Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "‘Free Speech Libertarian’ Goes FULL FASCIST Over Student Protests" video.

AUSTRALIAN here, with an outsiders perspective/observation on American Libertarians and why it matters.* They are always howling about Freedom, Liberty and the Slippery Slope to Authoritarianism when in fact they are only ever talking about THEIR Freedoms, THEIR Liberties and THEIR RIGHT to throw everyone else over the cliff of Authoritarianism. My way of describing them is a simple way is: "Libertarians demand the Liberty to strip other's of their Liberties" And so you all know - I went to college in America (late 80s) and even back then you could see that the American population (in general) was unaware of the threat the Libertarians were. One of the Koch brothers ran on the Libertarian ticket (as a potential VP) AGAINST Reagan claiming Reagan wasn't going far enough. I did engineering NOT poly-sci with no real interest in American politics BUT EVEN BACK THEN it was obvious how much of a future threat these people were. FURTHER, there are several Australian Libertarian Think Tanks (e.g. The Institute of Public Affairs) whose power and influence is growing through the support of American Libertarian Think Tanks. As to why American politics matters now (in 2024). 1) I care about America and have a lot of good friends there. 2) American is still Australia's most important trading and security partner. Simply put Australia cannot afford to America fail and in that Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Britain and a few other can't either. 3) America is still about 25% of the worlds economy and if it gets messed up by these clowns then the whole world suffers the consequences BECAUSE the US Dollar ($USD) is still the World's reserve currency and most of our international trade is either done in $USD or the currency conversions involve $USD or are backed by $USD. So if these clowns DESTABILIZE the $USD by being stupid (which they are), then its really bad for the other 7.6 Billion people on the planet. All international trade goes away. Its even bad for pariah countries like Iran, Russia and North Korea because even they do business in $USD.
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@clairewright332 Simple answer is "Not really" Its Left of the Libertarian view but America basically does NOT know what a real Left is in the first place because both your major parties are fundamentally to the political Right. America never had a union based political party like British Labor or Australian Labor. American has the Democrats who started in the South and were so far to the Right the Klu Klux Klan was formed out of them. The Republicans under Lincoln freed the slaves while the modern Republicans would re-introduce slavery in a heartbeat. Obama famously admitted his economics were in line with Ronald Reagan's. America doesn't have Left and Right it has Right and Far Right. Don't panic in Australia right now we refer to our parties as SHlT (Lib Nat Coalition) and SHlT LITE (Australian Labor). BUT what America does have that's similar to everywhere else is they have to political sides that basically see each other as the nations greatest threat. A couple of years ago there was a comment attributed to Johnathon Haidt that basically went "There's a cacophony where the Radical Left and Radical Right just scream at each other while the rest of us, trapped in the middle, are simply exhausted." I think that's essentially true in almost every developed nation right now. Each side just screams at each other and its exhausted the rest of us. Its very true in Australia and from what I can see Britain, New Zealand and Canada as well. Every public debate is framed in the context of "Its their fault because they are terrible and a threat to our way of life, our freedoms and our basic rights." You often hear lines like "We have to take our country back!" I even heard that from One of the New Zealand politicians recently and their politics is usually tame compared to ours. Fueling it all is a media (all of them) that's totally (and often fanatically) obsessed with attention. They will do anything to get their audience's attention and then lock it down with the right social media tags. AND IF a story isn't burning bright enough they will throw rocket fuel at it until it does. AND IF it causes both sides to be outraged at scream even louder at each other they see that as an invitation to throw even more rocket fuel at it.
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@kindGSL I largely agree except that what you are doing is EXACTLY what so many other Americans do. You believe that America cannot fall and yet it almost did on January 6th. You had a President totally out of control and NOBODY willing to reign him in. That's as dangerous as it gets. I agree 100% it will be very hard to break America but you can break anything if you really want to. Since then American has utterly FAILED to deal with him and this is part of an ongoing issue with America NOT holding its top echelon accountable. Nobody at the top was held accountable for the invasion of Iraq. Nobody at the top was held accountable for the prisoner abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib and Bagram AFB. Nobody at the top was held accountable for the 2007/08 GFC. On that there's a PBS Frontline on it where Lanny Breuer (Eric Holder's Deputy) says straight to the camera they chose NOT to pursue charges against the Wall St CEO's for economic reasons. Mitch McConnell could have simply said "NO, this is too much." and simply impeached Trump after January 6th and disqualified him from future office. I went to college In America and had these sorts of discussions 30+ years ago. I've heard all about the systems of "Checks & Balances" that would never fail and allow someone like Trump to do what he did. What NOBODY has grasped is that we are NOT living in the 80s or 90s when these systems still worked. Reagan was held accountable for Iran-Contra. I was in college in America as that went on. Bill Clinton lied about getting blown and was held accountable. Then 9/11 changed everything and ever since America's systems have slowly been broken. Back in the 80s or 90s if anyone had told an American that in their lifetime they'd see an enraged mob storm the capital chanting "Hang the Vice President!" they would have called you crazy and yet that happened and NONE of the instigators have been held accountable. If you had told anyone back in the 80s or 90s that half of Oregon wanted to split away and join Idaho they would have called you crazy but that is happening right now. American's are always talking about the "slippery slope." Well News Flash you are already on that slippery slope and sliding. The only question is how far will you slide before you wake up. And so we are totally fair Australia is doing the same sorts of stupid things and its mostly because we have had a lot of people go to places like Harvard and Yale and they wave their degrees in our faces AS PROOF of their irrefutable expertise. We have stuff going on here RIGHT NOW that could easily break our nation. Societies are fragile things and can break if you aren't careful.
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