Question about libertarians & Republicans who want little to no

[skipos]

government involved in the welfare of Americans.

Do these people approve of the way Hoover handled the Great Depression (government not doing much), and disapprove of the way FDR handled it (government doing a lot)? If not, what is their view of such a situation? I am trying to understand the mentality a bit.

[silverweb]

1. Libertarians and Republicans renounce the Constitution.

Those who call for little or no government involved in the welfare of Americans renounce the who point of this nation and spit on its most sacred documents.

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Asking what part of that they don't get is pointless. They have already rejected its most basic premises.

[skipos]

3. Wow, I didn't know that line. nt

[Sadie4629]

4. That particular clause is subject to interpretation

Most of them would say that "general welfare" includes things like police protection, firemen, street cleaners, etc. I've never checked into it, but since welfare (as we know it) really didn't begin until FDR, I wonder what the founders thought it meant.

[silverweb]

11. That's *exactly* the discussion we need to have.

But most Libertarians and Republicans are actively promoting the privatization of everything.

I would say that the "general welfare" includes a guarantee of the basic necessities of life and human dignity -- equitable access to education, health, housing, and food -- a foundation that all people need in order to even function, let alone advance themselves.

Lots of people disagree with me, and I consider that a renunciation of the very premise of this nation.

[Sadie4629]

12. I don't know anyone who wants EVERYTHING privatized

Police? Fire? Military?

[silverweb]

15. There are some.

But that's not the real point. The point is the attitude and the trend.

Are we interested in real and equal opportunity for all -- secure access to the most basic needs of life and dignity -- or not?

Republicans are not. Libertarians are not.

And that's a repudiation of a basic premise of this nation.

[Sadie4629]

17. I disagree

I believe they want "real and equal opportunity for all," but they just disagree about how to get there. Democrats want to give everyone a free college education. The Repubs feel that an education is worth working for. That's true; it is worth it. Maybe people who work for their education value it more, and take it more seriously, than someone who doesn't.

They don't want to deny anyone healthcare, but feel that there is a better solution than single payer.

Look, I like the idea of the government leaving me alone, so maybe I fall on the Libertarian side of the spectrum. I also see the need for a "safety net."

I just hate to paint anyone with such a broad brush as to say, "They think thus and so."

[silverweb]

18. That's okay.

And that's why this discussion needs to take place. There are views at each extreme end of the spectrum and at all degrees in between.

The general idea is to find common ground, but hashing out definitions of terms has to come first, and delineating premises can be tough. :)

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. Welfare = well-being.

Promote the general welfare means to make sure the economy is running smoothly, try to see that no region is impoverished by largess to another, that taxation is equitably distributed. The concept of state welfare systems didn't exist, but the idea existed in the presence of innumerable private charities. "Welfare state" did not mean a state where eveyone is on welfare, but a state which is responsible for the welfare of its citizens, reciprocal to the citizens' duties to the state.

[txaslftist]

5. "promote" or "provide" the general welfare?

The idea that we need government in every aspect of our daily lives isn't "constitutional". It's tyranny.

The founders of the nation rebelled largely because of a proposed 10% tax applying only to some goods.

We live quite happily under a tax of nearly forty percent of what we earn.

"secure the blessings of liberty" is the part libertarians think is important. Liberty as in the right to be left alone. That means a smaller government that does less for us and does less TO us.

"Libertarians renounce the Constitution ..." is a statement so specious it doesn't even deserve a response.

[silverweb]

14. Subject to interpretation.

Guaranteeing the basics of human survival and dignity to all is hardly governmental tyranny -- and that's what I think defines promoting the general welfare. People without even a stable starting point have no hope of advancing themselves, no matter how much effort they make.

I know quite well where Libertarians place their emphasis and I agree with them in part; I'm quite the libertarian, myself, when it comes to individual freedoms.

However, the dog-eat-dog social Darwinism that Libertarians advocate is anti-human and promotes only vicious greed. That is directly against the "general welfare" -- and I do not consider it a specious statement in the least.

[The Inquisitive]

19. Agreed

To add a bit to what txasifist said A Libertarian in theory is a firm and strict believer of Classical Liberalism. They believe in a narrow set of natural rights and to them the ONLY legitmate fucntion of the government is to protect those rights. Classical liberals view those rights in the most literal sense, modern liberals more or less use the same framework but believe that it is much more difficult to differentiate between what should be of private or public concern because rarely do situations present themselves as black and white as Libertarians believe.

