There are unfortunately no doubt people who self-identify as Democrats that supported the torture programs. Do we get to say that they're not real Democrats?

Is the Tea Party populated by a bunch of Libertarians or a bunch of Republicans?

lol @ you. Neal Boortz is a self-identified libertarian and he's pro torture. I'm sure there are countless other examples.

The whole point of looking at the stupid comments on Rand Paul's Facebook page is to laugh at fake libertarians.

Has Obama directly addressed why torture and other abhorrent tactics (yet more abhorrent and pathetic for their uselessness) are justified? Not some vague national security rationale, but articulable reasons why these particular methods didn't run afoul the law.

It reminds one a bit of his justification--under his broad reading of Article II--for essentially re-writing immigration law from his desk in the Oval Office. Of course, that exercise of questionably legal authority is far more justifiable than torture. Drone strikes probably are as well.

In this forum, do we ever see trolling directed at these self-identified democrats in an attempt to smear all democrats? No.

Do we see that towards fake libertarians? Yes.

Why is that?

Republicans.

13ball: Hey look, I found one guy. From Wikipedia: "Others describe his political views as being more in line with "republitarian" philosophy that embraces incrementalism domestically, and a generally interventionist foreign policy based on self-interest, national defense and the expansion of freedom." But since he self-identifies as libertarian, I'm going to push the whole idea of Libertarians being pro-torture! Cuz "I'm sure there are countless other examples."

derp

AS, do you ever read any threads here? Virtually every liberal on the forum is opposed to drone strikes, has excoriated Obama for getting walked all over by the CIA, etc.

Problem is, what do we do about it? Republicans are worse on pretty much every civil liberties issue. We don't agree with the frankly dangerous libertarian prescription on pretty much everything except civil liberties. So there's not really much to be done.

You still don't even seem to have understood problemeliminator's point. Here is his initial post that started this whole conversation.

See how he put "libertarian wing" in quotes there? We all understand that these people are not libertarian in philosophy, so nothing he says about them can "throw scum on Libertarianism".

The point is that there's no such thing as a "libertarian wing of the GOP". The idea that there's a big block of people who are genuine libertarians and support Rand in the GOP primaries is fiction. They are almost all the sort of "libertarians" where when you scratch the surface, you get numbers like 33% believing marijuana should be illegal.

I'll concede that torture is libertarianism's fault if we can just end this AIDS derail

The reason Democrats are not getting called to account for not opposing drone strikes is that there aren't any examples of a Dem congressman posting an anti-drone message on Facebook and the base responding with pages and pages of pro-drone messages.

Do you grasp that the people we're making fun of here are the GOP? Much is made of the GOP's "libertarian wing", but they don't exist. As soon as someone stands up against the most basic government overreach, this whole lie that there is a "libertarian wing" disintegrates. You should be agreeing with us and saying "LOL the GOP claiming to be libertarian".

Are you illiterate? We're clearly talking about "self-identified" libertarians.

When things like the below are said, it takes away from your argument that you are making fun of the GOP and not making fun of libertarianism.

Libertarians hate republicans who pretend they are libertarian. So when language is used to suggest that fake libertarians define libertarianism, your arguments become unclear at best and trolling in actuality.

ironically, reading this libertarian discussion is kind of like torture

yeah but don't forget 'red flags' and 'we know what you mean'. Those are really good things.

Suddenly everyone understand that the self identified libertarians are not representative of libertarianism - hold tight to that thought it will help facilitate honest political debate. Hang on that can't be right ...

Republicans: held actual power and tortured people

Democrats: held actual power and tortured people

Libertarians: posted anti-torture stuff on Facebook and had other people respond with pro-torture stuff

LIBERTARIANS!!

Can't really argue with this.

Then again, if true libertarians must be anti-torture, then there aren't many true libertarians.

LOL throwback to the good old days of the forum here. When libertarians could bog down any and all threads into whining about their feelings because they literally do not understand the English language.

Hell, you don't have to go very far back to catch them playing the No True Libertarian game, although lately they've been insisting that the Paul family's cozying up to mainstream Republicans makes them not Real Libertarians. From the Mike Brown thread:

Re the "But Democrats!" derp, I mean sure I agree the Dems have been hot garbage on civil liberties and only a modest improvement over the Republicans, but I'm guessing Elizabeth Warrens facebook isn't overrun with "Them terrrists didn't respect human rights on 9/11!" comments.

First time I've heard of this guy.
Again, lol. Only libertarians on rand paul's facebook page.

uhhh you have been.
I'm not so sure that's true, but regardless, it's absurd to look at facebook comments as some sort of evidence.

Youd have to be completely clueless to not have heard of Neal Bortz, particularly for a libertarian.

ftr, I've never heard of Neal Bortz

Dude in the Civil War thread none of them had heard of Lew Rockwell or Murray Rothbard, this is practically reflex at this point.

But if we're going on a deep dive into Libertarian navel gazing, here's a fun little question:

1) Conceded that Obama is awful on this stuff. He's terrible! Droning dudes,not prosecuting torturers, military tribunals, just the worst.

2) But he's not quite as awful as Dick Cheney, who just today went back to the Sunday shows to unapologetically brag about his involvement in this.


So, the question is...

What's up with the Libertarians making common cause with the Republicans? ASP is in here whining, like a libertarian on the internet, that this thread isn't being harsh enough on Obama. Yo man before we get real deep into blasting Obama for not prosecuting torture(which he admits occurred and is wrong), maybe ASP and JTM et al. could put fingers to keyboard about how Rubio, Cruz, and pretty much the whole right wing media-infotainment complex is coming down HARD in favor of torture?

Like I get that it's a complicated basket of policy preferences and tribal allegiance, but as near as I can tell the GOP's position on torture is Orwellian fascism. That seems like it would really offend a libertarian!

No one expects Cheney to be anything other than evil.

Obama is held to a much higher standard.

Uh, no, like I just said. One of America's two political parties isn't dismissing Cheney as "ldo evil, what are you gonna do?". They are supporting him. They are attacking Obama for the Senate Report's release. That's the national debate right now. The right wing(as demonstrated by Rand Paul's facebook) is pretty emphatic on this issue. They aren't "holding Obama" to a higher standard, they think Obama released this report to make America seem less awesome!

Man HOW DO I NOT KNOW about a guy who had a radio show who ended last year with the 7th biggest radio talk audience?!?!?

This is better than your scientific analysis of facebook comments though.

Koch Bros libertarians are reflexively anti-Obama and pro-Murica, but there are plenty of NSA/CIA-hating libertarians who aren't mad at Obama for releasing the report. They're mad this stuff happened, is possibly continuing to happen, and hasn't been loudly renounced by Obama.