My 'conversion' to Libertarianism?
At some point, almost everyone could find that they agree with someone they loathe about a policy or other matter. It could be about a major issue or some minor ones. It happens.
When it comes to some issues such as the NSA and it's spying programs, many agree with much of the policy that Rand Paul supports. Calling these people Libertarians is dishonest and counter-productive. (There may be a few who are true Libertarians or who have been converted to that entire view. IMO they are in the minority.)
For all of my disagreements with those who defend the NSA and President Obama's actions towards security, I have never thought that they had suddenly turned into RW nutjobs who also defend these programs. They have developed their arguments without resorting to reading GOP position papers.
I realize that most are defending President Obama's positions. However, in doing so, they defend the NSA either directly or indirectly.
When I find myself suddenly in agreement with somebody on an issue, I look at it as finding myself on a parallel path for a while. It doesn't mean I am on the same road or that I have jumped into the same car with them.
The beginning of my path was in a much different place than theirs. In addition, my destination or goal is heading to a very different place. Our roads diverge quickly.
There are some people and groups that have joined forces with their 'enemies' to make the protest seem stronger. I won't do that because I believe that it gives some legitimacy to their entire philosophy in the general public's mind. Any protest I join or start will be separate from theirs.
I think it's time to retire the meme that agreement with someone on an issue means that a conversion to an entirely different philosophy has occurred.
= new reply since forum marked as read
and fail to adhere to the constraints, like "vegetarians" who eat chicken.
Support unions and drone warfare? You might be a Democrat!
Support gay rights and charter schools? You might be a Democrat!
That two people are in agreement on one issue means little, since it is unlikely that either follow the doctrine of their self-identified political identities.
Often those who use the pejorative "Libertarian" to libel those who are opposed to the unconstitutional mass surveillance of the NSA are demonstrating their sycophantic authoritarian tendencies.
http://wikisum.com/w/Converse:_The_nature_of_belief_systems_in_mass_publics
In Brief
A great majority of people neither adhere to a full, complete set of beliefs which produces a clear ideology nor do they have a clear grasp of what ideology is. This is measured by a lack of coherence in responses to open-ended questions. Ideology of elites is not mirrored by the masses and voter revolt to a political party does not reflect ideological shifts.
Converse analyzes open-ended interview questions to measure conceptualization of ideology. He concludes that the liberal-conservative continuum is a high level abstraction not typically used by the man in the street because of response instability and lack of connections made between answers. There is no underlying belief structure for most people, just a bunch of random opinions. Even on highly controversial, well-publicized issues, large portions of the electorate do not have coherent opinions. In fact, many simply answer survey questions as though they are flipping a coin.
Though some political sophisticates do structure their opinions in a larger ideological framework, such structure is rare. This level of political sophistication (one's "level of conceptualization"
is correlated positively with the respondent's level of education, degree of political involvement, and amount of political information.
Key points: Most people do not have strong belief systems; that is, they do not think ideologically. A minority of people have fixed preferences and answer survey questions consistently, but most simply give random answers. Most people do not interpret politics through an ideological lens.
http://caracaschronicles.com/2007/10/23/philip-converse-the-nature-of-belief-systems-in-mass-publics-2/
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Alcibiades/28
and left wing libertarians...
ayn rand saw them all as left wing anarchists
libertarians have a flawed utopian dream.. just as any extreme ideology does.
it defies human nature and is simply not feasible...
just as communism is not for the same reason.. human nature.
I am against rampant domestic spying, but feel that international spying is the job of these agencies... and for good reason.
whats that make me ?
That's not libertarianism. That's not even anarchy. It's an extreme caricature of anarchy.
Liberalism, in its extremes, is just a fancy word for some unworkable bizarre notion, sorry.
Progressivism, in its extremes, is just a fancy word for some unworkable bizarre notion, sorry.
Anything in its extemes is just an unworkable bizarre notion. The problem is that so many on DU have bought into the "libertarian" bogey-man straw-man that they only see the extreme.
A big point of the OP is to stop with labelling of people as "libertarian" because that has become on DU such a bizarre notion that has nothing to do with reality or any living person's philosophy. It has simply become a brush to tar people with. (The OP is rejecting the fallacy of binary thinking that a little bit of civil libertarianism automatically and completely makes a person a 100% extremist ideological nut with all the baggage of the denigrated class that many DU members imagine to be "libertarian"
.
It is no different from the way rednecks say that anything negative is "gay". It is just like right wingers calling people "liberals" as if that is a dirty word. (Excuse the phrasing I'm about to refer to because it is in fact historical.) It is just like reactionary racists in the 1960s calling civil rights marchers "nigger lovers". "libertarian" has become in DU parlance just as much a dirty word. It would be laughable if they weren't so serious in their abuse of the language.
The Fallacy of the False Dichotomy (binary thinking) is on display here. Some think that it is impossible to be a little libertarian. I suppose they may also think that it is impossible to be a little bit progressive or a little bit liberal, but I suspect that most people here are not that puritanical about liberalism or progressivism even though they may not see the problem with being ideological purists about their bizarre extremist view of libertarianism.
Puritanical standards and purity tests are not useful for pragmatic accomplished activists or thoughtful voters.
