You left out the best part?
I'm all for small government, but I'm realizing I'm not for NO government. Having some shared land we can all use as we wish is good. Having areas set aside for public use is good. this side of the mountain is for off-roading (and no you dont need a license plate), this other side is for hiking and camping
I hate a lot of WA state's ultra liberal policies and high taxes. But I also feel I had more freedom there in many ways.
Maybe I don't actually like what I've always advocated for after all...
Discuss...
Edit: 3 days later I got banned from this sub over this post. Freedom lovers my ass. This is place is run by ashamed right-wingers.
If I want to be charitable this even sounds like someone that is more lost on the sea of ideological garbage of the internet i.e no access to anyone or anything that would educate them towards socialism or even the obvious critiques of capitalism so they defaulted to the standard American ideals until it personaly affected them, then they realized "wait this doesn't quite make sense". They could be saved if they were lucky to have someone waste time educating them, but most likely just become a conventional lib instead.
this person's politics are mine when I was like 12. "oh Ron Paul wants to legalize drugs and doesn't want any more wars, I guess I'm a libertarian"
Yeah, I feel like "libertarian" is just vibes-based for dudes of a certain age, and not really an ideology. Like "centrist" it's a way of signalling to each other that they stand above politics, and don't get involved in the petty bickering of people who care about things.
When the rubber hits the road, and they start interacting with the world, they'll settle into their actual politics. Usually it'll break toward resentment-based fashy stuff, like "centrists," because the vibe coming from a place of "I'm better than that," to begin with. But it can go the other way too if it's coming from where you were at, or if they start being personally affected/targeted by their allies.
Yeah, I feel like "libertarian" is just vibes-based for dudes of a certain age, and not really an ideology. Like "centrist" it's a way of signalling to each other that they stand above politics, and don't get involved in the petty bickering of people who care about things.
I think this was through intentional propaganda: stuff like framing that stupid political compass as two Freedom - Authoritarian axes and South Park's detached contrarianism. The end goal is to get these people to vote for conservative causes and convert some of them to
ideology.
They found out that American "libertarians" are just Republicans except they want weed to be legal. There's a reason why the Cato Institute, the Libertarian Party and other garbage institutions are funded by the Kochs and other powerful figures: because they pose no threat to the establishment and having a fake third party around is useful.
(and no you dont need a license plate)
I WANNA BE ABLE TO OFF-ROAD ON PUBLIC LAND! BUT I ALSO DONT WANT THE GUBERMENT TO HAVE ANY MEANS OF HOLDING ME ACCOUNTABLE IF I RUN OVER A MOUNTAIN BIKER!!!
I honestly respect their ability to question their beliefs based on their real experiences
not just that, but to arrive at a conclusion that is at least vaguely in the correct direction. some libertarians have similar experiences but decide that the reason places like texas suck is because there's still a tiny little amount of government regulation/services
I’ve seen some people say some shit like “after 2010 Texas was infiltrated by communists. It ain’t like it used to be”
the libertarian has been forced to realize that his freedom is contingent on other people's positive actions!This person has never once thought in their life how anything is maintained
I've seen a libertarian on reddit argue that the gubberment doesn't nees to build roads because corporations will do it in order to reach new consumers.
(you do not have physical access to the road, but you have this token which represents usage rights for the road)
a bunch of federal land isn't maintained and especially out west you can just go fuck around in the middle of stolen nowhere.
Can confirm, have worked for the forest service. It's mostly skeleton crews to manage thousands upon thousands of acres. Even less in BLM lands, but that's also because they are usually just rented for almost nothing to ranchers and oil prospectors (hence why we call them the bureau of livestock and mining)
I've spent a significant amount of time in most states east of the Mississippi. A while ago I went to Texas for the first time outside the confines of an airport.
Texas is maybe the worst state I've been to. "Maybe" because I'm deciding if Louisiana is worse, excluding Nola.
If you hate pervasive Republican/conservative/Christian ideology, you will hate Texas. If you hate Libertarianism, you will hate Texas. If you hate car-dominated transit, you will hate Texas.
The best thing about Texas is tacos and general Tex-Mex food. Not a huge endorsement of a place if its best attributes are its external influences.
I've lived here for over a decade and this is all correct.
Grab a few tacos on the way through but burn it all down behind you please. It fucking sucks here.
Give it back to Mexico, then let them burn down Dallas and Houston.
