I would like to relate, if I may, the general outline of a conversation that occured with a very staunch
Libertarian at my church recently. I had done a sermon on Democratic
Socialism the Sunday before, and he accosted me as I was socializing. He proceeded to explain why socialism is evil. He cited England's
socialized medicine system as the typical socialized medical system (it's one of the worst medical systems in the world regardless of it's structuring), and then he proceeded to declare that
Germany and
France ware horrible
Socialist countries and that
Germany gets nothing done economically because none of its citizens wanted to work due to it's socialist nature (It's the largest economy in
Europe). Also according to him,
German students are tested at 13 or 14 (true) to determine their life long
career (false) and that they will never be able to change that career (very false). "Don't you feel that
capitalism exploits people though?" I
query him. "Oh, no! That's just what children are taught. If you look at the average income you'll see that 85 and even up to 90 percent of people's incomes are from paychecks." This fact could be true, but would it matter? Who cares? If the world was left to him he would pay people with salaries of under 20k a year on a gradated scale: The more under 20k you make the less money you get. Very clever plan that. Surely that's an incentive, but my car isn't going to beat a
Dodge Viper just from
willpower, and these people aren't going to get any richer due to that system. Well there's more, but I'd like to change to something a little broader. Let's look real quickly at their actual web site. (www.lp.org) Now I ain't saying that they're pretty much against the idea of government by the people and for the people, but just analyze this statement if you will:
Libertarians always put freedom first. Republican Politicians sometimes put "National Security" first. Sometimes they put "Public Order" or "the Public Interest" first. Sometimes they put "Character" or "Virtue" first. Sometimes they put "Western Civilization" or "Religion" or "American Values" first.
Now this pretty much says to me at least, that nothing is more important than freedom, including what the people want or need. So:
Libertianism:Cut social funding! It's infringing on rights and freedoms!
The Poor:Oh Good! You have freed us from the burden of soup kitchens and welfare!
Libertarianism:Freedom is more important than everything else!
Citizens: Hooray! We can fend for ourselves if there's ever any sort of international problems. We won't have to worry about the government handling it for us! We'll do it ourselves. Nuclear war? Sure no problem.
Libertarianism:Guys I think we need more tax cuts!
Citizems:We'd be happy to take out our own trash and pave our own streets. Sure we've never done it before, but we'll catch on soon enough.
This is the perfect utopia!
I can pretty much tolerate most beliefs but I can't stand the naiveity that is involved with Libertarianism. It's like all the realism has been pulled out and replaced with stupid idealism that for the most part favors the rich.