My Libertarian Friend Just Won't Give It Up

[ChoppinBroccoli]

He's actually not all that good a friend. More of an acquaintance. But he's one of these guys who grew up with rich parents, had everything handed to him all his life, got out of college and lived off of his expense account for a few years, then moved down to Florida and took a job as some kind of investment banker/financial adviser, or some such nonsense. Now he's this harcore Libertarian and Ron Paul supporter who spouts Ayn Rand and constantly bloviates about the genius of the Free Market and how private business is the solution to all the world's woes, if only the evil government would stop poking their noses into everyone's affairs. I recently got into a heated discussion with him because he's one of these "pie in the sky" Libertarians who thinks that all you have to do is walk up to a person with a problem and say, "If you work hard enough, you'll succeed," and everything will be fine. That's one thing I absolutely HATE about Libertarians: they're all very good at telling OTHER people how hard to work, and that they don't need a leg up from anyone, yet all their lives, they've had everything handed to them. I'm not kidding, I actually had a friend (a different friend) who, while preaching about the evils of compound interest, specifically with regard to car loans, said that with the exception of buying a house and getting an education, you should NEVER take out a loan for anything. Yeah, that's all well and good, but what about the 99% of us out here whose only transportation would be the old shoe-leather highway if not for car loans? And, once again, he's another guy who grew up in a rich family and was handed everything in life. Not to mention the fact that when Mr. Self-Sufficient started his own Chiropractic practice, his friggin' PARENTS bought him the $7,000 X-Ray machine he needed to get started.

Well, just tonight, the original guy (the finacial adviser, not the Chiropractor) started recruiting everyone who would listen (via Facebook) to check out whatever new Libertarian screed he'd discovered. This time, it was the Elbert Hubbard essay, "A Message To Garcia." Without ruining the story for you, it's a work of fiction in which a soldier in the Spanish-American War is given a mission, and completes it without asking for any help and blah blah blah, you know, the whole Libertarian Party line. This was my response to him:

"I wonder if Hubbard's opinions changed after his death. You see, he died when he was riding the Lusitania (yes, THAT Lusitania) across the ocean, on his way to Europe to speak out against the war. That's the cold irony of the whole "all you have to do is work hard and you'll succeed" myth: sometimes life drops you in the middle of the ocean and torpedoes the boat out from under you. And no matter how hard you work on swimming to shore, most of the time, you're gonna drown."

[Timbuk3]

1. Rec'd for the punch line

Seriously. When relaxing on an iceberg it's easy to forget they can turn over.

[Fixed_Based_Operator]

29. Usually reality

hits hard for these types. When they get the rug pulled out from under them and have to struggle like the rest of us. At least we have experience on our side, i.e. making due, saving money, smart shopping...

[Orrex]

2. I know someone who can put a curse on your friend that'll make his winky fall off.

Just say the word.


I'll need a lock of his hair and a pint of his blood, though.

[Kerrytravelers]

3. Well, if that's all you need... what's your mailing address?

:rofl:

[DeadEyeDyck]

4. hair maybe

but the blood might be a little hard to come by...

just as well, stand by for a UPS truck coming in tomorrow morning.

Been busy

[SemiCharmedQuark]

5. I think I know that guy. Is he the senior science editor at Huffington Post?

[Orrex]

8. Well, I'm not supposed to name names

but now that you mention it...

[The Doctor.]

20. Oh.... and his winky. *Presto!*

:evilgrin:

[sandnsea]

6. Bless your heart

in a good way. In the words of Jon Stewart, (did you see him last night?) That was fucking awesome.

[Atman]

7. I have a Repub...er, Libertarian...friend who was amazed that people don't have savings accounts

I can't say it was a truly eye-opening experience, but a good friend of mine, who happens to be a Republican-Libertarian-whatever-I-swear-I-didn't-vote-for-Bush (even though I am 100% certain he did) actually expressed surprise when we suggested that a most of America doesn't have back-up savings. He couldn't fathom it. Just couldn't understand why you wouldn't have a saving account with six months salary as a safety net.

