At what point did the normally sane people at Hit and Run turn into the libertarian version of the Rush Limbaugh show? If I had to guess, I would have assumed they would think a bill of $400 billion in tax cuts and $400 or so billion in spending would at least be considered half good, but instead the reaction over there the past few weeks has made Malkin look restrained by comparison.
You would think Obama and the Democrats were making possession of dope and porn punishable by death. Or worse still, they were bringing back the Fairness Doctrine.
Xecky Gilchrist
Has it been a while since you’ve checked that blog? I’ve never followed it, so I don’t know much about it. I do note that from time to time, if you leave a blog alone for awhile then revisit it, there’s some chance that it will in the meantime have gone howling bugfuck insane.
During the primaries, that happened a lot with blogs I check only occasionally. There were a handful that turned from nice little places into frothing PUMA zones.
And didn’t LGF start off as a harmless bicycling blog before it turned into Genocide-R-Us?
Shocking when that sort of thing happens, isn’t it?
slag
Their beloved "free" market ideology has been decimated. I believe the first step is denial. Let them grieve in peace, would you?
Also, here’s why we need to spend more on economic stimulus.
Dave
What pisses me off is that Reason keeps using Japan as the example why we shouldn’t have a stimulus. What they (and the GOP) keep forgetting to mention is that the Japanese dicked around for a few years before they really cut rates and spent money like they needed to. And the result was the deflationary spiral had set in too deep for it to be effective.
Which is why Obama keeps correctly pounding on the urgency of getting this out now. Ideally we should have done this six months ago.
dr. bloor
They don’t care if you kill pornographers and drug pushers. Just don’t tax them.
Svensker
Even when I was still self-identifying as libertarian, I thought Reason was run by douche bags. They spent most of the Bush years yakking about marijuana laws. And a fair number of their writers thought the Iraq war was hunky dory. Torture? Ho hum. Patriot Act? Ho hum. Bombing brown people who didn’t do anything to us and then occupying their country forever? Hey, it might keep us safe to smoke pot, so, yeah!
They have not been a very thoughtful crew since at least the early 80s.
John Cole
@Xecky Gilchrist: If you asked anyone who read me in 2004 and liked what they read and then read me today, they would tell you I am howling bugfuck insane now, so take that with a grain of salt.
I mean, we all have principles we like to think we adhere to, but reality often seems to get in the way. I would love it if we could lower taxes, cut spending, and frugal our way out of this mess. I just don’t see how that is the answer.
Not to mention, I am betting the folks at Reason had some real strong opinions about market and bank deregulation these past ten years.
Paul L.
Since no Democrats are pushing for the Fairness Doctrine?
Time to get a new talking point.
Why Is Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) Pushing Talk Radio Censorship?
Bill Press Wants Government To Regulate Talk Radio
Sam Wilkinson
Slag,
Libertarians, Reason, etc are a tricky bunch. They’re actually going to claim that the market has never been "free" and that everything we’re seeing is actually the result of government involvement in the marketplace. So you’ve got to engage them on that field of battle, because they’ll put their fingers in their ears and scream "LALALALALA" if you dare criticize their market ideology.
thomas
Libertarians believe a novelist (if that’s what you want to call her) was adeep economic thinker.
Seitz
It’s not so bad so long as you remember that Reason is made up of about 10% who lean left, 20% who lean right, and 70% who simply hate government no matter who is in charge. So when the party you don’t like is in charge, they seem sane, and when the party you like is in charge, they seem insane. The truth is, they’re almost always insane (except Matt Welch, who is a fellow Angels fan/blogger).
Remember, more often than not, a Libertarian is just someone who’s too embarrassed to admit to being a Republican.
John Cole
Personally, I guess I still have a lot of Republican in me, because while I don’t think anyone is really going to pursue bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, a part of me is kind of hoping they do just to watch the inevitable hissy fit.
mark
I think really, they’re just that up in arms at the spending. Personally, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the solution, and I keep coming back to, ‘let the banks go bankrupt’. it’s going to hurt no matter what, but trying to sustain a bubble is going to cause more damage to the economy than letting the restructuring take place.
