- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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Points of interest include (lower numbers are better):
- 22nd in terms of gun rights
- 50th in terms of recreational marijuana, but 17th for tobacco and 10th for alcohol.
- 42nd in asset forfeiture
- 50th in travel freedom
- 1st in terms of campaign finance freedom
I’m surprised they are only 22 for guns. spraying gunfire in the sky
- 15th in maternal mortality (lower number is worse on that one)
Now that the US doesn’t actually need Texas for anything, can we just let them secede and offer amnesty to reasonable people?
What happened that the US used to need Texas and doesn’t anymore?
President Grant in his memoirs mentions Texas only purpose was to bolster slave state numbers.
Only state to fight a war for slavery twice, and proud of both times.
Currently offering two Republican Senators and 25/13 Representatives in favor of Republicans, basically a Republican supermajority.
Headquarters of the Koch propaganda empire. World headquarters of climate denial propagandists in general.
Favored state of dumbasses who are both unhinged American exceptionalists and secessionists, somehow.
America would literally be better off with Texas, and a majority of the ruling party wants it to, sooooo
Bye Felisha.
Oil.
Then all the states north of Texas would need to build walls
“For some people who may not love freedom as much as I do, you might say, well, we’ll trade off other values, equality, equity, you know, preventing people from doing bad things to themselves even if they were free,” Ruger said. “Look, that’s fine. But the fact is, if you love freedom, you have to let people and individuals make the choices that they make for themselves, again as long as they’re not directly harming other people.”
Yep.
Unless it’s an abortion. They don’t mean that kind of freedom.
[off topic?]
A while back, someone posted a question, 'why do all Socialist countries fail?"
I pointed out that Canada seemed to be robust. He shot back a message that the Right Wing Heritage Foundation had deemed Canada freer than the United States.
I then asked why we couldn’t have Canadian style healthcare in the USA, since Canada wasn’t a Socialist country?
He never got back to me.
Just to be clear, Canada is definitely not a socialist country. If your tactic was just to bait him into the Healthcare pill that’s cool and all but misusing terms to make points tends to backfire in the end.
If you think about it, my correspondent was the one misusing terms. He could have said that Obama’s ACA was based on a plan GOP Mitt Romney introduced. He was so scared of the Socialist boogeyman that he couldn’t handle the idea that a capitalist country could have laws to help the citizens.
Too many think. We don’t do that.
Cato Institute
Remember, these are the people who think freedom is child prostitutes working for heroin.
What? Please elaborate.
This just screams, “I’m going to sprinkle some partially true information, then rely on you to make wild inferences.”
So, please, talk more. These types of claims typically will either… 1. teach me something I didn’t know, or 2. disintegrate immediately under scrutiny of explanation.
I’m open to either outcome.
Not OP, but the Cato Institute is an American Libertarian think-tank founded by one of the Koch brothers (and others). I’m NOT going to try to look up in OP’s specific claim, but they are mostly extreme anarcho-capitalists. Massively oversimplifying here, but they believe in objectively false things like “big government bad, big business good” and “society should BE the free market” and “Ayn Rand is a good author”
Some more extreme Libertarians believe you should be able to buy/sell literally everything, i.e. guns, drugs, children’s teeth, whatever you can think of.
Okay of three things you’ve listed. The only thing that’s illegal to sell in the United States is drugs. Which arguably should be legal. Most of the real crimes associated with drugs are related to the sale and distribution, not the use. So making it legal would reduce crime and allow users to seek help without stigma.
Personally, I’m less concerned about what they want to make legal than I am about what they want to be morally acceptable. Guns, legal to sell, morality is questionable (depends on the buyer and the purpose). Drugs, you’re right. Making them legal would help in some ways, yes. Morality? Again, it depends on a lot of things, but GENERALLY SPEAKING, they can/are often pushed on the most vulnerable members of society. Children’s teeth? Yeah, it’s legal in the U.S. Should it be? I would argue no. Honestly, I only put that in as a reference to Danger 5 (home of the “Agent Hitler, FBI” meme).
More to my point overall, rather than nitpicking the details, Libertarians mostly view the world almost entirely in terms of market value and individual selfishness. They often don’t care about morals or empathy or the welfare of their fellow human beings unless they can turn a profit by at least pretending they do. They are exactly the type of people who think that “the poor” are ONLY poor due to bad personal choices, even though we have scientific evidence that says otherwise
So I honestly don’t really disagree with you. I wonder who downvoted me, the pro baby teeth crowd?
Anyways, I tend to think of myself as libertarian. Though more of the defense of individual freedoms. Than this anything for a buck that the koch brothers promote. I honestly feel like that crowd has taken some of the core libertarian values and perverted them and I blame Ayn Rand. I have always felt that rules should be based on a standard of prevention harm to self or others and honestly I am willing to get a little loose on the harm to self. So for example I don’t think wearing seatbelts should be required under law. I do however think that car companies should be required to install them as standard. Not wearing one would be a harm to self thing were not installing them would be a harm to others. Oh and I think people should wear them, just as an personal choice were you understand the benefit.
The one thing that I do kinda disagree with you on is the regulation based on morals. Simply put who’s morals? All those people try to ban abortion under any circumstances. Are 100% doing it because they think it is morally right and they feel they are morally justice in enforcing their morals on others against their will. Even when it causes harm.
I just find morally based regulation trends to the removal of freedoms and the marginalization of those that do not fit into standard society. Don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware that a fully libertarian state is doomed to fail. It is a full on pipe dream, but so is a righteous one.
Oh and that poor deserved to be poor thing. That is based on the “Protestant work ethic” which started out as a morality judgement where “good” people were rewarded with success and “bad” people had to suffer. That has been so engrained in society that people don’t even know it is there anymore. It is something that I find fascinating.
I think we are getting mostly to the same point we have just suffered under different extremes.
Sorry, I saw this earlier but got busy so I didn’t reply. But yeah, I just wanted to say that even though we probably disagree on some things, I appreciate how civil this conversation has been. Cheers mate!
If you love it let it go,
If it never returns, it was probably never yours in the first place.
-Texas probably
“I say hurl. If you blow chunks and she comes back, she’s yours. If you spew and she bolts, then it was never meant to be.”
Wayne Campbell
“If Texas was an ice cream flavor, it’d be pralines and dick”
Garth Algar (paraphrased)
Freedom always suffers when the people with power dole out privileges and patronage to the ‘right people’ but deny rights and protections to everyone else. Happens every time
Our state government is the most corrupt in the country.
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