Very cool, if true

Liberal Democrats are the people who believe that people should be allowed to make their own decisions, that cannabis and prostitution should be legalised, that strong government isn't the answer. They were also the only major party to say that taxes needed to go _up_ at the last election, because they recognised that the NHS was in urgent need of more cash. Think of them as socially liberal and economically supportive (if not fully redistributive).

Gods, that's depressing to read (at least for an American), even your version of libertarians (which are here a greed-infested plague on the US political landscape) are not only acceptable, they are doing good. I prefer socialism combined with many social freedoms, but I'd likely be voting liberal if I were in Britain. It sucks to live in the most backward and pathetic first world nation, but is still admittedly far better than living in the 3rd world.

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Libertarians?

None of the parties are anything like libertarians. None of them, for instance, are even close to suggesting abolishing the NHS.

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I compared the lib-dems to libertarians because back in the 1960s and early 70s (the last era when US politics was not completely troglodytic) they were actually fairly similar - back then, US libertarians supported an end to drug prohibition and supported a guaranteed national income. Then, the vast right-wing shift came to the US and hit them worst of all. There is some speculation that since conservative increasingly means authoritarian would-be tyrants, libertarian will soon become a left-wing ideology again, and as such will change to fit that new role.

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Aah, I didn't realise your libertarians used to be more left-wing.

I'll hope that the left-wing swing arrives, but in either case, libertarians tend to be too dogmatic for me, generally valuing ideals over people, a position I'm not happy about.

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How can libertarians, of whateer shade, be left wing? The essence of the credo is that people should be equally free to do what they want to do ("formal equality") and government should interfere to the least amount possible. hence right to bear arms, not to pay taxes, private medicine and (depending how far you go) prisons and armies and fire brigades and all the rest of the lunacy.

"Left wing" in all its shapes is about believing that some people are weaker - economically, mentally, physically, emotionally - than others and that as we all share the same society there is a role for the state to protect the weaker from the stronger, and even up the gap ("result equality") - usually tho not invariably by taxing the stronger, and/or encouraging the amrket to take on/generate the money for the protective role (ie New labour.) I cannot in my right (or left :) mind see how libertarianism can get anywhere near left wing.

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Just to add to that , supporting legalisation of soft drugs is not intrinsically (or actually at all) "left wing". It is "progressive" or "liberal" in our cant, and "libertarian" in US cant, in that it prefers to give people freedom to make a choice whether it's bad for them or not, rather than being paternalistic. It just so happens that it tends to be wishy washy liberals/labourites in the UK who also support dope decriminalisation :)

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How can libertarians, of whatever shade, be left wing?

Back in the 50s-early 70s, libertarian was effectively a somewhat more respectable (mostly because it was unknown) word for anarchist, and I would argue that most anarchists are left-wing, then again my own politics wavers between socialism and anarcho-communism. The linkage between libertarianism and capitalism came later. Most anarchist strongly believe that any form of rational and humane anarchy is incompatible with capitalism, just as I would argue that any rational and humane system of government (or ungovernment) is incompatible with capitalism.
Today, such libertarian are often called libertarian socialists, a term that makes no sense from the conventional (right-wing) libertarian persecutive.

The history of anarchy in the US is fascinating stuff, check out the anarchy FAQ.

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nickys.livejournal.com

Actually the Conservatives also draw support from people who aspire to be rich, but who believe that what is preventing them from being rich is taxation.

There was an interesting programme a while ago where a family on fairly high income (both parents were middle managers of some sort) took part in an assessment of how much it would cost for them to buy services such as education, water supply, refuse collection etc directly from commercial companies rather than paying taxes. They were gratifyingly horrified to find that it would cost them three times as much to buy the services directly.

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wolflady26.livejournal.com

right-wing part of the rich and those who think that the poor deserve to be so poor because they're all lazy scum. Which puts them slightly to the left of the Democrats, on the American scale, as they (nowadays) don't actually believe that homosexuals should all be put in camps

Funny, I thought the Republicans (on the American scale) were the ones who thought the poor were all lazy scum, and the Democrats were the ones who thought the rich were all thieving embezzling dirtbags who deserved to have their money ripped out of their clenching fists and given to the more deserving. But the differences between the parties are so small that I could just be confused again.

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No, the Democrats are the ones who think the poor are all lazy scum. The Republicans are the ones who think the poor are subhuman scum.

Neither party would stand any chance of being elected in the UK.

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yonmei.livejournal.com

My impression is that the Democrats are somewhat to the right of the Conservative party, though in the past they have done leftward things. They *might* stand a chance of getting elected here - after all, it's the Tory party's lack of leadership, lack of policy, and general fuckwittedness, that is keeping them so much out of power now.

The Republican party are a load of screaming right wing nutters who do not stand a chance in hell of being elected anywhere but America.

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I don't think the Clinton administration was right of the Tories, on most domestic policy at least, and may well have been left of New labour on several planks. (I am not dealing with foreign policy and defence here.) The US, for example, has had a far more liberal policy on abortion than the UK throughout many adminsitrations. The medical insurance system, if you are in work, (which is a big if, of course) also provides far better care than the NHS does (or perhaps did - let's be optimistic ) for many people. It is wrong to judge US politics wholly on what we see most of here, which is their foreign policy.

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yonmei.livejournal.com

But as I understood it, the medical insurance system in the US is completely private - the only exceptions are Medicare, Medicaid, and health benefits you get if you're a US army vet. With the result that 40% of people in the US have no health insurance at all, because they've never been in the military (or, of course, they were dishonorably discharged), they're not yet retirement age, and they're in jobs that don't pay medical insurance and don't pay enough to get private non-job medical insurance: and since they have jobs they don't get Medicare. The NHS has its problems, but at least it covers everyone living in the UK, which makes it fundamentally better than the American system. Not to mention cheaper...

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This is sadly exceedingly accurate.

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chipuni.livejournal.com

You missed the most important party of them all... the Monster Raving Loony Party.

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And the SNP? (Who I personally think are bigger nutters than the Republicans, but still :)

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