Libertarians vs Conservatives: Whom would you support?

[Stark]

That's exactly my point. Maybe I'm not enough of an ideologue, but I find the OP question unanswerable. I'm a shopper when it comes to votes; I actually examine platforms and vote on positions and issues, not 'is conservative'. The two terms cover such broad ground (and variety) that it's impossible for me to make a decisions or take seriously the specific identifications being made.

[Morilore]

Iran and Saudi Arabia are actual theocracies and notionally have both of those policies; I'm told Iran's health care is surprisingly good considering the general state of the country, but of course both are thoroughly corrupt, bribes are usually necessary to jump waiting lists, and taxes are easily evaded if you are favored by the government.

Wow, a third-world country sitting on a bunch of oil has a corrupt government! Knock me down with a fucking feather!

Even the Taliban notionally maintained Afghanistan's public health system, but in practice massive persecution of female health workers and doctors who tended to be 'anti-Islamic intellectuals' (i.e. not batshit insane) degraded its effectiveness almost to nothing. This is the standard pattern; great claims of charity and hospitality and helping fellow men, in practice massive corruption and destruction of the system in the name of religious conformity.

Neither of these countries' religious authorities are part of a two-party system of government where their opponents have significant power and are not themselves religious.

None that I know of

OK, thanks for admitting that your assertion that a Libertarian party with a similar ideological structure to known communist parties would respect constitutional checks and balances is backed by nothing.

Generally European communist parties seem like relatively sane players in parlimentary democracy, (excepting the Warsaw Pact period where the Russians imposed communism by force); they don't go around claiming that the only valid laws come from a barbaric tribe that existed millenia ago, or that all authority must flow (through them) from a magic invisible sky king.

The shithole religious countries you brought up are third-world, and the communist parties you're using as a model are in Western European countries. Way to go there.

[erik_t]

I have to vote for the conservatives. You at least know the positions of those in power, so that you can follow them and avoid persecution. There's no guarantee that the Lib in power will be constant over time so that you can avoid persecution for past indiscretions; for that matter, de facto civil war under libertarian control is almost guaranteed by definition.

[Anguirus]

To justify my post a bit further, my experience with American libertarians doesn't leave me with the impression that they want to see our country look like Somalia. Rather, they naively think that life gets better for everyone with less government. Religious conservatives in this country openly wish harm on people, hence my knee-jerk preference.

The worst libertarians, the ones who actually believe that the poor deserve to suffer, are a bunch of bastards too, of course. As I said, it would come down to circumstance.

[Starglider]

OK, thanks for admitting that your assertion that a Libertarian party with a similar ideological structure to known communist parties would respect constitutional checks and balances is backed by nothing.

They have a stated intent of respecting those checks and balances, varying from mild (undemocratic libertarians are very rare, they generally think that eventually, everyone will see the logic of their position) to extreme (constitution worshippers, e.g. the Constitution Party). This is more than one can say of either the religious opponents (enthusiasm for democracy varying from tepid to rabidly against) or historical communist parties; I was using communists as an example of how ideology decays into corruption over a timespan of a couple of decades or so, not as an example of preserving democracy.

The shithole religious countries you brought up are third-world

Actually no. A major reason why I have talked about Iran so much, aside from having friends who live there, is that it was actually a first world country. In 1979 it was 20th in the world in terms of GDP; on a per-capita basis, that's roughly equal to Ireland, Portugal and Greece and about 65% of the UK. It had functional national health care, a reasonably diversified economy (for the region), modern infrastructure, a first class education system and for a monarchy quite a lot of personal freedom. The Islamic revolution utterly screwed that over; the country has been sliding into the shitter every since, and it is now 70th in per capita GDP. That's level with Serbia and Turkey (though with higher wealth inequality), so I'd still call it second world, but the situation is continuing to deteriorate.

That's what religious government buys you, along with the disappearances, the torture centers, the brutal punishments, the conscription, the villification of other countries, the censorship, the massive incarceration, the smuggling, the corruption, the disintigrating infrastructure, the forced deferrence to religious leaders, the chilling statement that 'homosexuality does not exist in Iran' etc etc

But look on the bright side! There may be massive unemployment, but at least unemployment benefits are high!

