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Comment by _tpzm | Hacker News Reader

> He is a libertarian

I just find this impossible to reconcile with his support for Trump, the most authoritarian presidential candidate in a very long time and possibly ever.

I think many of his supporters would actually agree with that description, they like that about him, and they absolutely do not describe themselves as libertarian.

They describe themselves as "conservatives" who want a "strong" president to "take their country back". They talk about "getting tough".

I've lived in America my whole life, but I was born in Austria, and German is my first language. It pains me to see a fellow German-speaking immigrant support a right-wing populist who appeals pretty explicitly to white identity politics. We of all people should know better.

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>"I've lived in America my whole life, but I was born in Austria, and German is my first language. It pains me to see a fellow German-speaking immigrant support a right-wing populist who appeals pretty explicitly to white identity politics. We of all people should know better."

As opposed to black identity politics? Or female identity politics? Would you feel better if the context was a place like South Africa where the white minority is actively being persecuted/discriminated against? Would that make white identity politics okay in your book?

>"I just find this impossible to reconcile with his support for Trump, the most authoritarian presidential candidate in a very long time and possibly ever."

I'm not an American, but I'm a libertarian and I definitely support Donald Trump. He represents an active regression back to a mean, rather than further towards the socialist-left. That is why I think it'll be better for him to be president, rather than someone like Hillary or Obama, or even Gary Johnson.

I'm, too, not an American but a libertarian. And I don't support either candidate.

Tbh. I find it horribly sad how much time and energy people invest in this election where the both possible outcomes are equally bad.

"Voting for the lesser evil" is still voting for evil. So why not take all that time wasted on internet arguments about which evil is the lesser one and do something fun instead?

You saying they're the same doesn't make them the same, you're aware of that right?

You saying they're not the same doesn't make them not the same, you're aware of that right?

As you see that's a non-argument.

Actually me saying they're not the same would be a statement of fact.

As an American, forgive me for actually caring about my countries politics.

You can care about your countries politics and not support either primary candidate, or the political structures they represent.

Supporting the lesser of evils is still supporting evil and going along with it as the new status quo just prolongs and reinforces your problem IMO, because it makes them legitimate. The fact there is so much hostility against the idea of rejecting both parties is a big reason why the standards have reached such a low point, where Trump/Clinton are the best available options and people are just okay with that.

People prefer to rabidly support the red/blue teams blindly while the majority of the western world has far more healthier functioning multi-party political systems and more advanced electoral systems.

Even though polling shows the average person doesn't like nor trust either candidates it's rare to find news articles in US papers about the poor state of politics and the need for reform (not just deciding to attack one side or the other). Maybe Trump has been too much of a distraction away from the higher level downward-spiral America politics faces.

Unless there is some resistance and holding everyone to higher standards, it's just going to continue like this. America has swung to the other side of the pendelum from their political ideology of the 1750-early 1900s where the status quo governance systems was constantly questioned to now having a culture of doubling down with lost causes, fighting a war of attrition from the trenches while both sides lose. I'd rather not be wasting my life in the trenches TYVM.

>You can care about your countries politics and not support either primary candidate, or the political structures they represent.

Did I say or even imply you couldn't? No, I didnt. I was simply disagreeing that these candidates are the same.

I'll be voting for my interpretation of the "lesser evil" unapologetically.

I'm not 'wasting my life in the trenches', I'm an American citizen with an opinion. I respect your decision to vote third party or not at all, but please stop trying to shame me for "being evil" and voting how I see fit.

TYVM

and not voting is also "voting for evil", since a non-vote is effectively a vote for the front-runner. :-)

thiels philosophy is actually deeply technocratic authoritarian. in a lot of ways he is a technocrat and not a true libertarian. hes said on multiple occasions that politics has failed libertarians and that they should try 'alternatives.'

Yeah he seems more of a Mencius moldbug dark-enlightenment type.

I tried looking up libertarian on Wikipedia and there are so many definitions I'm not sure what people mean when they say the word, libertarian. What I thought the word meant years ago was no government, turns out that is called anarchism. When people tell me that they are libertarian I always wonder what the hell that means or if they even know.

