• BynarsAreOk [none/use name]
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    7 months ago

    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.

    • the_kid [he/him]
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      1027 months ago

      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”

      • beef_curds [she/her]
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        737 months 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.

        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.

        • LaGG_3 [he/him, comrade/them]
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          347 months 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.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
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        157 months ago

        and doesn’t want any more wars

        “But unlimited violence in retaliation for a kid stealing a candy bar is cool and good DAE Non-Aggression Principle amirite?” morshupls

    • BelieveRevolt [he/him]
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      537 months ago

      They found out that American “libertarians” are just Republicans except they want weed to be legal. There’s a reason why the Cato Institute, the Libertarian Party and other garbage institutions are funded by the Kochs and other powerful figures: because they pose no threat to the establishment and having a fake third party around is useful.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
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        97 months ago

        They found out that American “libertarians” are just Republicans except they want weed to be legal. There’s a reason why the Cato Institute, the Libertarian Party and other garbage institutions are funded by the Kochs and other powerful figures: because they pose no threat to the establishment and having a fake third party around is useful.

        That’s the same reason billionaire vampires fund so-called “grey tribe” techbro cults like “MIRI.” All those pretenses of being not right wing and they’re #1 with right wingers.

    • @Great_Leader_Is_Dead@hexbear.net
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      457 months ago

      (and no you dont need a license plate)

      I WANNA BE ABLE TO OFF-ROAD ON PUBLIC LAND! BUT I ALSO DONT WANT THE GUBERMENT TO HAVE ANY MEANS OF HOLDING ME ACCOUNTABLE IF I RUN OVER A MOUNTAIN BIKER!!!

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
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      167 months ago

      glasses-off

      This is place is run by ashamed right-wingers.

      glasses-on

      We are all right wingers but some are even more dishonest.

    • buh [any]
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      617 months ago

      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

      • RyanGosling [none/use name]
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        217 months ago

        I’ve seen some people say some shit like “after 2010 Texas was infiltrated by communists. It ain’t like it used to be”

        • buh [any]
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          187 months ago

          Infamous communist cells Oracle Corporation and Tesla

          • UlyssesT [he/him]
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            127 months ago

            Infamous communist cells Oracle Corporation and Tesla

            The most bazinga of bazingas like to bring up that my-hero claimed to be a “socialist, but the good kind” and by that he explained meant he wanted more public money for rich people.

  • @oktherebuddy@hexbear.net
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    7 months ago

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

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
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      597 months ago

      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

      • Nationalgoatism [he/him]
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        167 months 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)

  • quarrk [he/him]
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    897 months ago

    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.

    • roux [he/him, comrade/them]
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      457 months ago

      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.

        • @Morgoon
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          7 months ago

          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?)

          • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
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            277 months 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

          • @Great_Leader_Is_Dead@hexbear.net
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            227 months 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.

          • quarrk [he/him]
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            77 months ago

            Yes Houston is one of the cities I went to. I actually tried walking once out of spite. What would have been a 5 minute drive was a 40 minute walk along loud and ugly cement roads breathing in fumes from huge mall crawler Jeeps.

    • Dessa [she/her]
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      7 months ago

      I really want to visit New Orleans some time. It’s a cultural capital and the birthplace of Jazz music. It’s gotta have some things going for it.

      Not anything in Texas I feel like I NEED to see, (though I’ll hit the San Antonio riverwalk if I ever find myself there). Im sure both are shitty places to live, but one of em looks better for visitin

      • PaulSmackage [he/him, comrade/them]
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        147 months ago

        I feel like New Orleans is the only place i’d like to visit for an extended amount of time in the US at this point. Definitely has a character and history unique to the country.

      • quarrk [he/him]
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        7 months ago

        I don’t think I would want to live in New Orleans but it is fun to visit. The beignets at Cafe du Monde are good, and the best thing I did was go on a dinner boat with live jazz on the top deck.

        The rest of Louisiana though, like Baton Rouge… incredibly racist. Also the homicide rate is very high.

    • xj9 [they/them, she/her]
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      27 months ago

      south south Texas was an ok spot back when I lived there, but I reckon apartheid boy is wrecking the place with spacex.

    • Goadstool [he/him, comrade/them]
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      25 months ago

      Having lived in Texas my whole life until very recently, the only thing I miss is the food. Fuck the weather, fuck the people, fuck it all. If I could just teleport my old burrito place to where I am now, I’d be sittin’ pretty.