[Morilore]

Abortion and possibly homosexuality will be criminialised.

They'd have to take over SCOTUS to get away with that. That takes multiple presidential terms.

This means that America's already insanely high incarceration rate will skyrocket - that alone will probably cause enough harm to entirely cancel out the benefits of national health care,

By what calculation?

You will be rolling back the rights of women, homosexuals and most likely racial minorities, and teaching an entire generation of children that this is right and proper (and that the earth is 6000 years old and that ultimate truth comes only from the bible).

Temporary control of the government =/= total control over all society.

By putting religious nuts in power you will be giving US society as a whole a strong push away from science and towards fundamentalism; keep that up for long enough and the eventual endpoint will be another Iran (not Afghanistan; the US populace is educated and relatively peaceful), but with the world's largest military to go crusading with.

EVENTUALLY. Fucking obviously, you don't want either of these guys in power forever. You would need to play them against each other.

Libertarians will at least end the war on drugs and dial back incarceration rates (and most likely end capital punnishment, though that's not a certainty). That alone will prevent literally millions of broken families and individuals lost to the productive economy.

End capital punishment? Where did this come from? I can't recall ever hearing an American libertarian opposing the death penalty.

They won't engage in wars that kill hundreds of thousands of foreigners.

Says who? The one government institution that American libertarians mostly believe in is the military.

Education quality will suffer due to the reduction in federal funding (only die-hard libertarians want to cut it entirely), but the bulk of funding comes from the state and local level, so frankly I consider this much less serious than endemic religious indoctrination (which ties right into military recruitment, e.g. child soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war, though I imagine the US will stick to a minimum age of 16).

So the state would intercede to curb the Libertarian excesses, but not the conservative excesses? Why?

[Morilore]

A major reason why I have talked about Iran so much, aside from having friends who live there, is that it was actually a first world country. In 1979 it was 20th in the world in terms of GDP; on a per-capita basis, that's roughly equal to Ireland, Portugal and Greece and about 65% of the UK. It had functional national health care, a reasonably diversified economy (for the region), modern infrastructure, a first class education system and for a monarchy quite a lot of personal freedom. The Islamic revolution utterly screwed that over; the country has been sliding into the shitter every since, and it is now 70th in per capita GDP. That's level with Serbia and Turkey (though with higher wealth inequality), so I'd still call it second world, but the situation is continuing to deteriorate.

That's what religious government buys you

Correction: that's what a religious government that came into power through a revolution and has no effective secular rivals in a country without a two-hundred-year old constitutional tradition gets you.

[Starglider]

I'm with the conservatives too. You might be able to argue for them to back off certain subjects by selectively quoting the Bible or appealing to nebulous "Jesus wouldn't support that" arguments.

Have you ever got that to work in real life? I certainly haven't. They're so used to selectively quoting and 'flexibly interpreting' the bible (which is full of internal inconsistencies anyway), that it doesn't seem to make a dent. If you don't have personal credibility as a believer and a 'bible scholar' (now there's an oxymoron) I can't see them listening.

Lolbertarian's arguments are invariably "the government is evil/inefficient/worthless" and they never back off of it. You can't say "well, the government could really help people here" because they'd shoot back "no government sux it would make things worse" without even thinking about it.

In my experience, that is an extreme position. The majority of libertarians want the government around to defend the country and maintain the rule of law. In fact if you are including all of the US parties that strongly emphasise individual liberty (e.g. the Constitution Party), then I think the majority support all the basic, essential public services (fire/police/sanitation etc).

The extreme religious position is the immediate dismantling of the secular state and replacement with theocracy. If you are assuming that they are not going to want or get that and are instead simply going to get a slow progression back towards 17th century laws and morality, then it is wildly inconsistent to assume that the libertarians will get to vanish the federal government, as opposed to a slow progression back towards late 19th century levels of corporate regulation and income inequality.

Unfortunately, this BBS seems to get a regular dose of extreme libertarians (e.g. Voluntaryist), but no extreme fundamentalists (though they do feature in those crazy emails to DW about his evolution site). I guess the later realise that they're going to get slammed and riddiculed (or aren't motivated to talk to the heathens), and the former do not. In any case this may result in a skewed perception of actual positions.

