One thing libertarians talk about a lot is coercion. If you really peel back libertarian philosophy that word looms just about as large as “liberty” or “freedom”. Coercion can take a bunch of different shapes. Taxes are coercion. Democracy is coercion. Unions are coercion. Anything that represents the will of the collective over the will of the individual is coercion.
Theoretically, the ideal libertarian society would have no democracy at all. That’s the only way to prevent collective decision making. So in order to actually craft Libertopia, democracy is out. Ideally not even a representative democratic republic would remain.
Michael Lind recently wrote a piece on libertarian hostility to democracy and at the time I felt as though something were missing from the otherwise excellent article. I believe that many libertarians sincerely do believe in liberty. Yet for all that, the antipathy to democracy – which goes well beyond Hayek’s preferred “liberal dictatorship” – reveals the fundamental internal conflict within libertarianism: in order for it to exist as a model for society, democracy must be snuffed out through coercion.
We see it in the economy already: workplace democracy is dying. Our political system is already rigged against democracy, between the filibuster and the Electoral College. For libertarians, the less democracy the better. One reason the right-fusionism has worked so well for so long is that Republicans are hard at work to make that happen.
I enjoyed Jim Henley’s explanation of his own departure from libertarianism, years ago when the notion of privatized Social Security really sunk in; for me it is simply this: I don’t want to live in Libertopia. And while libertarians may say they don’t want to live in my welfare state either, at least I can say “Then go vote against it.” In Libertopia no such option would exist. That doesn’t smell like freedom to me.
As much as I admire the convergence of civil libertarians from progressive and libertarian circles, ultimately I see that alliance as stillborn in any meaningful electoral sense. It is an “intellectual indulgence” which is fine. On some issues progressives and libertarians are aligned, no doubt. The war on drugs, the police state, mass incarceration, gay rights.
But at the ballot box?
Progressives who are bothered by the civil liberty record of this president should probably work to change the Democratic party and the culture that drives Democrats to the center rather than spend their votes trying to elect Ron Paul, if only because the top-down route is bound to backfire. There’s a strong case for working outside of politics to change politics. Working with civil society, with unions, with activists to push policy from the ground up. Sinking the Obama presidency on the pipe dream of a left-libertarian united front doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t just strengthen the Republicans, it strengthens centrist Democrats.
And in a two-party system like ours, you work with the coalition you’ve got and you work to change that coalition for the better. That usually doesn’t happen from the top-down. It happens in the weeds.
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RossInDetroit
In before teh crazy…
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Oh, how I wish “true” liberals would understand this.
ETA: I tried to explain this on GOS back before the midterms, that the party will move left if it keeps winning, not if it keeps losing.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@RossInDetroit: Also in before teh crazy. And heading back out to saner threads…
Alex S.
Simple. ‘True’ libertarians are anarchists.
E.D. Kain
Alex – actually that’s a good point. Libertarianism drawn to its logical conclusion is a form of contract-based anarchy. If it is to be consistent.
Bob L
the difference between a libertarian and an anarchist is $40K a year and nothing more.
master c
why are comments closed on the other post?
Waingro
I’d like to preemptively invite Samara Morgan or whoever the fuck they call themselves to eat my asshole rather than typing their usual gibberish.
Baud
@ Belaphon # 2
A million times this. Democrats move to the left when they are in power and to the right when they are out of power. It doesn’t fit the narrative to admit that however, so it gets ignored.
suzanne
Oh shit… FourLoko’s gonna hit the fan now…
suzanne
Not to mention, not having choices is its own form of coercion.
Having no money, having no education, having your drunk daddy miss all your dance recitals… THOSE are the things that result in girls taking their clothes off for money rather than being an astronaut or whatever.
Cain
A good post EDK with good points.
Cain
We should enjoy the convo before she who must not be named arrives.
jprfrog
I know a few extreme libertarians. My take is this: it is easy and a load of fun to take way out positions when you know in your heart of hearts that there isn’t a chance in hell that the systems, policies, or procedures that you advocate will ever be made concrete in the real world. There is some danger that such a person (wherever on the political map they are located) will take things beyond the theoretical and get so frustrated that they throw a tantrum and destroy something (the Weathermen in Chicago 1969) or someone (the Unibomber, Timothy McVeigh, etc.) although since the days of the anarchist bombers, serious mayhem is more apt to come from the right than the left than the right (since the right tends to link its extreme positions with a “religious” self-righteousness that can justify any excess).
But it is a real danger when such persons are numerous and vociferous enough to get near or to the levers of power (as did the Naderites in 2000 or the Teabaggers in 2010). The result should theoretically please the ultra-libertarians since ungovernability in society means more “freedom”. This includes the freedom to starve of course, and in reality approaches a Hobbesian state of nature (“the war of all against all”) in which only the most ruthless, brutal, and sociopathic survive (try Somalia for a model). In such a world, the armchair Glibertarians would be among the first to go under, which I suspect many of them secretly understand.
beltane
I am taking this opportunity to absolve every commenter on this thread from the charge of being cudlips worthy of a cudlip’s death.
Tim Connor
My brother is an extreme libertarian. My analysis of his position is this:
1. Nobody has the right to his money, which he EARNED. Thus, all taxes are illegitimate.
2. It’s OK to impose his prejudices on the benighted. The converse is not true.
3. Nobody gets to take his money. He has a lot because he’s superior.
I try to avoid talking to him.
Emma
Discussing the ability of make choices in society with a libertarian was enough to give me headaches. They did stop once I realized that “freedom of choice” to a libertarian means “freedom to do whatever I want because I’m so special,” and I stopped talking to the jerk.
E.D. Kain
@suzanne: this is all very true. Poverty is the root of a lot of our social ills and in a nation this wealthy there’s really no excuses.
Gus diZerega
Not so log ago major libertarian intellectuals were explicit anarchists – they called themselves
anarcho-capialists – men such as Murray Rothbard, a student of von Mises, and David Friedman, Milton Friedman’s son. (Mises and the elder Friedman had more sense.)
This was a view I tried myself for a year or so in college when I was captivated by some of their better insights while having not yet discovered their equally important and more numerous blind spots. It was fun for young theory minded folks who had not yet had much experience with how power manifested in the real world or of the inadequacy of pure theory as a substitute for experience.
Many others were like Tim Conner’s brother – very authoritarian people who because they could not be dictator did not want anyone else to have any power over them. They did not really believe in freedom as something for everyone, just in not having to take others into consideration except when it pleased them.
JGabriel
E.D. Kain:
Thus, the libertarian penchant for advocating borderline fascist fantasies like Rand’s Galt overlordism and Tom Friedmans & David Broder’s we need a mega-rich centrist superman to rule us columns.
.
PurpleGirl
@Gus diZerega: I knew an anarcho-capitalist while in college; we had science fiction reading friends in common. He was a graduate student in chemistry. He didn’t believe in government. We didn’t become very friendly because I was that evil being, a statist. He did finally dawn on him that the only people who would want his chemistry skills would be the government/corporations working for government and doing weapons research. (Note though, he was not a pacifist.) He dropped out of graduate school. He taught himself typesetting and worked for himself. He eventually got sick and because he couldn’t afford health insurance or the medical bills, he did die. But he was true to his vision and ideology.
Cat Lady
Libertarians are just immature freeloaders who think their shit don’t stink and that wearing a leather jacket makes them look cool. Protip – it doesn’t.
JGabriel
@E.D. Kain:
So who pays the taxes for the contracts to be enforced?
.
burnspbesq
“Stupid” seems wholly inadequate as a descriptor of the libertarian belief structure.
Villago Delenda Est
These maggots are neo-feudalists.
They deserve no quarter.
burnspbesq
@JGabriel:
Nobody. A true libertarian would say that private violence is the only legitimate mechanism for enforcing contracts.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tim Connor:
All this crap, call it libertarianism, call it Randism, call it anarcho-capialistism, whatever…
All of it, is a thin veneer of “rational philosophy” over behaving like a three year old screaming “MINE!” at the top of his lungs.
Most three year olds grow out of it. These people never have, and show no sign of doing so.
burnspbesq
One wonders whether any libertarian has ever read Hardin, Coase, or Calabresi.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
Once again, the problem is not with violence itself, but with who is wielding it. As long as I am, there’s no problem with it. Let someone else use it on me, and it’s injustice!
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
I know for a fact they’ve never read Adam Smith.
PurpleGirl
@burnspbesq: That’s why the concept of the 2nd Amendment is so important. If everyone is armed, they claim, people will honor contracts rather than get shot and/or killed. (I was told this in all seriousness by the guys I knew in college.)
burnspbesq
@Villago Delenda Est:
“These people never have, and show no sign of doing so.”
Why should they? The state that they profess to despise, which grows out of the social compact they profess to reject, will always be there to protect their lives and property from the consequences that would ensue if they ever got what they claim to want (libertarian utopia is Hobbes’ state of nature with better PR).
Libertarians are the physical embodiment of the free-rider problem.
RSA
I used to argue with some anarcho-libertarians online. One of the issues that sometimes came up was that they thought they were in a bind: They didn’t like the U.S. system, felt they had no chance of changing it, but there’s nowhere else in the world that they’d be able to set up the system (or rather non-system) they want. This always struck me as being a strange complaint, in the context of their market-ueber-alles views. It’s like being upset that you can’t hang a Monet in your house–you can’t afford the price, because they’re rare and expensive, and no more are being made.
Citizen Alan
Without getting into a “no true Scotsman” debate, my basic problem with Libertarianism as it is generally defined in this country is that it is intellectually incoherent. American Libertarianism in the 21st century seems to me to be a big tent that includes everyone who is appalled that the government is infringing something he or she believes to be a sacred right. That this big tent simultaneously includes folks who support abortion rights and folks who are angry that the government won’t protect the rights of the unborn perfectly demonstrates the absurdity of the movement.
Elie
I think that for some, there are forms of pathology of thought or brain chemistry issues that set up the vague paranoia about being ruled by outside forces. I am being careful to say that its not about the label “crazy”, but about a certain pattern in thinking that is pervasive enough to impact your own life decisions and others’.
