[RonPaulalways]

It's obvious to any one with an ounce of objectivity. 5 of 7 countries (out of 15 listed) with the lowest social spending are in the top 7 for economic growth. How you could look at that list and not see a correlation shows the extent of self-delusion and the absence of integrity in the socialist mindset.

The list doesn't even include the Asian tigers + China which had the fastest growing economies in the world in the last few decades and very low social spending (lower than all 15 countries in the list).

Phred is right, debating with dishonest opponents is a waste of time.

Once again, you fail to distinguish between your insane opinions and objective reality.

Once again, you make a stupid comment that's not based on reality.

[Holding]

5 of the lower social spending countries are in the bottom 6 showing slowest GDP growth.

Where are you getting this data? I want to see what countries they are, because I'm sure the catch-up effect is in play.

[Phred]

Phred, you've completely missed the point, as always. Do you actually contribute at all or do you just jump in, act in an uninformed and snippy manner, then leave again?

Your false premise was shown to be the usual SpiderMonkey bullshit in the second reply to the original post, by Frank_Carbonni. There was really no need for the thread to continue past that point at all, much less get derailed into the usual ingliz-initiated "dueling statistics" battle over irrelevancies which now stretches out for pages and pages as ingliz scours the internet looking for the most collectivist-friendly source he can dig up to provide him some cherry-picked numbers purporting to show that allowing people to keep their own money causes the bubonic plague or something.

Your premise - as is clear from the title - is that Libertarians care only about economic freedom and are indifferent at best and actively hostile at worst to any other aspects of human freedom. This is of course complete bullshit which need not even be addressed, it is so absurd on its very face, but Frank_Carbonni and several others patiently demonstrated to you just how far off base your assertion was. Far from my "missing the point", I got the point very well, thank you, which is why I saw no need to repeat what others had said already. You will note that when I finally did enter the thread, it was to point out how two of the participants had drifted so far off topic as to need telescopes to see the actual topic. You as the thread-starter should be thanking me for reigning them in, not chastising me.





Phred

[Gnote]

I just picked this up again on the last page. Has RPA shown proof that social spending causes GDP growth to slow?

[SpiderMonkey]

Waaaah Waaaah! I never contribute my own points I just snipe from the sidelines Waaaaah! Frank_Carboni WAAAAAAAAH!

The fact that libertarians only care about economic 'freedom' is clearly indicated by how this thread ended up in a debate about government spending (which RPA, hilariously, still managed to lose).

All Frank_Carboni said is "no it isn't" which is not a refutation outside libertarian cuckoo land. You then ignore RPA, a libertarian, confirming my point in the next post by stating that economics encompasses the majority of human action.

I think the clear failure of capitalism in western society has hit libertarians hard; their arguments are more desperate than ever

[RonPaulalways]

Spidermonkey consistently makes claims that are the opposite of reality.

[Todd D.]

The fact that libertarians only care about economic 'freedom' is clearly indicated by how this thread ended up in a debate about government spending

It only went that direction after you were thoroughly embarassed and refused to respond to me here, at which point it segued in to a discussion on the validity of "natural" rights.

I think the clear failure of capitalism in western society has hit libertarians hard; their arguments are more desperate than ever

I think the fact that you think what's going on now is a "failure of capitalism" is a good indication of the grasp (or rather, the laughable lack thereof) that you have on economic theory.

[grassroots1]

I just picked this up again on the last page. Has RPA shown proof that social spending causes GDP growth to slow?

Does it appear that he has done so?

[SpiderMonkey]

Thoroughly embarrassed? Only in your little mind Todd. You simply ignored anything that didn't fit into your worldview. Which is probably why you think capitalism is doing fine

[Todd D.]

Ignored? Laff. I quoted your post line by line. You never responded. You still haven't. Not surprising, really.

[SpiderMonkey]

My not responding means I didn't feel there was anything to respond to. Still don't. You tried to argue that libertarians care about freedom other than economic freedom whilst surrounded by libertarians bleating on about economic freedom. The unintentional irony of your post is its own refutation.

Its very cute how you think you are smarter than me. Especially how you think having the last word equates to winning the argument.

[Todd D.]

I could refute you....I just don't want to. Yeah, that's it. It's my choice. Instead, I've chosen to ignore your post completely, and simultaniously accuse you of ignoring things

[ingliz]

Why don't libertarians care about non-economic freedom?

