ExRx.net

Yeah! And you guys need more oil than anyone, so quit your moaning

(note sarcasm!)

Our people are dying at there sites Knob. I don't like that.

I'm fairly certain I own BP stock, through various mutual funds. I haven't tried to figure out the amount, but it's probably non-trivial given their large market cap. Most people with a large 401k probably do. However, although I don't want to demonize BP, I certainly don't want to excuse them just because investors might be hurt.

As for Goldwater vs Paul, the only thing I can find that they disagree on is the point(s) at which an unborn child gets rights. If only allowing the answer of "birth" is the litmus test, then the bar is set pretty high for libertarianism.

Big L libertarians have an annoying tendancy to have more interest in philosophical, theoretical discussion. That's one good thing about Paul and Goldwater. At least they tried to make real changes. Not just read Ayn Rand and dreamed and chatted on message boards.

If I can have someone cut my taxes and not bailout banks, that's worth a lot to me...very tactically. Same with getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan (and I don't care who was "wrong", just bail).

The libertards can then jerk off to discussions of the right to bear atom bombs...

Answer to the first question: no I haven't learned anything about the founding fathers. Just a very brief overview of the civil war (or independence war, can't recall) and why it was started.

Also heard nothing about those "tea parties".
Did learn something about an incident at a tea party, which was part of the start of the civil war/independence war? (This was years ago and never thought about it again)

Boston tea party or something like it?

Yes, the modern tea party movement took their name from the Boston Tea Party because both are about reducing the influence of oppressive government (ie, taxation).

Just curious Wouter, what exactly did they tell/teach you what started the civil war? I'm just curious, because even today, here in the US, even the local school kids will tell you it was "the war to free the slaves", but in actuality, it was much more complicated than that, and the slavery issue was more of an offspring of the conflict than a cause of it.
Tim

I'm in Richmond. They still put fresh flowers on Jeff Davis's grave every Sunday (Hollywood cemetary).

I used to have a romantic view of the civil war...and certainly there is a lot of martial spirit in the South. But the more I think about it, slavery was a huge injustice...and the South was wrong, North was right. Hurts to say it, but it's true. Just like it kills me to say the Democraps werre right on Iraq.

Growing up I mostly thought of the Civil War as a states' rights issue. However if you read the actual Constitution of the Confederate States of America, it's explicitly pro-slavery throughout; ie requiring slavery in any new Confederate states.

Tim, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I have to disagree with you. Some people try to slant the issue by saying the Civil War was a state rights war, but in essence the rights the southern states wanted was the right to own another human being. So the war was about slavery. I can't name one other thing the southern states wanted.

That's not the only thing, but it's enough. Government intervention to put religion and a lump of cells above the bodily autonomy of women is VERY authoritarian.

Now if the issue was he wanted to just reduce the scope of department X rather than disband it entirely, that is pretty small. It's all about how much power the government has over you.

The merit of the law doesn't even matter. For example a prohibition on killing people outside of self defense has a lot of merit. However if you are for the law you can't be considered an anarchist by definition. At most you could be a libertarian bordering on anarchy. Remember considering something to be wrong and making a law about it are 2 different things. So you can think abortion is wrong and be libertarian or even an anarchist. The definition of those words only has to do with what you would criminalize.

Maybe that's because those 2 held office, where as the other people you are referring to never did.

The civil war was a very complicated thing. It was not necessarily about emancipation, from the start. That came later. States rights was a big issue, so was the whole agrarian vs industrialization thing and the commerce imbalances between North and South, and who would do the most trade with the rest of the world, in particular, Europe. At the time, states were considered "Free" or "Slave", and it's no wonder the South wanted the new states to come in under the label "slave", to add to their alliance, but I don't really believe the North was that humanitarian to start a war just to free the slaves. In fact, I'd say the big moguls up in the north couldn't care less about the slaves as people.I believe the other issues were more dominant.
Tim

A regional us vs them mentality certainly would have a role. But, growing up when I saw the Confederate Flag I thought of states rights and individual liberty. But it's hard to make the states rights claim when you read the actual Confederate Constitution. It -requires- slavery in all states, taking away the individual states' right to decide that issue.

As for Paul - if you want to say he's not libertarian because of abortion, ok. But keep in mind that by saying it's just a religious issue about a lump of cells, you're prejudging the outcome. Obviously if you consider the unborn fetus to be just a "lump of cells" without rights, then it changes everything. You can say any life form is just a "lump of cells" and rationalize away its rights. But, if you consider the unborn to have some individual rights, then the libertarian thing to do is protect his/her liberties.