Libertarianism fits well with our current narcissistic culture and would probably much less prevalent in say, the Japanese culture…. I think our cultural sociopathy gives them the boldness to be open about their beliefs…paradoxically, the very government and culture they despise allow them to openly state their beliefs and attempt to follow them.
Most are not that serious however. Just a bunch of narcissists looking for a rationale for their superiority over anyone else.
Elie
@burnspbesq:
This too. Also
burnspbesq
Dear Libertarians,
Don’t like our social compact? Fine. There’s the door.
Very truly yours,
The Civilized World
Elie
In some ways, liberatarianism goes against one of the benefits of evolution in human species success — language. Language allowed humans to band together cooperatively to survive and also to fight against a bully or tyrant. That banding together in small bands for the common good, food, shelter and protection, was the first government. In being against government, they are idealizing a social state that in humans would probably lead to less survival and evolutionary success.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elie:
These guys really don’t have a problem with government, as long as they’re the feudal lords running it.
The problem is those damn peasants cramping their style.
Elie
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yep — I get that in some ways its just a rationale for their dominance and less about any system. The system is ok if I am in charge. Unfortunately, not all of them can be in charge so someone is always going to be fighting someone else for that power. Its just the unevolved primate brain again…Reptiles also do not believe in government – just who is the biggest lizard.
Judas Escargot
Libertarianism is essentially “Liberty for me, slavery for thee.” So, in that sense, Libertarianism is as American as apple pie. Except it’s a pie baked from all of our worst impulses.
I, for one, am really fucking sick of being force-fed that particular pie.
Chris
Great article.
Yep.
I used to think that conservatives encouraged “enlightened dictatorship” in places like Iran (the Shah), Nicaragua (Somoza), Zaire (Mobutu) purely out of racism, because they believed those stupid little Persians, Latinos, Africans and God knows what else were too stupid to enjoy the same privileges as us.
But, I was wrong – they’re being totally consistent, they don’t believe we should have those “privileges,” because they don’t really think Americans are smart enough for democracy either. When Buckley was cheerleading for Franco’s Spain, that wasn’t just as a necessary evil – that truly is the utopia they want to live in.
Davis X. Machina
Libertarians are basically betting, or willing to bet, that come the war of all against all, they’d win, or do no worse than cover the spread.
They must suck whenever they go to Vegas… the notion of a house edge seems to be absent from their calculation.
Bruuuuce
@Alex S.: Yes, true libertarians believe in rational anarchy. The problem is that a rational anarchy requires all people always to act rationally, or it will fail. Since no human is always rational, there’s no chance libertarianism can succeed. What I’m curious about is how I managed to figure that out as a junior in high school, and how intelligent adults can continue to believe that there’s any chance at all for such a construct to work.
SiubhanDuinne
Excellent post, EDK, and good comments in the (blissfully untrolled) thread. Nice to see you back.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
This. In a nutshell, this.
Libertarians are people who think they should rule society, and their whining about the government’s “coercive” tendencies translates to “government might stop me from coercing other people.” Hence why their two great crusades in the last couple hundred years were for “states’ rights” (specifically: the right to own slaves – oddly enough nothing else piqued their interest enough to start a civil war) and for “free markets” (specifically: the freedom to treat your employees like subhuman shit – oddly, when the “free market” leads the little people to freely decide to form a union, that’s not okay).
It’s like every third world dictator who goes on a killing spree and starts screaming “imperialism” and “interference in our nation’s sovereignty” when the international community objects (or, God forbid, intervenes). What they want is the ability to go on oppressing and coercing: the rest is just packaging and projection.
Cat Lady
The fact that they’re all still here bitching about teh evil that is the government that protects them instead of conducting their lab experiment in Somalia is all you need to know about them.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elie:
This is one of their real problems that they’re too fucking stupid to figure out. Even amongst the Galtian Overlords their will be disputes over which Galtian Overlord’s right will prevail. They can’t bear to think the entire process through…that unless they’re the last human on earth, another human will interfere in some way with their perfect freedom of action.
And then nature itself will get involved, and nature itself doesn’t give a flying fuck about their “rights”.
Chris
@PurpleGirl:
Idiots.
No, what’ll happen is that the richest guy in town will go out and buy himself enough Armed Citizens that if anyone tries to get him to honor his contracts, they’ll die in a hail of bullets no matter how quick they are on the draw.
(Because unfortunately, in real life, the collective tends to win over the individual).
And if the townspeople want his reign of terror ended, the only way they’ll be able to do it is if enough of them band together to overwhelm the rich guy’s hired hands.
(Another point for the Collective!)
If we’re lucky, it’ll only take us a century or so to relearn what our ancestors already had – that an individual can’t guarantee himself justice, he needs unions and governments to help protect himself from the rich and powerful. But this time, we’ll redo the whole cycle with nothing but GUNS, so the Second Amendment crowd should be happy.
Villago Delenda Est
@SiubhanDuinne:
E.D. Kain
@JGabriel: I think the idea among anarcho-capitalists is to have private parties handle everything. So a contract is held up through private firms that negotiate on behalf of the various parties involved. Honestly, I don’t think it holds up but I think that’s the general gist of it.
PurpleGirl
@Chris: I quickly found it was of no use to try to argue against their ideas. They knew. I did not. We kept conversations to science fiction, it was easier and not so crazy making.
ETA: Actually that is still the case with a number of friends. We can agree on science fiction but nothing when it comes to politics and government. Approaching their 60s, they still haven’t outgrown their teenage views.
E.D. Kain
@Chris: thanks. I think contemporary libertarians are much less quick to cheer for outright dictatorships like fascist Spain or Argentina than they were in Hayek’s day or during Buckley’s earlier years. Now you see Singapore held up as a model society. To their credit, a lot more libertarians now are also concerned with civil liberty issues, but no matter how you spin it the ideal libertarian society would have to coercively quash democracy in order for it to work as advertised. That’s a bridge much too far for me.
E.D. Kain
@SiubhanDuinne: thanks, I missed posting here to be honest. This particular theme has been forming in my mind for some time now, and when I put the anti-democracy thing together with the necessity of libertarian coercion, I figured this was a good place to post it. (I cross-posted at The League also).
Lurker De-Lurking
Wow, even a dim-bulb like Kain can see that glibertarianism is unworkable? Maybe there’s hope, after all.
FlipYrWhig
To adapt a famous quip, most hardcore libertarians were born on third base, think they hit a triple, and then lecture everyone else about the right way to hold a bat.
MonkeyBoy
As I see it, libertarianism is an Utopian ideology designed to be the opposite of the communist utopian ideology designed in a way to give a vocabulary and philosophy so that they can sound as sophisticate in the arguments as communists.
I.e. Libertarianism is both communist fear and communist envy.
The problem is that while communism is compatible with democracy (dictatorship is not a necessity of communism) libertarianism as opposite-communism is not compatible with democracy.
As utopian ideologies both are full of blind spots.
SW
‘So in order to actually craft Libertopia, democracy is out’.
It’s pretty simple really. A monkey on a rock with a gun and a case of spam washed up from a sunken freighter.
Villago Delenda Est
@E.D. Kain:
And no one will game the private parties handling the negotiations.
Just as no one will game public parties handling the negotiations.
There’s little difference between the two models, except that one inherently discourages transparency, and the other at least has the possibility of transparency being included, at least as envisioned by those guys in powdered wigs some 224 years ago, who kind of planned on having co-equal branches to enforce some transparency on the entire magilla.
But then again, this is pretty much like their horror at being dictated about their medical care by “bureaucrats” which do not exist in outside of evil government, and certainly not amongst the functionaries of health “insurance” companies…
E.D. Kain
@Chris: there is definitely a neo-feudal strain in libertarianism and neoliberalism (maggot is a pretty unhelpful way to describe human beings though).
Corey Robin has more thoughts on this which are definitely worth reading.
Yutsano
@E.D. Kain:
Waitaminute…Singapore? Where you can’t even chew gum or spit in the streets Singapore? Where the presence of the government and the police state and mandatory sociallist health care exist? THAT Singapore? Do they ever stop and think for a second before answering a question?
E.D. Kain
@Villago Delenda Est: the way I see it, any actual government replaced by private firms and little private governments will simply become a society full of small tyrannical factions rather than one democratic state. It might be workable but I don’t think it sounds like very much fun.
Yutsano
@E.D. Kain: That’s a game. It’s called BioShock. Things don’t go too well there either.
Baud
For me, libertarianism works best as a foil to excesses of other ideologies; it doesn’t stand up on its own.
E.D. Kain
@Yutsano: I think plenty of them will say Singpaore with caveats. But the idea is not to take away the governing structure of Singapore, only tinker with its more onerous rules. So a … compassionate Singapore. Then again, libertarianism in the real world is largely a conservative Tea Party thing, so it’s USA! all the way. Just a less democratic USA.
Loviatar
Liberals are berated for trying to affect change by criticizing from within the party (working in the weeds), John Cole and the other recently converted Democrats are lauded for fleeing the mess they’ve created within Republican party (hopping onto the coatails of the new top dog).
.
Wow talk about a double standard.
E.D. Kain
@Yutsano: I reject the notion that Libertopia will result in the rise of the zombies (or whatever the hell those things were in that game).
Corner Stone
@Loviatar:
E.D. Kain
@Loviatar: I think we should be extremely critical of our own party. Obama deserves lots of criticism and he deserves it from his own team more than anyone. You can still support him electorally and say that his foreign policy, drug policy, deportation of ridiculous numbers of illegal immigrants, etc. etc. etc. are all really bad policies.
Chris
@E.D. Kain:
It’s possible that I’m blurring the line between conservatism and libertarianism – the modern GOP’s a blend of both. While I don’t doubt that there are plenty of left-libertarians or just generally civil libertarians who agree with the left on civil liberties, but I don’t seem much representation for them in the political system – self-proclaimed “libertarians” seem to have done much better on the right.
Ken
@E.D. Kain: Now you see Singapore held up as a model society.
Wait, by libertarians? “You can’t chew gum” Singapore? “You will be caned for spitting on the sidewalk” Singapore? “Government regulated and censored media, and you cannot own a satellite TV dish” Singapore? “Government-funded health insurance” Singapore? Libertarian? Seriously?
