better than the Republican party, in my opinion.

[ProSense]

15. The problem is

"Marriage equality, pro-choice, ending the war on drugs, and anti-war stances make them worlds better than the Republican party, in my opinion."

...they're frauds. Libertarians fall into two categories: Confused and Republicans.

Neither Rand or Ron Paul are anti-war.

Pic Of The Moment: Rand Paul: End Of DOMA Means Humans Could Marry Animals
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017128309

[YoungDemCA]

17. Good post

There's a lot of overlap with "states rights" advocates (wink wink, nudge nudge) and survivalist/militia types. They're basically the more selfishly libertine ideological children of the John Birch Society.

[ZombieHorde]

18. Those two men are not Libertarians. They're Republicans. nt

[ProSense]

20. Libertarians:

The Kochs’ AFP starts scrubbing its Bundy support
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024870874

[ZombieHorde]

23. Non sequitor. nt

[ProSense]

24. Who are these libertarians? Nader cited Rand Paul.

The Kochs are libertarians. The point is that everyone who claims to be a libertarian or who is held up as such is either a fraud or a sick bastard, and both support Republicans.

[ZombieHorde]

25. The Libertarian Party.

There are people who identify as Democrats, Republicans, etc., who don't hold every view of their party, but those political parties still have official platforms.

[ProSense]

26. Those are independents, not libertarians. n/t

[ZombieHorde]

27. You lost me.

Who are independents?

[truedelphi]

54. Thank you for typing out these replies of yours.

I agree wholeheartedly.

It is sad that no one is supposed to ever see anyone else's philosophy as being okay on some things. You would really think that the Democratic party, and its leadership, was filled with perfect people, and that we could afford to be so provincial.

[freshwest]

41. You left out personhood bills and private prisons. So long as some are kept down low, okay by them.

[YoungDemCA]

13. In my experience, Libertarians are even MORE dogmatic/extreme right-wing on economic issues

They only care about THEIR personal liberty, for the most part. And there's a lot of overlap with vile ideologies like 'states rights" reactionary conservatism, Randian Objectivism, Social Darwinism, etc.

I have no interest in sharing a party with a bunch of selfish assholes.

[gollygee]

19. +1 !!!!

[baldguy]

28. Snowden is a libertarian

So let's stop pretending he's a patriot who's concerned about civil liberties.

[johnlucas]

31. Why don't these guys call themselves what they really are? Anarchists.

Seems like they don't want a government to do anything.
Which means they don't want a government.
Which means they are anarchists.

We hate when government abuses its power but we don't think that government should be abolished.
The Law of the Jungle wasn't good for the proliferation of the human species so we created Civilization.
And with that creation we needed rules so that everybody theoretically could live their lives without restricting others from doing the same.

This Civilization experiment has NEVER quite worked out right but we at least keep trying to improve it.
A society this big cannot function without a strong government.
Our only quibble is how the government applies its strength & whether it does it fairly.
Don't throw out the toddler with the tubwater!
John Lucas

[LostOne4Ever]

33. Right Wing Libertarians CLAIM to care about social liberalism

But its all A FUCKING LIE!

Do they really support abortion? According to their website they do, but in actuallity? NO!!! HELL NO!!!

Their actual position on abortion is that it should be up to the state. What if the state wants to ban it? TOO BAD!!!!

THAT IS THE REPUBLICAN POSITION!

In fact, states rights is how they trap the naive into believing their BULLSHIT! Marriage Equality? STATES RIGHTS ISSUE. Death Penalty? STATES RIGHTS. Church and State seperation? STATES RIGHTS!!!

Their actual position is identical to the Republican party they just hide their conservatism under the venere of states rights over and over again.

The Pauls are held up as the model of libertarianism but here is a list from a friend of mine on all their less the progressive stances!

