If government is a tool, it's a rare politician that votes to make the tool less reliable. Note that this is distinct from changing the scope of what the tool can affect: this is about the reliability of the tool. Even politicians that were in favour of what Snowden did, who thought he contributed positively, and voted against surveillance, would still likely baulk at making life too easy for more people like him. That's because government is supposed to flow from the top down, and policy change is not supposed to emanate from the machinery. The machinery is supposed to execute the orders of government.
Hence, at the moment I'm voting Gary Johnson, who I actually think is the most qualified, but also made it clear he wants to downsize the NSA
[0]: https://www.johnsonweld.com/education [1]: https://twitter.com/govgaryjohnson/status/113419678730301440
As long as it does not harm me, I don't think I should disallow someone to do it. That is to say, I don't think I should, or society should pressure our beliefs on others. I would vaccinate my own children because it makes sense to, but I wouldn't force my neighbor to at gun point because that isn't going to help anyone. Which is the whole premise of the libertarian party.
In the case of children I agree for like polio, but perhaps not flu. Either way it's hard to judge and the major point of libertarians is that the state should decide. For example, a west Nile vaccine makes sense for almost everywhere. Besides the bay area which has no mosquitos.
I'm sure Gary Johnson would agree to some extent, and he has already changed his mind when presented with evidence.
I think it should be illegal, but junkies should not be prosecuted. So I have a similar stance. The US seems to be goldmine for political activists. It is already very rich and successful and many of its social problems can be changed just through policies (e.g. prison population).
It is interesting how different (neo-)liberalism is seen in Europe vs. the US. When conservatives in the US speak about liberals they mean ordoliberalism and leftism, meaning increasing rights for people and decreasing rights for corporations, while Europe's left means the exact opposite, when it speaks about neoliberalism.
Both are wrong. (Neo-)liberalism includes both social liberalism and market liberalism. Maybe "individualism" is an easier term to describe the general idea. It should be seen as a second dimension on top of the left-right spectrum. You can introduce liberal policies that harm or help the poor or the rich.
I do not know the Libertarian party in the US, but what you are describing as libertarian here does not seem libertarian to me at all. Just careful and sensible liberalism. Libertarianism has some anarchist vibes to it. I would say the Tea party has libertarian policies.
The libertarian party in the U.S. is branding itself as "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" meaning government should be lean and allow for as much social liberty as possible. They kinda tried to take the "common sense" approach. At least, that's what they say their stance is. Based on both of the governors terms in office I'd agree.
I always like to call myself a liberal, it totally throws off my friends who are Democrats and Republicans though.
(I know we're supposed to avoid comments like mine, but this one needed it.)
Therefore by your logic, you should be for mandatory vaccinations. This is a valid and consistent opinion for a libertarian to hold.
Libertarianism has attractions, but idealism only goes so far. I believe the Libertarian world would collapse in flames (or disease, or hunger, or congestion).
Oh, so you don't understand the most fundamental bits of science at play in the vaccination debate. Why am I not surprised. I recommend you Google "vaccines herd immunity".
Children have already fallen gravely ill in some places in CA because of the stupidity enabled by this "libertarian" mindset.
Libertarians are interesting. Them wanting a small gov always has something anyone would agree with.
Yeah, no. Not Gary Johnson.
Source: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-gary-johnson...
On the other hand in northern New Mexico, there was a Molycorp mine. There was metals contamination in the Red River. It had gone on for decades. And for decades politically it was being protected because of the jobs that were involved. I took office and I said, you’ve got to clean this up. You have to come to the table and you have to clean this up. They refused to come to the table. So my biggest club in the bag was, I am going to declare you a Superfund site. I’m going to hand you over to federal EPA unless you come to the table in 30 days and come up with a plan for fixing your metals contamination.
And they claimed that it was natural! It was ludicrous. It was a slap in the face. And they refused to come to the table. My phone is ringing off the hook, politically. It’s ringing off the hook. There were all these jobs. And my response was: “These people are bad actors and they have to be brought to the table.” Thirty days went by and they became a Superfund site. So there’s an example of the EPA and why the EPA should exist. And why government should exist to protect us against those who would do us harm. And in this case the Libertarian argument would be, as individuals we could have brought suit against polluters. We can bring suit individually. Well, in the case of Molycorp, you know what, they would have been able to withstand any individuals trying to bring that suit against them.
Hard to imagine how this could be fixed. I guess you would have to restrict the amount of money to be used, but who would shoot himself in the foot? You would need shitloads of money from a source, who does not care - rare combination. Also the topic is not as sexy as "curing X".
After that the even bigger problem would be to find a way to get the media to actually report on things and/or the people to actually pay attention to such reports. A glimmer of hope to me is Jon Stewart (and the group around him, especially Last Week Tonight).
The reality is, I think you're right. Sadly, for the majority of people, this is not an issue they care about.
I wish people would stop donating money to twitch gamers and instead support journalists who investigate, setup tor-relays/seed-boxes and reduce the dependence on centralization.
Until another terrorist attack happens on a favored Western city, Westerners will be ambivalent about ISIL.
Until a newspaper prints another photo of a child dead in the sand, Westerners will be ambivalent about refugees.
I am not an American and I don't have a motivation to defend NSA or whoever, I just think that what Snowden did was partially wrong. Of course, caching the Internet like NSA and others are doing has human rights consequences, and those should be discussed publicly. But question the very existence of such practices is unreasonable in the situation the world is in nowadays. There are LOT of people in the world today who would want to wipe off the whole Western civilization, if they could... there must be a protection from them.
Except you know, it doesn't prevent terrorist attacks. At all.
All it does is make the pile of hay with the needle in itthat much bigger. And a hell of a lot more expensive to the tax payer that is paying for the privilege of being spied on by their own government.
Mass surveillance is deeply contrarian to our core values as a democratic society. If it is to happen there needs to be a discussion and a public decision. That's exactly what is set into motion by the Snowden revelations.
The bulk approach leads to a saturation of data. That doesn't make things easier, it complicates them.
Terrorists are a few hundred, spread through the billions of people. Or, on the same kind of numbers, around 0.0000001% of the people the NSA spies on.
The usual justification for invading becomes ridiculous in that context: We need to restrict the people's freedom by spying on them, because we tried to bring freedom to another country.
"Big attacks" are vanishingly rare. But, just for the sake of argument, they haven't had an attack until they do.
The point of this is the US is actually harvesting way more data than the U.K., and we have so-called "lone wolf" attacks every couple of months.
Mass surveillance doesn't keep you safe.
Keep in mind that while we're trying to prevent terrorist attacks against us, we're actively and have actually used those same terrorists to further our goals in other countries.
Edit: I normally don't do these edits, but seriously, why am I getting downvoted for this? Obviously this is bad, that does not make it any less true. You must be the ones downvoting sad YouTube videos and the reason why Facebook had to introduce multiple like variants.