The "both parties are the same" meme is right wing propaganda geared towards reducing voting. Conservatives always benefit in elections from low turnout because there are fewer registered Republicans than Democrats. That's one of the reasons Conservatives are constantly talking about government being "bad" and intentionally defunding the government in ways that prevents it from actually working...it's the key to alienating voters and reducing turnout so that Conservatives can stay in power.
It doesn't help that the Iraqi army are a bunch of surrender monkeys who rival the French in their cowardice. ISIS has M1 Abrams tanks, humvees, and blackhawk helicopters because the Iraqis abandoned them at Mosul rather than using them to fight. All the training and equipment in the world won't make up for cowards with no will to fight. Meanwhile the Kurds aren't nearly as well equipped, but they're fighting to the last man in Kobani and taking a lot of ISIS with them. And we won't support them beyond some token airstrikes for fear of pissing off Turkey, who is doing nothing to stop ISIS anyway. As far as Ebola, I think the news is blowing it out of proportion. You're most likely done for if you get it, but it's hard to transmit. Unless you plan on making a scat video with an Ebola patient, I think you're probably fine. I don't see it becoming an epidemic in any western countries. It has gotten out of control in West Africa mostly due to the extremely unsanitary conditions there.
alterego, are you actually implying that anyone who believes there is political corruption in both parties is just subject to propaganda? I can assure you that my opinion is not being driven by conservative campaigns.
There is corruption in both parties, but the Republican party is rotten to its core. At least what the Democrats believe isn't completely awful. And that line of thinking is a big part of why there's not better voter turnout to keep Republican scumbags who do nothing but make the country worse out of office.
True libertarian views aren't fully in line with conservative thought. In fact, on social issues, libertarians tend to look more liberal. Now I'm talking real Libertarian views, not the fake Rand Paul stuff he spins as libertarian.
That's what I mean by conservative propaganda. For example, libertarians might oppose the current use of the military in Iraq vs. ISIS, but that's not because they're specifically opposed to war…it's because they're opposed to ANY type of foreign aid, including economic aid and humanitarian aid. So despite having a superficial similarity to a liberal position, it's actually a far right wing position.
Also supposedly supporting rights for gay people, women, or minorities, but being against any kind of legislation that would actually ensure those rights, which in practice is the same as being against rights for gay people, women, or minorities. The similarities to the left are superficial at best. Libertarians are far right in their beliefs.
I'm not going to convince either of you clearly, because you can't even see the political spin in your statements. But your perceptions are way off base. You can disagree with policies and ideas, that's all good, but I wonder if you realize how biased and misinformed your statements sound. This level of confusing is caused by the media attempting to group libertarian and Tea Party movements together, but they are nothing alike other than the smaller government and less taxes angles. So just for the sake of saying it: yes, alterego, the philosophy of non-intervention isn't liberal, but it's also not a social issue, so my statement still stands correct. And cmdrmonkey, libertarians are not against legislation that protects rights. I don't have any idea where you got that impression. The protection of individual liberty is the very foundation of the philosophy and protection of rights are at its core. Now if you are talking about Republican "libertarians," then you are correct that they are full of shit in making any claims. But for actual libertarians, protecting rights is one of the few legitimate uses of government.
Here is the liberal case against libertarianism: it doesn't mandate people to do anything and it doesn't throw money at problems. Both of which sound great to me. Under a libertarian government, gay marriage would be recognized and those couples would have all the guaranteed rights granted to them under law by the State. What on earth is ultra conservative about that? Telling people they can't marry is an attack on their right to liberty and happiness.
If we're the ones that are confused, could you name some current or former politicians that represent what you consider to be the "real" version of libertarianism? You've mentioned that you don't consider Rand Paul to be "real", but perhaps you consider Ron Paul to be "real"? Also, cmdrmonkey is correct about the social rights issues and libertarians. They don't believe that the government should have the authority to enforce equal rights or civil rights on private property. They think each individual person should be able to determine what rights other people have when they're not on public property. A lot of libertarian ideas are straight out of feudal times, where wealthy land owners call the shots and rule people's lives. They're not really Constitutionalists. They're monarchists.
Haha.. I was watching Fox. They made it look like Iraq was going to be lost in days or weeks. Nobody seemed to acknowledge that creating a power vacuum in an unstable 3rd world region might have been a bad idea. It was more of a Obama botched the freedom Bush heroically brought to the Iraqi people tone.
I don't think it's blown out of proportion at all. The world can work together right now to try and extinguish the problem or it can let it slip by and we'll be living with another AIDs crisis for the next 15 to 30 years.
The WHO are saying we could see 5000-10,000 new cases per week by Christmas. I think that that point closing borders to people from infected countries may be a sensible idea. I know that sanitation and facilities are better in the west but why take the risk? http://news.sky.com/story/1352857/10000-new-ebola-cases-per-week-by-xmas-who