Of course something can be said for having a more…graceful failure, but I’m not sure if this package will do it. More important, I don’t think anyone is thinking along those lines right now. People keep harboring that we can sustain this somehow. which can’t happen,
SO…
People are saving, not spending
banks are absorbing money like a sponge
businesses are stuck with high wages relative to income
People have so much long term money invested and are flipping at the loss of value. So they’re saving but not investing.
Companies are so leveraged they are incredibly vulnerable to any downterm in their wealth (because banks flip out if you’re worth less than what you owe).
But until people get to a savings level where they feel comfortable, they’re not going to spend.
And companies have been relying on that excessive debt creating spending by customers for the last couple of decades to drive their profits and growth.
Now companies can create much more product than people can purchase at the price point set by the companies.
So prices fall, wages are sticky
and stockholders perceive the value of the company as less. which reinforces point 5 further
So, now we’ll find out who the healthy companies are, and hopefully people will be opportunistic enough to create companies to take the place of the companies that failed.
ugh. Reason is just too stuck on the all spending is bad mantra without bothering to explain why they think it’s bad. I don’t mind having someone say something sucks, if they can bring good reasons (no pun intended) to the table.
KRK
Hit and Run has always had a few bloggers for whom the dubious tag "libertarian" was even more dubious, but, yeah, they’ve gone off the deep end since Obama came along. I checked in there a little while back to see what they were saying about Obama’s Executive Orders on closing Gitmo, ending extraordinary rendition, reinvigorating FOIA, etc. (things libertarians should care about), and there was a big fat nothing. It was all about taxes and tired, old "Pelosi is bad" tropes. Then I checked out the comments and found that they’ve lost everyone except "joe" and the right-wingers.
I only started reading Hit and Run when it was already cool to hate on Bush, so I don’t know what it was like around there in the early Bush administration. But Balko’s the only one who seems to have any libertarian integrity, as opposed to trying to be a "cool" Republican.
Notorious P.A.T.
@Svensker:
Heheh. People whose pet cause is smoking marijuana are showing signs of mental deficiencyl? Who woulda thougt it.
The Grand Panjandrum
I hit them once in a while and I noticed a change in tone. This piece by Jacobs Sullum isn’t crazy but it is not really saying anything other than Stimulus = Bad and using a NYT piece as evidence.Somehow he comes to the errant conclusion that Geithner is using the Japanese model as an ironclad plan and fails to mention that the new Treasury Secretary and the other economic advisors are using it as a guideline but have every intention of avoiding their mistakes. In the article it specifically states that Japan’s infrastructure was already in good repair and they STARTED with many infrastruture projects that were essentially Bridge to Nowhere. Our infrastructure problems are well documented and the people of Minnesota are fully aware of its immediate impact on their lives. If nothing else his criticism of the current stimulus plan is disingenuous. I wonder if he would "come to Jesus" if someone ended up at the bottom of a river because a bridge collapsed on the way home from work?
Shorter Reason: Don’t just do something, stand there!
torrentprime
The arguments at reason seem to boil down to "we moved fast on Iraq and TARP, and those were expensive, and, like, bad, so the stimulus must be bad too." Having gone to reason conventions and read some of the books published under their imprint, I don’t think they’re even convincing themselves that a drive-by analysis of that speed is robust enough to pass muster, but hardcore libertarians just can’t really defend government intervention of this magnitude, so they have to say something.
My emails from Ron Paul’s group also attack the stimulus bill, and praise the House Republicans’ zero votes in support, but the glaring absence in the emails seems to be the lack of any counter strategy.
Everyone knows we need to do this, and the objections are pretty lame, but you go to blog / email blast with the ideology you have, etc.
Xecky Gilchrist
@John Cole: If you asked anyone who read me in 2004 and liked what they read and then read me today, they would tell you I am howling bugfuck insane now, so take that with a grain of salt.
Point. I’m just saying it’s a shock.
Josh Hueco
I hate to keep flogging the same horse, but Scalzi got it right when discussing libertarians:
torrentprime
@15:
In the article it specifically states that Japan’s infrastructure was already in good repair
Seriously. I would be less inclined to spend money on trains / roads / bridges if it currently took less than 20-odd hours to get across less than half of California by train. It’s like traveling by mule.