As for, Ron Paul, he wants to:

* define life as starting at conception: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.2597:

* build a fence along the US-Mexico border: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll446.xml

* prevent the Supreme Court from hearing Establishment Clause cases or the right to privacy (a bill which he has repeatedly re-introduced: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.300:

* pull out of the UN: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.1146:

* disband NATO: http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2004/cr033004.htm

* end birthright citizenship: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.J.RES.46:

* deny federal funding to any organisation "which presents male or female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it can be an acceptable life style": http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d096:h.r.7955:

* and abolish the Federal Reserve: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.2755:

* in order to put America back on the gold standard: http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr021506.htm

* He was also the sole vote against divesting US federal government investments in corporations doing business with the genocidal government of the Sudan: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2007-764


Oh, and he also:

* believes that the Left is waging a war on religion and Christmas: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html

* is against gay marriage: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul197.html

* is against the popular vote: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul214.html

* wants the estate tax repealed: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul328.html

* is STILL making racist remarks: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/02/ron_paul/

* believes that the Panama Canal should be the property of the United States: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:h.con.res.231:

* and believes in New World Order conspiracy theories: http://www.infowars.com/articles/nwo/ron_paul_first_bush_was_working_towards_nwo.htm

* not to mention his belief that the International Baccalaureate program is UN mind control: http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r109:E14AP5-0007:

Oh and further Ron Paul Hypocrisy:
http://www.examiner.com/article/ron-paul-files-complaint-with-un-to-get-domains-ronpaul-com-and-ronpaul-org

Does this sound like liberalism to any of you? The position of the former US presidential candadite of the Libertarian party?

The only Libertarians worth a damn are the left wing libertarians who have all but abandoned the term because of people like Ron and Rand Paul. You know, civil libertarians and groups like the ACLU.

*PS: Sorry the House.gov links don't seem to work.

[Skidmore]

36. Thank you for that list.

I don't understand how anyone claiming to be on the left could even be remotely attracted to this man and his ideas.

[Hekate]

35. KnR

[Jamaal510]

37. Libertarians seem very

inconsistent and self-centered when it comes to the concept of freedom and the type of concerns they raise. For example, while they oppose gun laws and higher taxes, where have they been on preserving voting rights? Voting is a Constitutional right, and these people claim to champion the Constitution, yet they (except for Rand Paul supporting the ID laws) have mostly been silent as various states enacted ID laws designed to make it harder for certain communities to vote, and as the SCOTUS struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Is the right to vote not also a type of freedom? Also, what about stop-and-frisk? In NY, many have had their rights violated by the NYPD over nothing. And as the health care fight carries on, many are having their right to live being jeopardized due to poor access (thanks in large part to Republican governors).

Still, neither of those violations of human and Constitutional rights draw nearly as much outrage from them as paranoia over the government plotting to ban all guns or the government somehow being able to read their thoughts (yes, someone actually mentioned that once). Their ideology summed up is like this: "I am the most important person in the Universe. To Hell with everybody else."

[Bluenorthwest]

38. The post you quote implies that libertarians are supporters of marriage equality

which they should be, but they are very often not, all of the famous libertarian branded fucks in US politics are bigoted Christians who hate gay people outright. So this post and that one really offend me. Also, the Pauls do not support legal marijuana, although the same folks who claim they are pro gay claim they support legalization. Among Republican twits, there are some who actually support marijuana law reform and medical marijuana, some who are very conservative and shitty in all other ways. Ron and Rand do not support these things.
The folks you claim are 'Libertarians' are just a bunch of rank and file Republicans. They are Republicans. You think they are different, but they are not, they are Republicans, like Ted Cruz or John Boehner. Same exact creatures.

[Skidmore]

40. The blue excerpt section of the post are a cut and paste of LadyHawkAZ's comments from another

thread. You may wish to check with her for clarification as to what she meant. I'm certain she is equally knowlegeable on the Libertarian stance on marriage equality. I think it is important to underscore the policies of these people who are identified as Liberatrian right now. The label can be as desceptive on a ballot as the policy positions that make it to the media. Yes, many Libertarians are Republicans warmed over. I have no use for either.

[LadyHawkAZ]

51. The official party platform considers orientation to be none of the

government's business; a lot of their prominent members seem to disagree with that particular plank. Same with abortion.