Villago Delenda Est
@Yutsano:
In a word, no.
Now, mind you, I’ve visited Singapore, and the streets and subways are meticulously clean. There’s an open air park that every evening is surrounded by food hawkers who offer you a variety of different great things to eat, all duly supervised by….wait for it…government inspectors to insure purity and wholesomeness.
Then there was that incident at the airport, where I (being a member of the US Army and all) waltzed right through the customs/passport control, while a guy with long hair was being detained by some guys in uniform for…it seems…having long hair. This is kind of, you know, um, not very liberty friendly?
E.D. Kain
@Chris: there’s always good and bad in every group. Libertarians are largely represented by the rightwing elements of that group. So it goes.
Chris
@MonkeyBoy:
I think there’s a lot to be said here too, for libertarianism (both the Objectivist and the modern conservative strands) as the mirror image of communism – equally utopian, equally ruinous and equally incompatible with the values of modern democracy.
Chuck Derperton
@Tim Connor:
Is he a millionaire or hundred-thousandaire?
I hear the same from people who are basically retail wage slaves all the time.
Loviatar
@68 – E.D. Kain:
Just don’t criticize him in front of ABL and some of the other more strident Obots. The least you’ll be called is a hippie and you’ll have a very good chance of being called a racist by the end of the conversation.
They try to shut off any conversation on his policies, the term most often used is racist, which rapidly turns the thread into an insult filled flame war.
pamelabrown
@PurpleGirl: Hah! PurpleGirl, I’m totally convinced that those of us wouldn’t have made a dent in gun control laws if not for the fear that blacks were exercising their same 2nd amendments rights.
Scared the shit out of many non-POC’s, and turned them into proto “Wyatt Earps” who confiscated guns at the city limits.
Reread or read “Nixonland” and tell me that if POC showed up armed that the libertarians wouldn’t be shitting their pants. Law and Order…when it suits them.
E.D. Kain
@Loviatar: yes men are your worst enemies. Uncritical allies do nobody any good. I understand why people defend Obama – he has so many ridiculous critics coming at him from the right, it’s a natural instinct to defend him against all comers – but a friendly critique is not only important, it’s necessary.
Carol from CO
I happened upon the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best books recently. Joyce’s Ulysses tops their list of novels and The Education of Henry Adams their list of nonfiction. Other classics follow on down the list.
They opened the voting to individuals in 1998 and published a separate “Readers’ list”. Topping the novels was Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness topped the nonfiction. Other conservative diatribes, some about Rand some not, were scattered throughout the remainder of the lists.
The vote was rigged obviously, but this illustrates how this radical element of the right has commandeered the political arena. They have been nibbling away at the minds of the electorate for decades, using whatever media they can think of. That’s what activists on the left need to do now, but unfortunately it will take decades to get the message out, if we can ever decide on a message.
Excellent post, E.D. Kain.
http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-nonfiction/
flamingRedDingo
I think Jesus had a better system for creating ultimate human capital. Unfortunately it’s just as impossible to implement and practice than Libertarianism.. (One True Wayism redux)..
Jesus’ “system” was a lot easier to describe though.
Love your neighbor
or, more to the point- but not directly yanked from scripture – “sanctity of others”
All the Libertarian blathering about the negative aggression principle, positive liberty and negative liberty is just obfuscating the fact that the whole philosophy is just a shell game used to justify “sanctity of self” above all things. It’s rooted in objectivism. At least Ayn Rand was honest about it.
Personally, though I think Anton LaVey and Ayn Rand shared more ideas than they differed on.
And all of this shit is sheer dogma in the first place, so I have no problem arguing against (American) Libertarianism on religious grounds – particularly because (American) Libertarianism *is* a religion. It’s certainly not a coherent political platform.
flamingRedDingo
and yes, I just made a comparison between Objectivism and Satanism.
I stand by it.
Chris
I think that’s why she’s not as popular as she could have been. Ayn Rand’s Objectivism is a fairly honest and consistent description of the modern conservative ethic – Me and My self-interest as the be-all and end-all of morality. Rand correctly thought that if you were going to have an ethic based on selfishness, you couldn’t have things like religion or patriotism or anything that implied belief in/service to something greater than yourself.
Unfortunately, the average conservative not only wants to be Selfish, but he wants to be told that that’s a good and Godly and patriotic thing. Which is why the pioneers of modern conservatism ended up being people like Buckley, who could take the same beliefs as Ayn Rand and wrap them up in the language of God, the flag and apple pie.
Bruce Webb
All you need to know about the mindset of your typical 21st century libertarian can be found in The Intellectual Autobiography of Bryan Caplan Caplan, now an Econ Professor at George Mason is basically an Onion level self-parodist, managing at one and the same time to be 100% self-absorbed yet 0% self-aware. His autobiography relates his evolution from teenage Randite fanboy, to well 30 year old Randite fanboy. I see that he has toned down his home page, which at one time was very literally the most garish web page I ever saw particularly considering it was his official university site. That is on one and the same page he advertised his Graphic (as in pictures) Sex Novel and informed his presumedly teenage students of office hours, the whole thing was Cognitive Dissonance cum bad LSD Trip.
But to E.D. ‘spoint. Caplan is maybe best known for his book The Myth of the Rational Voter whose central thesis is that we should deny the electoral franchise to non-rational people, where ‘non-rational’ is defined as ‘not immediately agreeing with every single one of Bryan Caplan’s opinions’. And that is not hyperbole. Sample Caplan:
Projection doesn’t begin to touch this, Caplan firmly believes he has the ability to directly ascertain capital T Truth.
The whole thing is worth reading though perhaps would be better titled ‘The Anti-Democratic Sociopathy of Bryan Caplan’. It is as if someone had just taken E.D,’s thesis and ran it to its logical extreme. Yet there he is——Caplan only appears to be a cartoon figure.
pamelabrown
@E.D. Kain: “Extremely critical”< IMHO, is code for allowing the the "Extreme" to win.
I, a lifelong, proud liberal am appalled at how many of my fellows lefties choose ideology over the grueling gruntwork (grassroots organizing) that makes real change in a society that has strong strands in both individualism and working together.
I believe that there could NOT be a strong USA without acknowledging that "We, the People" are the government…so let's embrace it and Press On. Work together.
Loviatar
@78 – E.D. Kain:
I’ve come to the realization that they’re almost Reaganest in their devotion, instead of WWRD its WWOD. The only thing missing is they haven’t tried to name every large stationary object after Obama – yet.
I think its a combination of the authoritarian thread that runs in Republican circles that has now been brought over with the former Republicans (don’t question the people in charge they always know what they’re doing) and blacks finally seeing someone of their color make it to the head of the table (don’t bad mouth your own kind and if someone else does defend no matter what). It makes for an ugly conversation.
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar: Um, when it comes to the idea of having to “work with the coalition you’ve got,” I’m not sure it’s the Obama critics who get to claim a superior understanding of the dynamic.
flamingRedDingo
@Chris:
spot on. Jesus spoke against these assholes of his day, but back then they were called Pharisees =)
Being Christian and be an (American) Libertarian forces you to serve two masters – which is a Bad Thing(tm) as far as Jesus was concerned.
and anyway, at least the Libertarian Atheists are more consistent. However, they just strikes me as being anarcho-capitalist… and I have yet to see that actually produce any sort of stable freedom. You must accept that it will work on faith – and as long as I’m doing that – I’ll take some philosophy that is a little more time-worn and a little less facile cereal box wisdom.*
Cheers
=)
* Even Adam Smith was smarter than that. People should really read The Theory of Moral Sentiments, IMO – otherwise don’t bother with “The Wealth of Nations”.
flamingRedDingo
@Bruce Webb:
Thanks for the link! I’m sure it will be thoroughly amusing =)
E.D. Kain
@FlipYrWhig: so my whole point here is that we should work together within the coalition while maintaining a critical stance. This is a balanced approach that doesn’t seek to primary out Obama or anything like that, but doesn’t (and shouldn’t) let Democrats off the hook when they’re wrong.
Barry
@JGabriel: “So who pays the taxes for the contracts to be enforced?”
The elites, who get a far more comfortable custom-fit enforcement regime.
b-psycho
@Elie: There’s nothing wrong with cooperation. The problem with government is that once you go from cooperation between people without a hierarchy to a 3rd party having force as a tool, the incentives shift. Things don’t have to work for you anymore, just for them, because honestly WTF are you gonna do about it?
It’s sad that so much of the anti-state argument is muddied by contradictory wingnut talk. The power of finance & the depths of their tentacles in politics should’ve revealed the antagonistic view of State and Capital as a lie a long time ago. If anyone should be skeptical of government it is the Left.
Cain
@E.D. Kain:
I completely agree, and I’m a self professed Obot. But I have plenty of criticism for some of the way he does things.
Loviatar
@85 – FlipYrWhig:
I always find this comment in all its variances ironic, since we worked with the coalition:
– to get Obama elected
– to provide cover for the Bush administration war criminals
– to get a bank bailout with no strings attached for the banks
– to get a continuation of the Afghan and Iraq wars
– to get a continued erosion of our civil liberties
– to get a half-assed expanded Insurance scheme
all things I and most liberals vehemently disagreed with, but they were accepted because we were working within the coalition.
However lets review the record of our coalition partners. When we brought our concerns on the above policies to their attention of our coalition partners, we were patted on the head and told we should listen to them because they know how to win dammit, forget about them not knowing how to govern, they could win. Most recently though we’ve gotten the STFU and fall into line or the crazy Republicans are going to win argument. I don’t see either of those arguments being good for partner relations.
You want to know the one that really sticks in my craw. We told you Obots that the Republicans would not be honest partners, we begged Obama to be more aggressive in his policy proposals, his political positioning and his push back to Republican talking points. We were told “the bully pulpit is useless”, the American people want “an adult in the room” and so on, now 3 years in with enthusiasm dissipated and an coming double dip recession we finally get the Obama we should have got on January 21 2009. I’m left to wonder has he finally gotten it or is he just mouthing platitudes as he gears up for his reelection campaign.