IMO it means you believe in a right freedom so long as you dont infringe on someone elses rights.

So, in theory you would be against forcing someone to pay taxes to build roads or provide education, but would arguably be for paying for a police department and justice system to protect people from having others infringe on their rights.

It basically means the only function of government should be to protect our freedoms and anything outside that purview should be done by the private sector and let the markets decide what has real value and is worth investing in.

I haven't looked into this myself, but your definition of "libertarian" fits exactly with my concept of an ideal government: one that's sole purpose is to protect the freedoms and dignities of all those within its jurisdiction, and within that framework, allowing everything else to be more or less self-determined, so long as the freedoms and dignity of all those within it are not harmed.

In my simple way of understanding this, then, is that libertarians are un-developed democrats. They think Democrats are "wrong" because of what they are, but when you extend this line of thought for many, many many years, you find yourself a democrat. Democrats can be easily criticized for overthinking bathroom rights, but doesn't that argument boil down to freedoms of the oppressed transgendered person? Freedom for the many oppressing the freedoms of the few.

Too many climate laws, too many laws protecting groundwater? How would this Libertarian definition fit those? The freedoms of the individuals in the town that has a giant polluting factory. Now that town needs laws to make the factory safer.

How about gun laws? Libertarians might suggest more "freedoms" with respect to gun availability,... many years later, revealing that more guns available actually means more deaths => freedom lost for the dead? Now they're a democrat too...

How's this definition different than democrat?

I'm just asking, because reading this mini-thread I'm lost here.

All those things you mention violate the Non-Aggression Principle, and are thus incredibly non-libertarian.

Libertarianism make few exceptions to that principle in order to allow for such things as limited government policing, courts and defence.

Bathroom laws require forcing companies to pay for additional bathrooms, and by extension, pay for the policing required to prevent gender-mixing in the non-approved bathrooms.

Environmental regulations force companies to pay for expensive pollution-limiting equipment. Pollution is already handled by libertarianism as pollution means either damage to people's health, or damage to people's property. Both of which are violations of the non-aggression principle. No environmental "regulations" necessary as the repercussions far outweigh the benefits of pollution.

Gun-laws means imprisoning people for owning a piece of property. Same thing with drug-prohibition.

If you force people to do something with the threat of losing money/property/freedom then your policy is not even remotely libertarian. If you are genuinely curious, I suggest you not rely on this mini-thread to define libertarian-concepts to you. Rather research it.

> Bathroom laws require forcing companies to pay for additional bathrooms

Not usually.

> Environmental regulations force companies to pay for expensive pollution-limiting equipment. Pollution is already handled by libertarianism as pollution means either damage to people's health, or damage to people's property. Both of which are violations of the non-aggression principle. No environmental "regulations" necessary as the repercussions far outweigh the benefits of pollution.

I'm having some trouble parsing what you mean. Are you saying the government should stop pollution because it causes damage to people/property, but they shouldn't call it 'regulation'?

How do the people with the pollution-damaged health or property then get justice or cause those "repercussions"? Is libertarianism then ultimately grounded upon tort law? Is the idea to have a corps of free or low-cost lawyers constantly ready to sue polluters to cease and desist and pay restitution to the harmed?

I am totally lost on your pollution point. Can you elaborate ?What repercussions are there for the polluter?

Libertarianism is actually quite an open definition. E.g. I find it easier to describe myself as one, even though I'm technically an anarcho-capitalist.

It's the same if you try look up concepts such as Marxism, Democracy, Mercantilism, Capitalism, Left vs Right, etc. At the end of the day, you need to find someone that can distill the concepts for you to something more easily digestible.

Personally for me, there really is only one consideration to clarify the position. Does the person support the Non-Aggression Principle universally? If yes, then they're an anarcho-capitalist, if "almost-completely" or something like that, then they're fence-sitting near the libertarian position. And if they say no, then they're definitely a Statist (Whether that is democracy, marxism, socialism, or monarchy, doesn't matter).

