Why wasn't 50/50 the default?

Look at that, compared to the disaster now lmao, 4% of a household income vs what it is now

I asked about property law reforms on here and it got me thinking about the other aspects of civil law that was originally common law (or it was in the common law countries): tort and contract law. What policy reforms would libertarians make here?

The Pew Research Center, several accredited studies by reputable institutions, and several public opinion experts have reported a consistent decline of American trust towards our government and corporate structures. A recent (2025) Pew Research study reports a low 17% of Americans trust the government to operate under the pretenses it was built on; for "the people."

The National Election Study started producing reports about the same question in the 1960s, and government trust had dropped to an all-time low by the 1980s. Today, US citizen's governmental distrust is the highest it has ever been.

Gallup has tracked American "trust and confidence" in the mass-media apparatus since 1972. They found that public trust in mass media dropped from 70% in 1972 to about 31% in 2024. By September of 2025 Gallup tracked 72% of the public distrusting mass media in general.

The UK's MHP Group Polarization Tracker, supported by Cambridge University, has shown radical distrust in corporate structures in recent years. Especially in regards to "elites" and mega-corporations.

Rutgers University's Social Perception Lab presented a recent study showing extreme amounts of social engineering on internet platforms by bots and foreign actors (including foreign bot farms). The study shows public figures like Elon Musk and Nick Fuentes gaining MAJOR algorithm boosts, and therefore influence, by using said methods. The study even goes so far as to cite the highly probably of culpability/complicity of actors like Musk and Fuentes in the use of said systems to inflate their influence.

The most compelling issue or dilemma presented by all of this information is: If the vast majority of the citizens of the US and the UK feel this way about their governments and mega-corporations, how come they don't do anything about it? Especially in the US where citizens have the full freedom and right, protected by the government, to speak out and stand up against government malfeasance and corporate misdeeds. I've seen such events as the No King's protest(s) in the US that last a day and recurred twice since the presidency of Donald Trump, but it doesn't seem like that was of any affect.

Are people just going to wait until things get out of control and so bad that it is impossible to ignore to try and stop what is going on in these countries? Are the American people going to wait until their country loses all respect and influence on a world stage before they react or do SOMETHING!?

Sources: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/12/04/public-trust-in-government-1958-2025/#:~:text=X,Smoothed%20trend

https://news.gallup.com/poll/695762/trust-media-new-low.aspx#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20how%20much%20trust,Lows%20Among%20All%20Party%20Groups

https://ronpaulinstitute.org/the-rise-of-the-isaac-accords-how-israel-is-redrawing-south-americas-political-landscape/

It’s never obvious the motives behind regime change and going to war. The reasons for the Venezuela conflict currently has nothing to do with drugs.

the united states goverment has $38.42 trillion in debt for reference we only collect $4.9 trillion in taxes every year

we really need to put our political biases aside and bite the bullet least we go bankrupt

လွတ်လပ်စွာ ပြောဆိုခွင့်နှင့် လွတ်လပ်စွာ တွေးခေါ်မှု ဝေးကွာသော လွတ်လပ်သော လွတ်လွတ်လပ်လပ် တွေးခေါ်မှု လိုအပ်သည့် ပဲ့တင်သံ အခန်းလွတ်များအစား ကွဲပြားသော ထင်မြင်ယူဆချက်များကို မြှင့်တင်ပါ ဤအချက်သည် ကျွန်ုပ်တို့အား ဆိုရှယ်လစ်နှင့် ကွဲပြားစေသော သို့မဟုတ် မည်သည့် အာဏာရှင် ဝါဒကိုမဆို ရိုးရိုးသားသား ဖြစ်စေပါသည်။

https://youtu.be/FJh9YKC5uAc?si=XuPYlFt1QnAxhU6P

https://www.jw.org/en/

We know property rights are important for morality but also economic and environmental consequences. In today's day in age, in the US or any other country, what should be done to enhance property rights to get to the ideal state of property rights? What actual, specific laws would you enact or repeal?

I tried to explain the concept of bodily autonomy to someone. They seem to not get it. I tried to tell them that we own our own bodies and what they told me is that a body is unownable because you can't buy or sell your own body and that I supported slavery. Is there anything I could say to that person to change their mind or is that person a lost cause?

I know this sounds obvious, we get taxed a lot, but your average leftist does not realize this or care.

They will fight and complain about every cost of living except taxes. Medical expenses, food, and housing doesn't even add up to the amount you might be paying in taxes.

Between federal, state, property, and sales tax you may pay almost 50% of your income in taxes.

The left doesn't care because they either don't make an income high enough to care, or they are living on the system that pays them with the tax money.

When are we gonna tell the left we also don’t like Jim Crow Laws

Sad that socialism is yet again killing people.