The guy is the only son of prominent Boston surgeon. He grew up with everything, went to private schools, is now quite comfy at 40 years old. He is just clueless...why wouldn't you plan for this, and have enough money set aside? We tried to explain that when you don't have a shitload of money in the first place, you can't plan for anything. You save spare change in a jar and cash it in at the supermarket, you don't call your wealth manager and have him transfer funds.

He seriously didn't get it. He thought everybody just put money aside for hard times...it was just what you're supposed to do.

Easy to say when you've never had to worry about money.

That's the GOP's problem. They always call for this "level playing field." We may be watching the same game, but 1% is up in the executive skybox and the other 99% is down in the bleachers.

.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[guitar man]

12. I had a savings account

Here's a good story for the social Darwinist Ayn pie-in-Galt's Gulch crowd. And it's all true.

After working my ass off for years on industrial type jobs like sandblasting, building conveyors and oilfield heat exchangers, working as an industrial and heavy equipment mechanic, you know, stuff that would probably kill some of these mouthy Randian types,i decided it was time for a change. I had had a couple industrial accidents (and a motorcycle accident) , was pretty beat up and figured at 37 it was time to find an indoor "sit down" type job.

So a good friend of mine was working at a tv station and helped me get an entry level job working the board in master control. This was in 2000 and I started at the bottom for 7.65 an hour. Showed up every day, on time, learned everything I could and by 2003 I was master control supervisor. By mid 2005 I was offered my current position in management. Lower level management but by god I had started over in something new at the bottom and worked my way up.

Right before I got the management gig we found out my wife was pregnant with my daughter, and I was thrilled I was finally gonna be a dad. In January 06 my daughter was born and I signed us up on the family insurance plan at work which at the time was iirc $232 a month.

Fast forward to January 2010 and the insurance which we can ill afford to do without is now $514 a month. Every raise that I have earned over the last 4 years has been far outstripped by increases in medical premiums not to mention the increases in copays, deductibles, out of pocket and prescriptions. The premium increases alone amount to a 10% pay cut over the last 4 years. Oh, and the savings account I had before all the premium increases? Gone , eaten up to pay for things like car repairs that I simply could not afford anymore with my decreasing net pay.

So when one of these powdered and pampered social darwinists with their soft lily white hands that have never known a hard days work starts their "work harder" screed with me, my first reaction is to just haul off and punch 'em right in the mouth because NOBODY has worked any harder than me (except my dad and grandad). These assholes don't get it and never will unless their magic rug gets yanked from beneath them.

Bottom line is the common working folk in this country deserve a hell of a lot better than what we are getting. Its time to hold their fallacy up to the light and give it the resounding ridicule it deserves.

:rant:

[JoeyT]

17. Hear hear.

And the truly hilarious thing about the Randroids: They consider you a non-producer.
People that do backbreaking labor that would kill them in a day are non-producers, while people that shuffle money around and create absolutely nothing worthwhile are heroes.

I had a libertarian acquaintance many years ago try to claim the guys on the side of the road we were driving past were non-producers and a drain on society. Not hitchhikers, mind you. People shoveling asphalt in Alabama in June. (For those that have never done this: Imagine hell, but instead of brimstone it reeks of tar and gas/diesel fumes.) From a guy that tried to find an air conditioned riding mower because cutting his 3 acres of grass (Which isn't much) was too hot and he was such a prick he couldn't hire anyone to do it for him. His job was working as a "manager" for his father, who had to micromanage him to prevent him from destroying the company.

I spent the next 30 minutes trying to convince him that it was his duty to get out of the car and go tell them what parasites they were. The second he was out of the car we'd have started a betting pool on how many times someone can survive being hit with a hot shovel.

[guitar man]

19. It depends

On how hard you swing the shovel :evilgrin:

I know all about that asphalt shoveling, did it during the summer in south Mississippi when I was in high school.

It must have been one if these assholes that coined the term "human resources". I guess a lot of people don't think about it, but it just strikes me as a particularly vile way to describe members of the work force. Like we are simply a thing to be used up and discarded when we are no longer useful.

