pnelson

In light of Donald Trump's rise in popularity (which I support) I've noticed a lot of my politically plugged in friends on the libertarian end of things are vehemently against him for some bizarre reasons and attack him more harshly even than Hillary. I've found previously very rational people to lose their collective minds over the Trump issue and seem to almost take it personally if you question there assertions (many of which are based on the false rumours Stef dealt with). I guess my question is, from a psychological viewpoint, is this pull-back from Trump right on the cusp of his victory a sort of panic induced by actually succeeding at advancing a non-mainstream candidate and being on the verge of a non-politician, successful, intelligent guy winning a popular election without having to sell his soul to the machine? Personally I think yes. There is a weird perfectionism in Libertarianism that makes it impossible to support anyone in concrete terms (only abstractly).

You could re-read that article as "Parents who don't want their children to be crude, rude, self-entitled little brats support Donald Trump".

I think the biggest thing that's held back the liberty movement from becoming a broad force is our collective desire to nitpick the crap out things and tarnish everything that lacks complete philosophical and intellectual purity. Now Trump is not perfect, obviously. Yet he does something no one else dares do. He holds a mirror up to the mainstream culture and says; "Look at what you're doing, stop pretending it's all fine, stop pretending your being honest, just look at the mess you perpetuate". If we are ever going to have any kind of hold on the culture then we need to stop bickering about the most boring and technical of details and instead capture the spirit of what we support- freedom, self determination, choice, strength, courage etc... - and shout about it loud and clear. The left didn't win the culture by arguing the long term economic impact of increased minimum wages, or the ROI of government spending in infrastructure. I can hold up a chart that shows how government screws the simplest of things up and people won't care not a jot because they are convinced it's right on an emotional level. It's like being at high school; the nerds and geeks are the smart ones, with great ideas, great personalities, interesting hobbies but they are also the ones who are socially awkward and weird and insist on discussion minutiae. The jocks are loud, brash, idiotic, but "cool" and can get a crowd going (the freedom lovers being the nerds, in this analogy).

Its a great book. I am on my third read and still getting new perspectives from it (the mark of a great book in my opinion).

I discovered FDR some years ago, and from it I discovered Objectivism which, ironically, led me away from FDR. I became minarchist and avoided Anarchist ideas. However recently I've been drifting away from Objectivism - mostly because of Objectivists. The ones I've met are largely insane in one way or another and really not nice people, although I do have a lot of respect for what ARI do as an institution. In the end I decided to start supporting FDR again because I think Stefan's approach is far more conducive to spreading the practice of freedom.

Hi everyone, I know this thread has gone quiet but I felt I had to weigh in. I'm a behavioural psychologist so I'm acutely aware of behaviourism as a philosophy of science and a psychological theory. I think there are a lot of misunderstandings about what it is (and isn't) and were it comes from. I don't want to go into a big literature review but if anyone has any questions about it I'd be happy to offer a contemporary view from a behavioural perspective.

Hi everyone, My name is Phil, I'm from the UK. I'm actually a psychologist and a behavioural consultant, I discovered Freedomainradio some time ago but recently came back to it. I'm looking forward to some good conversation here!