Marginalizing anything that doesn't fit into their politics. The problem with this type of greed for power and control is that nobody (esp the liberals) are right even 60% of the time but because they act so certain and self-righteous there will be HUGE backlash and we'll probably swing way further to the Right than we've seen in years, and the liberals/democrats may actually have something of value to offer.

But again, the attitude that everything that is not your product is crap will eventually turn your own product into crap when someone tries out something else and sees that it works. The democrats should stick to their issues and co-opt some issues that might help them (drug legalization, for one) and STFU about shit that doesn't concern them.

Misanthropy Today.

sorry for the bad english

My first impression was just that one: "Ok, so you are an anarchist that wanna keep earning so much money". I honestly think that prejudices and stereotypes cannot represent the total truth about anything.However, I think there´s something logical about them, because they represent the first impression and are extremelly rich in semiotic content.

I´ve seen some people asserting here that making the link between libertarians and anarchist is basically a sign of uneducated herd. Well, the truth is that most of libertarians I directly met in the States are very well paid people, usually engineers or very intellectual and analytic people. But I do think they frequently miss something out of the equation. Libertarianism creates social layers because of astronomically different wages and especially they do createe corporate hierarchies.

And then is when they start talking about Ethics, Ayn Rand and everything gets weird and fucking scary.

Firstly, Yes - in a political cartoon, haha kind of way, Libertarianism and Anarchism could be compared as such. But we must realize there are many factions of both ideologies.

Here's a few facts:

1.Anarchism (from the words 1.AN 2.ARCHONS - None above, no archs, no leaders etc.) can be thought of in general terms (i.e. No Gods, no masters - at all, no matter what), or Literal/Sensational terms (ANARCHY! FIREBOMBS! SEX PISTOLS! EAT BABIES!), Or a political party or organization (i.e. The American Anarchist Party), or it can be looked at in one of it's so called "offshoots" such as Anarcho-Socialism, Anarcho-Capitalism/Free market anarchism, Anarcho-Syndicalism, Green Anarchism, and of course (to make it more confusing) Anarcho-Libertarianism.

2.Libertarian (the U.S. version anyways) can be described as an ideology which became a party. A libertarian is someone who believes in Liberty as a fundamental base in society. So the comment that Libertarians are Republicans who want to smoke dope is both obnoxious and completely misguided. Libertarians generally believe in the Smallest government possible, little or no government intervention into business and/or personal matters, the right to bear arms, freedom of speech, dissolution of cesorship, removal of religious influence on politics, self reliance, lowered or eliminated taxes, legalization and/or decriminilization of drugs and narcotics, and the abortion issue is split, because Libertarians believe it to be a moral issue, not a political one.

Libertarians could be described as Oligarchists, since they do not promote NO government, they promote MINIMAL government with the eventual goal of not having one at all.

Anarcho-Socialists are usually pro communist ideals such as communes and communal farms etc. They are usually very pro union, anti capitalism etc. This is the anarchist of the BAKUNIN variety. These 'Anarchists' usually came from poor Eastern European countries where communism was beggining to take hold.

Anarcho-Capitalists/Free Market Anarchists/Anarcho-Libertarians - Though these terms are not completely synonomous, they cover a growing branch of Anarchism (i.e. Murray Rothbard) which believes that Capitalism, even though failed in the modern world, is the only market system which can go with the ideal of a free, ungoverned society without being hypocritical, and that the free market when left untouched by government can and does function very well.

So what's the bottom line you say? American Libertarians, and the American Libertarian Party are usually a mix of ex-Republicans, ex-Democrats, ex-Anarchists, and a bunch of hillbillies in the depths of Montana who are primarily Oligarchists, whose only common beliefs are LIBERTY, SELF RELIANCE, NATURAL LAW, SMALLEST POSSIBLE GOVERNMENT.

Most American Anarchists lean to the Anarcho Socialist Side, though that seems like it may be shifting. The average anarchist wants NO government, and for everyone to live on a fucking Chicken farm with 76 other smelly anarchists, whistling while we work, and selling our smelly organic anarchist eggs to other smelly anarchists....Or something like that....The more sane variety believe we can live in a world just like we live in now, except we would be running it based on personal responsibility instead of intimidation.

So in a nutshell....Anarchists are anti government. Libertarians are anti Big/Corrupt government.

(A)

The difference between an anarchist and a libertarianist with regards to the state, is that while libertarianists sort of trip on the finish line, anarchists wants to go all the way.
A 99% v.s. a 100% state free society situation.
Libertarians want a smaller government (because a government always infringe on life, liberty and property), and anarchist want no government at all.
How to actually make a society work alternatively is a whole different matter and subject to a lot of discussion and theories.