BARRASSO
No matter what a libertarian does they are a republican or a democrat when it comes to the actual governing of the united states. A two party system like ours makes all their posturing nonsense matter not in the reality of our government. Their ideas will never be put in place so why bother even listening, my plan for an economy based on flattery and pinkbellies has as much chance of happening, why aren’t I a senator?
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar: No one ever thought the Republicans would be honest partners. Including Obama.
I don’t know why you need to be told this time and again and again and again, but there are things Obama is hampered from doing BY DEMOCRATS. If your complaint is about legislation, you still, STILL, have no notion of how to get better legislation. If your complaint is about rhetoric, you still, STILL, have no notion of how better rhetoric gets better legislation. That’s the point of contention: would doing what the critics want Obama to do bring about the results the critics say they want? There’s never any there there. It’s all Bully Pulpit and arm-twisting and pixie dust.
Do you actually read any of what the “Obots” you abhor write, or do you just wrestle with straw Obots in your mind?
Lihtox
I don’t know, I think this is only true for pure libertarians; but people who are “pure” anything are probably a source of trouble. A person can have libertarian leanings, so that they tend to weight personal freedom more than other people do, without being a proponent of a pure libertarian anarchist society. Just as a fiscal conservative can be the person in the room saying “Now let’s not forget about the impact of this law on businesses” without being completely opposed to all regulation.
The loudest political voices on the right, right now, are more concerned about purity than about people, and that’s what concerns me the most.
FlipYrWhig
@E.D. Kain: I don’t know anyone who would dispute that. Work together, criticize what you like, just do it with a modicum of awareness that The Left never, ever gets unalloyed Left solutions in America, because The Left doesn’t have enough support in the populace or in the political class. Whatever The Left does manage to achieve will be watered-down half-measures, _because of_ coalition politics. If you don’t like that, either do something to make a bigger left, or suck it up and accept that you have less clout than you’d like and that you think you deserve.
ETA: Maybe you’re a klezmer fan and wish more people liked klezmer music as much as you do. You can either talk to people about how great klezmer is, and go to concerts when they happen, and support the community; or you can sit at home bitching that it’s not fair that the Top 40 station never plays klezmer, and bitching more loudly when you’re told that the reason for that is that not enough people want to hear it.
Loviatar
Its always someone else to blame, not Obama and his policy choices.
Obama in his statements and policy choices is a Reagan Democrat, so don’t try and place the blame on the Ben Nelsons of the world for the policies enacted by Obama.
– He chose to provide cover for the Bush administration war criminals
– He chose to give the banks a bailout with no strings attached
– He chose to continue the Afghan and Iraq wars
– He chose to continue eroding our civil liberties
– He chose a half-assed expanded Insurance scheme
Ben Nelson didn’t choose any of those things, he may have wanted it, but it wasn’t his administration, it was Obama’s.
Oh by the way I do know how legislation works I also know that the president can be as strong or as weak as he needs to be to accomplish his policy objectives. Obama choose to be seen as weak when needed to achieve his objectives.
I have a question; why the strong push back and strident defense? Are you not proud of Obama’s accomplishments, the above list are a result of his objectives and policies and you should stop defending him and let him own them.
gnomedad
@jprfrog:
I’ve decided that this is a feature of extremism in general. As for libertarians, I’m looking for an opportunity to ask one what society they think comes closest to Libertopia. It’s unfair to name Somalia? OK, name another.
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar:
You’re a lost cause.
ETA:
Because I don’t like having a bunch of childish ignorant jerkwads running around claiming to be The Left, and that everyone else is probably an authoritarian Republican, when these same jerkwads are content to live in a mutually masturbatory fantasy land rather than educating themselves about how to make some amount of liberal-leftism actually fucking happen in this country.
Loviatar
@99 – FlipYrWhig:
I guess whoever doesn’t believe that Obama has accomplished all that could be accomplished in the face of Republican obstruction and Democratic weakness is a lost cause.
If thats true, then I guess I am a lost cause.
.
Take a look at my list above and tell me he couldn’t of and shouldn’t of have done better.
Shade Tail
@FlipYrWhig:
You and I are definitely in agreement there. Simply stated, Lovitar and people like him are tools of the right. They probably don’t realize that, considering how ignorant they are about *everything else*, but it’s true.
Loviatar
@99 – FlipYrWhig:
.
And the insults and ranting starts.
.
Mr. Kain, this why the conversation can not be had, the Obots believe there should not be any criticism of Obama.
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar: He couldn’t have done better in terms of legislative results. All the results he _did_ get were like pulling teeth while herding cats in the middle of a Chinese fire drill.
He could have done better in terms of rhetoric. But rhetoric does not equal results, which is the problem with the Grand Unified Bully Pulpit Theory. And sometimes the rhetoric that clicks with liberal Democrats makes conservative Democrats cringe, so caveat emptor.
And I’ll accept the civil-libertarian gripes. I just don’t have those near the top of my list, or worry much about slippery slopes.
Samara Morgan
@E.D. Kain: /yawn.
another thousand words of nothing.
you are talking about liberty-as-means libertarians.
You, freddie de Bore, are a liberty-means libertarian. The proof is your epic post on charter schools where you ask for more “experimentation.”
(well plus you SAID you were a civil libertarian.)
What all liberty-as-means libertarians do is this.
Libertarians like Dr. Jim Manzi wave their hands and say “the system is too complex to understand, we need more experimentation.”
Experimentation in society leads to localized mob rule, aka Distributed Jesusland.
Experimentation in the market led to the Econopalypse that Ate Americas Jobs.
Liberty-as-means libertarians are the opposite of third culture intellectuals.
@E.D. Kain: name one good libertarian. just one. you cant do it can you?
this is another bulshytt post by a firebagger emoprog.
sukk up the drench ‘slines.
wallah Cole why dont you have Douthat and Sullivan write guest posts here?
fuck off you little turdbag.
we know what you think about Obama.…at least those of us read your crappy c-list blog.
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar: Criticize away. Do not keep drawing a line around yourself and then declaring that only inside the line is the _real_ left. It’s bullshit, and as one member of the left to another, I’m not going to let you keep pulling that.
Samara Morgan
@Loviatar: the front pagers are enjoined from critting other front pagers.
didnt you read Cole’s rebuke to AL?
Samara Morgan
@Waingro: no thanks.
i prefer to point out that freddie is a lying firebagging wanker muff diving and cocksukking the jucitariat for pageclicks.
Samara Morgan
@Cain: its not a good post. its another thousand words of nothing.
Samara Morgan
@beltane: im calling you slines this week in honor of REAMDE.
Loviatar
@103 – FlipYrWhig:
Obama choose to be seen as weak when needed to achieve his objectives.
Healthcare:
He opposed Universal Healthcare before the debate began, he bargained away single payer, he bargained away government negotiation of drug prices. The Ben Nelsons of the world was a useful foil for him to say, see I can’t give you what you want because the bad men won’t let me.
Villago Delenda Est
….and there goes the no hitter.
It was great while it lasted!
flamingRedDingo
I’m voting 3rd party in 2012.
But given the current landscape I hope Obama gets a 2nd term.
He’s still a better choice for the country than anything we’re likely to have come 2012.
The “OBots” and the “Firebaggers” are both correct to degrees. That may sound like cowardly equivocation, but I don’t think that’s quite right either.
Is there a large amount of “rat-fucking” going on? I think so. So the “O-Bots” have got one there.
Is there a large amount of otherwise well-meaning people who generally expected more from Obama, and feel betrayed? I think so as well. So the “firebaggers” concerns are valid.
It’s degrees. And since people are REALLY PISSED right now (that seems true of most of our politics at the moment) some people are going to be all militant. It’s the economy stupid – also it’s the suffering, stupid. =)
But with all of the circular firing going on, there’s no win in it for lefties in general. You know, when everyone takes a step back and takes a deep breath, the fact that the majority of both camps generally want the same thing should count for something.
If the “firebaggers” want something better they would do well to understand the consequences of a primary..
OTOH – if the “O-bots” think there is no value to be had from criticizing the political strategies employed by Obama’s admin than they have some reflection to do as well.
As for me, I think nothing will be solved so long as our 4th estate is so toxic at the moment.
I’ve wondered why we aren’t organizing rallies in front of the HQ’s of the major news networks for example.
Then again, I’m odd – or so I’m told =)
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
Have you spoken to your doctor about improving your self-control in online interactions, as I suggested? As I said before, I think doing so would be of real benefit in managing your Asparagus syndrome.
FlipYrWhig
@Shade Tail: I wouldn’t say “tools of the right,” honestly. But if you call yourself a part of the left, you will always be able to say that American politics, and any individual American politician, is not as far left as you’d like it to be. Fine, so stipulated. How do you get it to move in the right direction? Do you decide that little moves in the righteous direction are not enough, and you won’t sit back and be content with them, and you’re still angry, and they’re probably even buttressing the status quo? Or do you give some credit to the politician/s who actually did their part to move things in the righteous direction, and while admitting that all the work isn’t done, allow yourself to smile for a minute or two?
Maybe Barack Obama is the compact fluorescent light bulb. He fits into the existing system, he’s a step in the right direction, but he doesn’t solve the biggest problems all at once. (And for some people he starts too slow and the color balance is a bit off.)
Yes, it would be _better_ if everyone ran their household on solar panels, but we can’t all do that, and it’s bullshit to say that the people who switch to CFLs are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. It’s not ALL of the solution, but it’s part of the solution.
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar: He bargained things away to get the votes of reluctant politicians and to sideline the special interests that wrecked all previous health care reform efforts. You’re welcome.
Samara Morgan
AMG the jokes on me. i thought this was a de Bore post and its Kain!
hahaha
i truly cant believe you’d show your face here after your “beyond unions” post.
and these dumb cattle are sukking down the drench again arent they.
You said the last time i recall that you are a neo-liberal liberaltarian.
Just what the fuck is that?
@E.D. Kain: are you saying you are no longer a neo-liberal liberaltarian? becaus that is what you were when you banned me from your Utoya thread.
Allow to reiterate the point i just before you banned me.
Teabaggers are white christian nativists, just like Anders Breivik.
