Libertarians are whiners! (One person's opinion)
58What happened to common sense?
I've been reading some interesting stuff lately... Larry Elder's "The Ten Things You Can't Say In America".
While this isn't a book revivew (I haven't finished the book yet...) I've made some interesting observations myself... mainly that a lot of people complain about a lot of things.... LIke taxes, political correctness. personal responsiblilty... but not a lot is done about these issues.
How can we do anything about taxes? Easy! Take some personal responsibllity and contact your elected officials and make them accountable for the money they spend!
I'm taking two tracks here... and I'll get back to the reponsibility thing in a minute or two....
Anyhow, I'm amazed at the attitude of most Libertarians, and I've met a few! They benefit in some way from all the tax dollars spent on public education by going to public school, and if they weint to public schooll before 1978 in California, they had access to a free public education from Kindergarten to college! That's right... totally free..They may have had to pay for graduate school, but the state constitiution for California insures that all citizens of the state have access to education from elementary school to college! Now, those benefitting fromm such legislation want to curtail it! "It's too expensive! Takes too many of my tax dollars!" Well, (I'm back to track one...) contact your elected officials and demand they account for how the money was spent! Parents, get invovled in your children's education, go to the school board meetings and demand accountability from those officials! Get involved with the teachers and make education a priority!
Employers are not off the hook here. I've noticed that while everybody says they want happy employees, not everybody takes the steps to make their emplyees happy . Because... employees have lives beyond the doors of the business. And employers should help employees take the time to go to PTA meetings, school board meetings, parent-teacher conferences, football games, et cetera to support their children and impress upon them the importance of that education paid for by their tax dollars.
And don't get me started on FMLA. The Family Medical Leave Act took forever to get passed and is a nightmare not only for the employer, but the employee as well! As stated earlier, an employee's life goes on before and after they punch the time clock. Kids get sick, parents get sick, they all need care. it had been for centuries the primary responsibility for families to take care of each other and themselves. How, do these Libertarians suppose, that hard working single parents (or even hard working two parent families)with kids or family members with serious disorders take care of their families? By osmosis? Transcendental meditation? Cloning, maybe?
It is so important to take the time to get to know who your elected officials are, and te take the time let them know you're paying attention to them! Because when you do, you can see if they're listening to you or not, and respond apropriately at the polls!
Personal Responsibllity Is a concept lost on a lot of people. Personal responsibility means to:live a disciplined lifestyle and to teach your children to do the same. Work hard, be fair, take time to care for others, respect yoruself and others. Our society is suffering from an epidemic of selfish, undisciplined behaviour. It's selfish and undisciplined to have a mindset fouced soley on getting what I want when iI want it, and I want it right now. This mindset encourages poor econimic choices. Who wants to think long term and save when you can go into debt for some bling?
While it is true that a number of people that are on welfare have not exhibited any personal responsibility, they weren't taught any at home. I've met a number of folk that used public assistance for its' intended purppse as a hand up, and not a hand out, and they had some tough sledding! The "system" does not allow for personal responsibility! Why be encouraged to save when you are told, "Take this money and spend it all! Do not learn now to save, do not learn now to prioritize, and if you do make some money to enhance what you get, I want my money back! For every dollar you make, I want my dollar back" Excuse me... that's not helping! Yes, the reforms were needed,but... in trying to eliminate the dead wood, living branches were damaged....
While it's not up to the goverment to teach personal responsibility, the government certanily should not be in the business of discouraging it either!
Values should be taught at home. And a lack of personal responsibility isn't just the hallmark of the lower class. Just look at the recent scandals the public has endured as news surrounding the very rich and aimless-people with last names like HIlton, Richie, Smith. who had more money than moral grounding.
(I agree with one aspect of Libertarian thinking... momey is not the answer to all problems.) However, I do not believe, as most Libertarians do, that since the current financial plumbing is broken, so to speak, that you plug it completely and deny all access to the "water". Because it's only gonna leak if if you don't fix it! So, fix the leaks! take out old pipes and put in newr more water conserving ones! That's our responsibility as taxpayers! It's really silly to give someone your money and not ask where and how it was spent!
Poliitical Correctiness gets on my last nerve! I don't know where it came from, and I wish I knew how to get rid of it! Political correctness can and will ignore the facts because they don't sound very nice!I
Facts like, whether we like it or not, there are still some very racist ideas floating around. Facts like we've all heard lies and cliche's about other cultures that may have a tiny bit of truth in them! Not all folk from the Middle East are terrorists,but, a number have come frome there. Not all people of color have gang affiliations, but, a number of people of color have joined gangs and participated in gang activity.
Political correctness likes to cover up the truth. This can be dangerous, amd can lead to a society like the one in the old fable about the emperor who was swindled out of a heap of money and left parading the streets naked! Political correctness would have agreed with the naked emperor rather than point out the obvous truth, the man was naked, and had been made a fool of!
Is there a lot wrong with our government? Yes, but as my old friend Pogo said in the funny papers years ago..."We have met the enemy, and he is ...US!"
PrintShare it! — Rate it: up down flag this hub
Sterling Sage says:
18 months ago
Good article. I have some of the same complaints as you. Libertarian philosophy, as I understand it, calls for the minimal amount of government necessary to protect the rights of citizens, and to fulfill tasks that can't be accomplished by the private sector. For example, I think most of them are fine with the government planning infrastructure, or controlling our borders.
I think the problem is just that if you cut funding for, say, HIV education, more people are sick, and go on to infect others. Sooner or later a health care worker somewhere pokes themselves on a needle sticking out the side of a garbage bag (no government-regulated special biohazard trash containers), and gets HIV.
The questions is, "what should be included in an individual's rights?" Does the employee have the right to safe disposal of used syringes? Personally, I would include safety precautions like that in my list of an individual's rights. Another would be the right to live without someone else deciding they don't like my skin color, and trying to keep me out of the "good neighborhoods." Some people would go further than me, wanting every psychoactive substance out of everyone's reach. Then I'd have to say, hey, that's too intrusive. Everyone wants something from their society, we just all have our own set of "rights" that we believe should be protected.
So, what we have is a continuum of enthusiasm for each issue. It is precisely the job of government to make the hard decisions of what to spend money on, and how much. If those choices are made well, then taxes to support all of the programs are fair. Those who complain about "big government" usually want their own priorities addressed, and the remaining money saved. Conservatives, in particular, have a tendency to be big spenders on their own issues (eg. military programs), while parading their ideology of "small government." It seems hypocritical to me.
Liberals certainly do the same sort of thing, but they haven't (yet) managed to label the conservatives as the "tax-and-spend" people.
Libertarians aren't really an exception, they just aren't willing to spend any money on whatever they believe isn't essential. Spend money to have streets paved and bridges painted, but don't spend any more just to make sure the contractors don't screw it up. Spend money to monitor the weather by satellite, but don't waste money researching climate change, let alone trying to prevent it!
Compromise is just a fact of life. If they want government to fund programs based on the very end of some philosophical spectrum, they have to be willing to sacrifice funding for whatever it is that they think needs attention. Taken to its logical extreme, as libertarians often do, this minimal-government requirement would fail to accomplish anyone's goals, and everyone would suddenly want "big government, now!" Perfect efficiency isn't possible, so we just have to spend an amount that seems to represent the best set of compromises. Some waste is a fact of government, just as the conservation of energy and matter is a law of physics.
Sorry!