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Hey Dakka, I seem to be catching a lot of flak, some people have said I was insane. So I decided to take some time, think it out, and really explain my ideology as best I can. Hopefully after reading this, certain people won't find me quite as insane.

What is a Libertarian?

Everybody has the dignity and the responsible to make decisions in their own life. Most Americans think that the most important thing isn't the individual, it's the government. Most people believe that the government take care of us and help the weak and the poor. But I don't think like that, I don't think the government is more important than the individual. There are people that think that there should be a bigger government then I think and people think that their ideas should be imposed on people.

There is a book called "3 felonies a day" that says that there are so many regulations that you may be braking the law everyday without even knowing it. And then There is the defaults, we're seeing it in Greece, and in Europe and it's coming here. WE CAN NOT AFFORD the promises the government has made.

Let's start with lower and flatter tax system? Let's do way with the department of education. (that by the way, doesn't even educate) Let's move away from social security to a system where people save for there own retirement?

Can social safety nets be privately funded?

The welfare system isn't needed, there used to be local organization like churches, and racial group like the polish in New York, where people would contribution to a common pool, for friends and relatives. And poverty was declining, until the "War on Poverty" started then people who used to contribute to these charities said "why contribute to these charities when there is a 30 million dollar system to take care of it?" and then we've seen the poverty leveled off.

Can the market address issues like race and poverty?

We've come a long way, but one thing that creates racial inequality is terrible schools in the inner city, and who provides those schools? The government. What kept black people down in America for many years? first slavery, then Jim Crow, big government programs, What happened when we got rid of them? A lot more equality, a lot more maneuverability. What kept women down? Laws that restricted their occupation. What kept gay people out? sodomy laws.

Small government isn't just a government that taxes less.

A Libertarian works to reduce the government size,scope, and power over the individual. Sending people off to war, spend our money, wasting peoples lives, that's big government. And inequality of marriage law, that's a big government thing that conservative often support. A small government is a government that has less intrusiveness into our lives.

The Poverty rates from the census bureau

1969 13.7%
1979 12.4%
1989 13.1%
1999 12.6%
2009 13.1%

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/census/1960/cphl162.html
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/1999/fig08.gif
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032010/rdcall/2_001.htm

Your right it did dip a couple of times.

I did some digging and found the wiki page on the EOA , as well multiple democrat sites and they did say 19%. But while digging further to confirm this I didn't come across the actual census from 1964. I did however find the census record from 1963 and searched it for the word poverty. No matches, So I find it funny that they knew the poverty rate when they weren't tracking it.

http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/1963-05.pdf


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Actually on that same note that does leave a bad taste in my mouth about my source.

How did you know poverty was declining until EOA if no one was tracking it?

dogma wrote:

broodstar wrote:
How did you know poverty was declining until EOA if no one was tracking it?

The poverty rate has been tracked, officially, since 1959.

Well Sir, you have found it. /clap Now let's examine the graph on page 16 shall we. The first line shows (light pink) shows the levels for ages 65 and old, it's highest point is 1959 at 34% and it's lowest point is 2008 at 9.7% EOA is working! The middle line shows the levels for ages under 18, it's highest point is 1959 at 27% and lowest point is in 1969 at 14%. Not as good, but still working. the bottom line shows the levels for ages 18 to 64, it's highest point is 1959 at 15.5% and lowest point is in 1974 at 8%. Doesn't seem to be working that much.

Averages of that data

1959 26%
1969 16%
1979 13%
1989 13%
1999 12%
2008 13%




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You can argue that for the elderly war on poverty is working great. and even working for teenagers. But from that chart, for adults it doesn't look like it did a whole lot.

rockerbikie wrote:Libertarianism is unrealistic.

How so? supporting details?


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@dogma

When I take the average from 1964 it's 20%. So yeah the whole population's poverty rate has dropped 7%. But I think the key thing to take away is poverty in the elderly has dropped 20%
but teenages and adults over the coarse of the program has only dropped 1%. If it was marketed as aid to the elderly I'd stand behind it a full100%

dogma wrote:

broodstar wrote:
We've come a long way, but one thing that creates racial inequality is terrible schools in the inner city, and who provides those schools? The government.

You know why the inner city schools that are terrible, are terrible, right? No funding, because funding is tied to districted property taxes, in most cases.

I'd like to draw you're attention to a women named Eva Moskowitz, she's the founder and ceo of Success Charter Network in Harlem New York. Harlem Success Academy gets actually less money than public schools do. HSA tested 32nd last year out of the 3000 school in New York state, and no school scored higher on the math exam than HSA. The different being non-union, HSA teaches from 7 am til 4pm. (2 more hours than the union contract will allow) Everyday there is a reminder that the goal is college, classrooms are named after the teacher's college, and every student know his or her college graduation date. And what do parents think of this? There are so many applicants that they have to decide admission by lottery, with thousands of applicants and only hundreds of slots.

rockerbikie wrote:
Emphasize freedom, individual liberty, and voluntary association. Libertarians generally advocate a society with small or no government power. We need Government intervention in our life to make a society funtionable. If there is little to no intervention then all will turn to Chaos and Anarchy pretty fast. Freedom is important but we need to also considered that society needs to work in an orderly fashion, instead of something disruptive. We need rescritions on many things so Society can function normally without Chaos and Anarchy. A life without crime, without disease is possible if everyone worked together with the restraints of Government which we should trust to do the best for us.

A government doesn't need to be that large to manage affairs, freedom is one thing anarchy is another. I attest that you don't need that big of a government to make society orderly. Look at your local government, it makes thing orderly, you're local government provides a sheriff, and a fire department, even writes it's own laws to keep everything orderly and its government isn't big at all. "with the restraints of the government" that sounds to must like a police state. New Year's eve president Obama sign national defense authorization act section1031, which says that the military can be used to attack citizens of the US them indefinably without charge or trial, offshore. Sir, that is an eminence over stepping of personal liberty and trampling of the constitution by the federal government, and we fought it tooth and nail.


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Joey wrote:Libertarianism is an extreme right-wing ideology in every country outside of the USA. There's a reason it's shunned in polite society.

shunned from polite society, this coming from a continent that allows public nudity...ok,

dogma wrote:

First, this doesn't address my point, which is that inner city schools fail because district based property taxes are limited to the property taxes in their district.

So, not only do you need form people potentially using your school system but, also people in other school systems. sounds insolvent to me.

Second, its not called "Harlem Success Academies" its called "Success Academy Charter". One assumes you focused on Harlem because you read some news article, and paid no more attention.

Umm yeah it is. I got others, there are charter allover this country that a wiping public schools butt.

Third, the SCN achieves good results, and uses methods that public schools should use, but no one wants to pay for them; or believes in their necessity (laptops, and tablets).

Well as a parent, there are to things you can do. One send your kid to public school where he will learn to take a nap. or send him to charters or private when he will actually learn something.