So what are you this week, Kain?
Amir Khalid
@flamingRedDingo:
These two statements are not mutually consistent.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: have you spoken to your shayyk about your rejection of the First Pillar?
LOLOLLLOL
you have got to be kidding me.
Kain is a libertarian that hates teachers unions. WTF is he doing back here?
He is also a free market fucktard.
Are you retards seriously going to swallow the drench again?
Loviatar
@105 – FlipYrWhig:
I’m not a lefty, by today’s measure yes, but I used to considered a moderate Democrat (under the old definition of a Democrat).
What I’m doing is trying to pointing out to you so called realist, pragmatist, moderate Democrats is that you’re really the Republican party of the 90s (pre- Insane Klown Party). Your policies and objectives do not match up to where the Democratic party has been traditionally, it does however match up quite well with what we used to call the Republican party pre- Clinton.
As I happened to have disagreed with many of these same policies when they were presented by the 90s era Republican party, I have no problem disagreeing with the policies today, even if its presented by someone who calls himself a Democrat.
—–
By the way, most Americans do not want to have to choose between a Republican party and a Republican lite party. We want real choices; not vote for my guy he is less crazy than the other guy.
flamingRedDingo
@Amir Khalid:
Yes they are. Do you not understand the electoral system?
Hint: I don’t live in a swing-state. My state will go for Obama.
By casting 3rd party I raise the percentage of voters voting for that 3rd party. Since I don’t live in a swing, Obama will get my vote anyway – but a 3rd party gets counted as well – and it’s a tiny move towards breaking the 2 party stranglehold in this country.
Didn’t anyone teach you how to vote?
Samara Morgan
I seriously dont believe this.
Kain is a JAFI, a “freed” market fucktard, a Hayek fan and a union basher.
what in Allah’s name is wrong with you people?
Samara Morgan
@flamingRedDingo: Maftoon Khalid lives in Malaysia.
:)
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
Since you brought that up, I wonder what you make of this.
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar:
The fuck I am. If you were ever a “moderate Democrat,” you are far to the right of where I ever have been.
You still, STILL, after months and months of this, have no comprehension of [ETA] the status of “policies and objectives” in political debate. The objectives you (I’ll give you some credit) and I both want, in a vacuum, with no obstacles and no need to rally anyone else’s support, are virtually identical.
From there, I conclude that there aren’t really very many of us, so incremental steps vaguely in the direction of the policies and objectives we like are uphill battles; that even minor victories are highly unlikely; and, accordingly, there are many more grounds for praise than blame when assessing the Obama administration.
But from there you conclude that what I say I approve is what I mean I would most want. That’s obviously false. And getting hung up on what you would _most_ want is a prescription for permanent despair and dislocation from American politics. Because you’re not going to get what you most want. Never. So do you want to complain that you don’t, or do you want to put your disappointment-relative-to-the-ideal on the back burner for ten consecutive seconds and attempt to understand that there’s another way to look at the world besides declaring that it sucks because it’s not Leftopia yet.
flamingRedDingo
@Samara Morgan: I don’t understand how that is relevant to the exchange I was in with Amir. He claimed that my position was inconsistent. That’s what I was responding to. The answer lies in how voting in the USA works. Malaysia didn’t enter into it. Or maybe it did, and I am just slow. =)
Cat Lady
@Loviatar:
BUT THAT’S WHAT YOUR CHOICE IS! What the fuck is wrong with all of you who insist on not understanding that? By letting Republicans win anywhere, but especially nationally, pushes the country to the right and marginalizes all of you purity lefties more and more, and makes your wishes less and less likely to ever be realized. More and better Democrats are your only hope now. WTF?!
Loviatar
@115 – FlipYrWhig:
He opposed Universal Healthcare before the debate began
I for one believe he could have gotten more for his bargaining (single payer) if he hadn’t given away Universal Healthcare before the conversation started. But since you can’t prove a negative, I guess you win that one.
Suggestion, stop being so defensive, own your success. Next time someone like me complains, stop us and go; WHOOPPEE, we have an expanded Insurance scheme.
It doesn’t roll of the tongue like WHOOPPEE, we have Universal Healthcare but if you guys stick with soon everyone will be saying it.
Mino
@Loviatar: Amen. The Democratic Party of today bears little to no resemblance to the party that came out of the 40’s. A voter from that era would be horrified to see what has evolved. Working class people have no party today.
Samara Morgan
Srsly, Balloon-Juice.
This guy rolled you like cheap drunks the last time around.
Dont you read his crappy c-list blog?
HE IS A FUCKING LIBERTARIAN.
He just calls it by whatever the buzzgenerator du semaine comes up with.
He is a Hayek fan, he “strongly” believes in the “freed” market, he “has cooled” on unions. His post on Utoya was isomorphic with Jen Rubins and he walked it back clumsier than Goldberg.
i had thought the juicitariat could not drop any further in my esteem but this is riddickkulous.
Better talk to Cole about a perma-ban you slimy disgusting little pud.
Cat Lady
@Loviatar:
What should Obama have done about Joe Lieberman?
Mino
@Cat Lady: No. Just, no. It’s not Republicans moving the goal posts. It’s Democrats consistently using Republican frames. And they do so because…they are New England Republicans!
Corner Stone
@Mino:
Thanks to the Steely Eyed Centrists(tm) and our Pragmatist Betters.
“What I approve may not be what I want, but meh.”
Samara Morgan
@flamingRedDingo: he doesnt vote in the USA.
/yawn
i gotta bounce.
y’all have fun with your nasty little embryo Douthat.
just remember why he’s here– he’s gunna get the axe at Forbes if he doesnt get his pageclick count up.
so be sure and click over to Forbes, to save “Our” EDK’s paying gig, and because it will relly piss me off.
hahahahaha
‘slines.
Cat Lady
@Mino:
Then “progressives” need to run for local offices and make their case, like all the tea partiers did to take over the House. Standing around whining and threatening to vote for some third party is stupid and counterproductive. If they’re truly the base, then they’ll be able to deliver blocs of votes to their chosen candidates. If they can’t or won’t do that, then they’re useless and should STFU.
flamingRedDingo
@Samara Morgan: I smell butthurt.
I don’t even agree with EDK. Lol
And the fact that he doesn’t vote in the USA has nothing to do with anything. it was *my* voting practice that was called out as inconsistent. Not his. Whatevs
Mino
@Cat Lady: How do you feel about Card Check?? Think the unions got rolled on that one? Think the Democrats had any intention of passing it? Think the unions are owed a refund?
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar: Yes, you for one do believe a lot of bullshit you refuse to revisit even after having had it explained time and again.
Loviatar
@124 – FlipYrWhig:
I’m at a loss for words, if that statement is true then how could you
quietly acceptstridently defend the things being done in your name.—–
20% of the American people publicly identify themselves as liberal, another 15% traditionally vote Democratic, while another 5 to 10% lean Democratic. The Republicans have approximately the same percentages, yet over the past 40 years they’ve seem to have gotten there agenda implemented. So I kind of disagree with your statement that there aren’t enough of us to get our policies enacted. Particularly after Bush and the Republicans so royally screwed up over the past 10 years.
Show me where I said that, I’ve never been an absolutist, I understand and agree with the need for compromise. However, what I have said is, I’m willing to accept compromise if its in the furtherance of Democratic ideals. Per my list above, other than the expanded Insurance scheme show me how any of the points further Democratic ideals.
Samara Morgan
wait….@Amir Khalid: i actually think that is a good article.
But the Cairo declaration of islamic rights supplanted the 1948 declaration, so that argument would have no power with the jurists.
my argument (if i could make one) with the jurists would be that hanging is not a proportionate response to apostasy, and the Prophet mandated a proportionate response. That is in the Quran.
However, if the man was proselytizing or seeking to convert others to xianity, then he deserves whatever happens to him.
In a country governed by islamic law, citizens must obey the law, even if they think it does not apply to them.
The law is the law.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: “I demand Different Politics! Stupid politics, start making me happy!”
Amir Khalid
@flamingRedDingo:
I mean that if it is Obama you hope to see winning in 2012, because you see no better choice for your country, then it is Obama you should be voting for. Voting for a third-party candidate (assuming there is such a candidate, party and all, palatable enough to you) takes one popular vote away from the candidate you really prefer — Obama — and reduces the likelihood of your state’s electoral votes going to him.
It was recently pointed out by a commenter here (I wish I remembered who, and in which thread) that a third party takes time to grow, from local elections to state-level elections, before it can be ready to take on a presidential election. Voting for a third party’s fringe candidate in 2012 might not be the best way to build that party up, assuming that third party is the one you want to support. Better, I think, to vote Obama in 2012, while you work on finding, joining and helping to build the third party you really want.
Mino
And I remember some outraged screams at the thought of unions running local candidates and cutting back or omitting national support.
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar:
I dunno, maybe the answer lurks somewhere in the tens of thousands of posts I’ve made explaining exactly why, including on the very thread within a time horizon measured in minutes.
Samara Morgan
@flamingRedDingo: well pardon then. i misunderstood.
im simply gobsmacked that that little creeper is back here and no one but me is gunna call him out.
Bruuuuce
@Loviatar:
Regardless of the the factual content of your posts (and particularly this statement), let me take a moment to school you on junior high school English: the correct phrase is “couldn’t have and shouldn’t have done better.” Putting it the way you did comes across as juvenile and/or illiterate.
::deliberately doesn’t point at the content of this person’s posts, lest the point become even clearer::
Loviatar
@143 – FlipYrWhig:
So your point is you’re willing to accept:
– cover for the Bush administration war criminals
– a bank bailout with no strings attached for the banks
– a continuation of the Afghan and Iraq wars
– a continued erosion of our civil liberties
all in order to get
– a half-assed expanded Insurance scheme
.
you have a much lower price for your vote than I do. I expect and want more, I think I deserve more for my vote.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: “I’m just fine with the status quo! I like to tell people I’m a leftie but there’s absolutely nothing but contrary evidence to that statement in every comment I have ever made here! I’m good, thanks!”
