Last night, I hosted the first of what I hope to be several potluck dinners at my little country home in Portland. The idea came up during our "man on the street" session with Jenny and Tasha, so they of course, were invited. I also invited Heather & Jud, but he couldn't make it, and Arch invited Emily Eagle, who I later found out is a "Marketist" (not a Marxist - I'll explain). After a helping of rotini with a homemade pasta sauce, fresh salad and some good wine (thanks Moet), the conversation inevitably turned to politics. Emily was talking about the "Libertarian camp" she attended when she was younger (I didn't know such a thing existed), and was sizing up the young Libertarians and why they'll most likely vote Obama rather than McCain. She went on to describe her belief in the "Market" to promote innovation in areas of Science & Industry and shouldn't be regulated (i.e. held back) by the government. That's all well and good, but business is, by nature, a moral. The bottom line is about profit, regardless of worker's rights, social programs like pensions and health care, community, the environment, etc.
HP just announced layoffs of 24,000 workers, mostly in the U.S. which accounts for about 8% of their workforce. This was necessary to stay competitive with IBM, according to one news source. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gp10gghHwMG5030paEBbVQMH_RwQ. If I understood these bailouts better, I'm sure I could draw some comparison here, but I'll save that for another post.
Now I don't pretend to know all of the Libertarian platforms, and in her defense Emily didn't claim to be a Libertarian, but I imagine what she was saying is not far from the party platform. I admit, also that my first intro to this political party was a completely negative one. I had a roommate in college named Jim, the fiance of a friend of mine from Spanish class, Jean. Jim was a staunch Libertarian, and at the time I knew nothing about it. He gave me a book to read about it, and within the first 3 paragraphs, I knew I was reading a paranoid conspiratorial theory about how the government wants to raid your home and take your guns away. I wasn't impressed. And Jim creeped me out. He was always so angry at the world and I remember he had a "Subvert the Dominant Paradigm" bumper sticker on his old car. I will never understand why Jean, a beautiful, intelligent, funny girl, would marry an idiot like him. Needless to say, I wasn't invited to the wedding. And I've been skeptical of Libertarians ever since.
I saw this bumper sticker today. It was the only sticker on the car.
Photo : Claire Houston (c) 2008, Iraq/n
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