PeakVT
At what point did the normally sane people at Hit and Run turn into the libertarian version of the Rush Limbaugh show?
Nearly everybody in the country has been insane at some point during the past 8-9 years. For instance, a few years ago I frequently saw assertions on lefty blogs (mostly in the comments) that Bush was going to declare martial law and cancel the 2008 elections. Then there were entire states such as NV and FL that thought home prices could go up 10% per year forever. And then there were all the people who thought the US would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. Etc, etc, etc.
This country has always had it share of kooks, but larger and larger sections are being afflicted, or so it seems to me. I’m not sure who or what to blame, though the fragmentation of the news media looks like a good candidate.
The Moar You Know
@Paul L.: I have a new talking point for you; the Duke Lacrosse players were guilty of rape and got off on a technicality.
Keith
Sorta like how a harmless chess program became the MCP.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Paul L.: Senate hearing about fairness on the airwaves is a far cry from bringing back the dreaded Fairness Doctrine. I would not be in favor of it myself. Its a ridiculous solution to a real problem. Radio talk show host Ed Schultz has data to support his thesis that radio management and owners DO NOT put liberal talkers on the radio based on ideology. His show outperforms many of the highest rated conservative shows including Hannity and O’Reilly yet he ends up on tiny stations. They just won’t buy his show because they don’t like his message. The argument that progressive radio doesn’t sell ads is bullshit. It has always been bullshit but the right wing (surprise, surprise) just continues to misstate the simple and demonstrable truth. I would argue that Schultz isn’t really a progressive but maybe a populist and does well in many parts of the country for that very reason.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Keith: Sorta like how a harmless chess program became the MCP.
LOL FTW
There are so few Tron jokes out there. Thank you.
war_2
They haven’t changed … you have.
cosanostradamus
.
If I want to know what Republicans, or Lite-Repubs, or closet Repuke’s or recovering Repukelickin’s think, I just turn on the tee-vee, and there they are, on every channel, 24/7/52. That way, I don’t have to clog up my Internets with their rancid, ridiculous bullsh*t.
Anyway, no such thing as a libertarian, much less a sane one. They just THINK they exist. Koo-koo!
Here’s that totally sane Catholic Bishop that says there’s no such thing as holocausts. On VIDEO!!!
.
Michael
The Reason folks climbed into bed with the crazies years ago. They’re embarrassing in the extent to which they’ll subordinate any notion of personal freedom if it means they get half a crumb on tax rhetoric.
Bootlegger
@Paul L.: She didn’t use the word "censorship", only the Wingnut screamers did. Personally I think the fairness doctrine is past its usefulness. Back in the day when radio was dominant AND a limited access medium (limited bandwith) it made sense to not let it be dominated by one interest or another. Today there are simply so many media outlets that radio’s limited bandwith is no longer a salient argument for regulating it with the fairness doctrine. I think you’ll find that most liberals, and Democrats, would agree with this point. But it was funny to hear Stenebow rattle Hannity’s cage, that dude was spitting into the mic with his feigned outrage.
John Cole
@Josh Hueco: I am sure I have read that before, but still think it is genius the second or third time around. The close is perfect: “I’m guessing you thought I was way off on your political philosophy but right on the button about the other two. Just think about that for a while.”
The Other Steve
reason.com has always been kind of nuts. Has anything changed? I don’t think so.
The Populist
Free markets? Yep, right.
If the GOP believed in free markets they would have Enforced antitrust and not allowed companies to get so big that it’s impossible to compete. They also would have created a true environment in the government bidding process that allowed small companies to have a shot at contracts. Instead Bush and co. gave no-bid contracts to Halliburton and others.
You see, the GOP only believes in talking a good game. Their braindead supporters trumpet this crap and say Dems hate free markets YET that idiot Clinton oversaw a HUGE growth where many small businesses started up and prospered. With Bush, they could give two shits about small players. They just wanted to reward their donors and make it harder for an American to pursue the ultimate dream: Start a business where the playing field was level.
