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Those of you who have been around for a while will be interested in this cut from last night’s Chris Hayes show, since it mentions Freddie at the top (based on posts here and here). I also thought it was a good example of how a major media personality should respond to criticism. He gives the critics an honest hearing, concedes a minor point, but in the end solidly rebuts their main gripe. It’s like he’s the anti-Ed Schultz.
shortstop
And thank dog for that. He’s got about 100 IQ points on Schultz, which doesn’t hurt, but he’s also more intellectually curious, emotionally even and self-aware.
Alexandra
I miss Freddie posting here.
I can’t quite remember why he stopped, possibly because of running battles with commenters, but I thought he was a great addition to the roster… as is my current girl-crush, Betty Cracker.
BGinCHI
Agreed, mm. I was afraid when that started that he was going to backpedal. But he said that he “really worked hard to re-watch and think about what Paul was saying” (paraphrasing) and stood by his conclusion.
That’s the difference between Rachel/Hayes and most of the others. They work hard and they think. They don’t just pop off about obvious stuff liberals should be outraged about.
Schultz’s show was really good on the WI stuff, I’ll have to say. He covered the shit out of that.
strandedvandal
Freddie stopped posting here because he’s an insufferable twatwaffle.
Corner Stone
Hmmm, Freddie, Sully and Conor…
I like Chris’s show but it definitely seems more rushed, obviously different format, etc. But the segments seem to be unmanageable some times in their brevity or need to cut.
I’ll keep tuning in when I can, see what he does as it plays out.
by the by, why the F do I keep seeing Matt Welch on MSNBC TV shows?
c u n d gulag
@Corner Stone: Never mind him, wtf is S.E. “Sippy” Cupp still on for?
The greatly desired Atheist Moron demographic?
El Tiburon
Saw that segment and agree completely.
Hayes + Maddow = 2 hours of solid, intelligent and insightful TV. If MSNBC could flush Matthews for ??? it would Rock.
Xantar
@BGinCHI:
Also Boners.
Cacti
That was a Broderiffic segment. I really wanted praise Paul, but then he went all Republican arsehole on me. I need a good cry.
Hunter Gathers
Paul’s speech at Howard had dick to do with minority outreach. It was for white male pundits and the crusty old bigots who watch Fox News all damn day. Cracker pundits (and old bigots) love it when GOP pols tell those hyper-partisan African-Americans how much they suck for not being Republicans.
If these unenlightened people would just channel their inner Burkean modesty and vote for the party that has spent the last 50 years using them as a punching bag then, and only then, can we can get to our promised Galtian Paradise.
Cacti
Also, “I want to give federal judges more sentencing discretion” is a praiseworthy position for the war on drugs?
He still wants MJ to be illegal.
Corner Stone
@Cacti:
If the next step in incrementally changing The WoD is giving judges discretion over the currently in place mandatory sentences, then yes, I’d take that.
Alison
I’ll give a sliver of a fuck what Rand Paul says about jail sentences when he stops wanting to make abortion illegal.
Which means, never. So he can fuck off.
MattR
It seems to me that both Ron and Rand Paul as well as many other so called libertarians are actually just opposed to the federal government. They don’t necessarily think that things like drugs should be legal, they just believe the federal government should not ban them. If in turn, all 50 states were to pass laws prohibiting their use, the Paul family would be perfectly fine with that.
Cacti
@Corner Stone:
I’d say it barely clears the bar for incremental change. You have multiple states that outright legalized or decriminalized recreational usage, and others who have legalized for medicinal purposes.
Leahy and Paul’s “solution” still keeps it criminal activity in either circumstance.
This is one of the occasions where I think the states are going to have to lead the Fed by the nose. If enough states decriminalize MJ, the Feds won’t have the resources to enforce prohibition in any meaningful way. So, more Washingtons and Colorados, please.
Cacti
@MattR:
This.
The overwhelming majority of drug prosecutions are at the state level. When someone gets pinched for a dimebag, it’s not the DEA doing it.
