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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2255 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 5, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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They are the "pragmatists" who caused the Libertarian Party to effectively endorse Trump rather than supporting its own candidate, Oliver.

Article

To be honest, I consider myself a libertarian, but never had any desire to support any of the LP candidates. Oliver personally checks too many woke boxes for me (no, it's not about him being gay, that part doesn't bother me at all). And in practical terms, between woke takeover and compromising on some libertarian principles to stop the woke takeover, I think it is prudent to choose the latter. When the choice is between Hamas-supporting racist trantifa totalitarian marxists and somewhat-bigger-government conservatives, I think a practical thing for a libertarian would be to vote for the lesser evil. If the woke threat ever goes away, we can go back to the discussion about making somewhat-bigger-government into smaller-government, but I personally think positioning it as "both are equally impure and there's no difference" to me is childish and silly.

but I personally think positioning it as "both are equally impure and there's no difference" to me is childish and silly.

Imagine if you will the early Christians, hiding in the catacombs. Leaders are debating amongst themselves about missionary plans for the future. One stands up and says "You know, the sun-worshippers have a lot in common with us, and on a few issues they really aren't that bad, maybe we should join up with them instead of calling them demons. At least we'd get a few wins in the books!"

Perhaps they would have been right about the sun worshippers being preferable to the other pagans. Perhaps such a combination might even have achieved some noteworthy goals in the second century. But it is overwhelmingly likely that such a move by Rome's Christians would have precluded the future Constantine, and the empire would never have been converted to Christianity.

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