I went to Houston for the first time this year. I knew they're against any socialist policies but the thing that shocked me was no sidewalks! I was wondering how they managed so I did some research and they just don't. Hundreds of pedestrians are killed each year in the greater Houston sidewalk-less suburban area (statistically seniors?)
Houston is a nightmare, I've been doing a ton of permitting out there and it's basically impossible because they use 95% of the right of way for the widest streets possible and if you're lucky enough to have a sidewalk, it usually doesn't connect to anything.
It's not as bad as Scottsdale/Phoenix though
Austin is the same, my sister lives there and a couple times while visiting her I walked her dog. Some houses have sidewalks, some don't, it's totally left up to the discretion of the home builder/owner if they want to put one in. So you'll have two houses with side walks then 6 with one and then one house with one...
It's fucking horrible for walking dogs and pedestrians in general.
Yes Houston is one of the cities I went to. I actually tried walking once out of spite. What would have been a 5 minute drive was a 40 minute walk along loud and ugly cement roads breathing in fumes from huge mall crawler Jeeps.
I really want to visit New Orleans some time. It's a cultural capital and the birthplace of Jazz music. It's gotta have some things going for it.
Not anything in Texas I feel like I NEED to see, (though I'll hit the San Antonio riverwalk if I ever find myself there). Im sure both are shitty places to live, but one of em looks better for visitin
I feel like New Orleans is the only place i'd like to visit for an extended amount of time in the US at this point. Definitely has a character and history unique to the country.
I don’t think I would want to live in New Orleans but it is fun to visit. The beignets at Cafe du Monde are good, and the best thing I did was go on a dinner boat with live jazz on the top deck.
The rest of Louisiana though, like Baton Rouge… incredibly racist. Also the homicide rate is very high.
I wasn't in Texas very long but the car transport thing is 100% true. You would think that people who love cars so much would say least have good roads, but no - every single road I drove down was pockmarked to hell and back, had completely faded lines, etc. I'm now convinced that half the reason everybody drives a giant truck is because the roads are so bad that driving a reasonable car is too difficult.
south south Texas was an ok spot back when I lived there, but I reckon apartheid boy is wrecking the place with spacex.
As a libertarian, I think we should stop empowering corporations to control our lives and give the right to decide how the economy functions to decentralized local government run by local communities instead of this centralized monopolistic crony system we call “capitalism” is a great bit that would win some hearts and minds.
Idk if it would, libertarians can think local governments are big government anyways and just a sneaky tool for little authoritarians to impose their will on their neighbors like ensuring that the water doesnt get poisoned.
Libertarians' concepts of local government are basically in line with 80s kids movies of some local dingus mayor who wants to demolish the local skate rink to build a strip mall or a golf course or some shit.
libertarians can think local governments are big government
The Killdozer guy in CO went on his rampage cuz the city government kept fining him for dumping his shit into an irrigation canal. All this was cuz he didn't want a septic tank installed cuz the only septic company was owned by a guy he had a personal beef with, who also happened to sit on the town council.
Here in commiefornia I can ride my motorcycle like thirty minutes to the nearest OHV area and go nuts 🏍 💨 and the roads between here are there are all twisties
But I'm not dunking in this guy necessarily, he learned the most important lesson you can learn about American politics: nobody is actually a libertarian, libertarianism is completely fake and the libertarian party is just conservatives who don't have the same social bugbears that Republicans have.
No one is a libertarian because the social base for libertarianism comprises of people in untenable economic situations. They're all guys in the dead center of the middle class who all think they'd be billionaires if not for taxes. They have no other concerns, they just want to be rich out of boredom because they have no other concerns. Sometimes they have to fill out too much paperwork to buy an assault rifle or they pay a little too much property tax and they interpret this as persecution, because they can't have more toys. It's the ideology of comfortable white guys, but not so comfortable they're living as lavish ghouls in mansions. The actual bourgeoisie aren't libertarians because they know it's a dead end ideology. If libertarians ever reach that amount of wealth they morph into standard neoliberals, or obtain god complexes. Or if they slip out of their comfortable amount of wealth and become more working class, it's a 50/50 chance they become a socialist or a reactionary depending on geography and peer group.
The only bit I will disagree with is that there are 10000% libertarian billionaires. Other than that spot on.
those are the weirdos who aren't invited to the Eyes Wide Shut parties
We literally have a public trail that goes from Mexico to Canada thru California, Oregon, and Washington. You can walk the whole way. Texans can only dream of such freedom
Kind of telling that this person seems to think of freedom/liberties in terms of "where can I drive big truck and shoot wild animal." Up top, they even address the "call yourself whatever gender/abort whoever/marry whoever" as if those aren't freedoms that are already, or are currently in the process of, being dismantled. It's impressive to watch the selfishness of the philosophy fold in on itself when things that affect them are attacked.