[Bluenorthwest]

52. Well I'm sick of it. The Pauls are anti gay, anti cannabis, but every fucking day

it is another person claiming gay people and cannabis activists are Paul lovers. They are not Libertarians, they are Republicans. There are no Libertarians in Congress nor in national politics, they are all just Republicans.
And who votes for Republicans? Straight people, over and over and over again.
The bigotry on this site is just getting old. Old. Old.

[LadyHawkAZ]

55. I think it's more of the opposite,

libertarians trying to jump on the marriage equality/abortion/spying bandwagons as wedge issues, to attract progressive voters to their decidedly UNprogressive party. I don't think the individual politicians in the party actually support any of that, or if a few do, they seem to be the minority. I'm certain none of them would support the necessary legal protections that either LGBT rights or abortion rights require to be anything more than words on paper.

I have my suspicions that even their famous support for cannabis is based solely in its profit potential. I agree with you- libertarians are little more than Republicans escaping the GOP brand.

[UtahLib]

39. Wow, so much good info. in this thread. Bookmarking nt

[DirkGently]

47. No. There's no danger in finding points of agreement.

That is a specious proposal, like blackballing playwrights for being Commie sympathizers.

"Look out! That person's dogma is unclean!"

Bullshit.

No one is an ideological robot with secret programming you can uncover. And no ideology is 100% clear or consistent across the board.

So the whole game of shooting something down because a Paul family member agrees with it, on the theory that the Paul family has a lot of stupid ideas, or the mangled vision of Libertarianism some people claim to embrace is terrible, is a disingenuous premise from the beginning.

There are Republicans that are occasionally right about something across ideological lines. There are Democrats who are wrong.

No one's magically correct or incorrect because of the supposed point of view they may or may not fully embrace, which people may or may not even agree upon in the first place.

This has been applied in a particularly putrid way with the Snowden / NSA battles here on DU, and I notice the cross-posted material goes out of its way to bring that up.

The only thing that makes sense is to discuss the viability of ideas and policy on their own. No one is the Keeper of the True Faith. No one is an apostate or heretic.

No one is wrong about one thing because they're wrong about something else.

Sorry, Rand and Ron can be racists, and free-market morons, and crypto-anti-reproductive rights-ians, and still be right that the NSA overstepped its bounds or that the U.S. should stay of out needless wars in the Middle East. No one has to embrace the rest of their bullshit to clock them or anyone else being right about something.

If you don't acknowledge that, you're just asking people to engage in mindless partisan head-butting until the the end of time. We'd be stuck agreeing with every Democrat who's wrong and fighting everyone else, no matter what.

[Comrade Grumpy]

48. Thank you. It's a hazard of a partisan board.

[ProSense]

50. This is

"There's no danger in finding points of agreement.

<...>

Sorry, Rand and Ron can be racists, and free-market morons, and crypto-anti-reproductive rights-ians, and still be right that the NSA overstepped its bounds or that the U.S. should stay of out needless wars in the Middle East. No one has to embrace the rest of their bullshit to clock them or anyone else being right about something."

...not about simply agreeing on an issue or point. I mean, there are bills cosponsored by Democrats and Republicans everyday in Congress.

You can see Elizabeth Warren (http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024877747) talk about her bill to reinstate Glass-Steagall, which is co-sponsored by McCain. That is not the issue.

It's about selling people on the idea that progressives should form an alliance with libertarians. How does one form an alliance with a bunch of frauds? Look at your description of Rand Paul? By implication, you're advocating that it's OK to find points of agreement with the Kochs. People who can be labeled "racists, and free-market morons, and crypto-anti-reproductive rights-ians" are not to be trusted.

"Stand with Rand"?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022742805
Fuck no!

[woo me with science]

57. Best post in the thread. Thank you.

[winter is coming]

61. This should be an OP.

[quinnox]

49. Libertarians come in all different stripes, it is not just one type

just like the Democratic party, there are different types such as left libertarians and conservative libertarians. There are libertarians who are part of the libertarian party, and those who are not. It is simple minded to broad brush all libertarians, just like it would be to say all Democrats are lefty liberals when there are centrist Democrats and conservative Democrats.

[Armstead]

62. A lot of those sound like Corporate Democrats (with slightly different language)