I don't really see what the problem people have with libertarianism is.
Do you think it's morally right to steal? I guess not.
Do you think it's morally right to murder? I guess not.
Do you think it's morally right to rape? I guess not.
This is also what libertarians think.
The difference is that libertarians actually take it seriously.

You can't have different rules for different people.
If it's wrong to steal and murder for me, then it's wrong to steal and murder for everyone.
Then it's wrong for the "government" (a group of people, just like me) to steal money (taxes).
Then it's wrong for the "military" (another group of people) to murder (war).
This is just the logical extrapolation of basic axioms.
Just because people are defined as a group doesn't mean they're not people and suddenly have other moral rules.
Try to point at "your family" without pointing to any member of that family. It's impossible. Groups do not exist in reality.

As for anarchism:
The biggest source of death, poverty and destruction in the history of mankind is not petty or organized crime, but governments.
Every mafia and petty criminal combined since the dawn of time can not even begin to compare itself to the magnitude of what the various governments or the world have managed when it comes to murder, theft and slavery.
I mean, communism itself is responsible for over half a billion dead in less than 100 years. How could you possibly match that?
So, is removing this humongous plague upon humanity really such a bad idea?

See Alibertarian's post. It's very clear about this.

Anarchists aren't primarily anti-government. They're anti-hierarchy, and anti-property. Anti-government sentiments only follow from those premises, and anarchists generally support a kind of radical democratic decision making, and a kind of government to execute collective decisions.

@Monster - you're wrong. The founding fathers were not libertarians. They did, however, have some libertarian tendencies.

Libertarians want the government to hew closer to the spirit of the Constitution.... but that's because they're deluded about the Constitution and how it institutionalized oppression in the name of democracy.

The Constitution supported a belief in property rights -- that you could own other people as property, that only those people who own property should participate in democratic decision making. and that the military should protect property rights. The property rights extended to rape for the purpose of increasing the slaveowner's human capital weath.

I can hear the Libertarians now, starting to hit "reply" and fuming. But please think about it. That's what the Constitution said. Anarchists tend to view the Constitution as a lot of good ideas combined with a lot of lousy ideas, and developed to consolidate power to a minority of people who were white, landed, and male.

Libertarians also seem to dig Thomas Jefferson. I saw his image on the Cato website. Jefferson was a great thinker who was also a slave owner and plantation operator. He idealized individualist agrarianism, but he subsisted on the labor of slaves. How seriously can you take the thinking of a guy who wrote about freedom, but owned slaves?

To the Libertarians' credit, they tend to be better at economics than Anarchists. Libertarians understand money, how to make more of it, and how to make more of it by exercising power over the unpropertied. And then they fabricate an ideology that calls this coercion "choice" and "freedom".

Also: please note that Anarchists do not necessarily have anything against 'government' as such if 'government' is simply defined as any constituted body which is responsible for administering the common wealth. We simply oppose the state, a more specific socio-economic formation which incorporates the functions of government.

anarchists do not generally display or support the notion of patriotism whatsoever. they see symbols such as the American flag to represent imperialism, and libertarians see the American flag as representing liberty. interesting.

anarchism seeks immediate remedy for perceived ills, as opposed to libertarianism, which advocates indirect actions such as electing representatives who promise to provide remedy at some later date.

it's direct action vs indirect action

both sides want to dismantle the system as we know it. everybody wants to dismantle the system, we just disagree how to go about doing it.

Really, the only real anarchists are pacifists, since every time you exert violence (force or coercion) over somebody else you're governing them even if it's completely justified(self-defense).

Yes, technically the difference is that libertarians advocate a small government, anarchists advocate no government. But compared to the massive government that we have today, they're pretty similar.

Under libertarianism, individuals are free to do business with "capitalist" mega-corporations or with neighborhood collectives and unions, but neither has the ability to force you to associate with them or do business with them in any way.

Whether talking about republicans, democrats, libertarians, liberalism, conservatism, etc; you'll never get two people to agree on exactly everything.

However, when people like myself say "I'm a libertarian", what I mean is that I want this country to return to the original intent of the constitution. Jefferson, Madison, etc were some very smart guys who setup our government with LIBERTY as their foremost principle. The constitution and the bill of rights were specifically designed to prevent the state of affairs that we have today. In the last 50, 100 years politicians in this country have eroded the constitution bit by bit.

Each person who calls themselves a libertarian has their own pet peeves, and has read their own version of history.

