@bo

"I would like to see some examples of this property seizure you speak of"

Civil asset forfeiture. It's real, and it's terrible.

Yes, I agree that the environment is an important issue, but overall infringement of personal freedom is the biggest problem, if it was to be whittled down to one (which is a hard task). The thing is that neither the Republicans or Democrats seem willing to address any of them. Some of them on either side look at some of them, but overall, it's true.

And yes, I agree that we're fighting roughly the same enemy, but we go about it in different ways. I'm the crazy minarchist, you're more mainstream and reasonable. (That's not sarcastic. I recognize that I'm the crazy one, but to me that doesn't mean I'm wrong.)

Yep, unfortunately Ron Paul's too old now and Justin Amash is too young. Rand's too conservative. That just leaves the Libertarian Party for my ilk. Even though it only gets about 1% of the vote, it's much better than voting for Jeb or Hillary. Just more of the same, and I don't think it will change, which is bad for everyone but the establishment.

@krellin

First of all, it's different because this is private, not public. Mods are different than the government. I'm okay with it if they're actually doing ban-worthy things. But just being annoying, or a contrarian, or a jerk isn't worthy of a ban (repeated suicide encouragement might be, though).

In the outside world, I'm all for whatever free speech there is. I hate the idea of political correctness, and I also hate the idea of deeming things "hate speech." Free speech is free speech. The way I see it, you should be able to do or say anything you want, as long as it's not acts of violence, theft, fraud, or similar objective crimes.

As Thomas Jefferson said, if "it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg," it's alright.

I'm not gonna argue with you on the environment, but I will some other time. It is the most important issue in American and global politics today. Just give me this one and act like you believe me even if you don't. It'll all make sense once you take a single look at California, Alaska, or even Tuvalu, which is literally going to go under due to climate change. If the cause of an entire country disappearing doesn't make the top of the list, your priorities are screwed up. The United States is a self-declared global leader and its politics should reflect that, so ignoring global issues is simply hypocritical.

I don't think you're crazy. I find you a lot more reasonable than a number of characters on this site and a number of conservative (and/or pseudo-conservative) people I have run into in the past. I think you bring up good points but you need to work with more practical solutions. Super-libertarianism is not practical, especially as the younger generation shifts more to the left than any generation has since the Civil Rights Era.

Unless Bernie somehow wins the primary, I'll be voting third party with you, so if that makes me crazy too, let's be crazy together.

Whenever you hear someone talk about political correctness, you should replace it in your mind with "basic human empathy". It gets to the point much quicker.

@bo

Yep, if not backing the tyrannical, inefficient establishment is crazy, I hope there's lots of crazy people in this country.

Yes, I think that more practical, multi-partisan solutions are better. I really wish we had a PR system of some type so that to get a law passed, you need more than one ideology to think it's a good idea. The only reason why 1 party can make laws on their own, and people like me and you don't have a say, is because of the FPTP system.

Oftentimes it is a *good* thing that inefficiencies slow down the pace of change. Humans need time to adapt to things they don't understand.

@Jeff

I actually agree with that, but when the inefficiencies make it cost more, and make it harder to do things that obviously need to be done, that's a bad thing.

@mendax

Sometimes, but other times it borders on censorship of free speech. When there's a terrorist attack and some people put blame on a group that drew cartoons, there's a fundamental problem with our views on free speech.

@bo

An interesting thing about libertarians is that while we're smaller than other ideologies, no one really puts us as the #1 enemy. Those on the left prefer us to those on the right, and vice-versa. I guess moderates are also like that, but that's more a squishy thing in between other ideologies than an ideology itself.

I wish we had a more open voting system. I wish we had more representatives from more places, particularly from cities, and I wish we had more representation from rural areas as well. There are a number of places where few people live in comparison to other areas but where things of importance still occur and they deserve fair representation. Imagine how much land would be saved from federal misuse if rural people had a voice among rural politics and urban people had a voice among city politics. Leave irrelevant opinions out of matters that don't pertain to them. Is that crazy?

"An interesting thing about libertarians is that while we're smaller than other ideologies, no one really puts us as the #1 enemy."

Is that an accomplishment? That means you have no friends either. That's why your ideology is struggling to gain traction. Someone needs to hate you for others to like you.

Libertarians do a fine job of marginalizing themselves with ideology and ignoring messy reality.

@Jeff

As of now, ideology is about all we have. I'd love to see a libertarian philosophy tested in the government, so that we can shape our ideology to the reality better.

@bo

Yep, voting reform is important. If we get that, and get more views in the government, that would make fixing problems a lot easier. But it's hard to get a government elected in a voting system to change that very voting system.

"Is that an accomplishment?"

No, but it makes it a little bit easier to discuss things, because we have more common ground with either main side than they do with each other. Of the three general groups of ideologies (left, right, libertarian), we're everyone's second favorite.

I'd rather be the hated majority, but being the tolerated minority isn't that bad. It's better than being the hated minority (e.g. neo-nazis).

But that's the thing about ideology: It is intended to shape reality, not the other way around.

Of course, but it's hard to shape reality when the voting system doesn't let an ideology in.

Obviously, we need voting reform that lets third parties in. *That* is the definition of democracy, and that's why we don't live in one, Leinad. That's another good point.

You can have as many conversations as you want. The Green Party has been having conversations for decades. What do you know of them? I love their ideology and you would too, but they have no power because the voting system sucks and they haven't made enough people angry to get power. Those are the only ways you do it in this country. It's undemocratic and corrupt and needs to be changed, but that's how it is right now.

I'd trust Mexican tap water before I'd trust Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

And I would trust Draugnar around a group of teenage schoolgirls before I trust Hillary or Jeb Bush.

I'd trust krellin and ssorenn to moderate the Democratic debates before I'd trust Hillary or Jeb to be president.

I disagree with Bernie Sanders on economic issues, and I think on the general nature of government, but on most things I think he's spot on. Even the moderate socialism isn't that bad. I was watching the Senate yesterday on C-SPAN, and I totally agreed with the stuff he said regarding student loans. If you put big government money on something, that's not a bad place to do it. And of course I was loving his criticisms of the Patriot Act (loved Rand's as well).

@bo (specifically, the other stuff was general, but certainly with him in mind, too)

I agree, we need lots of conversations! The environment, the general point of what the government should be doing, what is a just war, if such a thing exists, how do we make the government more representative, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Yeah, I know the Green Party. Libertarian Party is still more up my alley. I'd much rather someone votes for the Green Party than a vote for the duopoly, however.

So many people feel alienated by the government. You've got those on the left, the Bernie Sanders crowd, Tea Partiers on the right, Libertarians (who kind of overlap with both groups a bit), and those in the center who just hate the inefficiencies and stupidity. There's people all across the spectrum who hate the establishment, who think it's a case of lesser-of-two-evils.

If someone isn't doing their job well, they get fired and replaced by someone new. This is a representative democracy, so it's therefore the government's job to represent us. They clearly aren't, so the only logical course of action is to change that. If we can't, then the democracy has failed and it's officially an oligarchy.