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar:
Here’s a thought: maybe some of the people who traditionally vote Democratic actually like some of the things Republicans propose, giving rise to a wondrous hippogryph-like beast that tends to get what it wants regardless of what party happens to have the majority. And maybe some of them are senators and Congresspeople from states that Democratic presidential candidates often get blown out in.
Loviatar
@145 – Bruuuuce:
Thank you, I knew it was wrong but I was rushing to get my point out.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: “Nobody’s paying attention to me! Better find a conversation to pretend to act threatening in!”
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid:
i think the death sentence is more likely for proselytizing after reading this. In the Islamic Republic of Iran proselytizing is punishable by death. I imagine the “christian house churches” are also illegal in Iran….because services can only legally be held in official churches.
The western media reports this as being hung for changing his religion– that is false i think.
And even western press should be aware that the 1990 Cairo declaration supplanted the 1948 declaration.
Loviatar
@148 – FlipYrWhig:
And the opposite would also be true. So that negates your point.
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar:
Obviously.
Try convincing more people to vote for politicians you’d like better.
flamingRedDingo
@Samara Morgan: My position is that no politician in the USA will really do what their constituents want without a functioning 4th estate to hold them accountable. I don’t care who they are, or what ideology or party most adheres to their values and world-view.
We’re just discussing symptoms of the disease, and how to band-aid them.
It’s fun to argue particulars, but most of it is mental masturbation. If we aren’t protesting the supposed guardians of our once vibrant fourth estate, we’ll continue to have a Fox guarding the hen house (pun intended), and nothing will really change.
The birth of the 24/hr news cycle post 9/11 was probably the final nail in the coffin of journalism in this country.
I believe the core of our rot comes from that.
If we had even a half decent MSM press (like we did maybe 40 years ago) we wouldn’t even be discussing this bullshite, as far as I can tell.
It feels like all of us are fighting over the scraps that folks like David Brooks are nice enough to drop for us… The MSM is the one framing the debates – framing the direction of our discourse – framing and prepackaging all of our information. It’s all so frustrating.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: that is an interesting article.
what do you think of it?
i gotta bounce now, but ill find the quote about proportionate response in my Quran. that is how dissenters from the decision should attack the hanging, rather than beg for clemency.
Use the message of the Generous Quran.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: “Maybe I can keep pushing my propaganda for another thread! And at the same time express how mentally intimidated I feel by a stranger on the intertrons!”
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar:
Yes, there are some Republicans who find themselves agreeing with certain Democratic priorities. It was how Democrats started to sweep the Northeast. But you have said repeatedly that don’t like them very much. That’s the problem with coalitions. Some of the people slightly to the right or slightly to the left of you turn out to be dicks. And yet you all need each other to win elections.
Loviatar
@153 – FlipYrWhig:
I did in ’08.
I’m holding out for a higher price this time.
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
You should pay special attention to the Criticism section of that Wikipedia article on thr Cairo Declaration. Also, note that the document is far from exhaustive. From the Wikipedia article:
I bolded that one bit just for you.
Mino
@FlipYrWhig: Here’s a thought…Huey Long would probably confound Obama or Romney or any of these corporatists. Voters are furious with both parties. Believe me, they are paying attention now.
Chris
@Amir Khalid:
There’s never really been room for a “third party” in our politics… At best, you have what happened with the Federalists, the Whigs and eventually the Republicans, where one party would implode or die and another rose up to take its place. But there’s never really been room for more than two parties at a time.
It’s better to take over one of the existing parties, change it from the inside and eventually use it to change the country, as populists/Progressives did in the first half of the twentieth century, and movement conservatives did in the second half. Easier said than done, but the third party route is guaranteed failure.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Yes, very intimidated. You might call me bad names or insult my sick cat.
Mino
@flamingRedDingo: You have a good point. If a tree falls, etc,etc.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: Just want to make sure you have your Polly Precious fainting couch in place in case that happens.
Wouldn’t want you to bump your noggin as you spontaneously get the vapors.
Samara Morgan
@flamingRedDingo: oh, i totally agree with that– but glibertarians like EDK and Douthat are a ginormous part of the problem….because they APPEAR reasonable.
As humans, we want to believe they are just like us, and can be reasoned with.
They can’t.
We are not the same.
Anyone that reads the LoOG can see that Kain just panders here for pageclicks, while remaining a libertarian/neo-liberal/classic liberal/liberaltarian w/e the fuck he claims to be this week. He is a union-bashing free market fucktard and Dead White Guy Phailosophy fan.
The media loves guys like Kain and Douthat, because it helps the horse-race meme that there are actually two legit sides.
There arent.
And that is why “critiquing” Obama is a loozers game.
I support the guy UNCONDITIONALLY because he’s the best we got.
But Kain is basically a fifth columnist here.
He shares no liberal ideas with the juicitariat.
He flirting for pageclicks, but hes never gettin into the liberal sack. Our side dont pay well enough.
Do you know what we say in Horse World? whoever feeds the horse, owns the horse.
libertarians are a lot like horses in that.
Who feeds EDK?
Forbes does.
/shrug
FlipYrWhig
@Mino: I think a third-party populist could scramble the map. We were talking about it on the Perot thread. I’m not sure what the various segment of Democrats would do with someone who was very good working-class bread-and-butter issues but uninterested in social/cultural topics like reproductive rights or same-sex marriage, and who would almost certainly be stridently anti-immigrant.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Help, help, I’m being called a punk-ass bitch by a lonely middle-aged Texan! And it wasn’t even predictable!
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
Goodness. Do you not understand the plain English of the Guardian article? It says that Youcef Nadarkhani is to be executed for refusing to repudiate his conversion to Christianity, not for proselytizing anyone.
Mino
@FlipYrWhig: I don’t think it will be Perot-like. If things get much more strained between the unions and the Democrats, I could see a messy divorce within the decade.
What do I know? But no one is speaking for the masses and you have to know it. Don’t kid yourself.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
Good Lord. You can’t swing a dead possum on this blog anymore without hitting Cornered Stone being an asshole.
I hope your kitty feels better.
flamingRedDingo
@Chris:
So is your position that helping to provide matching federal funds for a 3rd party by voting for their candidate in an election does no good?.
Pray tell, exactly how will Voting for Obama change anything. My vote for Obama would count for exactly zip. I live in a BLUE state.
It sounds like you want me to throw my vote away.
Why would you want that?
I believe in building up a 3rd party, as the original quote you responded to indicated. and part of that is to get to that 15% (last time I checked) of the popular vote figure needed for participation in the debates and matching federal campaign funds.
I also take issue with your dismissal of 3rd party candidates. It’s not simply about winning, but providing a serious contender to challenge one of the mainstream parties (whatever your affiliation) to differentiate themselves from one another.
I think you are overlooking that. More importantly, I don’t see how me voting for Obama would change anything. It will have absolutely zero impact on whether or not he gets elected again.
FlipYrWhig
I need to do work. I’m sure the Bad-ass Internet Left will still be nursing grudges and seething about football results tomorrow.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: How sad for you. You used to be able to at least work some propaganda in there as well. You’ve lost a step old bean.
FlipYrWhig
@eemom: Actually my cat is better than she’s been for a few weeks. And CS, to his credit, never has said anything to me about that. But it’s happened before.
eemom
@Amir Khalid:
why is the child so obsessed with proseltyzing? Any idea?
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: My guess is that she simply assumes all Christians proselytize all the time – even in their sleep. It is also completely possible that she does not understand the plain English of the Guardian article.
Loviatar
@157 – FlipYrWhig:
No, I haven’t, what I’ve said is I don’t like the direction in which they are dragging the Democratic party (Republican lite).
I don’t dislike the John Coles of the world, I just don’t want their Republican lite policies in the Democratic party. I believe they can better serve the country by going back to their former party and attempting to pull them back from the edge, there by giving us two sane parties.
Here is a suggestion for John and his ilk, take @Cat Lady‘s advice and run for office as a moderate Republican or support moderate Republican, I would much rather have that than have them screwing over the Democratic party.
Mino
@FlipYrWhig: And why would they be anti-immigrant? I should think they would want to integrate them so they stop holding down wages.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: article 10 says
that is why i think the law he broke was probably proselytizing and holding illegal services. Iran is a member of the OIC. western media often reports news from dar ul islam incorrectly. Arabic is hard.
But if i wanted to save his life, i’d quote the Quran, not Benedict the Bad Shepherd or an outdated declaration. Irans citizen, Irans laws.
i asked what you thought. do you have any thoughts?
flamingRedDingo
@Samara Morgan: WRT #165 And on that, we certainly agree
Amir Khalid
@Chris:
flamingRedDingo wants a third party real bad. I was just suggesting what seems to me the best way to get to one without throwing away his vote next year.
FlipYrWhig
OK, last thing.
@Mino:
I don’t think I was ever kidding myself about that. I’m interested in the divide between liberals and populists, and where class-based politics would lead when it comes to some of the “cultural” issues that I personally find important. A liberal + populist Democratic party would be manna from heaven. I’m just doubtful it can be built, in particular in places where the “pro-business Democrat” tends to do well, like in the SEC states.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: that is a western article from a western perspective.
i think it may be innacurrate.
But if he ran a network of illegal underground xian “house churches”, im pretty sure that is against the law in Iran.
Because that is proselytizing, and that is against the law.
Praps hes being hung for both, but usually apostacy alone is not a hanging offense.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan:
So it would be fine to use persuasion on a wealthy and learned person? Right?
flamingRedDingo
@Amir Khalid: I looked, but must have missed the part where you suggested that directly.
If you were referring to the ground-up support, that’s part of why I vote the way a do – we’re actually in agreement, just maybe not what the means entail.
I will not vote for Obama because I do not live in a swing state. If I lived in Ohio my position might be different, but I don’t.
Mino
And hope your cat gets better.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: heading an illegal network of xian “house churches” would definitely be reguarded as proselytizing in Iran.
FlipYrWhig
@Mino: If you can square that circle, great. But if the populist party is arising from the carnage of the working class, my gut tells me that that voter base is going to be uninterested-to-hostile about immigrant rights. Populist and nativist tend to go hand in hand. To be blunt, a party of the _white_ working class would probably be very successful in the coming years by pulling support from “corporate” Republicans and Democrats, but I’m not sure liberals would always like their positions on non-class issues.
