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Thursday, February 19, 2009

Disenchanted

I for one am sick and tired of American politics, the bloat, corruption, malfeasance on both sides of the aisle.

I haven't been particularly enamoured or excited by any of their Presidential nominations, but I was reading the Libertarian political platform and find I agree with pretty much the majority of it... with a few exceptions here and there.

If they had anywhere near 30% of registered voters, I might even consider them more seriously than I have in the past.

Thoughts? http://www.lp.org/platform

~Finntann~

9 comments:

Silverfiddle said...

I don't think "Big L" Liberalism will ever get off the ground.

What I hope for is a more libertarian bent to the Republican party.

Canadian Pragmatist said...

Disenchanted by politicians, most of whom are in it for the right reasons (afterall, they could all make more money in the private sector).

But, as I've said before; corporations are beacons of purity, honesty, charity, chastity, etc...

Maybe that libertarian politicians don't think politicians can do much (despite their political positions) is saying something more about themselves than anything else.

Libertarianism is good in a lot of ways though. We've been having a gang problem recently here in the lower mainland (Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, etc...) and everyone want the drugs legalized one and for all, but the attorney general is afraid that the borders would be shut down if that happened.

Why don't you guys get libertarian with drugs and sex as much as you are with beer, and religion?

That would be pragmatic. I'd give you guys a smaller stim. package, less gun laws, etc... for legalized drugs. I think it would be beneficial on both sides of the border.

Allow cops to focus on real criminals.

Russell said...

"Disenchanted by politicians, most of whom are in it for the right reasons (afterall, they could all make more money in the private sector)."

shockingly, you have something completely backwards...again. where in the world do you come up with this stuff?

poiticians are in it for the right reasons? are you kidding? or dumb? the 535 members of the US congress are are the greediest (of money, power or fame, or all three) group of people you will ever come across. they produce nothing. any useful production that occurs, occurs IN SPITE of them.

and yet, you prefer them to businessmen, who provide all of the useful production that takes place anywhere in the world.

i'm beginning to think you're not actually canadian, but instead live in massachusetts, and are really good friends with barney frank. why else would you worship politicians the way you do?

i'd love to hear from you what you consider to be the "right reasons" for one to go into politics.

Canadian Pragmatist said...

If I ran for council, I'd be in it so that I would be able to tell people at parties "oh actually I'm a member of the city council" or better yet "I'm actually the mayor here... yip, yip."

Actually, if you're after fame, and want to be remembered after you die... those are great reasons to get into politics. If I was the major of North Vancouver and I made it prosper, etc... I'd be remembered and even revered after I left office. If I fuck up it would almost certainly be a different sort of 'fame'. People would be trying to forget about me (like with Bush, ha!).

Power... Yah, how is that a bad reason. Unless they are in it purely for the sake of wealding power with no care of the consequences of their demonstrations of power, it would seem to me that power is not an always a bad reason/motive.

Money! They don't get great salaries so you must imply corruption such as taking bribes to make money. Listen... that's a rare occurance. It happens (Blago, etc...), but with people to catch all the Blagos out there (afterall he was caught) there will be less and less of it.

A good reason to get into politics is wanting to help your country and its people do well. What good is a big castle for a statesman. A statemans glory lies in the well-being of the citizens of the state.

Politician is a lot like teacher or cop. There are some bad ones in it for all the wrong reasons, but on the whole that's just not the case.

"Businessmen, who provide all of the useful production that takes place anywhere in the world."

I'm a businessman. I wait until after inspections to put the final touches on the houses I build, I claim everything from my newspaper to the ink for my printer as a business expense... I use my primary residence as an invest property, living in it for a year, solely for the purpose of avoiding paying capital gains taxes, etc... And my father does the same shit on a bigger scale.

The more I get into business, the less I see it's worth it for me to get my hand dirty and actually do some of the work on the houses myself.

Sure that creates jobs, but that's not the reason I do it ($$$).

Granted, Smith was and is right for the most part (aside from John Nash's whole thing). I'm not saying the gov't should take over completely. I just think it's possible for the private and public sector to compliment eachother.

Private sectors is good in many ways, but not completely and always as you seem to suggest.

Canadian Pragmatist said...

My position is fairly modrate I think; honestly. You're the ones for privatizing everything form the police force to allow ten year old bring gund to class for show and tell.

Silverfiddle said...

"They don't get great salaries so you must imply corruption such as taking bribes to make money. Listen... that's a rare occurance."

You are so naive about American politics. Yeah, the $174,000/year plus expenses is a paltry sum, but they make it up by peddling crappy books at campaign events, getting seats on prestigious (and lucrative) boards and organizations. Their relatives make money as lobbyists off of their connections, as do the politicians themselves once they retire.

I must give you credit. You are exactly the model voter politicians in this country are looking for.

Finntann said...

Honestly, I think the majority of politicians get into it for legitimate and idealistic reasons. They want to change the world for the better.

However, they get too Washington, can't do anything of consequence as a junior congressman or senator, power isn't wielded by the vote, it's wielded by the committee. If you want to get anywhere or anything you have to play the game, and it's the most corrupt game in town. Exposure corrupts even further, so by the time anyone gets into a position they could do anything, they have already been compromised.

Yeah, I think there are lot of honest politicians... and I think most of them are one-termers, who quite frankly leave in disgust and go back to doing something productive.

Me, I could care less what you do with yourself...drugs, sex, bungee jumping... just don't expect me to pay for the consequences.

Great quote I heard today was:

"Liberty is freedom of responsibility for others".

Less Government = Better Government

Canadian Pragmatist said...

And once you've been compromised??? There is no going back?

Less gov't = Good gov't

Is that always true? Or did you just write that down because you thought it looked nice and the idiots reading this would find it agreeable?

Finntann said...

Throughout all of history, the greatest threat to individual freedom is and always has been the state. So, I said it because it is basically a universal truth.

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