:grr:

[Naturyl]

36. Too bad he didn't get out of the car.

These types exist only because they are good at avoiding what is rightfully coming to them.

[Skittles]

9. you want I should kick some Libertarian ass, ChoppinBroccoli?

LEMME AT HIM

[Zoeisright]

10. Ask him how he'd like to pave his own roads, dig a well for his own water

and process his own shit.

Not to mention grow his own food, build his own shelter, and cure himself of illness.

Libertarians make me puke. 9 out of 10 times they're some rich asshole who thinks the world revolves around THEM.

[Naturyl]

37. And they are able to think that, of course

Because American culture DOES revolve around them.

[Dogmudgeon]

13. Kicked, Recced, and Bookmarked

OUTSTANDING post.

:applause:

FWIW, I also hated "Message To Garcia", and Hubbard was far from being a reactionary. Trouble is, the Right and Libertarians cherry-pick and thus try to appropriate whole chunks of literature and history. They have done this with Alexis deTocqueville, J-P Proudhon, JS Mill, Ambrose Bierce, CS Lewis, GK Chesterton, HL Mencken, Theodore Roosevelt, George Orwell, the whole of Christianity, and are working on appropriating JFK, JRR Tolkien, Dorothy Parker, and (incredibly) George Carlin. A few of the loons are even claiming Noam Chomsky. Libertarians also claim Timothy Leary (I actually knew Tim; he thought it was quite funny), William S. Burroughs, and most of the "Beats" ("Beatniks" who wrote, like Ginzburg and Kerouac).

I think that the Left should try to appropriate John Wayne (environmentalist, pro-civil- and womens'-rights, GLBT-tolerant, anti-blacklist), Charleton Heston (pro-civil rights, pro-union), Winston Churchill (supported many modern-day liberal causes even as the leader of the Tories), George Wallace (reformed, strongly pro-civil rights in later life), and Karl Popper (Mr. Falsifiability, who was actually a conservative anti-Communist).

For shits-'n'-giggles, anyway.

I'll include Ronald Reagan in that list, too. I enjoy the sight of heads exploding.

--d!

[Prophet 451]

14. Libertarians piss me off

First off, in the US, there's precious little difference between Libertarians and Anarchists. They like to pretend that a government they vote for is some alien thing imposed on them.

Secondly, they want me dead. Yes, I'm being hyperbolic but only slightly. I suffer from a mental condition along with a whole bunch of anxiety and avoidant disorders. I'm getting treatment for those but periodically (every few days), they overcome me and lead me to tear strips out of my arms, smack my head into walls and similar things. I can't consciously control those incidents and the only reason I don't commit suicide during them is because my other half is tireless in guarding those things I could use to harm myself.

So, I'm incapable of work right now. Hopefully, with time and treatment, that will change but right now, placing me in the workplace would aggravate my condition, probably terminally. So without the "handouts" I get from the state, I would probably be one of those unmedicated street people you see sometimes. I wouldn't be getting the medication which allows me to retain my slim hold on sanity, I wouldn't be able to pay my rent. Even if I could get a job, my chances of being able to keep one are nil.

I mentioned this to one of them. Mentioned that one effect my illness has is that, when I'm nervous (such as when I'm attending a job interview), I tend to scratch at my hands. So much so that they bleed profusely. Their advice? Wear gloves.

What the hell can you say to that?

[Naturyl]

38. You're not exaggerating or being hyperbolic, actually.

They do want you dead. Stone dead, as in "dead as a doornail." They are ready and willing to take the food off your table, the roof out from over your head, and the meds from your brain at the first opportunity. You are a non-producer and do not deserve to live at the expense of others.

[HughBeaumont]

15. Guys like that exist all across Ohio.

I know several of them. Ever notice how libertarians are almost ALWAYS fiscally comfortable males?

Here's an interesting entry regarding "It's your own fault you're not successful" libertarians who live next to that pie-in-the-sky whenever someone brings up the idea of workers getting a greater piece.

