Read the linked article, look at that verbiage: “considered by some”. That’s exactly my point. Nobody has the ability to define what exactly libertarianism is in this country because there are so many little feuding factions, and it’s a 1-5% movement in the first place.
It’s essentially a thing you can pretend to be when the Republican candidate is too repulsive to openly support and that’s about it.
The major libertarian party in the United States is the Libertarian Party. However, libertarians are also represented within the Democratic and Republican parties while others are independent. Gallup found that voters who identify as libertarians ranged from 17 to 23% of the American electorate.
Libertarianism includes anarchist and libertarian socialist tendencies, although they are not as widespread as in other countries. Murray Bookchin,[25] a libertarian within this socialist tradition, argued that anarchists, libertarian socialists and the left should reclaim libertarian as a term, suggesting these other self-declared libertarians to rename themselves propertarians instead.[26][27] Although all libertarians oppose government intervention, there is a division between those anarchist or socialist libertarians as well as anarcho-capitalists such as Rothbard and David D. Friedman who adhere to the anti-state position, viewing the state as an unnecessary evil; minarchists such as Nozick who recognize the necessary need for a minimal state, often referred to as a night-watchman state;[28] and classical liberals who support a minimized small government[29][30][31] and a major reversal of the welfare state.[32]
Personally i’m pretty much center on the left right spectrum and firmly minarchist.
If you have to type fifteen responses complete with diagrams about your ideology, then everything I’m saying about it not being straightforwardly definable is 100% correct and you’re proving it right now.
Gallup found that voters who identify as libertarians ranged from 17 to 23% of the American electorate.
Exactly, “identify as”…do you really think 17-23% of the American voting populace actually has consistent, definable meanings about what it means to be a libertarian? I’m willing to bet that they do not. Relatedly, I have never seen the Libertarian Party get 17-23% of the vote in my lifetime. So, sure, you have a bunch of people that “identify” as libertarian (as I once did in college despite always voting Democrat) but in reality, they are not part of the organized party at all. The Libertarian Party gets up to the low single digits in national elections which is a pathetic showing and is why they do not even get to debate the candidates of the two main parties.
They show up every couple of election cycles, take their “conscientious objector to the ‘duopoly’” single digit voter percentage, cause spoiler effects, and then fuck off back into the wilderness.
American politics is akin to the aisles in the grocery stores here: lots and lots of different labels and colorful packaging, and very little actual choice.
Most of us vote for the candidate that best upholds our interests no matter the letter on the lapel. In a FPtP system you are correct not much choice in the national elections, thats a feature of FPtP not a bug. Don’t mistake us as having no consistnacy while we are forced to strategically vote instead of using a ranked choice.
Most of us vote for the candidate that best upholds our interests no matter the letter on the lapel.
This also isn’t true. Hypothetically, rational voters would vote their own self-interest or using other rationally explicable criteria, but those are hypothetical voters. Those “thought exercise” voters are just as hypothetical as the “invisible hand” that magically makes markets fair, or the hypothetical economic rational actor in the economy that always has perfect information and behaves rationally to maximize their own self-interest. They’re more fictional than the “spherical cows” involved in introductory physics problems.
A lot (or maybe even most) of the people that vote Republican vote against their own interests. That’s why Cory Doctorow talks about them being “turkeys voting for Christmas”.
Farmers that vote Trump are voting against their own interests. People from small towns with decaying infrastructure and social security recipients that vote Trump are voting for a circus clown that will not do anything to improve their life a single iota.
Read the linked article, look at that verbiage: “considered by some”. That’s exactly my point. Nobody has the ability to define what exactly libertarianism is in this country because there are so many little feuding factions, and it’s a 1-5% movement in the first place.
It’s essentially a thing you can pretend to be when the Republican candidate is too repulsive to openly support and that’s about it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_in_the_United_States
The major libertarian party in the United States is the Libertarian Party. However, libertarians are also represented within the Democratic and Republican parties while others are independent. Gallup found that voters who identify as libertarians ranged from 17 to 23% of the American electorate.
Libertarianism includes anarchist and libertarian socialist tendencies, although they are not as widespread as in other countries. Murray Bookchin,[25] a libertarian within this socialist tradition, argued that anarchists, libertarian socialists and the left should reclaim libertarian as a term, suggesting these other self-declared libertarians to rename themselves propertarians instead.[26][27] Although all libertarians oppose government intervention, there is a division between those anarchist or socialist libertarians as well as anarcho-capitalists such as Rothbard and David D. Friedman who adhere to the anti-state position, viewing the state as an unnecessary evil; minarchists such as Nozick who recognize the necessary need for a minimal state, often referred to as a night-watchman state;[28] and classical liberals who support a minimized small government[29][30][31] and a major reversal of the welfare state.[32]
Personally i’m pretty much center on the left right spectrum and firmly minarchist.
If you have to type fifteen responses complete with diagrams about your ideology, then everything I’m saying about it not being straightforwardly definable is 100% correct and you’re proving it right now.
Exactly, “identify as”…do you really think 17-23% of the American voting populace actually has consistent, definable meanings about what it means to be a libertarian? I’m willing to bet that they do not. Relatedly, I have never seen the Libertarian Party get 17-23% of the vote in my lifetime. So, sure, you have a bunch of people that “identify” as libertarian (as I once did in college despite always voting Democrat) but in reality, they are not part of the organized party at all. The Libertarian Party gets up to the low single digits in national elections which is a pathetic showing and is why they do not even get to debate the candidates of the two main parties.
They show up every couple of election cycles, take their “conscientious objector to the ‘duopoly’” single digit voter percentage, cause spoiler effects, and then fuck off back into the wilderness.
American politics is akin to the aisles in the grocery stores here: lots and lots of different labels and colorful packaging, and very little actual choice.
Most of us vote for the candidate that best upholds our interests no matter the letter on the lapel. In a FPtP system you are correct not much choice in the national elections, thats a feature of FPtP not a bug. Don’t mistake us as having no consistnacy while we are forced to strategically vote instead of using a ranked choice.
This also isn’t true. Hypothetically, rational voters would vote their own self-interest or using other rationally explicable criteria, but those are hypothetical voters. Those “thought exercise” voters are just as hypothetical as the “invisible hand” that magically makes markets fair, or the hypothetical economic rational actor in the economy that always has perfect information and behaves rationally to maximize their own self-interest. They’re more fictional than the “spherical cows” involved in introductory physics problems.
A lot (or maybe even most) of the people that vote Republican vote against their own interests. That’s why Cory Doctorow talks about them being “turkeys voting for Christmas”.
Farmers that vote Trump are voting against their own interests. People from small towns with decaying infrastructure and social security recipients that vote Trump are voting for a circus clown that will not do anything to improve their life a single iota.