[Starglider]

You are only helping my case.

Correction: that's what a religious government that came into power through a revolution

How does this make any difference? The Iranian revolution involved an alliance of several elements; islamists, communists, and vanilla anti-monarchists who pushed for democracy. Democracy was instituted and some communist elements were installed. Both of these were very quickly subverted by the islamists, who were simply fought dirtier and were more prepared to stir up populist anger against their rivals. Sound familiar? Anyway, within five years they had consolidated total control over the country. Let's be generous and say that in the US it will take twenty years.

and has no effective secular rivals

Secular rivals being the opposition minority party. Looking at current US politics, the Democrats constantly try to compromise even when they probably shouldn't, wheras the Republicans are the stubborn obstinate 'party of no'. Now, which of these parties is more like that? Both think they're right by definition and are frankly less likely to compromise than the Democrats, but libertarians actually respect individual rights and opinions. Go onto a libertarian forum and there are at least lively debates about policy specifics. Discourse is in my experience pretty civil - even Voluntaryist here was an idiot but at least made the effort to debate rationally. Fundamentalists have no respect for other people's opinion, because The Truth is not something to be discovered, it is all written in their little book. 'Compromise' means being lead away from God's Path by the Evil Secularists. Fundamentalist forums (not that I have spent a lot of time there) seem to be full of rants and praise for said rants, with the only disagreement being on topics such as whether gays can be 'cured' by brainwashing or should just be burnt at the stake. So I think the libertarians will be more likely to pay attention to what other people are saying than the fundamentalists.

in a country without a two-hundred-year old constitutional tradition gets you.

This is the clincher. Even if I accept your assumption that this makes a big difference, the libertarians are the ones who go on about how the US constitution is the greatest document ever written, and that if the US could just get back to that as the definition of the federal government, everything will be wonderful. The fundamentalists are the ones who bitch that the constituion 'does not even mention god' (true) and demand that it be replaced by the ten commandments.

That's exactly my point. Maybe I'm not enough of an ideologue, but I find the OP question unanswerable. I'm a shopper when it comes to votes; I actually examine platforms and vote on positions and issues, not 'is conservative'. The two terms cover such broad ground (and variety) that it's impossible for me to make a decisions or take seriously the specific identifications being made.

I entirely agree (that that is what I would do in real life), but rather than dismiss the question as impossible, I tried to look at the likely outcomes for the most plausible parties meeting the descriptions provided. I guess everyone else who actually voted did too.

[aerius]

I'm fucked. I'm in an inter-racial marriage so I'm somewhere on the Conservatives' shitlist, and once they get done with gay marriage & abortion sorted out they're likely coming after me to screw up my life. No way I'm going Libertarian either since my asthma could potentially get out of control and put me in the hospital, plus I'll need likely need rehab & physio on some of my joints as I get older thanks to being hit by a car some time back. I also need regular checkups because of that hit. That's going to put me in the poorhouse with a for-profit healthcare system unless I can somehow make a shitload of money, and the stress of knowing that is going to take at least 10 years off my life.

No matter who I vote for I'm going to get bent over and sodomized, so even though the OP forbids it I'm getting the fuck out and moving to Canada.

[Starglider]

No way I'm going Libertarian either since my asthma could potentially get out of control and put me in the hospital, plus I'll need likely need rehab & physio on some of my joints as I get older thanks to being hit by a car some time back. I also need regular checkups because of that hit. That's going to put me in the poorhouse with a for-profit healthcare system unless I can somehow make a shitload of money, and the stress of knowing that is going to take at least 10 years off my life.

Isn't that already a problem in real-life, unless the Democrats miraculously grow a spine and actually push through a single-payer system in the current term?

I confess Canada is also the place I would most like to emigrate to, though my wife would probably insist on Australia because Canada is too cold.

[aerius]

YYZ is Pearson International Airport, which is in Canada. No way I'm living in the US outside of a hypothetical scenario.

