[Tropical_Tundra]

I was wonder what your opinions on this rant by Glenn Beck on libertarianism. I think he has a point, how about you? Also yes I know this site is a pundit website but I heard this on the radio and wanted to hear from libertarians on what they think. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/22/why-is-libertarian-glenn-beck-using-nazis-fascist-to-describe-some-other-libertarians/

[The Immortal Goon]

Though not a libertarian, I would honestly say that this is inevitable. Many linertarians have deliberately tried to redefine terms and concepts and create a Newspeak that will justify their view. In doing so, everyone following the libertarian trademark can do the same-and thus the accusations of Nazi or fascist can be thrown around to describe any tiny variation no matter what.

The libertarians are not the only ones to have used Newspeak. Your liberal and conservative calitalists did so when making government interpretations of Orwell, for instance, that eliminated his sympathy with socialism. And before that, The Third Period characterized any communist not in line with Stalin as being a "social fascist."

The depressing thing is that, while Stalinists (to their credit) rather quickly dropped such nonsense, and liberal and conservative capitalists did so a long time ago-libertarians are in increasingly basing themselves strictly on this crazy Newspeak. It's separating them from all other political thought as well as other libertarians. It's no longer enough to say you're an advocate of the Austrian School, but language itself is redefined so that a specific kind of craziness must be narrowly defined in whatever way possible.

[mikema63]

It gets tiresome, zealotry, but still useful in the drudges.

[Beal]

I was wonder what your opinions on this rant by Glenn Beck on libertarianism. I think he has a point, how about you? Also yes I know this site is a pundit website but I heard this on the radio and wanted to hear from libertarians on what they think. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/22/why-is-libertarian-glenn-beck-using-nazis-fascist-to-describe-some-other-libertarians/

I hear where he's coming from, but the guy is not a libertarian. He's not even libertarian leaning, at least not based on my impression of his ideology. More importantly, I can understand the apprehension some might have about a social conservative like Glenn Beck seeking to identify with the party. I believe that most social conservatives have little interest in fiscal conservatism. In truth I think many of them would be a better fit in the Democratic Party. I have always been of the opinion that if the Republicans moved to the left on several key social issues, alienating their base, that they would pick up hoards of Democratic voters in trade--more than they would lose. There are a lot of socially-progressive Democrats out there who agree with the Republicans on a number of fiscal issues, but who detest the bible-thumping right wing so much that they will never vote for the current incarnation of the GOP.

That is what the libertarians want to avoid: being painted as just another version of the right wing. The TEA Party detractors tried, with some success, to paint the movement as nothing but a bunch of far-right-wing nuts led by Sarah Palin. The Libertarian Party does not want the same thing to happen to it.

[SecretSquirrel]

Electoral victory is not the goal of libertarianism and never will be. Democracy is not compatible with liberty. Period.

Beck is barking up the wrong tree, as usual.

[Someone5]

It gets tiresome, zealotry, but still useful in the drudges.

Zealotry is how you get things done; otherwise why not just earn piles of money and enjoy your slaves?

[Joe Liberty]

Electoral victory is not the goal of libertarianism and never will be. Democracy is not compatible with liberty. Period.

Exactly. Beck's concerned with winning the struggle for votes, when that's not going to solve anything. The Tea Party tried to influence the GOP, and look how that went: the social conservatives co-opted their rhetoric and everybody else tried to dismiss them as racist and crazy. The plain fact is that most Americans don't want liberty, they want to be coddled by Mommy and Daddy.

And this, from Ann Coulter, is typical of the nonsense that passes for conservative thought:

We’re living in a country that is 70-percent socialist, the government takes 60 percent of your money. They are taking care of your health care, of your pensions. They’re telling you who you can hire, what the regulations will be. And you want to suck up to your little liberal friends and say, “Oh, but we want to legalize pot.”

Just once I'd like to see in response something like this: "We're living in a country that's allegedly the beacon of individual liberty, and yet you Republicans keep coming up with different reasons to lock people up. You talk about individual liberty and federalism and yet you do nothing but enlarge the federal government and propose creating even more criminals."

When libertarians talk of decriminalizing pot, it's a consistent application of their guiding principle. And that is exactly why it so flummoxes Republicans, because that's apparently a foreign concept to them.

[Drlee]

Glen Beck is an idiot. He has never had neither an intelligent nor original thought. His ravings are just pap for the mentally deficient.

Now was there some film I was supposed to watch?

[Kman]

I think Glenn Beck is a fraud and I have him under suspicion of being an undercover agent designed by evil people to discredit libertarianism. He just oozes phony to me.

[Rothbardian]

I listened to Glenn Beck at work in the afternoons for a while. Lasted about a month before I got bored with it. He is pretty funny when he decides to be. I like a sarcastic sense of humor and Beck's got one.

Anyway Beck is what I would consider a typical TEA party libertarian. Which is to say he's a big government loving neo conservative that likes to say the word 'libertarian' as often as possible because he thinks that will lend him some legitimacy. The TEA party movement as a whole is an embarrassing example of ignorant hypocrisy nearly on par with the 'Occupy' movements. Watching the two go at it like the southpark episode 'cripple fight' would be damned entertaining if these people weren't so busy feeding the maw of the state.

As a general rule I would advise against taking Glenn Beck seriously. He doesn't seem to take himself seriously, so why should you?