The system is rigged and I dare any asswipe on the right to show me why I am wrong. You can’t…so admit it…your party exists to help only big GOP donors at the expense of small business.
Paul L.
For that to be true wouldn’t a Judge have to make a ruling on the case?
So when will Mr. Nifong, Ms. Mangum and the NAACP file a civil case against the Duke 3?
Rick Taylor
Conservatives are bankrupt. What do they have to offer? Government is the problem, deregulate it, get out of the way for the magic of the market to take over? How well does that fly while the world economy is tanking due to trillions of dollars being stuck in innovative financial instruments? Cut income taxes? Let the people keep their money? More and more people are going to be worry if they have a job at all. Cut government spending and waste? Cut foodstamps? When more and more people are going to be depending on them?
The conservative vision is bankrupt. It cannot explain why things are happening the way they are, except to grumble about minorities and housing and voting rights, and it has nothing to offer to get us out beyond the same old bromides of tax cuts, spending cuts and deregulation.
So I guess it’s natural conservatives are going a little crazy right now. When what you cling to to make sense of the world fails, you can either question what you believed, or you can cling even tighter. Human beings being the way they are, 99% of the time will choose the latter.
The Populist
Further proof to back up my claim that the Right hates small business: Joe the Asshole.
This doofus plays right into the myth that the right is all about freedom. He believes that if the tax structures were lower he could go buy a business. Problem is this fool never had the money to buy that business he claimed he wanted. If he made over 250K/year, he sure as hell wouldn’t be stalking Obama to try and sell that lie.
If Sam Wurzelbacher can’t find an entry point to start or buy a small business, he needs to look no further than his beloved Republican party. They love goofs like this guy only because he’s so fracking dumb he can be easily manipulated to believe the nonsense they spew.
The left have their issues too, but I’ll be God damned to rip them. At least the left have a spectrum of different ideas and appreciate debate and compromise. When I was a Republican, I was viewed with contempt the minute I questioned any of their hare-brained ideas.
Yep, they fear liberalism because they are afraid to think for themselves. No liberal is the same yet every rightie is. Weird huh?
The Grand Panjandrum
Ha! Scalzi is great. That horse ain’t dying. I can’t remember if I read it at Scalzi or somewhere else but I do remember the definition of a libertarian is someone who bitches about paying for the road under their wheels but doesn’t question that the road complain about the road continuing on out in front of them. (Or something similar to that.) Got a laugh out of me.
Libby
For some reason I’m reminded of the old movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy.
The Populist
OH did I say Joe The Plumber was an asshole? Nah, I meant he’s a fracking tool. He’s just the type of maroon that buys into every right wing straw man because of a weird, macho fear of free thinking.
He needs authoritarianism. So does Malkin, Coulter and Hannity. They would not exist if not for the rightie think tanks.
John S.
There it is folks.
Paul L.’s sole justification for existence. All roads lead to
RomeDemocratsDuke lacrosse.The Populist
Oh, and what is the deal with the right and these dumb monikers for people?
Joe The Plumber?
Tito The Builder?
So if I was say, Populist the Political would that be okay? I mean I am more than just a political wonk. I am a businessman, husband, baseball fan, history lover. So why is it these asswipes need titles to everything?
I am in a dodgy mood today…I hear these idiots on my radio and it pisses me off.
Libby
@Bootlegger: I’ve been a supporter of bringing back the Fairness Doctrine but I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and it’s probably not a solution because your points here are good.
However, there’s still a problem in that the owners are giving all the prime space to the hate jockeys and won’t air the liberal counter arguments, no matter how much traffic they might grab in a good time slot.
The obvious answer at this point is to break up the media conglomerates. They’ve become too big to be fair and have too much power to push their favored agendas.
TheHatOnMyCat
You know, I have tried many times to get banned here, and succeeded only once. And to my knowledge I only suggested banning anyone else once, and I was probably wrong, and on top of that, I don’t remember the details.
But today I am suggesting some banning.
I think PaulL should be banned. Duke rape case, in this time, on this thread? No. Enough is enough, ban the motherphukker.
I also think that any poster should be banned who suggests that the stimulus is "too much spending" or that we should let /whatever/ go bankrupt at this point in time.