[Morilore]

How does this make any difference? The Iranian revolution involved an alliance of several elements; islamists, communists, and vanilla anti-monarchists who pushed for democracy. Democracy was instituted and some communist elements were installed. Both of these were very quickly subverted by the islamists, who were simply fought dirtier and were more prepared to stir up populist anger against their rivals. Sound familiar? Anyway, within five years they had consolidated total control over the country. Let's be generous and say that in the US it will take twenty years.

First, the difference is that no revolution of any kind is postulated in the OP, so we can throw out any scenarios where all society is massively overhauled, traditions overturned, etc. in a couple of years. Secondly, even granting your twenty year timeline (why?) what makes you think I want the religious party to stay in control of the government for that long?

Secular rivals being the opposition minority party. Looking at current US politics, the Democrats constantly try to compromise even when they probably shouldn't, wheras the Republicans are the stubborn obstinate 'party of no'. Now, which of these parties is more like that? Both think they're right by definition and are frankly less likely to compromise than the Democrats, but libertarians actually respect individual rights and opinions. Go onto a libertarian forum and there are at least lively debates about policy specifics. Discourse is in my experience pretty civil - even Voluntaryist here was an idiot but at least made the effort to debate rationally. Fundamentalists have no respect for other people's opinion, because The Truth is not something to be discovered, it is all written in their little book. 'Compromise' means being lead away from God's Path by the Evil Secularists. Fundamentalist forums (not that I have spent a lot of time there) seem to be full of rants and praise for said rants, with the only disagreement being on topics such as whether gays can be 'cured' by brainwashing or should just be burnt at the stake. So I think the libertarians will be more likely to pay attention to what other people are saying than the fundamentalists.

How respectful and intellectually curious the two groups are is a complete idiot red herring. The point is that an opposition party will continue to attack the governing party simply because it seeks power. That's a different power dynamic from "religious council can veto candidates." As for Democratic spinelessness, that's a whole other subject, and the OP does not stipulate Democrats -> Libertarians or Democrats -> whichever party loses so that's irrelevant. And are you suggesting that the way ideologues discourse in internet forums is a good predictor of how politicians backing those ideologies will behave in government?

This is the clincher. Even if I accept your assumption that this makes a big difference, the libertarians are the ones who go on about how the US constitution is the greatest document ever written, and that if the US could just get back to that as the definition of the federal government, everything will be wonderful. The fundamentalists are the ones who bitch that the constituion 'does not even mention god' (true) and demand that it be replaced by the ten commandments.

Don't be a moron. There are plenty of fundamentalists who delude themselves into believing that the Constitution is based on Christian values and so forth. It's ironic that you ignore varieties of fundamentalism while trumpeting American libertarians' diversity of opinion.

[Starglider]

YYZ is Pearson International Airport, which is in Canada.

Right, sorry, I forgot.

[sketerpot]

I'd vote mostly Libertarian. Bureaucratic inertia would neuter them except on social issues, I hope. I'd also vote for the more pragmatic Conservatives, especially the ones who focus more on the economic part, so someone will act as a check on the Libertarians.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Of the two choices, I'd have to go Libertarian. Not because I like them any better, but because I think they'd be less effective at pushing their ideology. Once they actually got into power and tried to start slashing government, they'd run right into the problem that everyone wants the other guy's program to be cut, not theirs. Their policies would become a disaster, fast, and they'd be either stalemated or lose power in the next election or two, especially when the news started to fill with things like children dying because the FDA had been disbanded. An ideology that's fundamentally all about selfishness will founder when it becomes obvious that it's against almost everyone's self interest.

Religion on the other hand is very good at getting people to go against their own best interest, to outright deny reality. By appealing to people's irrational devotion to religion, I see them as being able to stay in power longer and do more damage.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Myself, I feel like I'd probably find myself supporting a libertarian more often than not simply out of anti-evangelical tribal inclinations, but simultaneously the religious party would probably end up with more humanitarian results, especially if it passed universal health care and instituted a more progressive tax. I suppose the optimal course would be to support the religious party until it got its "big platform" economic issues, such as health insurance and a more progressive tax, passed, and then switch to the libertarian party before the conservatives could take significant steps toward enshrining current prejudices and making atheists and gays second-class citizens. What are your thoughts?