As a libertarian he believes in survival of the fittest, so a lot of his strategy involves "fuck shit up" and see what survives. Or just letting things sort themselves out.

I wonder what a world full of people who proactively "fuck shit up" would look like.

Antifragile.

I believe we're thinking about this at different orders of magnitude.

My initial reaction was that it would very likely lead to a nuclear holocaust.

And the surviving organisms would be ... Antifragile!

Babies need to survive the pits before being part of society. Only the fittest survive in ruthless competition we impose. Let god sort them out.

We can argue whether Trump is an authoritarian or not, but what we can't argue about is that Clinton openly stated during the election she wants to take away your right to bare arms. Democrats can call it "common sense" whatever, but that's what it is.

I guess I'm committed to wearing long sleeves now.

Though seriously, I don't think anyone can argue that Trump doesn't fall squarely in the "Authoritarian" camp. Also, the parent doesn't even mention that Trump is "Authoritarian?" Only that he "appeals to white identity politics?"

> Clinton openly stated during the election she wants to take away your right to bare arms

I'm pretty sure going sleeveless will still be legal in a Clinton presidency.

Spelling aside, it's still incorrect. Nobody is proposing a repeal of the 2nd Amendment. Basic gun control-- for example, requiring a criminal background check with no gun show loophole-- is not the same thing as taking away your right to own a gun.

There's no such thing as the "gun show loophole". It's a myth. There already are background checks. I can tell you've never even tried to own a gun.

I know they say there's online loopholes too. Last time I checked the law was they had to ship the gun to a local licensed firearms dealer, who then does a background check and hands over the gun for a reasonable fee.

This. It's admittedly pretty simple if you want to go buy a firearm in a reasonable state, like Maine or New Hampshire. You go to the gun dealer/sporting goods store/Walmart. You pick out what you want. They submit your information to the background checking system. You go get lunch and come back an hour later. Assuming you're a law-abiding citizen, you pay the cashier and walk out the store with your new firearm.

Now, what you can also do legally in most states is purchase a firearm from another private individual through a private sale. An enormous number of second-hand gun sales occur in this fashion, through Craigslist or classified ads or personal acquaintances. Effectively, this is no different than if you were buying and selling lawnmowers or comic books, or any other mundane object. I am skeptical of any attempts to really regulate this activity, because it is effectively unenforceable given the number of firearms currently in circulation and the almost complete lack of any records of ownership history for most of them.

That's why universal background checks are considered by many to be the first step down the road to a gun registry.

This is a semantic argument. I agree that the terminology is misleading. However, I think we should always follow the words "there is no gun show loophole" with the words "private citizens can sell guns without background checks no matter where they are," and perhaps "let's call it the private sale loophole."

There is a "gun kit" loophole, according to this article: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/ak-47-semi-autom...

Washington D.C. tried to ban handguns in some public places. The supreme court said they couldn't do that. Clinton wants states and cities to be able to enact their own bans, and she will be replacing at least one seat on the supreme court. So a lot of people might be losing their guns under a Clinton presidency.

How is anyone losing guns? Who is she taking away guns from by placing more restrictions on private sales? Does it really sound like a bad idea having less guns in Washington D.C. when their violent crime rate is over triple the national average[1]?

[1]: https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/dc/washington/crime/

I don't think her only gun policy is going to be restrictions on private sales. I think she's going to push for a reinterpretation of the constitution which would allow banning carrying guns in more places.

Have you seen the O'Keefe video where Russ Feingold, a Democratic challenger for U.S. Senate, tells a Palo Alto, California, fundraiser that Hillary Clinton might use an executive order to enforce gun control.

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/10/13/feingold-okee...

Breitbart as a source?

Does it matter? The claim behind the article appears to be a hidden-camera video. Maybe you should discredit that thing, rather than dismiss the article because its a conservative-leaning organization.

fuck this shit again

It's a video, Briebart is just the messenger. When CNN is Hillary's 7th largest contributor, Reuters giver her $MMs, Google give her $MMs, Fox give her $MMs what's left ?