The former is a lie. The stimulus can NEVER cost as much as failure to apply a stimulus. The latter is irresponsible. Suggesting that additional financial chaos or paralysis or panic would be a good idea right now is the equivalent of locking the doors when a fire starts, the keep the looters out.
Ban those stupid sons of bitches.
Ash Can
@The Moar You Know: LOL! That was too easy!
Comrade Dread
Yes, we libertarians are an odd lot.
My own libertarianism is more of a "People who want to be leaders are generally the least qualified to lead us…" kind.
Oh, and "GET OFF MY LAWN!!!"
Patrick
Reason is beholden to their tobacco and oil sponsors. The tobacco ties are old, and at least is libertarian in their anti-drug war stuff (let anyone smoke what they want). The oil company propaganda comes mainly from the "science" guys who are skeptical about global warming. I think this is where the new found Obama hostility is coming from. They are laying the ground work for the climate change battle coming after the economic stuff. They probably also take money from Monsanto, since pro-gmo is a big part of their "libertarianism" (gmo’s should be pushed by the government down everyone’s throats).
Sometimes I get a kick out of the pretzels they twist themselves in to get out what these corporate sponsors want. But you are right, lately it has been very insane. But Seitz might also be onto something too.
Josh Hueco
@Libby:
I’m not as interested in providing left-flavored counter-programming to Rush, O’Reilly, Beck et al, as I am going back to a time when radio actually was a font of news, entertainment, and cultural material. And more importantly, a source of LOCAL news, current affairs, community interest, music, etc. I understand that radio isn’t the primary news and entertainment medium it was 50+ years ago. But if it’s going to be there I’d prefer it to serve the whole instead of the few.
Bootlegger
@Libby: Great movie. Does that mean "tax cuts" are to the Republicans what the "glass bottle" was to the Bushmen of the Kalahari?
EconWatcher
I used to love reason (and wrote an article for them some years ago). But these days, both reason and The Economist feel hollow. Their worldview isn’t adequate to the current situation, and some of their past cheerleading has been exposed as horribly misguided. Yet they trudge along, seemingly oblivious, with halfhearted efforts to blame the current crisis on TOO MUCH regulation and other such pablum. I’m not sure they’re convinving even themselves.
Bootlegger
@Libby: Agreed. These are still public airwaves and should not be consolidated into a few greedy hands. Other than that I say lay off the content.
slag
@Sam Wilkinson: What you said.
Bootlegger
@TheHatOnMyCat: Dude! Where would we get our humor from?! You gotta admit that big fat targets (or tools) like PaulL and BOB make life a lot more interesting.
comrade rawshark
I said that. But I thought I had a good reason at the time.
Me again. But I thought……
Funny how things (and people) change.
darkness
Libertarians? Meh. If they haven’t already packed up and moved to that gov-free paradise, Somalia, then they are just certifiable hipocrites and their words mean nothing.
TheHatOnMyCat
Which is why we can call for them to be banned, and (a) not get yelled at, and (b) they won’t get banned.
Win!
Wile E. Quixote
@Josh Hueco
You fucker! That made coffee come out my nose.
Comrade Kevin
@The Populist:
Their political thinking has all the sophistication of a Bob the Builder or Thomas the Tank Engine cartoon.
Xecky Gilchrist
I frequently saw assertions on lefty blogs (mostly in the comments) that Bush was going to declare martial law and cancel the 2008 elections.
IIRC the real heyday for that was ’04. That was one crazyness I sort of fell for – figured that at least they were considering it, or considering a convenient terrorist attack, until the elections in Spain showed that having an attack right before the elections didn’t automatically mean that the right-wingers won.
And then there were all the people who thought the US would be greeted as liberators in Iraq.
That one never got me, but there were plenty of people who believed it who really should have known better.
Funny how things (and people) change.
Indeedy.
The Populist
Libby:
Many leftie show hosts don’t want the fairness doctrine back either. To somebody like Randi Rhodes, she said that it’s just too hard to manage. She also has wondered if it means she has to work hard to have a rightie point of view offered in the course of her show. I’ve heard Ed Schultz and even Mike Malloy say it just doesn’t make sense to pass this (outside of watching the right squirm).
