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In reply to the discussion: No group has done more to harm their own cause than the Green Party USA [View all]Sympthsical
(9,192 posts)You do know that, right?
And, in my experience in this space, a lot of people don't know what Libertarians "are like". It's usually just made up, "I want to think of them this way, so I characterize them this way." It's funny, because I usually just see "Libertarians are all secretly right-wingers!" and suddenly in this case - because it's helpful for the argument to not be true - I see people who have made that assertion in the past suddenly going full reverse on it.
Which is very amusing. I are amoosed.
Reducing Libertarians to pot-smokers is little different than right-wingers who try to reduce our side to socialism. It betrays a lack of depth or serious thinking or exploration of who people are and what they believe in. There are stereotypes on any side, but that's generally not the bulk of people.
If you don't know any actual Libertarians - and I do - well, that's nice. A lot of them take their shit seriously. And they're sometimes interesting folk. I'm a civil libertarian liberal. Like old school ACLU before it got . . . weird. So sometimes I find things in common with them. Particularly on speech and expression issues that our side has grown hostile to in recent years.
Stepping outside the bubble is good. There are a lot of people who are concerned about the authoritarian turns being made in various quarters and seek different options. I'm not with them outside of a few issues - I'm a reliable Democratic vote - but I get it and see it and know quite a few people who make those choices.
Reducing them to, "They're just pot-smokers!" isn't useful.