My guess: Government overreach is bad, but I like roads and stuff.
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I’m missing something… (genuinely not sure what this means, as I don’t think I misspelled anything)
Pedros??
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I wondered about that. Out here in ultra rural land, that could well be the case.
Maybe he’s also a Napoleon Dynamite NF
Isn’t that ultimately the fiscal belief of just about everyone, including most US “socialists”? Some government is clearly good. Too much government is clearly bad. So we’re quibbling over where the best balance is.
One thing is, “Don’t take my stuff.” For some lib-ians, that means taxing for the general fund.
And also “don’t force people to act against their faith.” But also “don’t force your faith on others.”
Pretty much. 
I recognize that libertarianism is an -ism that is particularly reliant on unrealistic assumptions to work in the real world. For a libertarian utopia to be achieved, it requires people to make rational decisions with proper foresight, and to be charitable towards one another / generally be decent people…and neither of those things are the case.
So, my initial reaction towards government is to be distrustful of it, and have a preference towards being left the hell alone. However, I reluctantly accept the notion that government has a proper role (for example) on matters where individuals are likely to make myopic decisions, or where the efficiencies of government involvement are too great to ignore.
The subject of universal healthcare is a great example. While I’m extremely skeptical of government getting involved in making decisions as personal as healthcare (remember that the person who pays the bills gets a say in what’s being bought), I think it’s clear that the American individuals and organizations have been too myopic in making decisions about healthcare. The mess we have in the US today is great enough that, while I think there are other things the government could do to move us out of the current mess…
I’m a libertarian in the sense that I distrust government and want to be left alone. I’m pragmatic in the sense that I distrust individuals and corporations at least as much as I distrust government.
But not the roads I don’t drive on or the stuff that I don’t personally use.
Eta: On a personally amusing side note, living in Newfoundland, I’m getting annoyed about the existence of several roads I rarely drive on. The province has atrocious road conditions in many parts of the province. Massive, multigenerational potholes, broken pavement, and overgrown ditches. The province simply doesn’t have the money to routinely maintain all the roads that have been built. The issue is compounded by a rapidly collapsing rural population in many parts of the province. Communities that made sense in the days before powered small vessels simply make no sense today. You don’t need to live within rowing distance of the fishing grounds today and so we can have more centralized communities. As a result, we have hundreds of kilometers of highway that serves 10s to low 1000s of people at the cost of $10ks to $1,000ks per year for little economic benefit. There are all sorts of communities at the end of isolated roads. Their population ranges from 60 to 130 people with an average age of 62 and a population growth rate of -15% per census period (~5 years). They want the province to repave their stretch of highway at the cost of several million dollars. The community is an economic sinkhole where the primary income source is retiree benefits from the government or unemployment insurance.
I just saw 2 commercials on a local broadcast here for a candidate for governor in SC. Why?
I think people are starting to realize that this movement has no answers for how basic services will stay funded instead of with property taxes.
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TIL: Apparently PETA hates Pokémon. 
Do they know that the creatures are completely fictitious? (in the context of my current obsession with Pokémon Pokopia)
Despite what Trump says, Canada is pro free trade.
This deal is one of the smallest but there are a lot of them in the works.
Ecuador says Canada trade deal to make 99.6% of exports tariff-free
If you’re a Libertarian who thinks taxation is theft and is a government employee working in the area of law enforcement do you get paid a salary or are you getting a cut of the proceeds of crime?
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Does the persistence of the Trump administration and its various actions dispell the perception of the writers of the US Constitution as being political visionaries?
It seems like they didn’t forsee a politician as corrupt as Trump nor a Congress as spineless as the current one. The Constitution seems to allow the President to exist beyond the legal system. The system seems powerless to control a President who sees no limit to the graft he can pursue from both US and foreign contributors.
New Larry David show on HBOMax puts this out there.
Episode 2. Normally, LD is a putz, and not all that funny. But he has his moments, and this particular sketch gets it right on the money. He plays a heckler at G. Washington’s farewell address.
Congress is “spineless” only because the people support what’s happening.
The people may support what’s happening, but that doesn’t mean Congress isn’t spineless.
Although…I’d been calling Congress spineless for a while, but over time I’ve come to think it is less being spineless and more just being amoral, corrupt, unprincipled, unpatriotic, … Spineless implies that they believe what they are doing is wrong, but I don’t really think that’s the case any more.
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