Libertarian Party Uk

[danny la rouge]

Because someone had to decide who gets what

The community.

The Spanish Revolution is instructive; they were remarkably tolerant of individualists who didn't want in on the community thing. (Not that there were many).

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

It's all irrelevant anyway becasue Capitalism can't survive without the state propping it up. So if right-wing libertarians are genuinely in favour of abolishing the state then the most likely result would be left-libertarianism.

 

[Blagsta]

A history based around association, not specifying that 'libertarian=anarchism'. Type 'define:libertarian' into Google and you get a huge spread of meanings. The wiki entry first line reads:



And from what I've read, the word itself has batted between anti- and pro-private property types since then - this idea that it specifically refers only to no-property (left) anarchism is wrong. And people can ignore history, and do frequently, in their use of words.

By trying to impose a rule on how words are used, you are seeking to place ownership over the word. You seek to limit the words usage by those think are using the word ahistorically (which they aren't), mainly because the way they choose to use it is diametrically opposed to the way you use it.

See my point earlier about the pointlessness of using a dictionary definition to define a political position. The point here is that these fuckwits are using the term in a political sense. It already has a meaning in a political sense. To use it the way they want to means having to rewrite history. I have a problem with that.

 

[Blagsta]

A history based around association, not specifying that 'libertarian=anarchism'. Type 'define:libertarian' into Google and you get a huge spread of meanings. The wiki entry first line reads:



And from what I've read, the word itself has batted between anti- and pro-private property types since then - this idea that it specifically refers only to no-property (left) anarchism is wrong. And people can ignore history, and do frequently, in their use of words.

By trying to impose a rule on how words are used, you are seeking to place ownership over the word. You seek to limit the words usage by those think are using the word ahistorically (which they aren't), mainly because the way they choose to use it is diametrically opposed to the way you use it.

This is untrue. It has only been used in the pro-private property sense since the 1970s.

 

[danny la rouge]

See my point earlier about the pointlessness of using a dictionary definition to define a political position. The point here is that these fuckwits are using the term in a political sense. It already has a meaning in a political sense. To use it the way they want to means having to rewrite history. I have a problem with that.

It irritates me, too. But they've been doing it for 30 years now, and it caught on.

 

[ViolentPanda]

this thread will be about the most coverage these four wankers will ever get

Except when the quicklime is being spread on their corpses, anyway.

 

[Blagsta]

It irritates me, too. But they've been doing it for 30 years now, and it caught on.

Doesn't stop me railing about it on the internet though.

 

[danny la rouge]

Doesn't stop me railing about it on the internet though.

Me neither.

 

[Fedayn]

All in the definition you choose. I'm in the negative liberty camp; you're in the positive liberty camp.

But it's all good; "liberty" is a flexible enough a word to take it.

Yeah it's all good.... poverty is all good as long as you have 'your kind of liberty.... Liberty to be poor..... Ooooh thanks.

 

[Fedayn]

That long haired twat has the name Felix Bungay, no wonder he's such a twat, a name like that would damage anyone!

 

[danny la rouge]

Yeah it's all good.... poverty is all good as long as you have 'your kind of liberty.... Liberty to be poor..... Ooooh thanks.

And the freedom to chose to be a slave.

 

[Azrael]

Yeah it's all good.... poverty is all good as long as you have 'your kind of liberty.... Liberty to be poor..... Ooooh thanks.

I believe in a comprehensive safety net. If I believed attempts at forging a communal society actually reduced poverty I might look at it again.

 

[kyser_soze]

To use it the way they want to means having to rewrite history.

In what way are they re-writing history?

 

[Blagsta]

In what way are they re-writing history?

Please read the thread!

 

[kyser_soze]

I have, and I want to know what you mean by re-writing history. How have they done this?

 

[danny la rouge]

I have, and I want to know what you mean by re-writing history. How have they done this?

Because:

Anarchists have been using the term "libertarian" to describe themselves and their ideas since the 1850's. According to anarchist historian Max Nettlau, the revolutionary anarchist Joseph Dejacque published Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social in New York between 1858 and 1861 while the use of the term "libertarian communism" dates from November, 1880 when a French anarchist congress adopted it. [Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, p. 75 and p. 145] The use of the term "Libertarian" by anarchists became more popular from the 1890s onward after it was used in France in an attempt to get round anti-anarchist laws and to avoid the negative associations of the word "anarchy" in the popular mind (Sebastien Faure and Louise Michel published the paper Le Libertaire -- The Libertarian -- in France in 1895, for example). Since then, particularly outside America, it has always been associated with anarchist ideas and movements. Taking a more recent example, in the USA, anarchists organised "The Libertarian League" in July 1954, which had staunch anarcho-syndicalist principles and lasted until 1965. The US-based "Libertarian" Party, on the other hand has only existed since the early 1970's, well over 100 years after anarchists first used the term to describe their political ideas (and 90 years after the expression "libertarian communism" was first adopted).

