A fork of Rural Dictionary
Libertarians are nothing more than economic conservatives (Privatize all government services, end public schools, screw the poor) who are simply not religious fuck-tards. They can be anywhere from mainstream christian to atheist, but the only thing they have in common is that they do not want to pay any taxes for anything, and they would rather have the government just cater to business. A typical libertarian is someone who doesn't care about religious or moral issues, but who wants to eliminate public schools, because education is "not a right under the constitution", and who wants to eliminate all government regulations on business, because "businesses can just police themselves" In other words, they are amoral sociopaths who don't give a fuck about humanity, or about using government to build a fair, just, equitable society that serves all the people equally. I bought into the whole libertarian thing a while back, but when it came down to regulations, I realized they had a serious disconnect. Most of the libertarian literature I've seen, and most of the libertarians I've talked to believe in "business self-regulation" like a religion. They seem to think that businesses always have the best interests of the people in mind, and that we don't need minimum wages, zoning regulations, safety regulations, or any regulations, because "the market must be free to go in whatever direction it goes in", "let workers decide which businesses have the best policies by not working for bad companies", and "taxes only inhibit growth and prosperity". It's all total bullshit. Everyone knows that self regulation is bullshit -- it ALWAYS has resulted in corporate aliances that deliberately screw customers. Just look how the self-regulation of the stock brokers and auditors, and energy companies ended up -- MCI, Tyco, Enron, Anderson-Little, and others. If a company has an opportunity to get away with screwing it's customers without accountability, THEY WILL. If a company is allowed to operate a facility with dangerous practices that endanger workers or the surrounding community, IT WILL. Regulations were invented for very good reasons -- to protect workers, to protect communities, and to make people and companies accounatable when things go horribly wrong. Libertarians want us to forget our past run-ins with monopolies and industry self-regulation.
Barry Goldwater is a libertarian.