The simple answer is some do and some don't. But whether they do, or they do not, the ideology itself makes it impossible to allow citizens in a libertarian state the full gamut of political freedoms. Practical politics is always a cooperative venture; it is almost always the taking away of an individual's 'right' to act that allows the community to act collectively. People expect more from government than just the negative freedoms and so in a democracy political freedom becomes the means to take away another individual's freedom and, obviously, libertarians cannot allow that.

[RonPaulalways]

The idea that political freedom is real freedom is a blatant lie. The power to control others is not freedom, in any universal sense.

[SpiderMonkey]

This is too amusing for words.

I've reduced Todd to posting retarded anigifs because he can't deny what I've said, and I've got RPA (the guy who wants to shovel poor people into forced labour camps) admitting he doesn't care about political freedom.

There is too much win here for just one thread

[RonPaulalways]

Spidermonkey, your behavior is pathetic and extremely immature.

All socialists have is lies, and misrepresentations of others positions ("RPA wants to shovel poor people into forced labor camps!").

You can't criticize my actual positions so you have to MAKE UP things that I said/believe. There's no point even having political debates when you show a complete lack of morality and integrity.

Constructive debate requires participants to have some respect for accuracy. What's the point of carrying on this discussion when you don't care that you lie?

[SpiderMonkey]

I have, time and again, let your own words convict you. I shall have mercy and not do it again here

Do you ever stop to examine yourself RPA? Do you ever wonder what other people think when you open your mouth and the dogma pours out? Tell me, honestly, what you think other people's impression of you is when you say you are a libertarian but you don't care about political freedom.

[Dr House]

The answer is simple Spider. Whether libertarians do or don't care as much about non-economic freedom it simply won't come up as often for the simple reason that most people (here) agree with them anyway, and those that don't generally don't consider it an important enough political issue to argue with them for pages on end about.

I've seen libertarians argue at least as vocally in favor of military isolationism as they do in favor of laissez-faire capitalism.

[RonPaulalways]

Again Spidermonkey, there's no point in debating when your only objective is to insult others without any regard for accuracy or truth. The only constructive debates are ones where all parties genuinely strive to discover truth.

Tell me, honestly, what you think other people's impression of you is when you say you are a libertarian but you don't care about political freedom.

I already explained by position: the idea that political freedom is real freedom is a blatant lie. Political freedom -the power to control others- is not real freedom in any universal sense of the word.

[grassroots1]

But real freedom is the maintenance of the property paradigm? How does that follow? I agree that political freedom does next to nothing in terms of creating real change solely because of the fact that a significant amount of wealth is concentrated in the upper classes of society, which gives them a distinct, obvious form of control over the general population. Call it coercion, call it predatory capitalism, call it whatever you want.

James Cannon "Socialism and Democracy" in 1957
http://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/ ... ialism.htm

"It is these people ['Capitalists and their apologists'] who have given us, as their contribution to sowing confusion in the minds of people, the delightful definition of the capitalist sector of the globe, where the many toil in poverty for the benefit of the few, as “the free world”. And they describe the United States, where the workers have a right to vote every four years, if they don’t move around too much, but have no say about the control of the shop and the factory; where all the means of mass information and communication are monopolised by a few—they describe all that as the ideal democracy, for which the workers should gladly fight and die."

"They [the 'American ruling minority'] have cynically accepted the Stalinist definition and have obligingly advertised the Soviet Union, with its grinding poverty and glaring inequality, with its ubiquitous police terror, frame-ups, mass murders and slave-labour camps, as a “socialist” order of society. They have utilised the crimes of Stalinism to prejudice the American workers against the very name of socialism. And worst of all, comrades, we have to recognise that this campaign has been widely successful, and that we have to pay for it. We cannot build a strong socialist movement in this country until we overcome this confusion in the minds of the American workers about the real meaning of socialism."

"They [Marx and Engels this time] never taught that the simple nationalisation of the forces of production signified the establishment of socialism. That’s not stated by Marx and Engels anywhere. Nationalisation only lays the economic foundations for the transition to socialism. Still less could they have sanctioned, even if they had been able to imagine, the monstrous idea that socialism could be realised without freedom and without equality; that nationalised production and planned economy, controlled by a ruthless police dictatorship, complete with prisons, torture chambers and forced-labour camps, could be designated as a “socialist” society. That unspeakable perversion and contradiction of terms belongs to the Stalinists and their apologists.

All the great Marxists defined socialism as a classless society—with abundance, freedom and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state, not even a democratic workers’ state, to say nothing of a state in the monstrous form of a bureaucratic dictatorship of a privileged minority."

*Sorry for the confusion about who he was referring to, it's all edited now.

There can be no real democracy when so much economic power (which is, generally, power) is concentrated in the hands of the few.