 

[Fedayn]

I believe in a comprehensive safety net. If I believed attempts at forging a communal society actually reduced poverty I might look at it again.

You believe in the freedom to be poor, no ifs no buts. The 'liberty' to exploit and pay people low wages. No amount of Victorian theoretical justification can make what you see as liberty anything other than what it is.

 

[Azrael]

As I said, I don't believe a communal system exists that stops people from being poor.

 

[Blagsta]

I have, and I want to know what you mean by re-writing history. How have they done this?

If you read the thread you would see I have told you already.

 

[Fedayn]

As I said, I don't believe a communal system exists that stops people from being poor.

As opposed to those individualist societies that have some of the greatest wealth gaps in the world. Bravo

 

[Azrael]

Indeed, but they manage not to add tyranny to poverty.

Anyhow, there's plenty of countries that don't go to either extreme.

 

[kyser_soze]

So they've appropriated a term that was once synonymous (and I might say had considerably less linguistic baggage than anarchist/anarchism) with left-libertarian movements and managed to not only co-opt the phrase, but in fact make themselves synonymous with it, despite it's historical associations.

That's not re-writing history - it doesn't alter the historical assocation between 'libertarianism' and anarchism etc, what it does is update the usage of the word to mean something else...in other words, exactly what happens to language.

But lets face it - what you're arguing here is a form of personal, secular blasphemy. How dare those propertarians come and take our word and then use it to mean something bad and wrong to us!! How dare they mis-use a word I hold as close to sacred as my secular mind allows for their own pernicious ends!

 

[Fedayn]

Indeed, but they manage not to add tyranny to poverty.

Anyhow, there's plenty of countries that don't go to either extreme.

Care to decide how communal and collective = tyranny? And please spare me the Millian bollocks about tyrannies of the majority or the Keith Joseph drivel about benevolent dictatorships etc etc

 

[Azrael]

I liked it when a Labour minister tried to twist "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance" into a defence of the panopticon state on Question Time. He got owned.

Sometimes this co-opting lark can backfire in spectacular fashion.

 

[Blagsta]

So they've appropriated a term that was once synonymous (and I might say had considerably less linguistic baggage than anarchist/anarchism) with left-libertarian movements and managed to not only co-opt the phrase, but in fact make themselves synonymous with it, despite it's historical associations.

That's not re-writing history - it doesn't alter the historical assocation between 'libertarianism' and anarchism etc, what it does is update the usage of the word to mean something else...in other words, exactly what happens to language.

But lets face it - what you're arguing here is a form of personal, secular blasphemy. How dare those propertarians come and take our word and then use it to mean something bad and wrong to us!! How dare they mis-use a word I hold as close to sacred as my secular mind allows for their own pernicious ends!

So they've made a word mean it's opposite and they haven't re-written history.

Whatever you say Kyser.

 

[danny la rouge]

They diss Our History every time they say Libertarian.

 

[Azrael]

Care to decide how communal and collective = tyranny? And please spare me the Millian bollocks about tyrannies of the majority or the Keith Joseph drivel about benevolent dictatorships etc etc

Communal and collective = someone acting "on behalf" of the people. Naturally, excessive power must be wielded to break the hoarders/kulaks/other assorted bogeymen. Tyranny in perfection.

But I doubt I'll convince anyone of this. Links concerning Spanish anarchists will be adduced; counter-links about a stack of "communist" tyrannies appear; someone argues that Cuba isn't that bad; and everyone goes away thinking what they thought before.

The argument about ownership of words is far more interesting.

 

[Blagsta]

Communal and collective = someone acting "on behalf" of the people.

No, representative democracy is that. Communal and collective = direct democracy.

 

[Fedayn]

Communal and collective = someone acting "on behalf" of the people. Naturally, excessive power must be wielded to break the hoarders/kulaks/other assorted bogeymen. Tyranny in perfection.

No it doesn't, that's an assertion. We currently live in a society that is becomeing less collective and yet far more of a society where MP's act on our behalf. Your assertion is meaningless in this context.

 

[danny la rouge]

We currently live in a society that is becomeing less collective and yet far more of a society where MP's act on our behalf.

Indeed, and direct action is about acting directly, rather than petitioning some representative to maybe do something about it on your behalf.