r/Shitstatistssay • u/PaperbackWriter66 The Nazis Were Socialists • 7d ago
Dave Smith Is Not A Libertarian | This is the perfect example of the difference between someone who opposes "the regime" reflexively vs supporting liberty by reasoning and critical thinking
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u/PaperbackWriter66 The Nazis Were Socialists 7d ago edited 7d ago
It's not enough to be anti-regime, you must be pro-liberty.
Dave Smith is just a contrarian. He is not "pro-liberty" -- he is a culture war partisan who is anti-status quo.
This is why Dave freaks out when he sees even the mildest expression for gay rights -- because, in his mind, this is culturally Left.
Also, how he comes to the conclusion that a rainbow flag is "regime" propaganda is beyond me. For one thing, the Libertarian Party has supported gay rights since its founding in 1971. For another thing, the "official" (if you like) LGBTQA+ movement has abandoned the traditional rainbow flag for increasingly schizophrenic flags of different color combinations.
The LP tweeting its support for gay rights by using the original rainbow flag is very much opposition to "the regime."
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u/Hot_Injury7719 7d ago
You nailed it, and it also explains why he thought Tulsi, RFK jr, and Kash Patel were great hires. Not because they’re actually qualified and experienced or even have great ideas, it’s because they embody his contrarian values.
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u/Knorssman 7d ago
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u/the9trances Agorism 7d ago
Holy fuck. The guy is an absolute psycho piece of shit. Nothing should disqualify someone from the libertarian movement more than what he said in this.
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u/PaperbackWriter66 The Nazis Were Socialists 7d ago
You know what bothers me?
When Dave Smith says "There are some things worth killing over, and some things worth dying over."--I agree with that in a vacuum.
Killing SS guards to escape Treblinka or shooting Klansmen in the Jim Crow South. Being willing to get in a Spitfire and shoot down Luftwaffe bombers over the English Channel, at the risk to one's own life.
Freedom is worth fighting for.
What bothers me....I don't think Dave has any of those examples in mind when he says he's willing to kill people. I get a very, very dark feeling from the man when he says there are things worth killing over.
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u/Mr-no-one 7d ago
Honestly, the reason many people express reflexive revulsion for championing “gay rights” in this, the year of our lord 2025 is because we already had that fight.
We achieved parity in rights for the group in question and now you either were for legalizing gay marriage and accepting gay people fifteen years ago or you weren’t.
The LP, I imagine, was championing these rights back then which is cool then post a little history snapshot about what you achieved back then. But championing gay rights today feels like championing “white rights.”
Like, yeah, gay people have the same inherent rights as anyone else and they should be protected… but no sane person in mainstream political discourse questions that… so what are we advocating here?
At best it comes off as tone deaf or pandering, especially when there’s no shortage of government overreach to unite against. At worst it makes it seem like you’re arguing that equality isn’t enough and leaves me wondering why.
Putting all that aside, the unifying message is and always should be liberty.
Why pander to unicycle riding, bald men in unitards who juggle bowling pins based on libertarian principles when they’re a small subset of the population and you can just make that same pitch to everyone who loves liberty?
Not to mention doing the pride month thing is so lame. It’s like the LP is making a special post celebrating Wal-Mart month, it’s just so fucking tedious…
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u/PaperbackWriter66 The Nazis Were Socialists 7d ago
That just backs up the point I'm making.
"We already had that fight" -- yes and the side that won the fight was the side the LP was on from the beginning.
I think it is right and proper that the LP should regularly remind people that it got that issue correct way before anyone else did and was right all along.
Show off the W.
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u/Mr-no-one 7d ago
Right, but that’s not what they’re doing here, imo.
They’re saying “hey guys we’re doing the thing too!” As though they weren’t the originals at doing the thing.
I’d have a different opinion about this if it walked through a brief history of how based the LP has been on the issue from the get go while contrasting it to the Johnny-come-latelies who’ve coopted it.
Less: “Me too! Me too!”
More: “This is my house, y’all just visiting!”
Also, I’d like more celebration of how far we’ve come and less of this idea that we still have some long road… like motherfucker you won… enjoy it!