Corner Stone
@Cacti: When you’re a political pragmatist, like myself, you take any incremental change you can and leave the dying on hills to the fucking hippies.
nellcote
THIS!
Xantar
@Xantar:
Whoops. That was supposed to be a reply to @strandedvandal.
ShadeTail
@Alexandra: Freddie is an obnoxious pissant blowhard who couldn’t handle the two facts that:
1) His oh-so-marvelous opinions were poorly supported weak tea at best.
2) Folks here kept tearing his articles to shreds rather than giving him the unthinking agreement he “deserved”.
So he left in a childish huff and stopped posting here. And we are much better off for it.
Cacti
@Corner Stone:
I’m very much a pragmatist. However, I prefer meaningful change to cosmetic change.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 made it illegal to discriminate in jobs or housing on the basis of race…but failed to provide any meaningful enforcement mechanisms.
SatanicPanic
Why would Chris have any respect for those three asshats?
dnfree
Coincidentally we just got a mailing (fundraising request) with Rand Paul on the front of the envelope along with a bogus quote from Obama about banning guns. The letter inside is on what appears to be Rand Paul Senate stationery and asks for money for the “National Association for Gun Rights” to oppose the UN Small Arms Treaty and the rest of the UN’s “radical agenda”. It’s signed by Rand and features a photo of Rand Paul with the quote, “The U.S. Constitution is and must remain the supreme law of the land.”
So Rand may be reaching out to African-Americans, but he’s also reaching out to gun rights extremists, using false and exaggerated information.
Corner Stone
@SatanicPanic: “tremendous respect” for Conor if one is to believe Chris’s own words.
I think mistermix recently did a post about liberal something or others giving Conor props and he wasn’t sure why. (paraphrasing)
ETA Ah, here it is:
“In short, Conor treated it as a legitimate controversy rather than the smear job that it was, and along the way he got some very basic facts wrong out of laziness or the desire to get more hits. It wasn’t as bad as the Iraq War cheerleading, but it was the same kind of herd behavior from a guy that gets a lot of, to me, inexplicable respect from some progressive bloggers.”
https://balloon-juice.com/2013/04/07/while-were-on-a-journalistic-accountability-kick/
Suffern ACE
@dnfree: yeah. Instead of reaching out to African Americans with the history lesson, why didn’t he get on stage and start a big ol UN arm waving rant? Oh, because the cameras were there.
Suffern ACE
@dnfree: yeah. Instead of reaching out to African Americans with the history lesson, why didn’t he get on stage and start a big ol UN arm waving rant? Oh, because the cameras were there.
Kay
@Cacti:
He’s really incoherent on it. He maintains that “local” judges are “more compassionate” to low-level offenders, which is based on absolutely nothing other than the romantic libertarian dogma that local government is somehow better than national government.
It’s just horseshit. One of the big problems with “local judges” is they treat defendant’s differently according to status.
He’s latched onto “discretion” as GOOD but of course discretion can be used to cover bias or unequal treatment.
Rand Paul would have really benefitted from a stint in local or state government.
This shit is complicated and libertarian nostrums about the humble tradesmen and merchants with their common sense “compassion” at the local level don’t really cut it.
c u n d gulag
@Cacti:
Yeah, but as long as companies are still allowed to drug-test for it, people will still either not be hired, or fired.
With legalization, we ought to get some reasonable standard for being high, kind of like BAC tests for alcohol and drunkeness.
The problem with that is, we know how long alcohol lasts in the body, but with MJ, a lot depends not just on when you last had it, but how strong it was.
12oz of beer has the same effect as about 5oz of wine, and as a shot of liquor. And they all leave the system at about the same rate.
How do we create that sort of measurement, that can tell home-grown, from Maui-Zowie?
So, the problem is, do we not test at all for THC?
There’s a case to be made for that.
But there’s also a case, just like with alcohol, that at a certain level, doing things like driving a car, a bus, or operating heavy equipment, can not only be lethal for the user, but for innocent people in their path.
And I’m not sure what we can do about drug testing.
Hopefully, people with greater minds have some ideas.
Jay S
@Cacti: It seems to me that ending mandatory minimum sentences by allowing judicial discretion is a meaningful change. It’s not just about drug laws. It may be no panacea but it would be a significant step back to rationality.
jamick6000
agreed, hayes is pretty sharp
Hill Dweller
The Fonzie of Freedom was on Colbert’s show last Thursday claiming Rand Paul is ahead of “Obama and liberals” on drug sentencing.
First, that’s complete bullshit. Second, the minute Obama starts talking about reducing sentencing for non-violent drug offenders, those very same
Republicans“libertarians” will attack Obama for being weak on crime and giving black people special treatment.MattR
@Kay:
Obviously he is not going to think of that because he is never going to meet a judge who will use that discretion as a weapon against him.
Kay
@MattR:
The context was interesting, and revealing, I thought, in the principled statement he made a couple of weeks ago.
I agree with him. I bet George W Bush would have been treated with an enormous amount of discretionary “compassion” had he appeared before a local judge, really anywhere in the country.
What’s his point? :)
I’d like to take him down to the local correctional facility and the inmates can tell him all about the other side of discretion. We’ll interview the people with the wrong last name.
Thomas F
@ShadeTail: Freddie likely stopped posting here because there are a critical mass of Balloon Juice commentors (and front pagers!) who, if Obama suddenly announced he was a poached egg and demanded a warm piece of buttered bread to lay down on, would commend him on his culinary empathy.
Baud
@Hill Dweller:
Since Leahy has cosponsored the drug sentencing bill with Paul, yeah it’s a lie.
Anoniminous
@Kay:
The Federal Government had to step in at the local level with the Civil Rights Act because the locals were culturally and institutionally trampling on individual rights up to including condoning mob violence and murder.
Pinkamena Panic
ohboyherewego.jpg
Howard Beale IV
Now will those who too the easy shots at Hayes re-evaluate their own preening/posturing?
crickets
Suffern ACE
@Hill Dweller: again, I wonder. When does the anti UN gun nut stuff come into it. You hook the kids in with the MJ legalization but that’s just a gateway issue for the gold salesmen and New World Order stuff. Rand Paul is ahead of Obama in the irrational fear of blue helmets as well. Fonzie should bring that up, too.
Cacti
@Thomas F:
I think Shade Tail pretty much got it.
DeBore left because the commentariat wouldn’t swallow his easily refuted bullshit.
Ditto for E.D. Kain.
Kay
@MattR:
He’s just so weak. His stuff is full of holes.
I could turn his “compassion” argument around and say, FAIRLY, “Rand Paul seeks discretionary sentencing at the federal level so 3rd generation Texas heirs receive the same favor in a federal court that they receive in a local court”
I don’t agree with mandatory minimums, so I wouldn’t say that but the pompous cluelessness is just mind-boggling.
Go read something, Rand. You’re not the first person who ever grappled with this. We could save a lot of time if we didn’t have to travel with you on your learning curve.
Hill Dweller
@Howard Beale IV:
That could just as likely be the result of no one having a clue what you’re talking about.
Betty Cracker
It was a classier response from Hayes than his critics deserved. The noteworthy portion of Paul’s speech was his arrogant condescension toward his audience, the bogus attempt to bury the last 50 years of his party’s history and his lie about his personal position on the Civil Rights Act.
Freddie reminds me very much of Bob Somerby, who, while right early on about some important issues (the way the media burned Al Gore to the ground and fluffed GWB, por exemplo) morphed into an insufferable, humorless contrarian prig.
I also question both men’s assumption that there’s no value in mockery, and on the same grounds the Tiger Beatdown peeps made with Freddie when he made the mistake of tangling with them. Mockery of ideas that deserve ridicule is an extremely effective weapon. Just ask Jonathan Swift.
They also seem to underestimate the value of providing cultural reinforcement to political allies. Freddie worries about a hypothetical Republican in Hayes’audience who would be turned off to progressive causes because Hayes didn’t give Paul a fair shake.
I’m more interested in the actual progressives who are watching MSNBC — perhaps even some in Kentucky — who might learn that they aren’t alone in thinking Paul is a condescending prick (even though he’s the Beltway’s Filibuster Darling) and pick up some facts about why what he said was so offensive.
FlipYrWhig
@Cacti: Freddie also descended into maudlin histrionics about how nobody but him was capable of feeling the intense feelings proper to this terrifying moment in American history. Like a weepy Glenn Greenwald. Ick.
trollhattan
@Xantar:
Oh, mercy, not to go all “Superfly” but “Freddy’s Dead.” I think I have a slight case of the vapors after reading that.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: also, no libertarian cares about “compassion” anyway. Compassion is for the weak. Libertarians care about property.
Kay
@Anoniminous:
Libertarians have blocked that out.
It still happens, daily. There are currently two DOJ actions regarding corrupt locals sending certain juveniles from high school to lock up.
Where was the compassion? Rand Paul told me it ease just a matter of getting the black robed demons at the federal level out of the way.
arguingwithsignposts
@FlipYrWhig: was it Freddie or EDK who never responded in the comments?
FitzyG
@MattR: You don’t know what you’re talking about MattR. Rand’s not a libertarian and may think that, but Ron has clearly stated that he’s against any gov’t prohibition of drugs. He supports individual rights.
trollhattan
re. The clip at top, classic Sully, who falls back on his prom queen persona–sooooo disappointed at the predictable “liberal media” (begging the question fallacy, Andy, from your Rhetoric 101 course) nasty-toned response to the good senator’s brave, honest, forthright and did I mention brave foray into injun territory.
Ick.
FlipYrWhig
@arguingwithsignposts: they merge in my mind on the basis of their lofty self-positioning. Kain was the thinking man’s conservative, DeBoer was, I don’t know, just some puffed-up hand-wringer from the JV pundit squad.
Thomas F
@Cacti: Oh yes, it was certainly the spectacularly skeptical and hard-driving Balloon Juice commentariat that scared him away.
FlipYrWhig
@trollhattan: which takes us back to Bell Curve days, which Sullivan still remembers fondly as having shaken liberal pieties about, of course, race.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
He thinks it’s a great argument. He presents it like it ends all discussion.
George W Bush suffered no consequences for youthful indescretions? No shit, Rand. You’re the first person who ever noticed that. Thanks so much for weighing in.
Baud
@Thomas F:
WTF? What else could it have been? There’s nothing else here except front pagers and commenters. Unless you think he left because he didn’t like the ads.
Corner Stone
@Thomas F:
A pretty fair assessment, IMO. They’d probably also scream very loudly that the buttered bread bed approach existed with past presidents and FDR chose a buttered tortilla so he was much worse by comparison. Sowhaddayagonnado, amirite?
I’ve never actually understood why anyone would choose a poached egg but I guess to each his own.
Yutsano
@Baud: The Pam Anderson three leg ad scared him? IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!!
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
I rather doubt Sullivan saw anything condescending about Paul’s speech. He was just shouldering the white man’s burden of educating his racial intellectual inferiors.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Kay: Word. The downside – as I observed standing next to any number of people before local judges – is that local judges use status as part of discretion. Which, as MattR points out, means that Paul’s got no issues with local discretion because “he is never going to meet a judge who will use that discretion as a weapon against him.”
That’s exactly the fairest reading of it, Kay. What’s insulting is that Baby Doc thinks we’re too stupid to understand that. As well as that we have any interest in joining the ride on his learning. curve
Anoniminous
@Kay:
To a Randroid compassion is weakness and they will manipulate people who have compassion to further their own ends. This inherent trait goes along with the rest of their psychological profile.
Cluttered Mind
@Thomas F: Wouldn’t the proper term for such a group be “uncritical mass”?
…I shouldn’t start my day’s comments off with bad puns, I really shouldn’t.
BGinCHI
@Xantar: That is teh Awesome.
Kay
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I’ve been following him for a while. I watched his debates with Conoway.
Just unbearably smug. I can’t stand how these banal, poorly-informed things he says are treated as revelatory or new. I think he pulls it off because he takes himself so seriously, his affect trumps content.
Conoway is smart, but he’s a brawler. He’s happy as hell fighting. Debating Paul is like punching fog, for him. I could FEEL his frustration.
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
Heh, indeed.
It’s such a bold and contrarian position for a privileged white male to posit that black people are dumb. Truly unheard of.
Another Halocene Human
@c u n d gulag: The Atheist morons hate her for kissing Xtian Conservative heinie for money.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Local is best is the same old argument about states rights. It is all about being able to be unfettered bigots and thieves.
How much law has been made at the local/state level about human rights? I’ll bet very little was done before the national level laws. And what are the local/state enforcement abilities for those local/state laws? I’ll bet considerably less. And yet even with the national laws we still have a long way to go. Where would we be as a collection of independent states instead of a nation? We’d probably still have slavery inside our national border.
dance around in your bones
@Xantar:
Oh mah gah. Slapdown! On Tiger Beatdown!
eta: just started to read the comments. Freddie shows up 2nd comment declaring Sady to be an hysterical bitch. hoocodanode?
WereBear
This also makes him Teh Hawt, in an intellectual, policy-wonk, he’s-darn-cute kinda way.
One of the things which attracted me to Mr WereBear? His big ol’ kind heart.
Kay
@Ruckus:
It’s such a fragile thing, the protections and how they fit together. It took so.long to put it together.
I’m honestly offended at how blithely he dismisses all that. I personally could not deal with him. I am sympathetic to whoever has to go up against that kind of bland SURENESS.
You’re just not going to dent it. Nothing gets in.
Roxy
@Alison:
“I’ll give a sliver of a fuck what Rand Paul says about jail sentences when he stops wanting to make abortion illegal.
Which means, never. So he can fuck off.”
If there was a LIKE button you would get my approval.
rikyrah
keep on pushing Hayes. his ratings still suck compared to Ed Schultz.
Xantar
@trollhattan:
I can’t take credit, unfortunately. Somebody posted that link in reply to one of Freddie’s last posts here. But yes, it was quite a slaughter wasn’t it? So much so that when Chris Hayes claimed to respect Freddie, I had to believe it was just a pro forma “with all due respect”.
rikyrah
@Alison:
Amen, Alison.
Amen
Ruckus
@Kay:
Hard to make a dent in a rock.
rikyrah
@Hill Dweller:
Actually, the Obama DOJ has taken crack sentencing down from 25-1 compared to powdered cocaine…to 5-1. Is it still ridiculous, of course….but it’s down.
Money for programs that help ex-offenders back into society have quadrupled under the Obama Administration.
so, folks, can go fuck themselves on someone like Rand Paul being better than the President on this issue.
ShadeTail
@Thomas F: No, that was one of Freddie’s excuses, but anyone with the reading comprehension of at least an elementary school student knows that your stereotype of this blog is a load of childish bullshit. The real reason why Freddie left is the reason I gave: he was an idiot blowhard who couldn’t stand having his idiocy revealed for all to see.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Are you a newbie? It doesn’t count if it’s a Democrat. Hell, there are Democrats in Congress right now who are more aggressive than Rand Paul on drug legalization. There is no need to lift up Paul unless the real objective is simply to lift up Paul.
Ruckus
@ShadeTail:
Thomas F. should read the link that @Xantar: posted. That explains Freddie better than anything else. It is epic.
But you explained it pretty good here as well.
Kay
@Ruckus:
Rand Paul’s Senate race was ABOUT the reach of the Commerce Clause. That was the entire subtext. Rachel Maddow was the only political (famous) person who got it.
Rand Paul’s interest in sentencing is ABOUT the reach of the federal government. To believe otherwise is to not listen to what he says and hear what one wants to hear.
