The US is more libertarian than it's been in decades

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   kerrygposted 15 years ago

   "[T]he fact is that American society today is considerably more libertarian than it was a generation or two ago. Compare conditions now to how they were at the outset of the 1960s. Official governmental discrimination against blacks no longer exists. Censorship has beaten a wholesale retreat. The rights of the accused enjoy much better protection. Abortion, birth control, interracial marriage, and gay sex are legal. Divorce laws have been liberalized and rape laws strengthened. Pervasive price and entry controls in the transportation, energy, communications, and financial sectors are gone. Top income tax rates have been slashed. The pretensions of macroeconomic fine-tuning have been abandoned. Barriers to international trade are much lower. Unionization of the private sector work force has collapsed. Of course there are obvious counterexamples, but on the whole it seems clear that cultural expression, personal lifestyle choices, entrepreneurship, and the play of market forces all now enjoy much wider freedom of maneuver.
   
   Has there ever been a golden age of liberty? No, and there never will be. There will always be people who want to live their lives in peace, and there will always be people who want to exploit them or impose their own ideas on others. If we look at the long term—from a past that includes despotism, feudalism, absolutism, fascism, and communism—we’re clearly better off. When we look at our own country's history—contrasting 2010 with 1776 or 1910 or 1950 or whatever—the story is less clear. We suffer under a lot of regulations and restrictions that our ancestors didn’t face.
   
   But in 1776 black Americans were held in chattel slavery, and married women had no legal existence except as agents of their husbands. In 1910 and even 1950, blacks still suffered under the legal bonds of Jim Crow—and we all faced confiscatory tax rates throughout the postwar period."
   
   Full article: http://reason.com/archives/2010/04/06/u … singlepage

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   LegendaryHeroposted 15 years ago

   This is good. I like libertarianism, it allows more freedom both economically and socially.

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   Ghost32posted 15 years ago

   Okay...no.  Sorry.  I don't get it.
   
   At libertarianism.com, they use the following definition of the term:
   
   lib·er·tar·i·an:  One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state.
   
   -- American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
   
   Right now we have a President who is Hell bent on maximizing the role of the state and minimizing individual rights (such as, for example--but far from limited to--the right to choose whether or not to purchase health insurance). 
   
   So...how, EXACTLY, are we more libertarian?

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      LegendaryHeroposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      That's Obama though, not the American people.

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