Name a single significant part of the federal government that Bush cut when he went into office. You can’t. Now name a single significant piece of Bush’s government that Obama “changed”. You can’t do that either. Both Presidents were all talk and are in relatively complete agreement about what 95% of the government does. The fact is there isn’t much difference between Democrats and Republicans.
Just look at that Venn diagram above that lays out many of the most important issues of today. There’s almost no difference between Democrats and Republicans there. The only things separating them are a few token issues. The deep state of unelected bureaucrats continues on unhindered no matter which party occupies the White House or controls the Congress. The only thing that changes within Federal departments are the increases of their budgets. Republicans and Democrats defend that status quo.
Of course, some conservatives will say those are just RINO’s positions and some liberals will dissent with this characterization as well. That’s a cop-out. Many of those policies are mainstream enough to be included in the GOP and DNC platforms. Each is supported by a majority of the Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate. These are even positions Mitt Romney and Barack Obama ran on in 2012. Conservatives and liberals can’t say these aren’t their party’s issues when 95% of Republicans and Democrats voted for those two regardless.
Conservatives and liberals are both in denial about their own parties. Neither one wants to admit how much they actually have in common with the other. They won’t accept that their parties have become dominated by big government moderates that don’t listen to their base any longer. This is equally true of both sides. The anti-war, pro-legalization, anti-corporate welfare Democrats have been drowned out by the pro-war Wall Street centrists. The fiscally conservative, small government supporters in the Republican Party have been shut out by those same centrists.
The reality is the two parties have effectively merged and if one of their candidates is elected 95% of the big government party’s platform will be enacted. The government will remain almost exactly the same as it was when the last President was in office. It’s bi-partisan tyranny that doesn’t truly represent the base of either party – or the people.
That paragraph about cutting the military budget by 40% demonstrates perfectly the unrealistic fantasy land that Libertarians live in. While I’m all for less government influence, you people need to realize that much of the slaughter-eachother-over-minute-differences-or-thousand-year-old-disputes world that surrounds us does not share your “This land is your land, this land is my land” philosophy. Our military defenses are the only deterrent to countries or fanatic groups who would be more than happy to slaughter you and your family because you don’t pray to the exact same version of Allah as they do. This “every one should be free to do anything” pseudo intellectual fantasy is nonsense. What happens in a state of anarchy? Do people join hands and tra la la down the road together? No. They feed off of each other. Victimize each other for no reason other than they can because there is no one to stop them. Get out of your Care Bears/My Little Pony mentality and join the real world.
A 40% cut would still leave it at more than double the next closest nation.
You just showed how idiotic you are. First off, even with that amount of a cut, we would still have the largest military power in the world. Secondly, the military might is only part of why people do not. The 300 million or so LEGAL firearms in circulation is the other part. If anyone successfully got to USA soil, they aren’t just fighting the military, they are fighting US.
Am I saying we should or shouldn’t cut? No. I won’t get into that debate, but don’t make blind statements without knowing your facts. The semi automatics that everyone wants to ban from law abiding citizens are the same thing that deters any other Country from considering to invade. Having to fight the US military and those who would back them once they touched ground is too immense a power to comprehend.
40% cut and we still have the strongest DEFENSE on the planet. We need to stop playing nations police and democracy building all around the world!
So true – hadn’t thought about it till now
Right… Thousand-year-old-disputes hu? I’ll go out on a limb and assume that you’re speaking of the Israeli-Palestinian fallacy. The facts are that there was zero conflict between Arabs and Jews prior to the Jewish invasion of Palestine and the illegal confiscation of the country’s land – which was only a few decades ago, not even remotely close to thousands. ANYWAY, even if that isn’t what you’re talking about, the fact is that America and its citizens are not the Planetary Police, and what goes on in other countries is generally NOT OUR BUSINESS and certainly doesn’t stand as good reason for the fact that every single American citizen owes over $40,000 towards our national deficit. Libertarians understand the “real world” much better than you do.
This is in general and not specific at all. Certain congressmen and senators have differing viewpoints and beliefs than what the general concensus of the party they belong to believes.
With the exception of a small few… They are all Progressive Socialists trying to game the system for their own benefit!
Andrew Nichols
right?! but just keep fighting over pro-choice / life and Dem’s telling Repub’s they’re all racists… meanwhile we sink under a mammoth bureaucracy…
You know, most of the things on that list actually aren’t bad ideas. We need a social safety net. Centralized banking is not the enemy. It’s the reason we have all this wealth in the first place. Letting the banks collapse would have destroyed all your life savings and thrown the world into the next great depression, if not outright societal collapse. Some corporations need to be subsidized for national security reasons. A strong military, though it would be optimal if it were a less wasteful one, is important for maintaining global commerce and protecting our own globally dependent economy.
Granted, not everything on that list is a good thing and everything on that list could certainly use reform. But the fact libertarianism is so anarcho really illustrates how impractical their idealism is and therefore what a disaster it would be if ever implemented. Unyielding idealism is pretty useless. Extremism is destructive. Moderate pragmatism and incremental change are the only workable paths there have ever been.
I might also add, I kind of like the fact that the FDA is there making sure poisons don’t end up in my food and medicines, and that my medicine actually contains what it advertises rather than whatever manufacturers want to free from any scrutiny. Case in point, China is a great example of how badly unregulated markets work out for society when put into practice.
The fact that you honestly believe that the FDA protects you rather than cowtowing to big pharma and agri business interests is actually kinda cute, if unbearably naive. The FDA, like every other bureaucracy-laden government agency is so laden with waste and layers that payola and outright corporate ownership is not only obvious it’s inevitable.
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A 40% cut in the military budget would be possible if done over a long course of time, gradually giving up our foreign bases, abandoning our allies to fend for themselves in world of aggressors, wrecking local economies than depend on them, etc., and generally reducing the role than America plays in the world, and creating power vacuums around the globe. It isn’t a question of simply having fewer tanks, planes, and soldiers. The world would get used to it. Nations would adapt. Some countries would fall, others would rise. The United States would be a lot poorer, I suspect, and the world a lot more chaotic, at least for a while, but heck, our taxes would be lower, and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?
In truth, relatively low voter turn-out in general elections suggests this is what the American people as a whole want, primary election voters not withstanding. Further, our Constitutional checks and balances system was purposely designed to limit change. Get big money out of politics and perhaps bipartisan action towards curbing extractionist economic policies, revitalizing wealth-creation and restoring a viable middle income population can happen — i.e., a consumption-based tax code that incentivizes savings and investment, trade policies that incentivize U.S.-based manufacturing and a banking system geared to risk-taking on entrepreneurial initiatives that meet REAL social needs.
Hey, now that the Libertarian Party has cast its lot with Johnson and Weld, you can join the Venn Diagram of moderatation too! #tripartisanship
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