Libertarianism or classical liberalism (these are slightly different perhaps but overlap) had a lot of popularity until sometime over the last decade it seems, when “left” and “right” seem to have become more impatient and seem to want more “authoritarian” implementations of the worlds they want to see.
At the same time perhaps “freedom” may be more popular than ever, I haven’t been monitoring it as closely.
From what I remember on the right, there were big losses with the Ron Paul / Rand Paul / Libertarian Presidential candidates which may explain some of the loss of momentum. Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign was basically sabotaged from what I remember; Rand Paul couldn’t compete for the GOP presidential nomination with Trump; Some of the Libertarian Party’s candidates like Gary Johnson were saying blatantly anti-libertarian things, showing a lack of an understanding of libertarian philosophy.
The left seemed to just support authoritarianism against Trump (for example, the left used to be more anti-war but since Trump became anti-war, the left seems to be more supportive of interventionist foreign policy as a result), and I’m not sure what drove other support for authoritarian measures (growing poverty? Anyone have insight?).
So anyway, do you like “freedom” and are you for “libertarianism” or against it or have some arguments in either direction?
What are your thoughts on the topic?
I have yet to see a compelling libertarian policy that wasn’t just bad for most people and good for the wealthy. It’s not “freedom”, it’s moving from government rules to corporate rules. At least a government has a semblance of accountability to me, a corporation has none.
well government is run by the same people who run the corporations, so we don’t often view it as having much accountability; taxes go to pet projects of the corporate owners, and regulations favor said bad corporations
Then my choice is I pay taxes that pay for roads or I pay the same amount to 20 different road companies in tolls. If it’s all the same then I may as well have a single point of annoyance.