I think it should not keep us from scaring the righties with it though! Let’s keep saying it will happen!!!
joe from Lowell
They were never sane – heck, they were pushing the "Roosevelt caused a shallow recession to turn into the Great Depression with his STATISM!" line years ago – but their need to deny that deregulation was behind the mortgage meltdown has driven them completely and utterly around the bend.
Then I checked out the comments and found that they’ve lost everyone except "joe" and the right-wingers.
That’s me!
joe from Lowell
I like to tease the libertarians about gun control and the fairness doctrine.
Those are the two most important issues on the radar, and imminent threats! You don’t have the luxury of opposing Obama’s economic or environmental policies; they’re going to take your guns and censor your radio stations! You need to concentrate all of your efforts on those issues.
And also, this is not a fusag, and you shouldn’t look that word up.
The Populist
Now i have a solution that is better than the fairness doctrine…break up Clear Channel and change the rules that allow for ownership of multiple stations in single markets.
Clear Channel is failing when you use the MARKET as a guide. They will most likely be FORCED by the MARKET to sell some stations.
My point to the FTC for antitrust is this simple fact: Rush Limbaugh is on multiple Clear Channel stations in a single market. You mean to tell me they can’t find another show to plug into these spots that they have to run Rush on multiple channels sometimes in competition during the same time slots?
Time for the Dems to pull a Teddy Roosevelt and break up these monopolies. If the right don’t like it, remind them that this is about creating a REAL free market of ideas.
Paul L.
@TheHatOnMyCat:
So Dissent is no longer patriotic.
In my defense, The Moar You Know Duke trolling was too tempting not to whack with a Clue-by-Four.
The Moar You Know
@Ash Can: If I could make a fish bait that gets bites as successfully as that one does, I’d be wealthy.
@Paul L.: Activist judges let those rapists off.
The Populist
So Dissent is no longer patriotic.
In my defense, The Moar You Know Duke trolling was too tempting not to whack with a Clue-by-Four.
Well, what comes around goes around. I don’t want to see people like you banned because it’s so much fun to prove you wrong (which isn’t very hard to do!).
Y’all were calling people like me a traitor for disagreeing years ago. Don’t cry about dissent as you folks sure like abusing things ala Clinton.
I was against it before I was for it sound familiar? If it feels good, do it? Yep…I love right wing thought processes.
TheHatOnMyCat
Whoops, my clipboard ate my previous post.
Blame demi. I’m sure he will claim to have invented the clipboard.
TheHatOnMyCat
The Duke rape case on economic crisis threads is dissent?
It’s deliberate harassment. Fuck you.
The Populist
@Paul L.:
Why Is Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) Pushing Talk Radio Censorship?
Bill Press Wants Government To Regulate Talk Radio
Paul L…nice try. They are doing something the right always do. They are pushing for things they know will never pass to BRING ATTENTION TO IT. If I was the right, I’d stop while I was ahead.
BTW – no dem outside of a few far leftie members of congress are ever going to bring back the fairness doctrine. Nice try though!
The Populist
The Duke rape case on economic crisis threads is dissent?
He’s pushing buttons like all committed righties do. He’s got nothing outside of a few talking points so he thinks he will hijack the thread with that comment.
The Moar You Know
@TheHatOnMyCat: In all fairness, I baited him.
I’m for banning him for a slew of other reasons, namely that he’s fucktarded and contributes nothing to the discussion save for years-old debunked talking points. But he’s got a weird obsession with the Duke rape case, and I like poking him with it a little too much.
The Populist
I’m for banning him for a slew of other reasons, namely that he’s fucktarded and contributes nothing to the discussion save for years-old debunked talking points. But he’s got a weird obsession with the Duke rape case, and I like poking him with it a little too much.
Moar,
I have noticed the unhealthy obsession that righties have with sex, especially forceful sex.
agorabum
The reason folks haven’t changed all that much. The joy of being Libertarian is that you don’t have anyone from your party running anything, so you can stand on the side and just snipe. Are there wasteful things in the bill? Sure, and reason will point them out. But their blog won’t offer grand policy prescriptions. And they likely take the long view that bubbles happen all the time, and when they pop there are painful recessions. So now we must have pain. Bad banks should fail. Other banks will foreclose on homes. The market "corrects."