"call yourself whatever gender/abort whoever/marry whoever - just don't expect me to do a damn thing as those rights are dismantled"
Libertarianism and centrism are just “fuck you I got mine” as ideologies.
This is what happens when your only guiding principle is self centeredness. The perfect blend of hypocrisy and stupidity.
A friend of mine who moved from Chicago to Dallas remarked at how there are suddenly all sorts of people who will call the cops on you for walking down the side of the highway.
Fun fact: despite Texas’s reputation of being heavily armed, there are almost zero places for gun owners to actually shoot outdoors. Compare that to blue states where that are usually a lot of public land that you can drive to, put up some targets, and shoot for free 24/7 (except when there’s maintenance or closures due to disrespectful assholes).
Essentially, unless you’re rich and own land or have a buddy who owns land or willing to shell out fees every time you shoot outdoors, most texans just own a bunch of guns and shoot in a fixed position at indoor ranges.
Obviously you can still be lethal from basic marksmanship, but the romantic imagination of Texans holding down the fort during a civil war is just that - imagination. Most of them have no better training than your meemaw who shoots a gun every few months at an indoor range, 1 round every 20 seconds because anything else is considered rapid automatic assault fire mode.
1 round every 20 seconds because anything else is considered rapid automatic assault fire mode.
>tfw when Texans can only shoot at the same rate as well-drilled Napoleonic infantry.
Well drilled riflemen, even. Elite musket regiments were expected to consistently shoot 4 or even 5 rounds a minute under optimal conditions, and 6 wasn't unheard of for individuals. Which is of course why they used muskets and not rifles, another 300 rounds has an accuracy all of its own.
tbh I feel like in a civil war type event they would just freeze/cook to death after some chud militia shoots up 1 power transformer, taking down their already fragile grid
Compare that to blue states where that are usually a lot of public land that you can drive to, put up some targets, and shoot for free 24/7
I wonder how many dead bodies that get discovered in the wilderness are just hikers who caught stray bullets because American gun owners are stupid.
The people who maintain those ranges are smarter than the gun owners, they all have backstops that will catch the bullets. Most of them are also monitored by someone who will boot you off the range if you're doing something stupid that'd result in you not hitting the backstop.
They're talking about wilderness, not ranges. In California for example you can just head out into the desert and set up your own targets and shoot on federal land.
I saw a few videos of a public area where the port-o-potty was all shot up lol. Can't imagine you're safe out there unless you're sure you're alone
I hate when I'm out backpacking and some dipshit starts shooting at all the abandoned mining equipment. Leave it alone it's the closest this country has to historical landmarks.
Wow, Texas is just a shitty version of a red state, then. Mine at least has state-funded public gun ranges.
Damn, in Australia at my local range it was 1 shot per four seconds, but if the range owners liked you you can do whatever
You make me want to cry. That's (In my opinion) kind of cruel. But even so, I do respect YOUR opinion.
How do libertarians think the "freest" states are the ones where you can go to prison for weed, women don't have bodily autonomy, trans rights are consistently under attack, books are banned in schools, workers have the least rights and protections, the highest number of people are uninsured, immigrants are put in camps, and the government has the power to execute people?
Because they aren't in any of the above categories so it doesn't personally affect them
Going on a tangent here, but a couple years ago my mom moved from Connecticut to South Carolina for the warmer climate, nature, and presumed lower cost of living. Now she wants to move back because she can barely afford to get by. She's a licensed practical nurse, and makes well over 30% less money over there and has way less flexibility in her hours (she often finds herself at an agency that only offers 12 hour shifts with one 30 minute break)
She hasn't gone to the doctor, dentist, or optician in a long time, despite having arthritis (from lifting patients) and needing a crown procedure, simply because she can't afford insurance. Meanwhile Connecticut, which is FAR from perfect, gave her free state coverage. She's talked to several of her patients at the hospitals she works at who also moved away from the Northeast, and they tend to say similar things about the lack of social safety benefits making it just, harder to survive. But I guess libertarians are middle to upper class freaks who think "freedom" means lower taxes and corporations being people, so why would they give a shit about people like my mom?
I have never read such stupid, babbling drivel before, screw you OP, I think this made me stupid