Yutsano
@eemom: Considering she had to be proselytized to be a Muslim…yeah. Mayhaps her faith is not as strong as she thinks?
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: oh yes! the Prophet often debated with christian and jewish scholars.
But you see my point about freedom of speech being incompatible with shariah?
freedom of speech legalizes proselytizing EVERYONE.
FlipYrWhig
@Mino: Thanks. She’s getting old and doesn’t walk that well. Sorry for the sidetrack; I was referring (too) obliquely to old blog skirmishes from months ago.
Amir Khalid
@eemom:
Dunno. If I have to guess, maybe she’s afraid, deep down inside, that some wicked evangelist might someday persuade her to convert from Islam to, who knows, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Mind you, a Pastafarian m_c might be an improvement over the one we have now.
Mino
@FlipYrWhig: Huey Long was from La. I think on social issues it would depend on the generation. A lot of those old issues are settled with younger folks and liberals won.
And frankly, I can’t imagine a working class party that refused to allow the working poor to participate.
Loviatar
@FlipYrWhig:
I’ll close this with this thought; If the expanded Insurance scheme had come out of a Republican administration I would have been one of the first ones in the street yelling WHOOPPEE, we got expanded Insurance, but it didn’t, it came out of a Democratic administration.
I expect more from Democrats, thats why I am a Democrat, so I have to disagree when I hear Obama has accomplished so much and we should accept the political limitations. He could’ve and should’ve done better and we should expect more of him and if we don’t then we really are the Republican lite party.
Thanks for the conversation, other than that one outburst its been pretty civil.
Samara Morgan
@Yutsano: Considering she had to be proselytized to be a Muslim
no i didnt.
why would you say that?
i was studying arabic and reverted. no one proselytized me.
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
Look again at the byline: the writer, Mehdi Hasan, is a Muslim. Or maybe you reckon he’s a maftoon too.
Barry
@FlipYrWhig: “To be blunt, a party of the white working class would probably be very successful in the coming years by pulling support from “corporate” Republicans and Democrats, but I’m not sure liberals would always like their positions on non-class issues.”
No, it’s be co-opted by the financial elites. Notice that the GOP is running a wing which is a very ‘populist’ wing; the whole point is to deliver very populist position save economic (i.e., the core of populism).
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: You understand that there is no place on earth that has completely unfettered freedom of speech, right?
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: i explained this before.
Sufis believe that every human is what they should be. Atheists should be atheists, christians should be christians.
And all paths are the One path anyways.
If Allahs desires you to be something else, it will appear in your path.
like it did in mine.
what did you think about that article?
Yutsano
@Samara Morgan: Which just goes to show you have no idea what you’re talking about. As usual.
@Amir Khalid: That would ruin her piss off her parents moment though.
b-psycho
I like this one.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: i have no idea. :)
i just pointed out the truth.
In Iran, the 1990 declaration would take precedence, and running an illegal network of xian “house churches” is definitely proselytization under Iranian law.
I do not think hanging is a proportionate response to apostasy, and there are many examples where the Prophet says it is not, but perhaps apostasy combined with running a network of illegal underground “house churches” is a hanging offense IN IRAN.
their country, their laws…
FlipYrWhig
@Loviatar: OK, I’m sorry, I get my hackles up when I perceive I’m being told I don’t count as part of the left. I identify as left. I’m fascinated by left politics, have tried to study its origins, and try to carry that banner when I write and talk under my real name with people I actually know. And the left is a mess everywhere around the world right now, so that’s why I adopt the “uphill battle” frame, because I feel like, if not for the squishy not-quite-right liberalism of Barack Obama and the contemporary Democratic party, we’d be getting pummeled way worse, and I’d like to accentuate the positive.
Lysana
Y’know, people trolling an ED Kain thread to pick on ABL shows I need to add to my pie filter.
Chris
@flamingRedDingo:
To be honest, if you want to put it that way, I don’t see how YOUR vote specifically is going to change much either for the Democrats or for a third party. The third party isn’t going to suddenly become for viable just because one additional person voted for them out of a total that will remain very low. But it’s your vote, by all means do cast it for whoever you want.
Yes, I see your point now. Sounds like you basically want to parade a big enough group of voters in an election to make it worth one of the parties going after it… sort of like the Dixiecrats running on third party platform a couple times until Republicans decided to go after them.
Could work. I don’t see any left-wing group being able to rally a critical mass of voters at the moment, but that’s what you meant by “building a third party” I take it. I just think trying to change things by running further-to-the-left candidates in Democratic primaries would appeal to more people, especially in the post-2000 climate where memories of Nader have turned off a lot of Democrats to your “third party on the left” strategy.
Samara Morgan
@Yutsano:
who proselytized me then?
General Stuck
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s Loviatar in the minority of dem thinking, him and the rest of the blog wizards. A place where any fairy tale can have legs, written in crayon. They don’t even deserve an explanation, only a kick in the junk.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
I’m not sure it would be that successful either. One the one hand, it would turn off the money boys for sure, which is huge considering that they control all the propaganda outlets. On the other hand, it would turn off not only liberals but the entire non-white part of the country, and that’s the growing part.
They’d end up being the Dixiecrats of the twenty-first century, cut off from the elites and from far too much of the public, and like the Dixiecrats they’d probably end up being reabsorbed by one of the two parties. Which would put us back where we started.
But it’s possible they’d have shone enough attention on class issues to move the national discourse to the left on economics. Maybe that’d be worth it.
Corner Stone
@Lysana: You’re such a delicate flower.
Samara Morgan
@Khalid you are not going to give an opinion are you?
okthen.
i think most people (including the author) assume the man is going to be put to death for being an apostate. But running a network of illegal xian “house churches” is a far more serious offense under Iranian law.
Their country, their laws.
so, ok gotta bounce.
peace out.
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
Nobody proselytized you, you say. Nobody answered your initial questions about Islam? Nobody provided you with instruction on beliefs and practices? Nobody told you about living among the ummah? Nobody filled you in on its obligations and rewards? Did nobody counsel you about whether to convert, and how to go about it? When you first recited the Shahada as a believing Muslim, was nobody present to hear it?
Anyone who did any of these things was involved in proselytizing you.
Samara Morgan
Oh, and fuck you Kain.
Better get a perma-ban for me from Cole.
otherwise ill be on every thread reminding people of what a slimy little fuck you are.
hmm….this does not work on spock, but perhaps it will on you.
Chris
@Amir Khalid:
IOKIYAM.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: no one did any of of those things.
i swear on my horses life.
and now adieu.
haha, im goin’ foxhunting tomorrow.
view halloo!
Corner Stone
@Amir Khalid:
The difference is the “in situ” part.
Obviously, someone caught her out walking to check the mail.
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid:
@Samara Morgan:
Isn’t Shahadah a declaration that has to be made in a public setting? I find it extremely difficult to believe any mosque would just let a strange white girl in and let her declare out of nowhere.
Amir Khalid
@Yutsano:
It needn’t be in public, or even in a mosque. Making the declaration in front of witnesses is all that’s required for a conversion.
But to be able to make an informed decision about adopting a new faith, any faith, you must first learn about it. That entails going through at least some of that process I described. And she says no one did these things for her? Hmmm…
Stillwater
@Davis X. Machina:
Brilliant.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
This is the troll’s most major malfunction, displayed with predictable repetition, again and again.
Cliff in NH
Sure wish the trolls would be banned.
was nice reading here for a bit.
Fuck off trolls!
Thymezone
I just looked out the window to see if pigs are being vectored into and out of the local airport. You have posted something that seems to make sense. I have a technician coming to check my computer to make sure that it hasn’t been taken over by pranksters.
If this is going to be a new BJ policy … seemingly sensible posts from you … it would be nice if you guys announced it.
Also too, what? Why did you need to introduce the obligatory Obama/3rd party troll into the topic? What does that have to do with libertarianism? Libertarianism is illusory, it’s like Intelligent Design. It’s a figment. Libertarian government in the modern world in an advanced country is, for now, not even the remotest realm of feasability or practicality. It’s an exercise in hypotheticals. What does it have to do with Obama’s presidency and third parties? At least Naderism had a basis in reality, whether you like Nader or not (I don’t, and as I am fond of pointing out, I am pretty sure I am the only person here who has had dinner with him). Is that a viable link? I don’t know. Let me know how it turns out.
As for democracy, the whole American Experiment is rigged against it. That’s why the Constitution created a Republic and not a democracy. Franklin said “A republic, if you can keep it,” not “A democracy, if you can believe it.”
Stillwater
@Thymezone: What the fuck dude! You had dinner with Ralph?
Thymezone
@Stillwater:
Yes.
The table we ate at is in the next room. The dinner was approximately 45 years ago. Long story. The diners were Nader, my parents, and me.
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: WTF?
there is NO requirement for witnesses.
i do not think you are a muslim at all.
Samara Morgan
@Cliff in NH: you should email Cole and tell him that.
Samara Morgan
Truly, i cannot believe this creepy little unionbashing LIBERTARIAN is posting here AGAIN.
sukkahs.
hes just here for the pageclicks.
like i said, Forbes is about to sack his c-list ass for lack of pageclicks.
so you do that juicers. hes a fucking libertarian. ask him.
there are no honest libertarians or sane conservatives left in this country.
so go ahead, support him, help him destroy the country.
idc.
Mnemosyne
@Loviatar:
Uh, if you “accepted” those decisions as necessary evils, why are you bitching about them 24/7? Helpful hint: if you’re constantly complaining today about decisions that were made two years ago, that’s not a sign that you accepted them.
Which is what Flip’s point is: you’re claiming that you’re fine with being part of a coalition but unwilling to accept the decisions made by the coalition. You’re like the guy who claims he’s fine when the group he’s with decides to go to Applebee’s for dinner, but spends the entire goddamned night complaining that there’s nothing for him to eat and everyone should have gone where he wanted to go.
Samara Morgan
@Thymezone:
what would that be?
A libertarian critting other libertarians on a “liberal” blog?
that is called a reacharound.
