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[–] 165 points 2 years ago* (4 children)

You left out the best part?

I'm all for small government, but I'm realizing I'm not for NO government. Having some shared land we can all use as we wish is good. Having areas set aside for public use is good. this side of the mountain is for off-roading (and no you dont need a license plate), this other side is for hiking and camping

I hate a lot of WA state's ultra liberal policies and high taxes. But I also feel I had more freedom there in many ways.

Maybe I don't actually like what I've always advocated for after all...

Discuss...

Edit: 3 days later I got banned from this sub over this post. Freedom lovers my ass. This is place is run by ashamed right-wingers.

If I want to be charitable this even sounds like someone that is more lost on the sea of ideological garbage of the internet i.e no access to anyone or anything that would educate them towards socialism or even the obvious critiques of capitalism so they defaulted to the standard American ideals until it personaly affected them, then they realized "wait this doesn't quite make sense". They could be saved if they were lucky to have someone waste time educating them, but most likely just become a conventional lib instead.

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  • [–] 103 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    this person's politics are mine when I was like 12. "oh Ron Paul wants to legalize drugs and doesn't want any more wars, I guess I'm a libertarian"

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  • [–] 73 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yeah, I feel like "libertarian" is just vibes-based for dudes of a certain age, and not really an ideology. Like "centrist" it's a way of signalling to each other that they stand above politics, and don't get involved in the petty bickering of people who care about things.

    When the rubber hits the road, and they start interacting with the world, they'll settle into their actual politics. Usually it'll break toward resentment-based fashy stuff, like "centrists," because the vibe coming from a place of "I'm better than that," to begin with. But it can go the other way too if it's coming from where you were at, or if they start being personally affected/targeted by their allies.

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  • [–] 34 points 2 years ago

    Yeah, I feel like "libertarian" is just vibes-based for dudes of a certain age, and not really an ideology. Like "centrist" it's a way of signalling to each other that they stand above politics, and don't get involved in the petty bickering of people who care about things.

    I think this was through intentional propaganda: stuff like framing that stupid political compass as two Freedom - Authoritarian axes and South Park's detached contrarianism. The end goal is to get these people to vote for conservative causes and convert some of them to ancaptain ideology.

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  • [–] 123 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I honestly respect their ability to question their beliefs based on their real experiences

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  • [–] 62 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    not just that, but to arrive at a conclusion that is at least vaguely in the correct direction. some libertarians have similar experiences but decide that the reason places like texas suck is because there's still a tiny little amount of government regulation/services

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  • [–] 105 points 2 years ago*

    farquaad-point the libertarian has been forced to realize that his freedom is contingent on other people's positive actions!

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  • [–] 94 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    This person has never once thought in their life how anything is maintained

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  • [–] 59 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Ever meet a "hah, you statists think you need public roads" smuglord type, who thought it was an own to call out that you mentioned public roads as if it was a self-own without having any viable way around that need that isn't even more of a public service like trains?

    They're out there, and they will sometimes resort to something fucking bazinga like "jetpacks!" for an answer. galaxy-brain

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  • [–] 52 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    a bunch of federal land isn't maintained and especially out west you can just go fuck around in the middle of stolen nowhere.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago

    Can confirm, have worked for the forest service. It's mostly skeleton crews to manage thousands upon thousands of acres. Even less in BLM lands, but that's also because they are usually just rented for almost nothing to ranchers and oil prospectors (hence why we call them the bureau of livestock and mining)

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  • [–] 88 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    I've spent a significant amount of time in most states east of the Mississippi. A while ago I went to Texas for the first time outside the confines of an airport.

    Texas is maybe the worst state I've been to. "Maybe" because I'm deciding if Louisiana is worse, excluding Nola.

    If you hate pervasive Republican/conservative/Christian ideology, you will hate Texas. If you hate Libertarianism, you will hate Texas. If you hate car-dominated transit, you will hate Texas.

    The best thing about Texas is tacos and general Tex-Mex food. Not a huge endorsement of a place if its best attributes are its external influences.

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  • [–] 45 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I've lived here for over a decade and this is all correct.

    Grab a few tacos on the way through but burn it all down behind you please. It fucking sucks here.

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  • [–] 36 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Give it back to Mexico, then let them burn down Dallas and Houston.

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  • [–] 38 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

    I went to Houston for the first time this year. I knew they're against any socialist policies but the thing that shocked me was no sidewalks! I was wondering how they managed so I did some research and they just don't. Hundreds of pedestrians are killed each year in the greater Houston sidewalk-less suburban area (statistically seniors?)

