On Tuesday, 30 August 2016 10:25:47 AM AEST Trent W. Buck via luv-talk wrote:
Rick Moen via luv-talk wrote:
I tend to think in operational terms, and the USA Libertarian Party seems to have only erratic and inconsistent adherence to any specific theoretical framework for 'libertarianism'. The latter term is so ill defined in USA political discourse [...]
[...] 'libertarian' (in USA discourse) is just a political football and means any of a variety of rather different things depending on the speaker.
Cf.
The word "Fascism" has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies 'something not desirable'. -- George Orwell in "Politics and the English Language"
Productive intercourse is impossible with people using such terms.
We just need to try and be consistent about the use of words. The word "conservative" in a non-political sense means to not want to change things. But in terms of politics "conservative" means not wanting to conserve the environment. The solution is not to try and say that the Republican party is not "conservative" but to accept that the most commonly used definition of "conservative" means Trump etc. Rothbard was correct when he claimed that he stole the word "libertarian". The most commonly used definition of the word is the one he invented. We just have to accept that and move on. Fascism never lost it's meaning because people who violate the Godwin rule aren't applying any specific meaning to it. Words such as "socialist" and "Marxist" are commonly used as terms of abuse in low quality tabloids like the Wall Street Journal. Again that doesn't change the meaning of those words because the WSJ and other poor excuses for journalism don't have any meaning. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/