Libertarians

[Drummond]

Um, nope, they paid them a clear wage, one that was agreed upon by the workers up to that point. Negotiating for higher pay is one thing, but what the Bakers union did was put a gun to Hostess's head and demand higher pay. At that point, it is no longer a negotiation between equal parties, it's a terrorist trying to extort someone for money. Per constitutional guidelines, that is just flat wrong.

Now, in this, I have no argument with you .. I agree with your assessment. 'It's a terrorist trying to extort someone for money' is an excellent way of putting it.

The thing that Libertarians bear in mind is that BOTH the individual employees, and the individual business owners, have the same rights. An employee's rights should never come up to the level of, "I can put you on your knees, and kill your livelihood", period. That's no point at which that is okay behavior.

Again, very good point.

As well, both Unions and Corporations are authoritarian groups, capable of influence, and thus also capable of abusing that influence. Both need to be reined in, or else people's rights are just flatly going to get trampled. They should be equal in power, but because Unions started out at the low level of power, in answer to abuses by the companies of the time, they continued to receive more power to be able to balance out against the companies they worked for. As is the case with most social pushes, that level of power was not reduced when the unions became powerful enough to stand against the corporations, and thus the power swung unfairly in favor of Unions.

That is neither fair, nor just. It does nothing to enhance liberty, and only ensures a form of back and forth tyranny.

A somewhat fair overall point, though perhaps more open to question. A Corporation may exist, in effect, as an authoritarian group ... but to be factored into this is the right of the Corporation to actually run its own affairs as it chooses !

Along comes a Union, formed out of individuals' stated wishes for, as they claim, 'fair pay', 'fair conditions', proper respect to be shown to each individual member. Now ... I do NOT agree that Corporations and Unions should meet as 'equals', because in that scenario, you detract from the right the Corporation has to run its affairs as it sees fit. Those Corporations didn't plan for, nor ask for, a bunch of Union types to come along and act as any sort of brake for any of the Corporation's aspirations or goals. But if those two groups meet as equals, the Corporation's right and freedom to determine its own direction, much less its destiny, is thrown into perhaps fundamental doubt.

I cannot believe that a Union can have the right to do that. HOWEVER ... the individuals within the Union involved will use strength in numbers to try and fight their plans, if those plans clash with their own. A group of individuals fighting an 'authoritative body' ... and for what ? A recognisable LEFT WING victory ?

A total lack of government is just anarchy, which is asinine. Anarchy will always lead to tyranny, just the way that one shakes down. The libertarian ideal is to always make sure we are handling things at the lowest level possible (Increased states rights vs federal rights), and to restrict government from exceeding its authority.

... which sounds actually laudible. However, this assumes that society's conditions are unchanging. This is rarely, if ever, true.

The unfortunate problem is there is always an excuse for increasing power to the government when it shouldn't be, whether it's "For the children" or "Otherwise, the terrorist's win" or any of the whole slew of other runs of it.

Excuse, or, REASON ? 9/11 really did happen, and a new and pernicious enemy came within everyone's radar. Conditions changed, as did imperatives. Al Qaeda committed what was essentially an act of war, this necessitating that the US adopt a war footing to meet that challenge, a challenge it hadn't asked for.

You can't expect peacetime conditions to persist in such circumstances. Government needed more powers, and took them. GW Bush did nothing more than meet a new situation in properly realistic terms ... AND IN DOING SO, SHOWED THE ADAPTATION WHICH HIS CONSERVATIVE INSTINCTS REQUIRED.

It is Left wingers who rail against the War on Terror, and 'loss' of liberties which a war footing can and will cause. As would LIBERTARIANS.

When tested, Libertarians take a LEFT WING mindset on board.

Do you know that UK Libertarians, as the Libertarian Party's recent election manifesto made clear (.. yes, UK Libertarian are so 'individualistic' that they formed their own political Party !), that they were totally opposed to seeing Britain ever come to the aid of the US again in such circumstances ? That's something that our hard Left Parties would applaud.

For instance, when Bush threatened to put us into war using the War Powers Act, that was a direct abuse of the authority given in that Act. The idea of the bill was to make it so that the Commander-in-Chief could respond quickly to an attack, so that we wouldn't be bogged down in Congress while the enemy went on the offensive. It wasn't put in so that the President could get around Congress.

The Patriot Act is another example of this, wherein politicians used fear to get people to go along with a bill that hugely tilted the government's power and authority.

Perhaps my ignorance of American politics is playing its part here ... but I'm struggling to see the problem. Bush did not 'put you into war', all he was doing was providing the necessary and appropriate response to a war already STARTED BY YOUR ENEMY.

In other words, Conservative realism took hold, just as it should. Bush defended your country. In the meantime, all the disgusting Left could do was carp.