[ExI] libertarians nominate none of these

[Kelly Anderson]

I'm replying to a bunch of stuff in this thread...

I'm a Libertarian, though in self interest, I might temporarily
declare as a Republican to be able to vote in the local primary which
affects me directly. Even donated to a guy who I think is the more
libertarian of the two Rs running in the primary. I hope he wins, but
I don't think he has much of a chance.

Anyway, as far as legalized drugs go, I'm personally in favor of
making ALL drugs legal, including pharmaceuticals, without
prescriptions. I would advocate for keeping actual pharmacies, so that
you knew what you were buying was actually the drug you were paying
for even if it is heroin. Prescription drugs are a big racket, just
like illegal drugs and I think we could do with a few less of all
those. I'd love to see some of the big pharma people in jail. But I
believe in freedom more than any other value, especially over safety.
Safety is overrated in our society.

So this is an example of why the Libertarian party will probably never
win. Guys like me have fully independent thoughts. We don't buy into
what any prepackaged set of ideals that are peddled by say Fox or
MSNBC. If you have several dozens of millions of people like me that
have fully independent thought patterns, how do you create a party
platform that we'll all agree to? I want legal immigration of a large
number of law-abiding immigrants to help solve our demographic issues.
Good for America, bad for everyone else, but pretty much everyone else
is more or less screwed in any case. No, I don't believe at all in
open borders. I do think traffic laws are good, but I don't believe we
need an Interstate Highway System to be maintained by the government.
I think we have enough technology at this point for ALL roads to
basically be toll roads, and you pay for what you drive on to a
private system (perhaps a different system for each road) and Google
can route you cheaply or route you fast. But the government is out of
the way, and you can decide how well maintained a road you want to
take. I do believe that there needs to be environmental protection so
that the commons can't be raped by individuals who would burn down the
world if it made them a few bucks. Dangerous people need to be in
jail, and the government should provide a judicial system to keep us
safe from bad people. Private prisons are a bad idea though. The
military is necessary, and I'm against a world government. I do see
the point of the US Navy providing security on the high seas and
keeping piracy to a minimum. While I think religious freedom is an
important right, I don't think religions should avoid taxes. I think
the gold standard MIGHT be a good thing, but I'm not fully decided on
that and I love cryptocurrency as a concept and Defi is particularly
interesting if there is AI to setup smart contracts with a minimum
number of loopholes. Should the government get involved in limiting
AI? I just don't know yet... probably not because of the unintended
side effects and that just leaves the bad guys with guns, so to speak.
I'm not in favor of any weapons ban, except for weapons of mass
destruction (the stuff even the government really shouldn't ever need
or use). I think abortion should be available, but not paid for by the
government. I'd love to see us get rid of health insurance altogether
other than for major stuff because that bureaucracy is what makes
things expensive. You see? Random crazy positions that could never
form the basis of a party platform. There are probably six or seven
people in the world that would agree with my positions on everything,
and you can't form a party like that. You can only form functional
parties from mostly sheep that believe the same things. Independent
lone wolves just can't herd. We're like cats. Unfortunately, even
though I agree with a lot of the Libertarian type thoughts, and even
go objectivist or transhumanist on a lot of things, I won't join a
herd and give up my rights to independent thought. I can't even agree
with myself from year to year as my thoughts evolve and my positions
become better informed.

So you see, that's why the Libertarians are never going to win the
presidency. ANYONE who is Libertarian is going to have one or two
totally crazy positions on SOMETHING, and therefore people wouldn't be
able to vote for them. Plus quite a few are atheists which means
absolutely nobody will vote for them in America, because the only
people polling lower than atheists on the "I'll never vote for a..."
poll are pedophiles.

Sorry to ramble on there, but I feel like I'm a good example of why
Libertarians can't herd.

On Wed, Mar 27, 2024 at 6:05 AM Henry Rivera via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>
> > On Mar 26, 2024, at 10:06 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >
> > If all drugs are legal, they soon get mixed with pharmaceuticals, as opium did in the 19th century.
>
> I don’t buy this. This is a current problem now with black market drug purity. Crap gets mixed in or outright is substituted for what people are seeking.
>
> You seem to be referring to regulation and labeling issues vs legalization. People who advocate for legalization aren’t expecting to find cocaine in Coca-Cola after that, but it might mean you can go to a dispensary and buy cocaine in a pure uncut form without fentanyl in it, for example. That reduces harm in my mind, not the opposite.  Portugal, for example, which is engaging in an experiment in legalization/decriminalization right now doesn’t have the problem you refer to.
>
> Now, if you are suggesting that a Libertarian would advocate for the abolishment of literally all regulation, which is a very extreme version of a libertarian I might add, then perhaps what you suggest could be a problem. But I haven’t heard anyone advocate for that version of libertarianism in a long time. People seem to prefer at least some regulations around basic safety. No one wants a window to fly off a plane while in mid flight or to take a mislabeled drug. Allowing trial error to determine what is safe and the free market to follow will never become popular if people are dying in rapid succession, I suggest.
>
> -Henry
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat