Libertarians, still not ready for prime time, or grown-up real-world lawmaking. Doktor Zoom at Wonkette reports:
New Hampshire state Rep. Mark Warden (R-Fuck This Guy), was one of four members of an NH House committee to vote in favor of reducing the penalty for some cases of simple assault from a misdemeanor to a “violation-level offense.” Speaking in support of the reduced penalty, Warden explained it’s merely a matter of accommodating different lifestyle choices, you know, to be considerate of the wife-beaters.
“Some people could make the argument that a lot of people like being in abusive relationships,” Warden said during a meeting held by the committee. “It’s a love-hate relationship. It’s very, very common for people to stick around with somebody they love who also abuses him or her.”
He continued, “Is the solution to those kind of dysfunctional relationships going to be more government, another law? I tend to say no. People are always free to leave.”
Because, you know, free choice, right? Rep. Warden is a big-time libertarian who has proposed legalizing pot and has voted to broaden the state’s “stand your ground” law to allow people to shoot others wherever they feel threatened. So it makes sense that he doesn’t see why the state should protect people who are getting beaten by their spouses. After all, if women want protection, they could choose to get a gun and actually do something for themselves, right?…
Like it wasn’t embarrassing enough for us Massholes to live next to the “Live Free or Die Trying” state before the “activists” showed up. Why couldn’t the Yalie who invented the FSP just move to Idaho, like all the other paranoid social throwbacks with grand empire-building ambitions??
LAC
Why are libertarians such fucking morons?
? Martin
Hey, who’s to say those kids in Connecticut didn’t want to be shot in the head with an assault rifle? Maybe they simply had been denied the opportunity by big government to experience that?
maya
Since it’s Austerity Eve shouldn’t everyone be out trick-or-treating dressed up as your favorite congress critter?
Forum Transmitted Disease
I’m in one with the Republicans. I keep asking them to stop or leave and they won’t do either.
Perhaps it’s time to “stand my ground”.
? Martin
@maya: I’m already an old white guy. It’s covered.
Punchy
Change the motto to “Live, Flee, or Die”
aimai
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Once again they absolutely don’t get the idea of consent. The law doesn’t apply to BDSM couples it applies to people where one member presses charges against the other. For fuck’s sake this is like arguing that its not theft to take money from a cash register because sometimes the shop owner seems willing to give money from the cash register in the form of change.
Calouste
@LAC:
It’s a prerequisite.
If someone had the slightest understanding of how the real world works and how real humans behave on a day-to-day basis, they wouldn’t be a libertarian.
MattF
Rep. Warner has offered an apology ‘to those whom may have been offended.’ Now he owes two apologies.
the Conster
@Calouste:
That’s a perfect description of libertarianism – behavior which defies all human nature because the practical solution is against the ideology.
Ben Franklin
In the lengthiest statement to a military tribunal Manning has provided since his nearly three-year long ordeal began, Manning, 25, said WikiLeaks did not encourage him to provide the organization with any information. But he also sketched out his emotionally fraught online interactions with his WikiLeaks handler, a man he knew as “Ox” or “Nathaniel” over Internet Relay Chat and Jabber, and whom the government maintains was Julian Assange.
Manning’s motivations in leaking, he said, was to “spark a domestic debate of the role of the military and foreign policy in general,” he said, and “cause society to reevaluate the need and even desire to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore their effect on people who live in that environment every day.” Manning said he was in sound mind when he leaked, and so deliberately, regardless of the legal circumstances.
Remarkably, Manning said he first tried to take his information to the Washington Post, the New York Times and Politico, before contacting WikiLeaks.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/bradley-manning
Randy P
@MattF: Three. I’m pretty sure that “whom” is wrong there.
MikeJ
@Randy P: Replace who[m] with he or him. If “he” is correct, use who. If hiM, use whoM.
Whom is incorrect. He owes three apologies now.
jl
The guy obviously gets some intense kicks from humiliating himself in public. So, he might just be expressing his sincere point of view.
I would recommend at least some tolerance for other people’s tastes, no matter now kinky they may seem to some of us.
/snark tag, if it is needed.
Wag
Does this mean a woman can shoot an abusive husband as he walks in the door after spending the evening at the bar and coming home ready to hit her? or does he have to raise his fists first?
Zifnab
:-| Libertarians. Making prohibition look reasonable since 1919.
Zifnab
@Wag: I’m sure Rep Warden would have no problem with the wife blowing her husband’s brains out. He’d have no problem with the husband blowing his wife’s brains out. Really, they could both die in a Mexican stand-off for all he cares. Cause at least they’d die Freeeeeeeeee!
:-p
WereBear
@Zifnab: Nope. In Florida a woman was recently sentenced to 20 years for shooting a wall instead of her abusive husband.
Of course, she did two things wrong. She was a woman, who was African American.
Mike E
@the Conster: That’s a perfect description of libertarianism –
behavior which defies all human nature because the practical solution is against the ideology.I me mine me my me I my me I mine.Fixt’d
Forum Transmitted Disease
Neither, she’s a woman and subject to her husband’s every whim. Libertarian principles apply only to men.
Hill Dweller
Krugman’s new blog post is great.
Chris
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
I’d say it personifies the American relationship with the GOP in the last few decades. Even when the GOP shits the bed so thoroughly that the voters are finally persuaded to hold their nose and vote Dem (1976, 1992, 2008), they almost immediately recoil in horror at the realization that they voted for Dems, and go right back to the Republicans (1980, 1994, 2010) promising them that this time it’ll be different.
the Conster
@Mike E:
All I can hear is I me me mine.
ranchandsyrup
I just got this in an email from a Bobo-lovin’ embarrassed republican type friend from college who likes to use me as his libtard sounding board about the Brave Sir Bob Woodward:
fucking hell. It really is always projection.
Chris
@Calouste:
Either that or they understand it perfectly and see the bugs as features.
SFAW
“Move to Idaho”? Fuck that, send him to:
A) Somalia
B) Democratic Republic of Congo
C) Certain areas of Mexico, dressed like la policia
D) Brighton Beach, wearing a big sign saying “Russians SUCK”
and so on.
One wonders when NH changed its motto from “Live Free or Die” to “Home to the Stupidest Motherfuckers on Earth”
MattF
@Hill Dweller: Woodward is becoming a punchline. Which is about what he deserves at this point.
MikeJ
@SFAW: What year did Dartmouth open?
Hill Dweller
@MattF: I refuse to go over there, but someone on the twitter machine said even Politico threw Woodward under the bus today.
SFAW
@MikeJ:
Sounds like someone has a little IVNV (a/k/a Ivy Envy).
@Hill Dweller:
Happy Birthday to Krugthulu, by the way.
Mike E
@the Conster: Truly a post-Beatles track, with John AWOL, but before Paul pulled the plug. )-:
George’s dam would soon after burst forth with the triple album All Things Must Pass. Don’t look back!
JPL
@Hill Dweller: Breitbart was right.. it’s Psychological torture..
take care
MikeJ
@SFAW: No, I have an intact liver.
SFAW
@MikeJ:
Congrats. I hear it’s an occupational
habithazard of HanoverCalouste
@Mike E:
That’s a perfect description of libertarianism –
behavior which defies all human nature because the practical solution is against the ideology.I me mine me my me I my me I mine. F UFixt’dCompleted.And as Chris points out above, of course to libertarians (a vast majority of whom are middle class or richer white males), inequality is a feature, nah, a necessity, not a bug.
the Conster
@Calouste:
Or to cut to the chase, Republicans who legally want to do drugs with hookers.
srv
In case you haven’t seen it yet and want a good cry: We Found Our Son in the Subway
Baud
@ranchandsyrup:
LOL. He thinks the GOP cares about proof.
TOP123
@MikeJ: Yet there are those who love it. And BlitzMail.
JoyfulA
One of my two libertarian friends was very involved in setting up the Free State Project, choosing the state, getting people to vow to move there, etc., but she’s still in Atlanta, and I’m pretty sure she’ll stay there, tending to feral and maltreated cats.
The only people I’ve known to move to New Hampshire recently, by contrast, are a couple who claim to be Socialists and their children. They lived in Atlanta, too, but he got a job offer he couldn’t turn down. They love living there and have just bought a house. We want to drive up to visit them one of these days.
Villago Delenda Est
Someone needs to beat the shit out of this asshole.
Then we’ll find out, exactly, how trivial assault and battery can be.
srv
Noonan has had it with this nihilist president:
Villago Delenda Est
@Hill Dweller:
They released the full text of the emails, to include the parts that Woodward, accidentally, I’m sure, left out.
SFAW
@Villago Delenda Est:
From your keyboard to FSM’s noodley earlike appendages.
Comrade Jake
Obama Admin Urges SCOTUS To Overturn Gay Marriage Ban In California.
Countdown until Scalia says something bigoted…
Baud
@srv:
FTFY
JPL
@srv: Thank you so much for the link. The comments were great also.
I loved this one
As attorney for the adopting parents, I was honored to be before such an experienced, wise, no-nonsense, and caring judge. Representing these wonderful parents will forever be the proudest moment of my legal career. But that pride pales in comparison to the pride I feel as their sister, sister-in-law, and aunt.
from another comment ferklempt
mclaren
What’s interesting about this one is that the police and jurists and D.A.s have been doing this for nearly half a century. It’s called “juking the stats.” If you want crime stats to drop for the Mayor’s/D.A.’s/Governor’s re-election campaign, why, you just reclassify felony rapes as misdemeanor assaults, reclassify assaults and disorderly conduct, und so weiter.
It’s an old old scam. The novelty here is that this bozo is trying to pass a law to make it legal.
Matt McIrvin
When these stories appear, it’s always good to point out that the NH House of Representatives is really unusual for a state legislative body: it’s got 400 members, each of whom represents a little over 3,000 people on average, and they’re political amateurs, paid a stipend of $200 every two years. It’s a recipe for bizarre antics that get in the papers.
Ruckus
Just today I made the mistake of saying it was “Live Free and Die”.
Anyway that’s the way I remember it. probably from spending a few too many days there.
Jack
Leave it to a Masshole to not understand that the General Court exists to alienate these glibertarians into uselessness. We don’t have a professional legislature, and that’s a good thing, stupid libertarian carpetbaggers notwithstanding.
And the stupidest motherfuckers on the planet clearly live in Saugus.
Matt McIrvin
I’m not going to argue about Saugus.
Matt McIrvin
…though the guy who put up the big sign telling people to vote for Scott Brown because he was “NOT AN INDIAN” was in my town.