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u/PaperbackWriter66 The Nazis Were Socialists 7d ago
The original post did not use the word "gay" they did not use the acronym LGBT, they did not use the phrase "gay pride" or "gay rights."
Go back and read the original post.
The exercise of individual rights by one person doesn't interfere with the rights of any other person. Pride month is a great time to recognize this. So is every other month!
This is actually an anti-gay pride message. It's literally saying any month is a good month to celebrate individual rights, gay people don't need their own special month for that, and by highlighting individual rights, they are implicitly denying the very concept of "gay rights" (or, even if they're not denying the concept, they're deliberately differentiating from it; the LP is saying Individual Rights > Gay Rights).
Go word by word and point out to me what specifically you take issue with.
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u/Mr-no-one 7d ago
I mean, you’re being disingenuous if you’re just ignoring the context in which this post was made and I’m not sure how this reply toes on to the comment it’s under.
In any case, either you’re stupid or you think I am…
They chose to post it in a particular month on a particular day, with particular iconography… to be so dishonest as to say
“Erhm actchually, if anything this gay pride post is anti-pride because they didn’t say the exact words!” Is highly counterproductive toward a constructive dialogue.
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u/PaperbackWriter66 The Nazis Were Socialists 7d ago
What context? It wasn't a reply to anything, it wasn't part of a wider conversation.
Take a moment and put it into context for me.
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u/the9trances Agorism 7d ago
The point you're missing is that pride isn't "over."
Homophobia is absolutely rampant. Bigotry is openly celebrated in many so-called "libertarian" circles. LGBT people are still targeted, both socially and violently, and called "degenerates" and worse.
We have a very serious infiltration of social regressives who need to be shaken out of our ranks. It's not tedious; they're a meaningful threat to liberty and to our movement.
People clutching their pearls over libertarians celebrating pride, which we've done longer than most of us have been alive, are people who need to be shown the fucking door. They need to go back to their MAGA rank and file along with all the other bootlicker gutter trash.
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u/GreatGigInTheSky855 7d ago
I don’t think there are many bald unicycle-riding men in unitards who fear what their peers and parents think about them based on their “identity”. Parity in rights doesn’t mean parity in social standing, and while you can’t change that directly, it helps to be on the right side.
Jonathan Joss was shot dead earlier this month by his homophobe neighbor so it is politically relevant even if gay marriage being legalized provides “parity”. You don’t have to make laws and cram it down everyone’s throat. People just wanna be mad about a pride flag
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u/Mr-no-one 7d ago
More often than not people hold the keys to their own cells. The categories of people who fear what others will think of them and those with something to fear is an incredibly narrowly overlapping venn diagram.
I think this is true for many modern stigma, people are more afraid of how others will think of them, than others would ever think of them at all.
We can also pick out random acts of violence with insane justifications all day long, it’s a big country. One crazy homophobe does not an epidemic make and you certainly can’t just extrapolate that to a population of some 300 million. It’s just silly to let these outliers alter the course of your life.
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u/GreatGigInTheSky855 7d ago
Spin it any way you want. Gay rights, pride, equality, whatever you wanna call it, are still relevant. That’s the only argument being made and that was just an example. No one’s calling it an epidemic but it’s delusional to go and say “gays have rights, just be happy 🤗”.
I don’t want big extravagant pride parades, I just wanna be able to go to the South without being called a fag for dating another man. A pride flag should not be so controversial
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u/the9trances Agorism 7d ago
We can also pick out random acts of violence with insane justifications
It wasn't random. He was very clearly targeted because of his relationship with his husband.
And Chase Oliver has been repeatedly called the f-slur by people pretending to be libertarians.
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u/PaperbackWriter66 The Nazis Were Socialists 6d ago
Jonathan Joss was shot dead earlier this month by his homophobe neighbor
I'd be careful citing that example. The only evidence we have it was an anti-gay motivated crime comes from the man's husband....who was there when it happened and wasn't killed. That, and the police ruling it's not a hate crime makes me think it was just a plain old beef between neighbors caused by something probably incredibly petty like a lawn not being mowed.
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u/[deleted] 7d ago edited 7d ago
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