I would accept it if liberals were saying “I recognize his goal here is to limit nearly all federal law, but short term progress on this narrow issue is worth that risk” but they’re often not saying that. Because they’re not really hearing what he says. It gets translated into “he’s with us on the drug war!”
No, he’s really not.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay:
One of George W. Bush’s “youthful indiscretions” was desertion from the United States Armed Forces.
If I tried that shit, I’d be posting from Leavenworth right now, and not from the Command and General Staff College.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I’ve been raising that point whenever people praise any of Paul’s individual positions. The man is interested in limiting federal power. He is not interested in ending the drug war; he is not interested in limiting the use of drones; etc. He latches onto some of these issues in order to further his agenda, an agenda that the vast majority of left-of-center people definitely do not support.
Baud
@Kay:
Liberals who support Rand Paul make me sympathetic to conservatives who don’t respect liberals.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
And furthermore, the reason that the ambulatory sack of shit wants to limit Federal power is so that he can tell people in wheelchairs to fuck off and die if they want to access into his open to the public ophthalmology office, and we wants to keep the mud people out, too, because they have melanin cooties that make him squick.
Another Halocene Human
@c u n d gulag: But there’s also a case, just like with alcohol, that at a certain level, doing things like driving a car, a bus, or operating heavy equipment, can not only be lethal for the user, but for innocent people in their path.
The research points to impairment, which can be caused by all manner of legal and illegal drugs as well as being sick or being fatigued.
Impairment is a sort of black box factor which can be tested for without inquiring into why.
Of course, it should be clear that strict rules on hours of service, good pay (discouraging 2nd jobs that lead to sleep loss), and good sick pay without punishment for taking it are all necessary conditions for the safety of the public.
Another Halocene Human
@Hill Dweller:
Shiiiiit, Obama got the then-D congress to lower the disparity between crack and cocaine sentencing guidelines during his first year in office. Where have they been?
Ruckus
@Kay:
Absolutely.
They want the old west fantasy that they have made up in their minds – White man with the most guns owns everything. Everything else is subordinate to that. It is about control and wealth. Full Stop. Anything that gets in the way of that has to go. And control wins over wealth. Not by much but a little. They know that if they have all the control they can steal the wealth. Actually they feel if they have all the control the wealth becomes theirs, it’s never stealing.
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Halocene Human:
There you go, bringing those obviously liberally biased “facts” into the conversation again.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Great points. I think many of us who refuse to join fellow liberals on the Baby Doc bandwagon when his anti-government impulses lead him to incidentally champion a progressive cause kind of assume everyone gets that. But maybe some of them really don’t.
Another Halocene Human
@FitzyG: No he didn’t. Another Ronulan lie. When questioned, he admitted he thought it was fine if every state in the nation banned it on a state level.
He probably opposes the FDA along with the DEA. It was a left-moonbat–right-homskull coalition that defanged the FDA’s authorization to go after dangerous drugs on the shelves by legalizing the distribution of all kinds of adulterated and pharmacologically active substances with DSHEA.
YellowJournalism
Was Freddie the one who thought barbers and beauticians shouldn’t be licensed because the free market dictates that bad haircuts and spreading fungus and bacteria would jade away customers, thus weeding out the bad guys?
YellowJournalism
That should be chase away.
Omnes Omnibus
@YellowJournalism: No, that’s Matt Yglesias.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: As I recall Freddie readily agreed however. We more or less tore him a new one for it.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
I sort of understand dismissing civil rights law if you’re not likely to need it, but the Lefties who amaze me are the environmentalists.
If we had followed libertarians on air and water, this country would be a smoking, stinking crater.
I see them with a Ron Paul sticker and I think “idiot. Thank god other people are protecting what you’re enjoying”
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: Oh, dear god. I missed that. Just lucky, I guess. Arguments with humorless prigs just aren’t all that fun.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I think Paul is a a very dangerous ally. I can see making common cause with someone on the right if they actually care about the issue (usually due to having a personal stake in the matter), but both the Pauls have another agenda that they are pursuing and I would always be concerned that I was being roped into moving that forward rather than the policy I was advocating.
