Thanks for the recs, I’ll check them out! I’m not a fan of Sam Seder, but I’ll certainly check the others out.
there are some government functions that shouldn’t be in the hands of private companies because they’re too important
My view isn’t about importance, but whether something can reasonably be competed over. Monopolies should be state run IMO, but pretty much everything else should be privately run.
healthcare
This can actually be competed over, but some parts cannot.
I believe the government should provide emergency care (e.g. ambulances and ER), whereas private orgs can and should provide routine and longer term care. So if you get in a car accident, the government would cover everything until you’re stabilized enough to make decisions about longer term care yourself.
military
Agreed, though I’d like to restructure the military to prevent abuse by the commander in chief. I think private groups have a place here, but only with a formal declaration of war and to avoid the draft.
elections
Agreed. I think it’s just insane that we’re okay with private orgs making voting machines. I’m not saying there was any form of tampering with our elections so far with these machines, but election officials should have full control of the source code and hardware.
I honestly don’t like the idea of voting machines anyway, just process paper ballots with counting machines and random human audits so there’s at least a clear audit trail.
corruption in privately owned fields is just as if not more rampant than public
Eh, debatable, it’s usually a mix of both.
Companies will do whatever they think they can get away with, and that includes getting favors from politicians. The more you mix the public and private sectors, the more corruption you get, as a general rule of thumb. A corrupt company w/o assistance from the government will likely just fail to competition, whereas with assistance it can drive out competition and thrive.
libertarians voting republican in every election is a bit unconvincing of their objectivity to me.
Why would a libertarian vote Republican consistently?
I typically vote Libertarian, unless there’s a good reason to vote for a major party. I did just that in 2020 when I voted for Biden, and the last time I voted Republican for President was in 2008 when I voted for McCain (not libertarian, just he seemed reasonable). I didn’t vote in 2012 because I just moved to a new state and didn’t feel comfortable voting for local offices (and Romney flipping from a reasonable moderate to a conservative in the general didn’t inspire me to vote for him, and I didn’t know about the Libertarian Party).
My state ballots (I’m in a very red state) are usually about 25% R, 25% D, and 50% L. I’ll only support a major party candidate if they’re particularly well suited for the role, or if the other candidate is especially dangerous (e.g. Trump).
I used to consider myself Republican, but that’s when I thought Republicans actually cared about small government, but that hasn’t been true for a very long time, if ever. Democrats certainly don’t, so I can’t consistently vote for them either.
Thanks for the recs, I’ll check them out! I’m not a fan of Sam Seder, but I’ll certainly check the others out.
My view isn’t about importance, but whether something can reasonably be competed over. Monopolies should be state run IMO, but pretty much everything else should be privately run.
This can actually be competed over, but some parts cannot.
I believe the government should provide emergency care (e.g. ambulances and ER), whereas private orgs can and should provide routine and longer term care. So if you get in a car accident, the government would cover everything until you’re stabilized enough to make decisions about longer term care yourself.
Agreed, though I’d like to restructure the military to prevent abuse by the commander in chief. I think private groups have a place here, but only with a formal declaration of war and to avoid the draft.
Agreed. I think it’s just insane that we’re okay with private orgs making voting machines. I’m not saying there was any form of tampering with our elections so far with these machines, but election officials should have full control of the source code and hardware.
I honestly don’t like the idea of voting machines anyway, just process paper ballots with counting machines and random human audits so there’s at least a clear audit trail.
Eh, debatable, it’s usually a mix of both.
Companies will do whatever they think they can get away with, and that includes getting favors from politicians. The more you mix the public and private sectors, the more corruption you get, as a general rule of thumb. A corrupt company w/o assistance from the government will likely just fail to competition, whereas with assistance it can drive out competition and thrive.
Why would a libertarian vote Republican consistently?
I typically vote Libertarian, unless there’s a good reason to vote for a major party. I did just that in 2020 when I voted for Biden, and the last time I voted Republican for President was in 2008 when I voted for McCain (not libertarian, just he seemed reasonable). I didn’t vote in 2012 because I just moved to a new state and didn’t feel comfortable voting for local offices (and Romney flipping from a reasonable moderate to a conservative in the general didn’t inspire me to vote for him, and I didn’t know about the Libertarian Party).
My state ballots (I’m in a very red state) are usually about 25% R, 25% D, and 50% L. I’ll only support a major party candidate if they’re particularly well suited for the role, or if the other candidate is especially dangerous (e.g. Trump).
I used to consider myself Republican, but that’s when I thought Republicans actually cared about small government, but that hasn’t been true for a very long time, if ever. Democrats certainly don’t, so I can’t consistently vote for them either.