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago

    Houston is a nightmare, I've been doing a ton of permitting out there and it's basically impossible because they use 95% of the right of way for the widest streets possible and if you're lucky enough to have a sidewalk, it usually doesn't connect to anything.

    It's not as bad as Scottsdale/Phoenix though

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  • [–] 22 points 2 years ago

    Austin is the same, my sister lives there and a couple times while visiting her I walked her dog. Some houses have sidewalks, some don't, it's totally left up to the discretion of the home builder/owner if they want to put one in. So you'll have two houses with side walks then 6 with one and then one house with one...

    It's fucking horrible for walking dogs and pedestrians in general.

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    [–] 73 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    As a libertarian, I think we should stop empowering corporations to control our lives and give the right to decide how the economy functions to decentralized local government run by local communities instead of this centralized monopolistic crony system we call “capitalism” is a great bit that would win some hearts and minds.

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  • [–] 71 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Here in commiefornia I can ride my motorcycle like thirty minutes to the nearest OHV area and go nuts 🏍 💨 and the roads between here are there are all twisties

    But I'm not dunking in this guy necessarily, he learned the most important lesson you can learn about American politics: nobody is actually a libertarian, libertarianism is completely fake and the libertarian party is just conservatives who don't have the same social bugbears that Republicans have.

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  • [–] 53 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    No one is a libertarian because the social base for libertarianism comprises of people in untenable economic situations. They're all guys in the dead center of the middle class who all think they'd be billionaires if not for taxes. They have no other concerns, they just want to be rich out of boredom because they have no other concerns. Sometimes they have to fill out too much paperwork to buy an assault rifle or they pay a little too much property tax and they interpret this as persecution, because they can't have more toys. It's the ideology of comfortable white guys, but not so comfortable they're living as lavish ghouls in mansions. The actual bourgeoisie aren't libertarians because they know it's a dead end ideology. If libertarians ever reach that amount of wealth they morph into standard neoliberals, or obtain god complexes. Or if they slip out of their comfortable amount of wealth and become more working class, it's a 50/50 chance they become a socialist or a reactionary depending on geography and peer group.

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  • [–] 37 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    We literally have a public trail that goes from Mexico to Canada thru California, Oregon, and Washington. You can walk the whole way. Texans can only dream of such freedom

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    [–] 64 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Kind of telling that this person seems to think of freedom/liberties in terms of "where can I drive big truck and shoot wild animal." Up top, they even address the "call yourself whatever gender/abort whoever/marry whoever" as if those aren't freedoms that are already, or are currently in the process of, being dismantled. It's impressive to watch the selfishness of the philosophy fold in on itself when things that affect them are attacked.

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    [–] 55 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    A friend of mine who moved from Chicago to Dallas remarked at how there are suddenly all sorts of people who will call the cops on you for walking down the side of the highway.

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    [–] 54 points 2 years ago* (7 children)

    Fun fact: despite Texas’s reputation of being heavily armed, there are almost zero places for gun owners to actually shoot outdoors. Compare that to blue states where that are usually a lot of public land that you can drive to, put up some targets, and shoot for free 24/7 (except when there’s maintenance or closures due to disrespectful assholes).

    Essentially, unless you’re rich and own land or have a buddy who owns land or willing to shell out fees every time you shoot outdoors, most texans just own a bunch of guns and shoot in a fixed position at indoor ranges.

    Obviously you can still be lethal from basic marksmanship, but the romantic imagination of Texans holding down the fort during a civil war is just that - imagination. Most of them have no better training than your meemaw who shoots a gun every few months at an indoor range, 1 round every 20 seconds because anything else is considered rapid automatic assault fire mode.

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  • [–] 23 points 2 years ago

    tbh I feel like in a civil war type event they would just freeze/cook to death after some chud militia shoots up 1 power transformer, taking down their already fragile grid

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    [–] 53 points 2 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] 46 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I'm aborting all libertarians

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  • [–] 49 points 2 years ago

    Sounds like they grew out of it tbh

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  • [–] 38 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    How do libertarians think the "freest" states are the ones where you can go to prison for weed, women don't have bodily autonomy, trans rights are consistently under attack, books are banned in schools, workers have the least rights and protections, the highest number of people are uninsured, immigrants are put in camps, and the government has the power to execute people?

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  • [–] 36 points 2 years ago*

    Big L for "if I say 'simple' as a thought terminating cliche to dismiss more complex situations I seem very smart" smuglords there.

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  • [–] 26 points 2 years ago

    I have never read such stupid, babbling drivel before, screw you OP, I think this made me stupid cowboy-cri

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  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago (1 child)
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    [+] 20 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
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