My gay Libertarian friend thinks Hilary is an evil socialist

[booksenkatz]

He said that her socialist ideas scare him to death. To his mind, anything from the government that is involved with your life is evil, even if it is something that helps you, i.e. health care. I've tried to remind him that WE are the government, and government can be used for good or for evil ~ our taxes come together to improve the infrastructure and to improve society as a whole, etc., but he won't listen. I can almost understand how someone who is persecuted by society/the government would choose to be Libertarian, but he's a kind person and I wish I could make him see reason, help him stop centering all of his "scary government" ideas on Hilary. Any good arguments here?

[La_Serpiente]

1. Oh dear

gay Libertarians. Sounds like Andrew Sullivan to me.

Anyhow, tell him he is overracting. That is all I can say. There is no way her Universal Health Care plan will get through Congress anymore. Not until we get a Democratic majority in the two branches.

[Andy_Stephenson]

2. I feel the same way.

If it is from the government it must be a bad idea. Oh and the government stopped representing me long long ago. In case you hadn't noticed they are trying to get a Constitutional amendment banning me.

[booksenkatz]

4. Very true

That's why I want him to vote Dem this time, if for no other reason than to throw Bush out, because if Bush gets back in, then I can guarantee my friend that he will have the few rights he enjoys today completely removed... going backwards, not forwards. Dem may not be his first choice, but in 2004 there is no other logical choice for anyone who is for equal rights for ALL. I'm trying to help him see this.

[Andy_Stephenson]

13. Sort of like Bill C's

DOMA and don't ask don't tell? What wonderful pieces of legislation they were. They enhanced my rights so much.

[booksenkatz]

14. No, I mean

his current right to live with his husband, for example. The Bushies would love to break up those living arrangements. Or his current right to hold a job... to rent a house. If it were up to the 'wingers, give them 4 more years, they'll be deporting people like my friend.

[Andy_Stephenson]

16. In case you didn't know...

there are many GLBT's that never reveal themselves for the very reasons you use...

Housing
Job
etc etc

Can all be lost in the blink of an eye. Don't believe me??? Visit Texas or any other bible belt state.

[Ficus]

7. banning you

or banning your right to marry? I'm just curious, I haven't heard about any Constitutional amendment banning gays. I'd like to know more about that.

[Andy_Stephenson]

12. It would be the same thing in my mind...

it would give those who hate more of a reason to do so.

[RPG-7]

3. it's like religion

You can't argue with libertarians. They have a dogmatic belief that government is coercive and against "freedom" even if the end results are negative to them.

[Orrin_73]

5. Another gay libertarian is

Justin Raimondo, the editor of right-wing/libertarian antiwar.com and a disciple of Murray Rothbard the liberto fascist guru. He too is firmly against anything government.


deanforamerica.com
clark04.com
kucinich.us
sharpton2004.org

[demnan]

6. Tell your friend

it was the moderate Democrats like Hillary (actually and Joe Lieberman, for that matter) who fueled the civil rights movement which assured the rights of a repressed minority. If government hadn't intervened and listened to the eloquent protests of this repressed minority, we would still have segregated schools and blacks would still be at the back of the bus.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

8. Gay libertarian?

Does he hate himself?

[Gringo]

9. He is an unwitting tool of the right.

Lots of otherwise good people have gone this way since all media turned right-wing.

He will be the first one they come to put into the camps, followed by us commie-libs.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. No. No Good Ideas

You will never convince anyone of anything when they think so two dimensionally. This kind of thinking lacks depth, and consistently seeks simple answers to complex problems. There is no changing the mind of someone like that.

This type of person is one of the reason why i learned to disdain the Libertarian party. Far too many of their members and adherents have this shortsighted, simpleminded view of society. (Not all, but enough to make me think them, as a party, no better than the Republicans.)

I used to, at the very least, admire their consistency with regard to maximizing of freedom. But, in 2000, the Libertarian Party Convention was televised on CSPAN, and there, on national TV, were 4 candidates for the nomination for president, talking about the need to bring the country to a higher state of morality. Well, there went the consistency, and there went my last respect for their party.

The Professor

[StClone]

11. He can have an opinion like that

Because his rights and a lot more have been protected by the big bad old Government.

A few years of Corporate hegemony should shake the silliness out of 'em.

[Andy_Stephenson]

15. Exactly what rights have been protected?

GLBT folk are second class citizens in this country.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. he has rights

that aren't connected to his being gay. The kind that are threatened, for everyone, by the Patriot Act and possible follow ups. Freedom of speech, presumption of innocence, etc.

[Andy_Stephenson]

21. those are already gone...

and oh yes Democrats voted to take them away.

[Snellius]

17. Unfortunately, this fear will get worse

This has been going on since the end of WWII, as that generation that forged such a massive collective community, of government and people working together for a common cause -- the war and Depression --, begins to break apart. To traditional rural conservatism, always suspicious of big government, was added the unceasing corporate propaganda to identify communism with Stalinism and then socialism with anti-Americanism.

Now with the more imperial and totalitarian neoconservatives in power, even populist forces are afraid of government as a repressive military/corporate machine. The only hope for democracy in America today is to first return to more direct units of autonomous rule.

Sorry. It's hard not to slip back into the old leftist rants here, but the further history progresses, the more clear it becomes that many of the radical critics of the 60s were right on target: that true political democracy will never be achieved until social equality is a reality, and the mechanism of change, as it was then, was not so much a political but a cultural revolution.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

18. Does he understand the concept of Socialism?

Maybe you'd better explain it to him slowly and clearly.

[rman]

20. he thinks it's ok for the gov to regulate 'bed room habbits'?

as in, the outlawing of sodomy - or for that matter, outlawing gay sex all together.

Evil socialism may want to ensure everyone can afford healthcare (oh bad, bad). but it sure doesn't want to regulate your sex life.

I think it's a most peculiar phenomena that some (many) people seem to trust corporations more then the elected representatives - while allthough government is far from perfect, there's one thing we all know for sure beforehand: corporations are in it only for the money, not for the people's interests.