[RedCloud]

16. They naively believe that capitalists are not out to exploit us!

They are their free stooges.

[DailyGrind51]

18. Libertarians require deprogramming, like other cult members.

[CanonRay]

21. Does anyone know a libertarian who isn't cheap in his/her personal life?

My experience is that they are just cheap pricks with political cover. It's all about them, not a generous bone in their bodies.

[Javaman]

22. It's ironic.

the rich always think it's just a matter of working harder. They think everyone is actually born equal in this society. That everyone has it within themselves to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps".

They rich are the first to cry uncle when they suddenly find themselves poor and needing.

They other group of poor or middle class libertarians are just the water carriers.

They spout bullshit with not a thought of regret or irony in taking government help or realise the concept of government infrastructure spending. They think it all just magically happens.

Well, here is a little something you can send your friend and ask him why his libertarian orgasm isn't working out so well in Colorado Springs:

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14303473

[ddeclue]

23. BEAUTIFUL LAST PARAGRAPH.. I'm gonna use that!

[Jennicut]

24. Libertarians should go live in Somalia.

Free enterprise rules the day but there is no safety net and violence is rampant. They prefer anarchy, make them actually live it. It is too comfortable for them, even in the United States.

[w8liftinglady]

25. Libertarians CAN be converted...I know-I was one

a Randian objectivist of the highest order...until circumstances in my own life forced me to review my opinions.Fortunately,I DO have a conscience,and have spent the rest of my life making up for those younger days,when I knew nothing about the world.

[bullwinkle428]

26. I haven't the slightest doubt that the whole "Libertarian declaration" thing

became "cool & fashionable" for all of these right-wing knuckle-draggers, once it came to pass what an absolute fucking disaster Bush was (as if 95%+ of DU didn't know that in 1/2001)!

"Bush???? Oh, come on! He wasn't a TRUE conservative! How can anyone claim it was a failure of genuine free-market policies?" :eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

[Brewman_Jax]

27. That's a great last sentence

:D gotta keep that one.

They love to talk about "pulling oneself up by one's own bootstraps", which works only if one is wearing boots. A lot of people don't have boots, and didn't have them just handed to them, like most libertarians I've met. :eyes:

[Berry Cool]

28. If you think that's bad, once upon a time, I came across, by sheer accident, a blog

written by some objectivist Randian in which he/she was discussing a children's book said blogger had loved in youth. It was about a little duck whose father had disappeared and whose mother was having a hard time raising her brood on her own. This little duck went out to visit other animals to seek a job from one of them. Several of them made excuses for why they could not hire him, and then finally one of them did, and he worked very hard and helped his family thrive.

The blogger in question cited this book as an example of the children's books that had helped form his/her values. After all, the little duck didn't whine about his family's fatherless circumstances or use them as an excuse for becoming a shiftless bum. He went out and GOT A JOB and WORKED HARD and BECAME A SUCCESS!

All I could do was laugh. I thought "Yeah, but today, the little duck wouldn't be able to get a job because all the other animals would have outsourced the work to be done by Chinese animals for less money."

They are so full of bullshit. They don't believe it's possible for people to have a solid work ethic yet lose because the game has been stacked against them. They don't believe that shit just happens that hurts people and isn't their fault. They think that those who are self-reliant and work hard cannot possibly fail to succeed. But most of the time it's because they're like your friend: born on third base and they think they hit a triple. And not in tee-ball, either. They smacked a trick pitch outta the park! Now if only EVERYONE would try to do that, there would be no problems! :sarcasm:

[ChoppinBroccoli]

30. Here Is A Response I Got

This is not my friend's response to me, but someone who is a complete stranger. Think about that one for a minute. Someone I have never met in my entire life wrote this to me.


"So the message I get from you is that you can't possibly be responsible for your condition in life.

I have no idea who you are but you are probably a complete failure. Failures always blame something else for their failure. Anyone who fails and takes responsibility for their failure eventually succeeds. And they know it is possible to be in control of their life and life's circumstances.

