Don't confuse Libertarianism with the Tea Party!

[ehrnst]

Libertarians want social progress, but don't think anyone should pay for it.

The Tea Party wants social regress back to the 1920s, and don't care who pays as long as it isn't them.

Seen on Facebook...

[FSogol]

1. F' the Libertarians. Their sophomoric ideas are just as dumb as the Tea Party.

:puke:

[HughBeaumont]

4. Already on Facebook and elsewhere, they're making Elizabeth Warren their new punching bag.

They don't EVEN want to hear that we all work as a team whether we know it or not. Nooo, no, "I made this money 100% on my OWN!!!" "Murka's made of individual visions. You respect mine and I'll respect yours" . . . and other childish crybaby nonsense about how taxes are "theft at gunpoint", blah blah blah.

[FSogol]

6. When will those damn libertarians start staying off the public roads?

That's what I want to know.

[demmiblue]

2. The results are the same.

[dtexdem]

3. I'll stop confusing them when libertarians stop doing so.

Or rather, when libertarians stop selling out their supposed values to, for example, social conservatives.

Libertarianism is a defective social analysis and political philosophy, but at least it used to stand for something.

[Worship Money]

11. Exactly-n/t

[leftstreet]

5. There's no such thing as the 'Tea Party,' and Libertarians don't really know what they believe

People who claim to be Libertarian are spouting anti-abortion rhetoric

They don't even know what they're talking about

[MineralMan]

7. Really. They're confused enough already.

:rofl:

[madmom]

8. Libertarians are republicans who want to smoke dope.

[Major Nikon]

13. Brilliant!

[tama]

9. Origin of libertarianism

"Origins

During the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, "liberal" ideas flourished in Europe and North America; they challenged the rule of monarchs and the church and emphasized reason, science, individual liberty, free markets, consent of the governed and limited government.<21><22> Libertarians of various schools were influenced by classical liberal ideas.<21><23> Words such as liberal and liberty come from the Latin root liber, which means "free."<24> The term libertarian in a metaphysical or philosophical sense was first used by late-Enlightenment free-thinkers to refer to those who believed in free will, as opposed to determinism.<25> The first recorded use was in 1789 by William Belsham in a discussion of free will and in opposition to "necessitarian" (or determinist) views.<26><27>

The first anarchist journal to use the term “libertarian” was La Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Socialand it was published in New York City between 1858 and 1861 by french anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque<28>. "The next recorded use of the term was in Europe, when “libertarian communism” was used at a French regional anarchist Congress at Le Havre (16-22 November, 1880). January the following year saw a French manifesto issued on “Libertarian or Anarchist Communism.” Finally, 1895 saw leading anarchists Sébastien Faure and Louise Michel publish La Libertaire in France."<29>. The word stems from the French word libertaire, and was used to evade the French ban on anarchist publications.<30> In this tradition, the term "libertarianism" in "libertarian socialism" is generally used as a synonym for anarchism, which some say is the original meaning of the term; hence "libertarian socialism" is equivalent to "socialist anarchism" to these scholars.<31><32> In the context of the European socialist movement, libertarian has conventionally been used to describe those who opposed state socialism, such as Mikhail Bakunin. However, the association of socialism with libertarianism predates that of capitalism, and many anti-authoritarians still decry what they see as a mistaken association of capitalism with libertarianism in the United States.<33>"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Origins

Even with this contemporary American distortion of proud history and meaning of libertarianism, I don't puke on capitalists calling themselves libertarians or anarcho-capitalists. I talk with them and listen what they have to say as their justification for capitalistic ownership and night-watch state for protection of capitalistic ownership. I would not say their defence of their purely idealized outta-this-world utopian capitalism is any good, but at least they have deep dislike of real-world dystopic capitalism as we know it. Same cannot be said of all Liberals, Green capitalists etc. who think that dystopic capitalism as we know it is the best we got and can get... just few minor social democratic tweaks here and there and everything will be again as good as it was after Roosevelt.

Comrades, freedom lovers, even though we dislike capitalism any hue and colour, that does not mean that we puke over our fellow human beings and refuse to talk and level with capitalists of any hue and colour and especially "anarcho-capitalists" and work with them for a better world. For the love of freedom, we can do better than any capitalistic dystopy and yes we can.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. The Tea Party is just the same old GOP religious right wack-a-doo base

rebranded.

[provis99]

12. libertarians want social progress? That's a new one..

I though it was more obvious they want a regression to caveman days, when there was minimal government.

[NNN0LHI]

14. Everyone I know who calls themselves a libertarian is just a Republican who smokes pot

Every one of them assholes.

Don

[markpkessinger]

15. Libertarians, the Tea Party, the Religious Right, Birthers -- it's all a shell game

I'm not sure any of the distinctions even matter anymore. "Tea Party" has become a sort catch-all, umbrella term. Whenever anybody tries to call out, say, a racist or religious extreme element of the so-called Tea Party, its defenders counter that their "movement" has nothing to do with racism or even religion, beliefs of some individual members notwithstanding. But at the end of the day, whatever the reality of any Tea Party subgroups may be, they are each supporting each other's agenda by marching in lockstep.