Why has there never been a dictatorship in the U.S.?

Mostly, yes.
You know that meme where it’s a slippery ideological slope from libertarianism to fascism? Most normie right wingers in the US are just plain libertarians. I would argue the same goes for the left. There are a lot of extreme tankies, sure, but most leftists are annoying and overbearing, yet moderate.

The left is mostly a psychological condition where they believe in being disgusting, vicious ghouls, and basically manifest cluster B personality disorders as a political archipelago. There's also the side of the left where it's disgusting fringe people who shouldn't have been allowed across the border, out of the kitchen, out of the Pale, out of prison, out of the psych ward, out of the closet, out of segregation etc. and they're basically all in it together to leech off the people who built the society they're trying to climb into and take over, because they need to control said society to be able to parasite off it without getting cut off from its generous gibs and liberties combo. They simultaneously look down on normal people and feel free to abuse said healthy, normal, sane, trusting people, but have no actual moral basis to do this (because they rightly self-perceive as unworthy and offputting [NB: This overlaps with 'imposter syndrome'. People who experience 'imposter syndrome' are people who correctly intuit that they are imposters scamming people around them.]), so they have to create the justification that normal people are actually just as vile as they are, if not worse. They have mostly no constructive vision for how to make a sublime society. All they can do is kill babies and try to shoot teenagers and get everyone (including the groups they represent) injured. Because they hate the world, themselves, and you, and if you entertain them for a moment they lose respect for you, because they intuit (as narcissists) that only a person who isn't worth a damn could like them. Unfortunately, they're so spiteful and suicidality gives them such a sense of being able to take the easy way out while also giving them passes from having to worry about honour (since they could kill themselves at any moment, and are a victim of mental illnesses), that they don't just either reform or dip, but rather hang around making problems.

Genuine sense of world historical accomplishment.

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At heart, yes. Even the American right are anarchists at heart, they just don't realize it.

I don’t see how you can claim that either social democrats (majority of the left) or law and order republicans are anarchists.

I completely disagree. I am a libertarian because I believe that centralized power is inherently bad. Of course we all know that a wise and benevolent dictator is the best form of government, but it will invariably be seized by someone who is neither. It’s not about someone with a different set of goals for society seizing power, it’s the fact that it will always be abused by anyone.

I believe that society is nothing more than a collection of individuals and it’s goals aren’t anything other than the goals individuals join together to achieve. I’m not interested in imposing my desires on others, and I think that it’s perfectly possible for multiple groups of people with somewhat conflicting goals to coexist and cooperate peacefully. That’s what libertarianism is.

The people I see in real life, who cry about guns and wave the yellow snake flag, don’t fit your description. They might have some ideological confusion and support protectionism or something, but they’re not cryptofascists biding their time. They just want to live ordinary, moderately paranoid lives without being pushed around.

> The fact is that fundamentally, libertarians would not take issue with living under an authoritarian government that conforms with their general sensibilities
So an authoritarian government that doesn’t try to order people’s lives? Doesn’t really sound like what authoritarian governments do.

I’m curious, what exactly is fascism to you?

> This is a rather irrelevant point to discuss, I might as well say "far-right" or "the chuds"
I consider someone to be a libertarian if they largely believe in libertarian ideas. Someone is a socialist if they believe in state-run industry. It doesn’t matter what they label themselves. If someone calls themselves a libertarian but they don’t really believe in any libertarian ideas then they’re using the word wrong.

If you don’t believe that fascism has a meaning (which is slightly more fair because it really is less defined), any deeper than what you said, and you don’t think that the people you’re talking about actually know about or believe in liberty, then your comparison between the two is meaningless.

And even on a practical level, I don’t think your average person who hasn’t really thought things through and is vaguely right-wing is affiliated with whatever groups comprise the far-right. I don’t know exactly what the proportions of the Republican Party look like today, but I think that the groups that comprised fusionism are still separable and really only loosely allied. You can’t just daisy-chain together someone who wants limited government with someone who wants political violence just because someone else slapped the label “right-wing” on them

>A socialist is so primarily because they believe in a strong need for economic equality, and state-run industry is just their typical solution for this.
Well that is the definition of socialism. I mean, you’re right, I’m sure most people who would call themselves that see it as an ends to a mean and haven’t thought it through at all. But if they decided that they wanted a free market and that they wanted a big welfare state to create equality then they wouldn’t be socialist. At that point they’d be social democrats.
>And this is quite similar to how I see libertarianism, which views a decentralised libertarian society as their solution for how to avoid the policies they dislike, but other solutions are available, and in this case actually realistic, and they are never going to view those with as much hostility.
While I’m sure that arguing against state power is just a means to an end to some people, there is a moral element to libertarianism. That it’s morally wrong to organize a society around coercion, and that a society based on voluntary cooperation respects individuals and ends in themselves.
>I don't believe liberty really exists and is chiefly a buzzword, so make of that what you will.
Liberty is freedom from coercion. You might not have the power to do what you want, but another person is not able to use force to stop you.
>Timothy McVeigh is an obvious point of connection, and Kaczynski is popular with the far-right even if he is more idiosyncratic than anything, but also bridges libertarianism and far-right/reactionary demographics.
I mean someone can cobble together any ideas they want I guess. I could think that gun rights are important, nazis are stylish, and capitalists are stealing my surplus labor value. You said you’d always find a specific person who breaks the rule, well I think these examples are breaking it pretty hard.

I’d rather pick a coherent set of ideas than try to make sense of what tons of people think

>It is trivially easy for a majority, or just sufficiently large portion of the population to become upset about something and organise to ban it.
Is it? That’s the whole purpose of the bill of rights, to remove certain things from the rule of a simple majority. And that’s the purpose of the bicameral legislature, which is the only one of its kind in the world. And the separate executive, most countries have a prime minister that is elected by parliament. And it’s the purpose of the filibuster in the senate. Things aren’t exactly as the framers planned, and I agree that the system has morphed and eroded in many areas, but the game isn’t up yet. Back in the Reagan era we almost got a balanced budget amendment. And now we have a Supreme Court with multiple originalists. It’s easier for the big government folks to get their way, but nothing is written in stone.

And if I meet any of these anti-government right wingers in the future you can bet I’ll give them the Milton Friedman speech too.

Alcohol prohibition was passed by stinky old women when the men were off fighting a war. Also it was enormously popular in a much more religious teetotaler America.
The war on drugs is the same. It had the approval of the majority of the country. A large majority. Today it doesn’t, and you have seen policies change, albeit not in a complete way. But decriminalization is part of the discussion in many states, and weed is slowly becoming legal in more places.

Your point is refuted because it is not “trivially” easy to get enough people to agree on something. Look how hard it is to get a constitutional amendment through.
I don’t agree, people don’t want to be ruled. Individuals get together to set down some basic rules of society that almost everyone agrees with. Like the law against murder, I’d say that’s probably 99% popular. I know our frankstein government does things for special interests that the people don’t want, but someday we’ll fix that defect in our government’s design. The balanced budget amendment was an attempt to do just that, to force congress to vote on spending as a package instead of handing out candy every special interest that comes knocking.

And that guy is dumb.

I’m 30

I’m not an anarchist libertarian. I believe in limited government which prevents violence, protects against external threats, and sets up courts. But otherwise, centers of power like Microsoft can naturally emerge and be disbanded over time through voluntary cooperation.

The world gets smaller every day. You know China and Russia are big countries too, right? It takes more than size to stay free

Russia is bigger.