The fact of the matter is that we all eventually drop this body and move on, but it is what we leave behind that continues to live. Elbert Hubbard wrote a very inspirational piece of work and here we are, 100 years later, getting inspiration from it. His body may be dead but the spirit of what he communicated while he was alive lives on. This world is a better place because Elbert Hubbard lived and didn't have the fatalistic attitude that you have.

Maybe you should look at what he wrote, figure out what it is about it that you don't understand, get it understood and then do something about your miserable life."

[ChoppinBroccoli]

31. Then My Friend Wrote His Own (Less Harsh) Response

Obviously missing the entire point I was trying to make about the guy's death and/or deflecting.


"Geez John..:)..I probably wouldnt have been that harsh on him...but I do agree with you. Its not how you die..its how you live. Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus Christ, and even Braveheart(my personal favorite..LOL) all died violent deaths..that doesnt mean their messages were any less impactful.."

[ChoppinBroccoli]

32. And Here Is My Response Back To Them

"The point remains, if a government-funded program to throw him a lifejacket existed, I wonder if he would have grabbed it or lived (died) by his Libertarian principles that all government intervention is bad. The true test of a Libertarian is when he/she comes home to find his/her house on fire. Do you call the Fire Dept. or do you grab a bucket and head down to your private well? That's the problem with Libertarianism: it's all theory that falls on its face when real life rears its ugly head. I've also noticed that Libertarians are really good at telling other people how to live their lives. I'd like to say your uber-judgmental, personal attack post was totally unexpected, but let's just say I have a lot of experience in this arena. Take comfort in the fact that I have enough faith in my own arguments to NOT reply in kind.

The difference between MLK, Jesus, and Braveheart and most Libertarians is that those guys walked it like they talked it (even if we assume that the portrayal of William Wallace in the movie was accurate, which every historian agrees, it wasn't). They died BECAUSE they lived by their own principles. When it comes down to it, every Libertarian I know has gladly accepted the help of lots of other people along the way, and then turned around and preached "self-sufficiency" AFTER the "lifejacket program" got them out of the water or the Fire Dept. got done putting out their house fire."

[ChoppinBroccoli]

33. I Will Give Elbert Hubbard This Much

He is credited with the following quote: "A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run away."

And he said it in the 1800s.

[guitar man]

34. My Dad was a "rugged individual"

As rugged as they come. Grew up during the depression, got up to an 8th grade education, fudged a little on his enlistment papers as to his age and joined the Navy at 16. Went to Korea in 1950 and came out with 2 purple hearts and a crapload of other combat decorations. Worked at a few different things but was primaraly a long-haul trucker, back in the days before power steering, air conditioning, air ride seats and air split transmissions. Hard, hard work.

He drove his own rig for years then in the late 60s, when I was just a wee lad he gave it up and went to work driving for Transcon, a union freight line and became a die-hard Teamster for the rest of his life, eventually retiring from Roadway in 1989.

Later on I asked him about his move from running his own owner-op rig to the union job. He told me "son, it didn't matter how hard I worked at it, they deck was stacked in their favor and I was always going to do all the work while they made all the money. I realized that no matter how tough I was I couldn't go it alone so I joined up with the Brotherhood in the Teamssters so we could go it together."

Now I knew the man and I can tell you, nobody except maybe my Grandfather could out work him. If all it took was hard work the man would have been a millionaire. So when the social darwinists start in on the "evils of collectivism" I have to cast a highly jaundiced eye on anything they have to say. Chances are, they haven't come close to being through anything like my Father, My Grandfather, who BTW was a union painter or even I have been through. Most of them I have met have come from priveleged backgrounds and just don't have a clue what it is like to struggle as hard as you can and still get nowhere.

No, I don't want the govt to do everything for me, I can and have worked to earn all my life. All I ask is that the field isn't so unfairly slanted that it makes it impossible for me to provide what my family needs. That's all.

[Naturyl]

35. Libertarians are some of the worst people on Earth

And you really gain nothing by associating with them at all.

I block all such people from being visible on Facebook and elsewhere.