For many of us the problem is that the United States has been engaged in a number of 'wars', yet the last time Congress officially and legally declared War was in 1941. Today, not only are we in an undeclared War, but a PREEMPTIVE war. Whether or no this war is unpopular or winning is irrelevant. Our presidents are trying to act more and more like a King or Dictator, and that must stop.

The 10th ammendment says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people." This was to prevent the FEDERAL government from gaining too much power, which today many of us feel it has.

Please don't think that libertarianism means "no government". It means "return to the constitution".

I hope.

Libertarianism- The recognition that things should be closer to anarchism with the understanding that we don't live in tribes anymore. With the understanding that when you mix cultures of almost 7 billion people that anarchism does not flow in the blood of many anymore and that we have desperate or exploitative people roaming the Earth that can move on and away easily when they have ruined something enough or have stolen enough. Libertarianism recognizes that people, no matter what your background, anarchist, Christian, conservative, liberal, communist, Muslim, even tribal... all have rights. They all have the right to have personal liberties. People have the right to leave a situation where they're getting exploited unfairly or to have someone to go to when a more powerful person or group tries to muscle their way in to an area. They have the right to keep their money and choose what it goes to instead of going to the faceless people everyday that you may or may not be willing to support.

As a Libertarian myself I see the creator of this comic as more liberal than anarchist because in a way it's saying that money should still be taken from the rich for social programs that they may choose not to endorse. Libertarians today, believe it or not, are not corporate elitists, there is no money in libertarianism... corporation lovers most certainly blindly support the party or person who will give governmental money to their corporation of choice.

Undoubtedly Libertarianism has the ability to become corrupt. However it is so vast in its range that there are a lot of positive avenues to be taken with it. I don't believe I am the average libertarian but for right now libertarians are fighting for similar beliefs as me and as long as they do I will support them.

However I am extremely anti-corporate. I believe in breaking down corporations to where they are not as powerful or more powerful than most countries. I believe most things should be run so that the most bottom level worker knows the highest level worker to some physical degree and the larger something is the more regulated it must become so as to promote competition and ingenuity instead of something like the RIAA just rolling over college students and suing them for not physically doing a thing to them.

However neither Libertarianism nor Anarchism addresses the necessary rules of how humans and the environment should interact. Because it is most obvious those who control the environment control the liberties of the people within that area. Pollution as well as mining, deforestation, pumping water, poaching, hunting, fishing etc all need to be addressed as those who create it are responsible to those who depend on it in a way that is as reliable as the environment surrounding it. The real issue is when are libertarians, greens, and anarchists going to stop fighting with each other and start realizing they can interlock with each other and fight for the real causes against corporate manipulation and a capitalist-demanding society.

Libertarians are NOT in the pockets of corporations. Far far from it. at least today it's true.

Really? If there is no government (federal, state or local), whom do I call if I have an issue? With no zoning laws or noise ordinances, my neighbor could turn his residence into a night club if he wants and who will stop him?

You also said" My friend, gouging occurs when you have an arbitrary monopoly (ie, govt agency) that prevents competition. If snow removal were privatized, you would have options of doing it yourself, hiring the lowest bidder, forming a collective to pool resources, etc."

I'm not talking about driveways, I'm talking about roads. If all of us neighbors want our road cleared, we have to form a collective? Isn't that just a form communism? What if one guy doesn't or can't help pay, what then? For that matter, who hires people to plow non-residential areas of roads? The interstate?

well, its as true as this cartoon!

Furthermore, large government primarily benefits the large corporations that support the current system with their money. Government subsidies to corporations are just one of many forms of political payola. More serious is the "fox ruling the henhouse" effect that we see in virtually every government agency that was created with the concept of protecting the public from big business.

If Libertarians were mostly about helping big business, then the party would be rolling in dough. But it is not because we are about protecting individual rights and combating the concentration of power in the hands of any single entity be it governmental, corporate, religious, media, union, affinity groups, or other.

And most of the Republicans I know are blue collar. Republicanism (in its current practice) still represents the interests of certain rich capitalists against the working class. Aren't identity politics and manipulative mass media campaigns grand?

In america's most properous period it was essentially libertarian (compared to today, it's least prosperous period- at least in terms of economy and freedom). The problem is that federal government has been bloated out of recognition to where the only option now for a consitutional government is libertarian. It's hardly a radical idea, it's been around since 1776, but we didn't need a libertarian party until about 50 years ago when the feds started bloated no matter who we voted for.

Contrary to ignorant views, both libertarians and anarchists believe in government. Libertarians believe essentially in the constitutional american government of the founders, and anarchists want to do away with the federal government (and even most state type government) and only have essentially what amounts to county government. There are all shades in between and at the outside, but that's the gist.