Thymezone
@Samara Morgan:
Try to think outside the box. It’s a semantic standard. Not an ideological one. Aren’t you attending the management meetings? We’re trying to bring Ed along. Coherent sentences this week, maybe a believable proposition next month. Who knows? They taught a horse to count, didn’t they?
And I don’t like your tone.
Thymezone
@Samara Morgan:
You are right about the libs, but wrong in thinking they can destroy the country. That’s like saying that these crazy new astronomers might turn the moon into green cheese. Libertarianism has no path to actual implementation or any particular political viability in this country. It’s just a churn device. You can’t take the biggest economy and most diverse population on earth and just turn off the government back in the server room. It won’t work. For example, shall we try libertarian air traffic control? That might be a good place to start. I’d give it 72 hours before it was rescinded and we had to start cleaning up the wreckage. It’s nonsensical. Ed is just a guy who likes to stare into his navel and talk about the composition of the lint.
Corner Stone
@Thymezone: Pulling in your horns?
That was a weak edit.
Mino
@Mnemosyne: You’re like the guy who claims he’s fine when the group he’s with decides to go to Applebee’s for dinner, but spends the entire goddamned night complaining that there’s nothing for him to eat and everyone should have gone where he wanted to go.
I’d say rather like the guy who ate at Applebee’s with you but kept losing weight until he died.
Chris
@Thymezone:
Perhaps it won’t work, but that doesn’t mean true believers won’t advocate it anyway. See also Social Security and Medicare. Ending either of these programs would be a fucking disaster that would make Libertarian Air Traffic Control look like a picnic, but that doesn’t stop them from trying again and again (Reagan tried to privatize Social Security in his day, Gingrich tried to strangle Medicare in 1995, Bush tried to privatize Social Security in 2005, and today we have the Ryan Plan).
ED Kain himself may not be a concern except to the resident troll, but conservative/libertarian ideology is plenty to be concerned about. Because I don’t foresee that they’re going to stop trying, and I’m a little concerned that they’ll get lucky someday.
Thymezone
@Corner Stone:
I don’t have horns, Gravel Boy. I’m not a Minotaur.
No, it wasn’t a weak edit. It was my post and my edit for my reasons and I am the only person who gets to characterize it. WTF is your problem, you fucking loser? First of all, why are you always around here? Don’t you have a life? Find something useful to do. And get the fuck away from me. Seriously, if you don’t stop harassing me I am going to complain to Cole. There’s no reason for it. I don’t need a drooling little shit like you hanging around my posts all the time. Get the fuck away from me.
This isn’t your playground. You aren’t the editor. You want a piece of me? Come out to Phoenix, send me the flight information, and I will meet you at the gate and we’ll see who walks away. You can PM me at ty.emzone@ facebook and set it up if you think I am kidding. Let’s meet face to face and see if you want to continue fucking with me after that. Do it. I mean it.
Yeah, I will pay for half the ticket. I’m not kidding. Book the flight, you little punk.
Thymezone
@Chris:
Meh. I refuse to live in fear of bad things that might happen. I am not afraid of terrorists. Or even Republicans. Seriously, the Tea Party is just the same old Republican base with new uniforms and some Koch Brothers cash.
But more to the point of libertarianism … it’s not an implementable scheme. Can’t possibly be employed. It’s like the dog chasing the car. The dog is not going to show up at Indy next year driving the car if he accidentally gets his teeth into the tire.
Good example of the whole deal: Bush and his excellent adventure into the land of privatizing Social Security. How did that work out? That started his approval plummet even before Katrina hit later that summer. And now, with the largest hordes of SS recipients ever hitting the rolls every month, do you really think that SS destruction has political viability right now? Just because the small crazy crowds at the GOP debates clap like hyenas at silly shit doesn’t mean they can actually change the country.
Take courage. They ain’t going anywhere.
suzanne
@Amir Khalid:
I’m not sure about that. I think it would just result in endless whining about how alfredo sauce is the only real FSM-approved topping for pasta and how all those people who prefer marinara are proselytizing and how lasagna WAS a dish of great honor unto Him before they stuffed it all full of that cheese bullshytt.
Cliff in NH
@Samara Morgan:
You are Scum. Fuck OFF.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@MotoFourLoco4Chan:
Ahh, you had the Ayn Rand reader type of realization that you have read the Golden Word and will follow it for the rest of your life? I hear some people come to Christianity the same way! Same with other religions, they just walk right in to it because it fits them. IMO, based on your behavior here, I think you fit in perfectly with the caricature of Islam that the right has created in our country.
Shorter me: You do your religion no favors though I believe that this is intentional on your part.
zizi
@PurpleGirl:
And who is going to make sure that the guns work properly? Who will set and enforce those manufacturing standards?
They never think far, only enraptured by their feverish stupidity.
Freddie deBoer
What’s incredible about matoko is the total lack of understanding that calling someone a libertarian and calling someone a firebagger are just about the opposite, yet she does them at the same time.
Samara Morgan
@Thymezone: guess you miss the tent revival come to jesus moment the last time around.
Kain’s “wavering” now because he needs pageclicks or Forbes is gunna sack him.
@Freddie deBoer:
hardly. You for example are an obvious emoprogg firebagger and a self declared “civil libertarian”.
Kain is a selfdeclared “neo-liberal liberaltarian” (or he was last week) which means a libertarian (freed market fucktard) trying to headfake liberalism, and he is also an Official Obama Concern Troll.
wanna see the links?
now i gtg.
have a swell day ‘slines.
Omnes Omnibus
@Freddie deBoer: Words are infinitely elastic for her, except when they are not.
Samara Morgan
@Odie Hugh Manatee: im not the one that doesnt know the rules.
its your House Muslim, Khalid.
:)
Samara Morgan
@Chris: you are correct. Libertarians are actively TRYING to destroy the country.
And they may succeed.
Because dimwitted slines like the BJ commentariat believe their crapology…ummm….swallow the drench.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: do you want the links Omnes?
im using freddies words and Kains words.
i cant believe you retards are gunna fall for another fake Kain conversion.
incroyable.
Freddie deBoer
1. I am a socialist.
2. I said that I would be willing to experiment with public charter schools run by union teachers with the consent of the local teachers union. If you’d bother to research, you’d find that there are several of those in this country. If you have a beef with that decision made by the teachers unions, take it up with them. But as these are union decisions complaining about the decisions as anti-union is strange and not helpful.
4. “Firebagger” is a term of insult used to describe FireDogLake users as too left wing.
5. Civil libertarianism is a totally conventional part of both American liberalism and the traditional left-wing, including socialism and most communist traditions.
Samara Morgan
@Freddie deBoer: you SAID you were a civil libertarian.
Why say you are a libertarian if you arent?
Do you know what ALL LIBERTARIANS have in common?
Experimentation. Like your experimentation with charter schools.
ALL liberty-as-means libertarians (props Dr. Manzi) believe the systems are “too complex” so experimentation is necessary.
You are the very definition of a liberty-as-means libertarian….experimentation with charter schools. Are teachers unions the secret sauce that will make charter schools succeed?
and you are an obivious emoprog firebagger as well.
That is TWICE you have said you are not gunna vote for Obama.
Goin’ for the third time?
FUCK OFF. The Dark Carnival is coming to town. We dont need you and Kain throwing radar chaff.
We dont need you or your homeslice Kain at all…its time to Take a Stand.
Samara Morgan
and now im late.
thnx ‘slines.
maybe you should give up on tryin’ eat my liver and try to help O win next November instead.
The Dark Carnival is coming to town.
Djur
I think Balloon Juice can be proud to say it’s the only blog on the internet with what appears to be a Muslim juggalo troll.
mclaren
Isn’t Libertopia just Somalia?
Samara Morgan
@Djur: Sry. im not a juggalo, the Dark Carnival reference is to the Insane Clown Posse of conservative candidates rolling into the Distributed Jesusland primaries.
But unlike Amir Khalid, it does appear that i am a muslim.
haven’t you heard?
Insane Clown Posse founders, Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J are christians (like the GOP and the teabaggers) and have been for the last 21 years.
the set of muslims and christians is mutually exclusive….but the set of juggalos and juggalettes is a SUBSET of Christianity.
:)
Samara Morgan
For good measure.
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
The thing with you is that you alternate between calling me a non-Muslim; and acknowledging that I am a Muslim, in order to call me a “maftoon” or “Balloon-Juice House
negroMuslim” instead.Also: You just don’t get what Djur is saying, do you?
Samara Morgan
@Amir Khalid: he said i was a muslim juggalo.
Empirically that is impossible.
i dont care what you are as long you acknowledge the truth of the Noble Quran and stop pandering to these dumb juicers so they will like you.
You are their House Muslim.
You tell them what they want they want to hear.
You are telling the juicers you are a muslim, and yet you apparently deny the First Pillar and dont know the rules for becoming a muslim.
/shrug.
i dont know what you are.
Samara Morgan
@Thymezone: it’s not an implementable scheme.
not in theory, but in practice.
do you know what this is?
That is Distributed Jesusland aka localized mobrule. it is why the GOP took the house in the 2010 midterms.
We are living in Distributed Jesusland. Wholly engineered and designed by libertarians.
Samara Morgan
You know juicers….what Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J did to their followers is essentially what libertarianism is in contemporary America.
The ICP just cloaked their real message (textbook anti-science evangelical christianity) in something that would appeal to their desired audience.
That is what Kain is doing here. His whole post is glibertarian navel gazing.
Like the ICP followers, who fell off by the thousands once the leaders announced their christianity, Kain lost his following here (most of it) when he revealed himself as just another freed market union bashing glibertarian.
There are NO “good” libertarians. They are the Enemy.
And i can prove it.
Name one.
:)
Ralph Swanson
Thanks for the article.
This is the opposite of the truth. Libertarians are leading worldwide fights for not only democracy, but direct democracy and unions. Please see:
http://www.libertarianinternational.org/apps/blog/show/8402347-lio-libertarian-operation-democracy-in-mid-east-elsewhere-driving-problem-nation-change
…and:
http://www.libertarianinternational.org/apps/blog/show/6310908-libertarians-4-unions-for-everyone-worldwide