Forum Post: Here we are back in the Dark Ages.
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 28, 2011, 6:56 p.m. EST by NortonSound
(176)
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Here we are back in the Dark Ages, The Libertarian era where only the strong survive, Where the fortunate among us hide their faces, As poverty, disease and filth grow and thrive, even in all safe places. And their children wonder why the streets are in turmoil. And we blame the sick for the diseases they spread. And we blame the poor for their hunger for bread, And we blame the old for needing social security And we blame rules for stealing our liberty. Then we cry for life's inequities, as all self made men. We grow cold to the fact that disease and poverty thrive. That children beg on the street where the elderly make a lasat stand. Gilded like the bars of a gold plated cage, we thought America had already gone through this dark stage.
Right now we don't have capitalism, we have "crony-capitalism" or, as your post suggests, "neo-fuedalism!" It is so true - our children are increasingly become the 21st century version of the "landless peasant."
Here's my 2 cents:
There are a lot of improvements that need to be made. The list reforms people Americans want to see is long and varied depending on who you talk to. That said, I believe there is one reform that would provide the American people the best chances of seeing other meaningful reforms actually happen - that is REAL, loop-hope free CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM! I have seen others on this site calling this the "fulcrum" or pivotal issue. Right now the current legalized bribery, pay-to-play system of campaign donations and paid lobbyists has disenfranchised the American voter. Until this is fixed, any other reform the politicians may try to placate us with (be it a change to healthcare, clamping down predatory school loans, new financial regulations, etc.) will be about as effective as a farmer putting a new roof on his CHICKEN COOP, but still letting the FOX guard it.
We need to go back to the original political currency. Instead of the current system of who can collect the most money from corporations and special interests it should be who has the BEST IDEAS to EFFECTIVELY RUN THE COUNTRY (we don't need "Wealth Redistribution," what we need is "Political Influence Redistribution")!
For the sake our our children and future generations of Americans, we need to take back our democracy from the rich and powerful who are using their vast sums of money to "speak" as if they represent millions of Americans. This "Corporate Personhood" that has crept into our laws is allowing them to manipulating our policies in their favor at the expense of the average American (the recent "Citizens United" Supreme Court ruling is a miscarriage of justice and must be reversed. The $50 or $100 a normal American may give to a political campaign becomes meaningless when corporations or other special interests are handing our millions to buy political access to the decision making process.
For decades now the corporations and special interests have had our "representatives" bought and paid for (both on the right and the left). Concentrating our efforts on getting the money out of our politics is the best way we can create an environment in which further reforms can be realized. Until we end the current system of legalized bribery (campaign donations) and paid lobbying our politicians will continue to be the LAP DOGS of the corporations and special interests. What we need first and foremost is real, loop-hole free CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM!!!! If the corruption is not dealt with first, the chance of any other meaningful reforms becoming a reality is almost zero - the special interests will just use their money to buy votes and put forward bills that create loop-holes or otherwise twist the law in their favor. If we want our children to live in a country where there vote matters, we need to get the money out of our politics! Spread the word - End the LEGALIZED BRIBERY!!! CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM needs to be THE main goal of the protests!!!
ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! This is where they consciously want to take us! They liked it that way!!!
Good reading: http://occupywallst.org/forum/why-libertarianism-is-so-wonderful/#comment-441587
Children are begging in america's streets? The elderly are making a last stand? Are you talking about Central or South America?
You've never been in downtown Portland or Seattle?
Aren't those supposed to be liberal, progressive paradises?
I've seen nothing but a total abandonment of libertarian sensibilities over my lifetime, and now, all the sudden, it is the great satan? What gives with that?
Like most ism's, Libertarianism was a reaction that was appropriate during the industrial revolution, when the miracle of progrss outshined any downside. Big factories, big oil, were magical innovations in their early days, and were perceived to do no wrong. As the population doubled and tripled and the need for a referee to keep the peace became necessary, libertarians who refused to adapt to the new reaiity that one industrial disaster could cost hundreds of lives, and one bank disasater could impoverish thousands, and one criminal could cause untold suffering, have been left behind. That resulted in a feeling of being left out. But as Darwin said, it was not the strong or the stubborn who survived in social darwinism, it was those who adapt who survive. Libertarians, at the heart of their beliefs are not willing to adapt, and thus trying to impose their outmoded logic to a world that has become much more complicated, and threatening, the general population sees their rigid beliefs to be harmful, today.
That's a good story. I think I'm beginning to understand the hostility a bit. But I don't identify with any of what you wrote. If I had any faith in the public sector regulating the money and business powers, I might be a little closer. If I saw that their monopoly on regulation given the feds was not corrupted and ineffectual, I could likely be softer to that view.
But it is the nature of power, whether in the corporate, business or government world, that attracts those who are least likely to be conscientious in their duties to their office, their customers, or their fellow man. We can't even get transparency anywhere close to where it should be.
Help me have faith that more of the same sorts of regulations won't just end up in more regulatory capture, and then we can go from there.
Although shiny on the outside. It has a very dark heart.
Many of it's "truths" are based on false or unproven premises.
What's that quote. . .Trust those who seek the truth, but no one who claims to have found it.
I don't like Ayn Rand, don't like the Koch;s influence, don't like the Libertarian party. I guess I'll have to be an anarchist.
Anarchy is more honest than libertarianism.
Maybe you meant anarchism? True, but that word as its own baggage, as you just demonstrated.
I could say the same about New Deal liberalism. Only, I would be right about it having been abandoned. It's all free markets, all the time these days. Rhetoric and policy.
I haven't seen any free market policy in a long time. Free market can't exist with a manipulated currency, massive barriers to entry, banks that won't lend, an atrocious system of taxation, an economy ruled by transnational corporations, and a government trying to fix everything by throwing borrowed money at it.