But their essential ideology says no to things like TARP. And it’s because they know that the banks that get TARP money will be wasteful with it (paying hefty bonuses and using it to acquire other banks isntead of spurring lending).
That, and most of ’em are pretty down on FDR and the new deal. So if they hear New Dealy type talk, they instinctively push back.
Capelza Gradenko
The only reason I still go there is Radley Balko.
The comments are fun sometimes, because there are a few sane people in them…and Tall Dave pops in every so often. It’s nice to know where the old regulars from here go. And he is still batshit.
Liked Dave Weigel, but he moved on.
The Populist
But their essential ideology says no to things like TARP. And it’s because they know that the banks that get TARP money will be wasteful with it (paying hefty bonuses and using it to acquire other banks isntead of spurring lending).
Yep, and while the world would most likely fix their problems with public spending, we’d become a third world nation waiting for the rebound that would most likely never come.
When you let the banks fail and do nothing all you do is make the big fish bigger. Free markets won’t exist because it would be too expensive to start up against the survivors of these boom/bust cycles.
The Moar You Know
@The Populist: Forced interracial sex, in this case – a wingnut’s secret fantasy to be sure. The weird thing is, with Paul, is that he has so much invested in proving those guys innocent. Surely even Paul understands that the young upper crust who play on the Duke lacrosse team are from a demographic that wouldn’t do him the honor of spitting on him, even if he bought them free beer and hookers. And yet he’ll defend them no matter what.
Very odd.
b-psycho
Until the Reason types realize that corporate personhood & limited liability count as regulations, they’re never going to make much sense beyond surface level.
joe from Lowell
TallDave used to be a regular here?
He spent an entire day spamming the Reason threads about that poor girl who had a B carved on her face by a fanatical negro.
Yup. Really.
We had a lot of fun with him for that. Still do.
MM
Reason is only as good as its contributors, aside from Balko, their contributing writers are terrible. Sullum is a good read on drugs, and Welch on the media, and Balko is a must read on police and gambling issues. Now they all sort of write about various areas where they aren’t comfortable or knowledgable and they seem to have just retreated into the college libertarianism.
That and the last batch of young talent that they had writing for them (Sanchez, Howley, Weigel), have all left and now they are stuck with Katherine Mangu-Ward and Michael Moynihan.
Capelza Gradenko
Joe from Lowell?
Are you [i]the[/i] Joe…from the comments over there?
Man, I admire your fortitude.
Yeah, Tall Dave used to comment here. Wasn’t he sockpuppeting it up all the times as well?
joe from Lowell
…and let’s not forget their brilliant science writer, Ronald Bailey.
I would have never knows that Rachel Carson killed more people than Hitler, or that global warming is a myth by the socialists, if it weren’t for Ronald Bailey.
joe from Lowell
Capelza,
The same.
Wasn’t he sockpuppeting it up all the times as well?
Well, it’s tough to tell who’s sock puppeting. Did he do that a lot here?
My favorite TallDave comment began:
The invasion of Iraq was a strategic master stroke.
He wrote that in the autumn of 2008.
John S.
Sadly, yes.
I’ve seen brick walls less dense than THAT motherfucker. Those were the ‘glory days’ here at Balloon Juice. Between him, Defense Guy, Don Surber and Darrell (and of course John Cole himself before his awakening), it was a regular whack-a-mole of wingnut douchebaggery.
John Cole
I have not seen any of them in years.
joe from Lowell
TallDave at his best.
Emma Anne
@John Cole:
Actually, his piece on liberals is pretty accurate too, sigh.
Notorious P.A.T.
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Doesn’t your example contradict your conclusion? I mean, if so many media outlets are refusing to air a prominent viewpoint just because they don’t agree with it–even though airing it would be profitable–doesn’t that argue for the Fairness Doctrine?
Note: I don’t necessarily support bringing it back, myself.
