1. Don't tread on me!
Sorry your conservative movement got hijacked by the Republican establishment and Ted Cruz, my guy, but I'm harvesting all the Gadsden flag memes.
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2. Read Economics 101!
Wow! Haven't heard that before, like ever. Maybe I haven't heard of Henry Hazlitt or Thomas Sowell before; maybe I just ignore the whole lot of them because the Austrian school is considered a fringe science in an area that is already consuming too much of my time.
3. Communism already killed a hundred million people! Why would you want to try a watered-down version?
I'm not saying the Holodomor didn't happen, among other atrocities. I just find it odd that the definition of "Leftist policies that killed millions" literally includes everyone, even fascists. Real capitalism never killed anyone though, because we live under corporatism. That's pretty convenient.
4. Look at what's happening in Venezuela! Look at what happened in Greece!
Venezuela has severe issues with black market inflation and an overall clusterf**k in currency. The lack of diversification when it comes to industry can be blamed on Latin American populism at best.
As far as Greece is concerned, there were a lot of issues at play including longstanding debts owed by expired Greek regimes as well as the nature of Greece in the European Union and the Eurozone. For people typed as anti-globalists, Libertarians sure love to hold countries trying for socialism accountable as victims of self-determination.
5. Nothing new would be invented under socialism! There's no progress without the profit motive!
How cynical is this? How much of what you accomplish in a day is done for free?
6.
Where do I even start with this one? I understand trying to wake people up to "the third way" is very important, but socialists and other marginalized parties don't need the #woke treatment. Beyond that, at some point as a "social liberal" one has to make economic concessions. The best way to filter the Libertarians from closet conservatives is bringing up healthcare or your friendly neighborhood bakery refusing service to LGBT people.
((Hard mode: filter out the liberal-tarians by bringing up a Muslim bakery refusing service to LGBT people.))
7.
Technically, yes. Taxation is theft. You don't have a choice in whether or not you are going to be taxed. Unlike normal theft, there's an understanding that certain services are going to be provided in exchange for those taxes. The effectiveness of those services is debatable, but taxation is not just theft.
8. The Scandinavian countries are more capitalistic than the United States.
See point six. It's very difficult to hold welfare states to a standard of libertarianism, even if they are more business-friendly. It's also a little annoying seeing memes about how prosperous countries with no minimum wage laws are, when the minimum wage laws do exist but are just not federally mandated.
9. You should vote for Gary! He has a better chance than Jill Stein and wants to end corporate control of government!
((I'm going to start out by saying this is about his policy positions relative to socialists, not whether or not his success would crumble the two-party media monopoly to our benefit.)) This article points out a number of issues for Gary Johnson across the spectrum, notable for socialists being the TPP, minimum wage laws, and Citizens United. His position on climate change isn't appealing to the Left, sometimes not appealing at all. He has been shaky on student debt reform. Ultimately, socialists shouldn't vote for Johnson because even if cronyism is removed from the system, his core philosophy still keeps corporations in a position to wield power over the working class with little regulation or transparency. It isn't just about government; it's about hierarchy.