The problem with your strategy is that religious politics in the United States place the highest priority on those social issues, so they'd probably get to economic matters second. If we're assuming that both parties are to some degree competent at achieving their goals, then the religious party would be better for me personally. I don't see them as being a racist party because that's in large part an artifact of the Christian Right's southern and rural nature. A Christian party that was successful on a national scale would have a very different character, because it would include a ton of people who are IRL Democrats--there would be a left and a right wing, which would split on issues of race, treatment of religious minorities, and how much to restrain science and medicine. Their left would include a majority of American Catholics, most Blacks (who are evangelicals in the main), and most of the mainline congregations like Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, and a good slice of the suburban evangelicals. Their right would be the fire-and-brimstone evangelicals, southern Baptists, and so forth.

I would agree with their economic agenda, and being heterosexual, able to fake Catholicism, and not needing any abortions, I wouldn't be afraid of much persecution. The Libertarian alternative I just can't see working, because libertarian policies themselves are the problem. The religious party would be a government that forced atheists and homosexuals back into the closet, banned abortion, and fucked up science. The Libertarian party would fuck up the economy and all the social services, would lead much more directly to large-scale human suffering. Of course, as I said, this is only if we're assuming that both parties are competent at achieving their goals. Given the common experience of most governments run by religious fundamentalists there's no reason to assume that, though. They would very likely be short-sighted, corrupt, and nepotistic, and would end up ruining the country anyway. The Libertarians might be more pure, but again, their road map leads off a fucking cliff anyway, so they're really no better and maybe worse even still.

Another issue with the scenario is that it would be pretty hopelessly stacked in favor of the religious party, given the religious and political leanings of American society. The libertarians would have access to a lot of big business funding and would probably run the affluent suburbs and have strong showings in the Southwest, but where's their electoral base? The religious party would run the whole of Southeast and the Midwest, and their strong showings in both cities (full of Latino, Black, Irish, Italian, and Polish voters) and rural areas would give them a forceful voice everywhere else. We're talking about a regular electoral sweep, which means the two parties system would be inherently unstable, with the Libertarians likely to go the way of the Whigs.

[Coyote]

While this is clearly a "which of these two hells is the least hellish-- to you?" I'd have to go with the Libertarians, simply because if they are true to their ideology, I and some like-minded people would be free to incorporate our own communal support society, a kibbutz if you will, and live according to our principles without interference. We wouldn't be able to save the country or world, but we could look after our microcosms of it and see to it that our poor and hungry are dealt with.

The Conservatards would take care of the poor and hungry, but also indoctrinate them into Battle Droids for Jesus and spread Inquisition and purges of the unclean. An organized, oppressive government always needs an enemy to target the people's will against, and if they can't find one on the outside, they'll make them up from within.

[Big Orange]

Libertarians: their ideology is simply too barmy and ill defined to implement properly, and so would not be attractive to most voters and the more saner captains of industry. But if attempted seriously it would be the New Orleans fiasco writ large with so much mayhem the cops and military would eventual turn on their LOLbertarian leaders to set up a provisional government.

Religious freaks would have their own hospitals and make the trains run on time, while providing tons of community work for all, so that would make them more dangerous like the 1930s National Socialists and are attractive to the vindictively narrow minded.

[starfury]

The price for that is lack of federal benefits, reduced infrastructure spending, and creeping increases in wealth disparity. Frankly, that's both more bearable on an individual level and a noticably slower slide towards tyranny than the religious alternative. It's still going to produce a hellish dystopia in the long run, but if I had to chose the lesser of two evils, I'd probably still go for the libertarian one, though I'd likely try to give the fundies the occassional single term in power if the situation persisted. The final virtue of the libertarian option is that it at least hasn't been tried, so we will learn something in the process (the Russian communist experience has served as a good warning to other countries tempted to try the same thing). By contrast the theocratic state is a depressingly familiar outcome with no easy escape

didn't we go through this before when comparing Libertarians to communism, communism worked well to become depressing familar outcome as you stated for theocratic states, but Libertarian rule in any form never even lasted that long, before turning into warlord states or anarchy far more quickly, a more direct route to hell compared the at least winding routes of religious rulel, familar but at least a indirect route
basicly working poorly versus working not at all, hence almost no real life examples

[CarsonPalmer]

How many religious parties throughout history have social welfare policies like universal health care and progressive taxation as part of their party doctrine? On the other hand, how many communist parties throughout history have taken control of the government through free and fair elections and gone on to respect constitutional government that predates them?