It's difficult to label libertarians correctly as most libertarians aren't even quite sure what the hell a libertarian even is, and don't fully comprehend the implied intellectual assertions they make by declaring themselves such. One man for example who is a father of a good friend of mine is a registered member is a registed member of the Libertarian party, one minute he'll rant and rave about how taxes are the equivalent of theft (if you're semi-educated a decent argument can be put forth, but not in his case) the next he'll claim that gays are the result of rampant feminism and that they need to be put in camps to be "fixed". This man is hardly libertarian, he is, to be blunt, batshit fucking crazy. You'll also run into your typical run of the middle upper class white male who claims to be a libertarian that has never really done an honest days work in their life. Typically all they've read is the Fountainhead or some other sort related tripe and will consider themselves experts in explaining the libertarian perspective. Try to divorce the person from the ideology as must of the time the person doesn't really get what their saying and if backed into a corner will make outragous claims, assertions, and suggestions that typically border in the range of fascism. Libertarianism, not Libertarians, I think is simply outdated, and is more or less incapable of providing the necessary order and structure for a world and nation as complex as ours.

[liberaldemocrat7]

21. Republicans and Libertarians usually weasel out and say general welfare does not

mean setting up WHELLLLLLLFARE Programs in their view.

They need something to justify their meanness.

[Hydra]

2. They don't understand that money only has value

when labor can back it up. "Money as Debt" is a good remedy. The Gov't should have every social program under the sun(college education free, for instance) and do it by printing it's own money rather than having the Fed do it.

More people working and succeeding = a true economy.

[yella_dawg]

6. Libertarians & Republicans

Like to pretend we live in 1850. They like to pretend that the twenty-first century doesn't require different solutions to different problems. They live a fantasy and throw tantrums whenever reality is exposed for a moment.

Asking rational questions about the wholly irrational ideas and behaviors yields confusing answers.

[Sadie4629]

7. There are reputable economists

who believe that FDR's actions actually prolonged the Great Depression. They think that the market would have recovered without massive government payouts.

I think that what FDR did was more about the country's morale than anything else. My dad worked for the WPA when he was 14. (Yes, he was technically too young, but he went with his dad.) He hated the whole concept of "welfare" but claimed that the WPA wasn't welfare because people had to work for the $$ they got.

[TahitiNut]

9. EVERYTHING is possible in WouldaShouldaCouldaLand!

:rofl:

[lvx35]

10. I've talked to a lot of people who were there, it seems an intervention was required.

I used to chat up the old ladies and men about this when I worked in a nursing home when I was younger. The major theme I heard was that a bunch of people with money panicked, and just sat on it. As this created the effect of people without money starving, they panicked even more, and started living even poorer themselves to survive the disaster and clutching to their money more tightly. Relief essentially came when people stopped panicking and started trusting each other enough to get the money flowing around again. None of these old farts where economists, but I think there is truth to this view. Of course I heard a great deal more about walking 13 miles everyday to pick fruit all summer just to buy a pair of shoes for the winter, etc.

[Sadie4629]

13. Weeeeeeell, did you know that Joe Kennedy

actually MADE a lot of money after the crash? There were a lot of bargains out there after the crash. Anyone who had money had the opportunity to make a lot more money, if they were smart and didn't panic.

[lvx35]

20. But very few people didn't panic.

In order to to make the money, you had to believe that things were going to pick up, and you had to believe that other people believed things were going to pick up, and it just didn't happen until government action was taken. I think of the market like an engine, when its running well don't screw with it, but sometimes it needs a little work.

Out of curiosity, are you a fiscally conservative Dem? I don't see many round these parts.

[lvx35]

8. Its a will to power thing. They see the government as capping their own power.

But usually, they don't really understand power, they don't understand that if you take government out of the picture, you get a power vacuum and corporate entities fill it and you get a Soviet style oligarcy, which is essentially what we have now with no-bid contractors in Iraq, more contractors than troops, etc. They also don't understand that the free market requires regulation to function, like a sports game requires refs, you get rid of the refs, and its no longer football, its just a bunch of people beating the crap out of each other, aka feudalism.

Of course some understand it, because this system actually benifits them...They are major players in the gambling, prostitution, and narcotic markets that really are being capped by the current system. But the smug ass young-white-male libertarian is none of these things.

[silverweb]

16. A related post.

Absolutely relevant: _here_

[guitar man]

22. yes and yes

Their kind of thinking caused the great depression and if another one came around, most of them still wouldn't see anything wrong with thinking that way. Unless they happened to be one of the ones who got caught on the wrong side of the poverty curve, then their thinking would probably change pretty fast.