I saw this a year or two ago when it was originally released by whoever made it and speculated at the time that it might have been done by tea party people to make opposition to them look retarded (using something as low-maintenance as a beach as their chief example and then immediately going outside america for alleged illustration of “libertarianism”) but ive seen it used positively by a lot of people since then so i assume its intended to be real. which is… weird.
The description on youtube says “You should be forcibly moved to Somalia to live in your libertarian utopia.” um… why? Not exactly fair since the other side can’t say it back to the people who advocate bigger government since they can’t ask for them to be forcibly moved to a Communist utopia, as they’ve all crumbled and disappeared.
I like big government in a lot of areas and have never bought the libertarian line of people being “smart enough to make their own decisions” in every and all areas (hint: people are stupid and need guidance and rules) but it is stupidly insulting to imply that America’s government expansion is whats keeping us from being Somalia – or even that anything like Somalia is the logical conclusion of American libertarian policy. “Government isn’t the solution to our problems, it IS the problem and now you have cholera”… cuz.. libertarian.
Whenever i ask anyone to explain the logic behind it, they just get angry that i pointed out how much sense it doesnt make and since I don’t really care about the Tea Party as an issue or movement, I let them drop it, but anyone reading is welcome to explain this to me… Public land that everyone can enjoy paid by the public is equal to private benefits for individuals paid by the public, how? i could imagine teabaggers making an equally silly video – say, where they claim the government wants to do so much for you that they plan to have union workers wipe your ass for you or something. That’d be an okay satire on the fact that unions prevent individuals from doing things themselves (like shoveling a snowy street) so the union workers can do it. but would anyone actually claim that that is a legit argument the say the anti-teabaggers are passing around this video as if it made logical sense?
UPDATE: American brainwash still makes my default position want to be with the union thugs out protesting across the country but…dude… the Tea Party people are complaining about being forced to pay more for other peoples benefits while the union people are whining about having to pay slightly more of their own benefits…
UPDATE: the video above was shared with me on facebook and I posted this blog of my reaction to it in response.
My response is that it only sounds kind of confused if you think anyone anywhere, including the most vocal of libertarians is advocating that this country be run without government. the blog is confusing because it rejects instead of accepts the strawman fallacy that literally anyone with any presence, power or influence has ever said anything like what the video or your 2nd of the 3 comments says. It only sounds kind of confused if you think anyone anywhere, including the most vocal of libertarians is advocating that this country be run without government. the blog is confusing because it rejects instead of accepts the strawman fallacy that literally anyone with any presence, power or influence has ever said anything like what the video or your 2nd of the 3 comments says.
So I don’t defend the things I bitch about because I’m not bitching about libertarianism or progressivism or conservatives or liberals – I’m anti-fallacy whichever side it’s present on. So even though I disagree with some libertarian philosophy, that doesn’t make me advocate unfair attacks on it. That’s always a bad idea. attack stuff you disagree with based on whatever you disagree with – not by doing the equivalent of calling it’s mother a whore (although, to be fair: Libertarianism’s mother probably was a whore. they DO idolize Ayn Rand after all…).