re: #344 Obdicut

You are pretty much the only dude I’ve met who calls himself a libertarian who actually engages with moderation. Kudos.

I feel much the same way as you do— I just stopped calling myself a libertarian because too many of the whackjobs were.

They do exist, they’re just drowned out by the zealots. There are a lot of people here with libertarian leanings, it’s just that when your standard bearers are the Pauls, and the Tea Party. I can’t blame them for not wanting to be associated with the name.

I think the current movement for a liberaltarians is a good one, and if it can ever get off the ground would fuse what I believe is a very natural alliance between liberals and libertarians. And yes, I might be wildly optimistic to believe that, but I cannot ever imagine how libertarians and conservatives, particularly the new virulent strain of conservatism can ever work together.

Ultimately, ArchangelMichael summed it up well about pragmatism:
re: #305 ArchangelMichael

Any political philosophy created by humans is by definition flawed because no one is perfect or omniscient. If you try to keep logical consistency within the philosophy in the real world you will quickly run into breaking points. This is why pure capitalism doesn’t work, why communism doesn’t work, and why Keynesian economics doesn’t always work either. Real world application of any system requires constant tweaking and exceptions to the rule. Until humans are “perfect” (i.e. never) this will be the case.

I couldn’t have said it better, it’s why i get frustrated with true believers who won’t compromise. The world doesn’t work in black and white.