  • @420stalin69@hexbear.net
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    737 months ago

    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.

    • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
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      227 months ago

      Idk if it would, libertarians can think local governments are big government anyways and just a sneaky tool for little authoritarians to impose their will on their neighbors like ensuring that the water doesnt get poisoned.

      • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
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        7 months ago

        Libertarians’ concepts of local government are basically in line with 80s kids movies of some local dingus mayor who wants to demolish the local skate rink to build a strip mall or a golf course or some shit.

      • @Great_Leader_Is_Dead@hexbear.net
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        127 months ago

        libertarians can think local governments are big government

        The Killdozer guy in CO went on his rampage cuz the city government kept fining him for dumping his shit into an irrigation canal. All this was cuz he didn’t want a septic tank installed cuz the only septic company was owned by a guy he had a personal beef with, who also happened to sit on the town council.

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
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      7 months ago

      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.

    • sammer510 [none/use name]
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      377 months ago

      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

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
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        177 months ago

        But does a billionaire fuck have the freedom to buy that trail and seal it off so no one can use it? That isn’t real freedom unless he can smuglord

  • chungusamonugs [he/him]
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    647 months ago

    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.

  • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
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    557 months ago

    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.

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]
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    7 months ago

    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.

    • buh [any]
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      237 months 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

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
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      227 months ago

      1 round every 20 seconds because anything else is considered rapid automatic assault fire mode.

      >tfw when Texans can only shoot at the same rate as well-drilled Napoleonic infantry.

      • Mardoniush [she/her]
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        57 months ago

        Well drilled riflemen, even. Elite musket regiments were expected to consistently shoot 4 or even 5 rounds a minute under optimal conditions, and 6 wasn’t unheard of for individuals. Which is of course why they used muskets and not rifles, another 300 rounds has an accuracy all of its own.

    • wahwahwah [none/use name]
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      7 months ago

      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

      I wonder how many dead bodies that get discovered in the wilderness are just hikers who caught stray bullets because American gun owners are stupid.

      • drhead [he/him]
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        57 months ago

        The people who maintain those ranges are smarter than the gun owners, they all have backstops that will catch the bullets. Most of them are also monitored by someone who will boot you off the range if you’re doing something stupid that’d result in you not hitting the backstop.

        • RedDawn [he/him]
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          77 months ago

          They’re talking about wilderness, not ranges. In California for example you can just head out into the desert and set up your own targets and shoot on federal land.

      • RyanGosling [none/use name]
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        37 months ago

        I saw a few videos of a public area where the port-o-potty was all shot up lol. Can’t imagine you’re safe out there unless you’re sure you’re alone

    • oregoncom [he/him]
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      147 months ago

      I hate when I’m out backpacking and some dipshit starts shooting at all the abandoned mining equipment. Leave it alone it’s the closest this country has to historical landmarks.

    • drhead [he/him]
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      97 months ago

      Wow, Texas is just a shitty version of a red state, then. Mine at least has state-funded public gun ranges.

    • keepcarrot [she/her]
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      77 months ago

      Damn, in Australia at my local range it was 1 shot per four seconds, but if the range owners liked you you can do whatever

  • mar_k [he/him]
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    377 months ago

    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?

      • mar_k [he/him]
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        147 months ago

        Going on a tangent here, but a couple years ago my mom moved from Connecticut to South Carolina for the warmer climate, nature, and presumed lower cost of living. Now she wants to move back because she can barely afford to get by. She’s a licensed practical nurse, and makes well over 30% less money over there and has way less flexibility in her hours (she often finds herself at an agency that only offers 12 hour shifts with one 30 minute break)

        She hasn’t gone to the doctor, dentist, or optician in a long time, despite having arthritis (from lifting patients) and needing a crown procedure, simply because she can’t afford insurance. Meanwhile Connecticut, which is FAR from perfect, gave her free state coverage. She’s talked to several of her patients at the hospitals she works at who also moved away from the Northeast, and they tend to say similar things about the lack of social safety benefits making it just, harder to survive. But I guess libertarians are middle to upper class freaks who think “freedom” means lower taxes and corporations being people, so why would they give a shit about people like my mom?

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
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    7 months ago

    Big L for “if I say ‘simple’ as a thought terminating cliche to dismiss more complex situations I seem very smart” smuglords there.