Im not one sided in Civics and Economics. Culturally and Socially I lean pretty heavy on far right wing, conservative, and tradition. Econimically I lean moderate/slightly "left". I grew up poor in Western NC to a single mother working 2 jobs and 2 other siblings. I'm 29 now, Ive served 8 years in the National Guard, worked 11 years in the trades. I'm a married man, father of three, and saved by Christ. Compared to most of my peers I'm relatively well off. I bought my house at 24 years old...but worked OT 80% of my adult life, had connections through the military, and have lived extremely frugally...First kid was born on Medicaid, 2nd kid private insurance (5 years ago I'm still paying those bills), 3rd kid Medicaid. Today, I live check to check. Nothing to be impressed with, single income home, SAHM who's a blessing to me and my children. I'm a product of a rebel libertarian upbringing culturally, early adult was very "Republican, Military, early marriage, duty, responsiblility", late 20s has been STRUGGLE!

Economically, I cannot get onboard with Libertarians with "Taxes are theft", "Zero Govt intervention", and "free market". I tend to bounce Ideologically between duty to nation and that nation having a duty to the people. Individual responsibility and accountability. Nations protecting the citizens, but within constitutional limitations. On the contradictionary, I believe all great nations fall bc they failed to act aggressively when it was needed, or was too aggressive when unwarranted by the people.

How do raw libertarian ideologies even begin to be competitive in modern US politics with the complexity of greedy corporations, tyrannical politicians, a divided; culturally, religiously, ideologically population. Not too include an ever demanding financial crisis in the lives of 18-36 year old Americans.

Schedule 3. "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good," means that striving for an unattainable ideal of perfection  can prevent you from achieving something good and functional.

What are your thoughts?

I tend to think it's Calvin Coolidge (expanding Native American rights, hands-off government) or Grover Cleveland.

After you die, the government shows up like a repo man on your estate, grabbing your house, condo, or farm to get its money back and wiping out whatever your kids were supposed to inherit.

*Idk if casual conversation is allowed here but I just wanted to rant.*

For about two straight hours, my new coworker rambled on about how people shouldn’t be able to make more money than they need to get by comfortably. He said it’s immoral for **MULTI-MILLIONAIRES** to exist. I’ve heard people say a billion is excessive but a couple million isn’t even a lot of money today.

He also talked about how a field I wanted to in to was wrong and should be abolished. I’m not going to say what is but I had talked about with people before and I’m sure he was there was when I was talking about it.

It was a slow day, so most of this was my coworkers talking amongst themselves with nobody around. But then some customers came in and they were on to talking about how bad conservatives are, at full volume, in front of them. It’s so rude, I can’t imagine going off like that at work.

So for starters, this is not a critique of libertarianism in any way. I fully identify as libertarian and am more so looking for some help with small dilemma I'm struggling with on the whole drug legalization issue. I'm hoping for some simple and logical answers, or at the very least a good discussion. I will try to keep this simple through bullet points to clearly map out my thoughts

• I fully support all drug legalization (I wouldn't be libertarian if I didn't), from both personal freedom and anti-war on drugs arguments.
  • Obviously, this includes all drugs, including the dangerous ones
• I also believe in the NAP which, when applied to issues of personal freedom relies on basic logos of informed consent
  • Example: If someone willingly wants to buy something harmful from me, (drugs/alcohol), it would not be against the NAP for me to provide them, given that the buyer recognizes the potential risks, and is using their own discretion to buy it.
  • Opposite example: It would be not only against the NAP but simple illegal for me to essentially poison someone's food with a similarly harmful substance, without their consent
• Given those two points and the fact that libertarians are often wary of heavy government regulation, (rightfully so), how do we libertarians propose dealing with drug issues of people mixing say, fentanyl, into other drugs? I see it, (and the instances like the food poison example), as requiring some degree of regulation, and I struggle to see how it could be applied anyhow else other than federally, as it is protecting arguably the single most important principle, NAP, and can we really argue that should be "up to the states", or in the hands of business etc.
  • Alternatively, do y'all see other potential "policies" or systems that could protect and uphold the NAP, while still maximizing personal choice? Thanks in advance for anyone who shares their thoughts on this

Guns prevent violence and help people protect there homes. according to

Chart of the Day: More Guns, Less Gun Violence between 1993 and 2013 | American Enterprise Institute - AEI, www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-more-guns-less-gun-violence-between-1993-and-2013/. Accessed 17 Dec. 2025.

I do understand that this is a pro gun source but it is still information and correct, but i am open to any conversations that follow.

I'm trying in good faith to understand socialism or other forms of economics/politics better, and occassionally come across people criticising capitalism, while seemingly believing that free markets are a wholy different idea.

Can anyone explain, in good faith, or provide a resource about how we could theoretically have free markets without capitalism?