You mean what's left that supports your views?

No. When CNN tells you reading things is illegal and you should only listen to their opinion, a line has been crossed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X16_KzX1vE

It's kind of a silly thing to disclose and people should find truth but the blatant propaganda at breitbart isn't where you'll find it.

This guy is not the solution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSE-XoVKaXg

I'm done. you're blind.

I hope this spreads wide and far. This is unbelievable.

Only one presidential candidate has said that they want the police to stop people on the street without cause and confiscate their guns. And it's not Clinton.

I can't understand why Trump gets any support from gun rights people. He advocates for exactly what they fear.

> We of all people should know better.

Not if Austria's 2016 presidential elections are anything to go by.

I'm in Austria, it was a disgrace. All of media was attacking the right wing guy with no dissenting voices, and you have to be afraid of personal and professional consequences if you endorse him or say anything against the Socialist candidate they are trying to push.

It's literally like in the Soviet Union, at least that's what my parents told me as they came from a Communist country.

The media can't be very good at propaganda if they were 'all attacking the right wing guy' and he _still_ managed to poll almost 50% of the vote.

It's a feedback loop of adverse selection. They become more politically slanted, fewer people listen to them, their revenues plummet, their recruitment pool gets shallower, they become more politically slanted... At a certain point only true propaganda believers willing to work for ~minimum wage remain. Now, they're also getting hammered by social media hastening the process.

The same thing happened to communists. After 50 years only idiots and sociopathic opportunists (since they still had the spoils of power) could be found in the party.

Just like the US this year. This is not an exaggeration. Many people would have professional and personal consequences for supporting Trump in public. People like Peter Thiel and Scott Adams have enough money to not care. Scott isn't even endorsing him and he says that his speaking engagements have dried up.

We may see a big difference between the polling and the election results this year. The Shy Tory Effect came to America.

Scott Adams has been obviously supporting him since last August, his claims of endorsing other candidates have been very clearly not genuine.

Yeah, I had pretty major family problems for saying that I thought he was a lot of hot air and not actually that dangerous--with a disclaimer that I would never vote for him. Although my perspective on him has changed, it seems to me that the American left has turned into the authoritarian controlling power they so often claim to fight against.

>Although my perspective on him has changed, it seems to me that the American left has turned into the authoritarian controlling power they so often claim to fight against.

Only if you consider Clinton to be leftist, which really doesn't make much sense.

https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016

American left != Clinton.

I quite realize, but I don't see much authoritarian tendency in the parts leftward of Clinton. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders just aren't that authoritarian, let alone the Green Party.

I was talking about the people adhering to the left--the social movement--more than the politicians themselves. The example I used was my own family, who are not politicians.

In your view, individual people exercising their personal social power is authoritatian?

>authoritatian?[sic]

Yep, that's what xe said.

Scott Adams in his own words: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/150919416661/why-i-switched-my-...

Is he kidding? I can't tell if I'm reading satire there, but I don't follow his blog.

Edit: I'm flipping through his blog and the extent to which politics, for him, is about the meta stuff is honestly kind of surreal

He has said himself -- he says whatever pops into his head, and he's "clearly joking" about anything that is offensive or ridiculous.

Saying whatever pops into his head is hardly unique among bloggers.

The thing that appears to set him apart is a complete indifference to the issues, in favor of a focus on his pet topic, the art of persuasion. He dismisses the correct answers to policy questions that come up as unknowable (wow). Except, amusingly, the question of what his own estate taxes ought to be. He somehow managed to cobble together an opinion on that.

> he's "clearly joking" about anything that is offensive or ridiculous.

We should all go through life with such a disclaimer in place.

I hate to respond to myself, but it is interesting how you can get down-voted simply for providing a reference to man's own words.

When I've posted criticism of Hillary on Facebook, I've gotten savaged in the comments by my liberal friends. It's a sobering and depressing experience and I'm sad to realize that my respect for most of them has declined, as no doubt theirs has for me. Periodically I will post a defense of freedom of speech, and I'll remind people that I'm willing to fight and die for their right to disagree with me, with which they tend to agree. But they also believe that anyone who doesn't toe the party line is practically an enemy of the state.