I'm reaching here, and this has only been on small-scale levels, but what about the mayors who ran political machines in the first half of the 20th century? Yeah, they were corrupt as all hell, they were diehard Catholics and they took a lot of their orders from the bishop, but they did take care of the people in the city in their own twisted direct way. If Frank Hague or Richard Daley or James Michael Curley is running against Ayn Rand, I might have to vote for the machine. Not that it wouldn't suck, but I think it would suck less to be a citizen who has to pretend to be a white-bread Catholic and love the mayor, but knows he can go to Margaret Hague Memorial Hospital for free if he needs it, then huddling in my makeshift bunker to get away from the maniacs with guns in the streets.

[Samuel]

Libertarian. The states will fill in the vaccum and although I will die for the California Republic's bid to secure the Colorado River it is better than being relocated to the Holy Land to fullfill Biblical prophecy, having the internet completely taken over or shut down or having friends taken away to camps.

Viva La California!

[Junghalli]

It would depend on exactly what mix of priorities and positions the two parties had. For instance, if the Conservatives made their economic reforms a high priority and soft-pedalled their social policies they might be the lesser of two evils. On the other hand, in my mind I kind of imagine them acting like the real far right and giving lip service to charity and whatnot while actually making implementation of their retarded social policies their top priority, in which case the Libertarians are probably the lesser of the two evils.

I'd probably try to vote in Conservatives who were more focused on the public good programs and less hard-line on social issues, and Libertarians who cared deeply about individual rights but were willing to compromise on economic issues. Really, the best possible thing that could come out of this would be a government contested between the relatively sane wings of both parties, with the batshit crazy wings being as marginalized as possible.

[Alerik the Fortunate]

I'd probably try to vote in Conservatives who were more focused on the public good programs and less hard-line on social issues, and Libertarians who cared deeply about individual rights but were willing to compromise on economic issues. Really, the best possible thing that could come out of this would be a government contested between the relatively sane wings of both parties, with the batshit crazy wings being as marginalized as possible.

This is the best outcome to be hoped for, and not altogether unrealistic in this country. I think the mindless middle tendency of the country would tend to ameliorate the extremes of each, on average, but it still leaves the question of how I would vote. Being atheist, bisexual, and mixed ancestry puts me on the immediate smite list of the Fundies, except that I can easily hide all three, which I generally do for the first two in a lot of circumstances. I'm generally of above average health and intelligence, and have had the good fortune to be raised in relatively stable circumstances, so I wouldn't be too disadvantaged in Libertarian America, except that my wife has had some difficulty with her pregnancies, and her job, which provides our health benefits since I work for a very small company, receives government funding. So the greater immediate measurable loss would probably come from voting Libertarian and losing health coverage that we are likely to need soon. Privately we could still live largely as we do under a theocratically inclined government, unless it gained enough social and political inertia to start invading our lives and forcing more and more personal conformity. So after a term or two of religious conservative, I'd probably have to vote Libertarian periodically, if not just to keep the opposition party strong enough.

If we're extremely lucky, some of the better policies, like decriminalizing many drugs and providing accessible health care for the poor will be implemented during a term of one or other party and become so popular that the opposition will be politically unwilling to remove it for the sake of doctrinal purity. My question is, where will the media be during this and what will there likely take be on each party? Corporate money will favor the Libertarians, while religious censorship could eventually become powerful, but I think it would take the religious party longer to enact really sweeping laws controlling the media than it would take for corporate ownership/bribes to influence coverage.

[Patrick Degan]

My conscience would not let me support conservatives. And my intelligence would balk at supporting libertarians. Under that sort of political environment, I'm fucked.