[Beal]

By todays standards Goldwater was a moderate. Here is what he said about Social Security:

Your quote is from a campaign brochure. He chose his words carefully. In truth, on multiple occaisions, Goldwater publically advocated "strengthening" Social Security by making it voluntary. Even Rand Paul and Paul Ryan didn't go that far. Goldwater was a politician who, like all politicians, tried to balance his convictions against political reality. Privately, I doubt very much that Goldwater would have opposed ending Social Security altogether.

No, the funny thing is, is that you think that a 90% tax rate means that a person who earns 100k pays 90k.

And you're lecturing me on Strawmen? Those were Barry Goldwater's words. I quoted them to illustrate his beliefs and nothing else. Holy shit Keso, learn to follow the discussion.

It sounds like you need some basic knowledge of how to discuss things, and just what the problem with a strawman argumentation can be.

I am just as opposed to logical fallacies as you, friend. You still have not answered my question. Supposing Goldwater's claim was a strawman, so what? The point under discussion was what Goldwater believed. Whether or not he attacked a strawman in expressing that belief is irrelevant. Furthermore, attributing his fallacy or his alleged misunderstanding of the tax system to me is a transparent attempt to win some phantom debate club points.

He wasn't a doctrinaire libertarian, but actually a bit closer to Rudy Giuliani, fiscally conservative, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, but very anti-crime, and hawkish on foreign policy.

I think this is probably a fair characterization, however I might add that we need to put his foreign policy beliefs in context. A lot of people holding Libertarian foreign policy stances today might have been far more hawkish in the 1960's.

[nucklepunche]

I think this is probably a fair characterization, however I might add that we need to put his foreign policy beliefs in context. A lot of people holding Libertarian foreign policy stances today might have been far more hawkish in the 1960's.

The thing about libertarianism today is it has pretty much been defined by the Ron Paul wing of libertarianism, since he and his son were the two most prominent elected figures. Ron and Rand come from the paleo-libertarian wing which is actually more of a hybrid of libertarianism and paleoconservatism. It is really a combination of Austrian school libertarianism on economics, and paleoconservatism on social issues and foreign policy, which is where the isolationist stand comes in.

In the past libertarians tended to disagree about Austrian economics, with others favoring the Chicago school and having made their peace with the Federal Reserve. In truth before Paul's campaign, as somebody who was into libertarianism before then, I think things were about 50/50 in these regards, but Paul led to an explosive growth and since most people came in through his paradigm, most accepted his paradigm.

On foreign policy pre-2008 most libertarians generally sided with Paul in recent years, but it had always been a controversial topic. It was even controversial at the 1972 Libertarian Party convention, where there was a big divide on Vietnam (although all favored ending the draft).

Then the 2008 Paul campaign changed everything, and the paleo-libertarian wing became ascendant and most of the new recruits ended up adhering to this wing, along with its views on the gold standard and foreign policy. In the past there was a lot of controversy in libertarian circles around Paul. Almost everybody agreed his presence in Congress was good, but there was a lot of disagreement as to whether a national movement should be build around his brand of libertarian paleoconservatism.

At this point the term "libertarian" in my mind has more or less come to represent somebody who supports Austrian economics, the gold standard, and non-interventionist foreign policy. It is kind of like how "liberal" has come to define what is essentially a social democrat, even if it really meant classical liberal. I feel like the Pauls have more or less forever created the "brand" of libertarianism in the media and in popular society.

A great example is how a lot of Paulite commentators endorsed Ken Cuccinelli and criticized Robert Sarvis for not being a Libertarian because he said he wasn't into Austrian economics. A lot of newcomers don't understand that pre-2008, Austrian economics was actually a controversial topic in libertarian circles and wasn't a prerequisite for being a libertarian. The reality is most Paulites either were young people who used to be conventional Republicans, or came out of a sort of left-wing peacenik type ideology and eventually embraced all the economic stuff along the way. Libertarianism has not just grown since 2008, it has multiplied. A lot of people before then didn't even know what it was. However, before that time Sarvis would have qualified as a small "l" libertarian, but as the doctrinaire style of paleo-libertarianism associated with the Mises Institute and Ron Paul grew more powerful others who would have once been easily considered within the libertarian fold are now being driven out by people who never heard of it until five years ago.