Walker
I used to have Reason in my RSS feeder, but they got removed sometime around early 2007. I got tired of David Weigel’s (at least I think it was Weigel) continued "press releases of bad science count as science" denial of global warming. The fact that global warming denialism was rampant on that blog well before Obama appeared on the scene makes me question whether it was ever sane.
Capelza Gradenko
Walker…are you sure it was Weigel?
Bailey more like it…I remember the posts, but I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head who posted them.
Notorious P.A.T.
I have to wonder: what good is a worldview that breaks down when the going gets tough?
Heh. I’ve often thought that myself ) Heck, Afghanistan doesn’t have much of a government right now, either.
Thank you.
joe from Lowell
Gotta be Bailey.
I notice that, at least in the comment threads, they’re deploying the skeelz they built up denying global warming to attack the economics behind the idea of using fiscal stimulus during a depression.
‘Look, I found someone with a degree who says what I want to hear.’
‘This is just a plot by the socialists.’
gnomedad
@Bootlegger:
Only if they send the sole remaining sane Republican to chuck the meme into the Grand Canyon.
Brian J
This might be because most libertarians come across as douche bags, at least when it comes to politics. They are, in a lot of ways, more annoying than the Christian fundamentalists, and some of the people at that magazine in particular seem to focus on one or two obscure topics and wonder why it doesn’t fly as an overriding political agenda.
D-Chance.
Since Cole brings up H&R, here’s some anti-thinblueline porn.
And, no, I’m not surprised. I’ve seen the Skinhead Brigade, aka your Typical East Texas Police Force (go ahead, look at the lineup of patrolmen in the various squads… majority young, white, shaved heads) in action. The story brought up in the blog piece is unfortunately common in this area.
Chris Johnson
Do love your turns of phrase, John :)
JWW
John,
You know as well as I and most people, we have a problem.
You should also know that the more wood or fake logs President Obama throws on the fire, the bigger the fire gets.
President Obama could, with mere confidence of words and tone of voice, stem a portion of this. "The sky is not falling"
He has the confidence of the people, he should return that confidence through his voice.
You understand exactly what I am saying, you know the tide of battle can change in 24hrs under the right commander.
JWW
To the Rest of You,
President Obama is our commander. Though that word may be offensive to some, that is our law.
Lesson in Leadership:
If the commader feels good, we all feel good. But all good commaders make their people feel good even if he doesn’t.
Woodrowfan
I am so ashamed that I got that joke immediately…
JWW
John,
After several well behaved days, I ask you? Have any of my responses to anyone in your audience been anywhere near the "Pure hatred and BS" that The Populist spews. He or She or maybe He/She is definately well beyond the normal left, right or central character. Somewhat ill I would say.
Yet you allow such a stupid person to comment because they may sometimes agree with you. You know where I am going with this, just let it ride.
The Populist,
Were you possibly selected to play the true life character in the "The Silence of the Lambs". Is your first name, Jame?
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Chris Johnson: Do love your turns of phrase, John :)
Heh, yup. Wish I’d thought of that one.
Contracts
Hit & Run had a post some time ago about the difference between policy and structural libertarians. I think that most of the bloggers over there were disgusted enough by the last 8 years and then the election to become more "structural" in their critiques.
Keep in mind also that the "consensus" that the stimulus bill is necessary formed kinda spontaneously, without any real evidence to support it. What you have now is a bunch of smart people offering their opinion that it’s a good thing (and a small but respectable number offering the opposite opinion) and a political/media echo chamber that screams it’s necessary (just like the PATRIOT and TARP bills, to name a few). The record on legislation passed in a hurry is underwhelming.
So…it’s a bunch of bloggers who believe that, generally, government interference is to be avoided if possible and also that the stimulus package is unproven as anything but a net benefit to the politicians who push it through. You think that’s insane?
I think most libertarians knew the honeymoon between liberals and libertarians wouldn’t last long after Obama took office…I thought it would take at least the first 100 days, though.
I wouldn’t underestimate the cynicism that pervades most libertarian circles after the Bush disaster and then the ’08 panderfest. Is it really insane to require a moderately high burden of proof of benefits before supporting a $1 trillion liability?
/apologies for the rambling