You posted something your friends disagreed with, they posted something you disagreed with in response. That's what freedom of speech is about, unless they're posting about how you should be jailed for criticizing Hillary.

Freedom of speech isn't freedom from people changing their opinion about you based on what you say.

Unfortunately, in the modern Alt-right view, "freedom of speech" means "freedom of everyone agreeing with me and not talking back"

Even here. Downvoted for this simple observation. What have we become?

"this simple observation" is indicative of the bubble you're in. There are plenty of places where the reciprocal is true. Politics in the workplace and among friends has always had ramifications. Unfortunately with both candidates being so polarizing, it's worse than usual.

Your comment reads slightly like you have a persecution complex.

You're making a lot of assumptions. I'm a Hillary supporter and because I am, I'm in a bubble of them and I see a lot condemnation and shunning of Trump supporters - more than I see of Hillary supporters.

The fact that you assume that I am the one who feels persecuted says a lot.

Hint: the faulty assumptions we make of others strengthen our bubbles.

If Scott isn't even endorsing Trump in public, why is he half of your examples of people who are facing consequences for it?

I suspect it has a lot more to do with people paying more attention to his shit-slinging blog. Just on Thursday he declared that he's relieved that "Everything that goes wrong with the country from this point forward is women’s fault." How many people are going to pay to hear that?

You can't even present facts in a way that feels to liberals like defending Trump without facing social consequences (this is what Adams is guilty of.) I had several problems with friends explaining positions taken by both candidates during the debates and discussing the legality of what's known publicly about Trump's tax returns. Discussion of any of those topics will agglomerate the liberal view of Trump as racist, sexist, xenophobic, and stupid, and project them onto you.

Personally I think both candidates are awful, but suggesting that Trump might be right about something or Clinton might be wrong is social suicide on Facebook (for example) and I wouldn't dare discuss it at work.

Adams faces social consequences because of his bizarre and paranoid rantings, such as that Hillary supporters will literally assassinate him if he supports Trump [1].

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/145456082991/my-endorsement-for...

He said in an BBC interview that the FBI contacted him that some of the death threats he received were credible.

Maybe it's true, maybe not. But I can see how in the current situation it can be dangerous to you to endorse Trump. There's just too much hatred, especially after Trump is constantly compared to Hitler. (which can give people a justification to kill him or his supporters)

Meanwhile, Adams doesn't believe that women on Twitter don't get threatened with rape and violence, and Trump motivates his supporters to coordinate and commit terror attacks on Muslim-looking Americans, e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/15/us/hate-crime-charges-in-a...

I don't know about this Adams statement (please add a link, I'd read it) but Trump "motivating" his supporters to "coordinate and commit terror attacks on Muslim-looking people"?

I get it that you dislike Trump (fine by me) but how on earth did you convince yourself to believe something like that. (I have no doubt you do, you could probably pass a lie detector test without a problem repeating this statement)

http://bridge.georgetown.edu/when-islamophobia-turns-violent...

http://usuncut.com/news/there-have-been-23-hate-crimes-again...

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/10/us/brooklyn-muslim-women-attac...

In sorry, I can't let such obvious bullshit pass unchallenged.

There are many thousands of people who are being richly rewarded for supporting Trump, including members of the media like Matt Drudge, Sean Hannity, Corey Lewandowski, Bill O'Reilly, the entire staff of Breitbart, the entire "alt right" media ecosystem, etc.

In addition there are many thousands more who benefit financially from the pervasive coverage of Trump, like Jeff Zucker and other media executives.

Trump is polling above 40% nationally; he is not some secret oppressed political minority. He has received more benefit from media coverage than any other candidate.

However he is almost certainly going to lose, and that is because it is obvious that he would be a terrible president.

He does not explicitly appeal to or endorse white identity politics. Where's the proof for your outrageous statement?

And what exactly is wrong with wanting to "take back your country"? He's talking about enforcing existing laws like having borders.

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