I consider myself a constitutional libertarian and I'm a firm believer in the border. That thing can't be built fast enough. I also believe that the federal government should be incredibly limited as the founding fathers intended. National security and trading mostly. The rest should be left to the states to decide.
I think you're right to consider it a brand. I also have had some major run-ins with other "libertarians" over intellectual property. They're VERY on board with the idea of owning physical property, because of labor, but then radically against intellectual property for some strange reason. I probably wasted over 500 hours arguing with them on that back in the day .... such a waste of time :(
Sorry about that. Sounds like you were arguing with some idiots because I agree, that makes no sense. There's no denying that many folks who call themselves libertarians have no idea what it's supposed to stand for. I've noticed, especially as of late, a lot who sound more like marxists than anything. It's disgusting.
On the subject of Intellectual Property, a lot of the radical anti-IP stuff entered the libertarian movement through a guy named Stephen Kinsella. He's one of the most toxic people in that community, going around astroturfing, acting childish, insulting, slander, etc.
His behavior helped solidify my theory that the most toxic an ideological person is, the more flawed their underlying philosophy usually is. It's like the idea that someone who uses violence has already lost the argument, however in this case, anyone who attempts to verbally has already lost the argument.
The takeaway being you should always distance yourself with movements that devolve into toxicity or violence, and also question if the ideas lead to that toxicity.
I was a little shocked to see a good number of "Libertarians" who seemed somewhat supportive of the protests/riots in the early days of the protests. It was only a subset to be fair, but many more than I would have expected.
I would have thought they would be a little more enlightened about the fact that these incidents are pure race-baiting and media-generated, and that the BLM movement was a bunch of Marxist revolutionaries.
The Marxists have been doing their best to dismantle, astroturf, and attack libertarians. It's entirely possible the people I was talking to weren't actually Libertarians or anything close to it.
I think it depends on the "brand" of libertarian.
I consider myself a constitutional libertarian and I'm a firm believer in the border. That thing can't be built fast enough. I also believe that the federal government should be incredibly limited as the founding fathers intended. National security and trading mostly. The rest should be left to the states to decide.
I think you're right to consider it a brand. I also have had some major run-ins with other "libertarians" over intellectual property. They're VERY on board with the idea of owning physical property, because of labor, but then radically against intellectual property for some strange reason. I probably wasted over 500 hours arguing with them on that back in the day .... such a waste of time :(
Sorry about that. Sounds like you were arguing with some idiots because I agree, that makes no sense. There's no denying that many folks who call themselves libertarians have no idea what it's supposed to stand for. I've noticed, especially as of late, a lot who sound more like marxists than anything. It's disgusting.
On the subject of Intellectual Property, a lot of the radical anti-IP stuff entered the libertarian movement through a guy named Stephen Kinsella. He's one of the most toxic people in that community, going around astroturfing, acting childish, insulting, slander, etc.
His behavior helped solidify my theory that the most toxic an ideological person is, the more flawed their underlying philosophy usually is. It's like the idea that someone who uses violence has already lost the argument, however in this case, anyone who attempts to verbally has already lost the argument.
The takeaway being you should always distance yourself with movements that devolve into toxicity or violence, and also question if the ideas lead to that toxicity.
I was a little shocked to see a good number of "Libertarians" who seemed somewhat supportive of the protests/riots in the early days of the protests. It was only a subset to be fair, but many more than I would have expected.
I would have thought they would be a little more enlightened about the fact that these incidents are pure race-baiting and media-generated, and that the BLM movement was a bunch of Marxist revolutionaries.
The Marxists have been doing their best to dismantle, astroturf, and attack libertarians. It's entirely possible the people I was talking to weren't actually Libertarians or anything close to it.