Ruckus
@Kay:
I’ve had personal experience with this. Used to own a business in CA that used what CA termed hazardous waste. Other states did not. A neighbor with a similar company moved his business and family to NV, stating that this was his reason. No one was going to tell him what he could do with his business, regardless of the consequences.
aimai
@Kay:
Kay, you are on fire!
I’d like to add that Kurt Vonnegut pointed this out some time ago (I think it was Vonnegut).That the lesson of the crucifixion is “don’t mess with the children of very important people.” Not “don’t kill people” or even “everyone is important and a child of god.” Its specifically “you made a mistake because you killed god’s only son and god is important.” You can do what you want with unimportant people but for this killing, there will be consequences.
Rand Paul has noticed that the children of important people get a pass–and he’s lecturing an all black college class on that fact as though perhaps they hadn’t noticed, or as though perhaps they have been the prime motive force behind this inequity? If he wants to make this point why doesn’t he deliver a ringing speech about it on the floor of the Senate and put forth some legislation. Why grandstand about how he’d do something if only he could. He can do something. He chooses not to.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: xkcd was referenced early and often. It got pathetic.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
That is exactly Kay’s point.
He has dressed up his view with some popular points, getting rid of federal drug laws, but the underlying reasons are horrible. I want to say with unintended consequences but to him the consequences are intended. It’s a cover story. It’s a lie. What he wants is the colonies, without the monarchy in his way.
Kay
@Ruckus:
I took a course with them. Natural resources law. For whatever reason, I ended up sitting with the libertarians. We hit “the commons” and they were all agitated because it’s impossible for them. They can’t reconcile it. They spent the whole time rah-rahing Justice Scalia and babbling about spotted owls, because spotted owls are just SO STUPID and NANNY STATE :)
I mean really, what else can they do? What’s the plan? Sell shares in Lake Michigan or the Pacific Ocean?
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Yeah, I was meaning to agree and support not argue.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sorry didn’t mean to sound like I thought you were disagreeing, I was just trying to expand a little more.
I would say after re-reading your comment that I may have taken the use of the word ally a little to strongly.
rikyrah
Libertarians live in a pony and unicorn world.
Rand Paul is a grifting, racist fraud just like his Daddy.
Being a Black Woman, I can see that this man is my enemy.
Fuck any liberal/progressive to even open their mouths about him being an ‘ally’.
If he had his way…
My ass would be still drinking from ‘ Colored’ water fountains (can’t have that federal government imposing on STATES RIGHTS)
And, he’s already proven he wants into my uterus.
so fuck anyone talking about Rand Paul being my ally in ANYTHING.
Kay
@aimai:
I don’t think the GOP outreach to minorities has anything to with minorities. I think it’s about attracting more moderate white people who find bigotry unnappealing.
Tea Party people say it. They say liberals portrayed them as bigots which took them to 25%. I think we have it wrong. They’re not seeking “diverse”. They’re seeking “acceptable to the majority”
They’re further in the hole than we give them credit for.
It works, too. Rand Paul got kudos from white people for the speech. He’s appealing to them for other reasons and they don’t want to be allied with a pack ‘o bigots.
Rex Everything
mistermix:
What you characterize as “a minor point” is not only the whole point, it’s one of the most important points in current American politics if you care about racial equality and justice.
That is all.
Bob In Portland
Speaking of emo, I heard “New Slang” on the radio yesterday while I was driving. I had to pull over so that I could stare at my shoes.
Bob In Portland
Speaking of emo, I heard “New Slang” on the radio yesterday while I was driving. I had to pull over so that I could stare at my shoes.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Rex Everything:
Right. It’s such a major point that Aquabuddha has gone as far as getting the ball rolling on amending the Constitution in order to prohibit- down to the municipal level- the war on drugs.
Oh, wait, he hasn’t done that? Why’s that- because he doesn’t give a rat’s ass if the State of Kentucky deems a war on drugs necessary, as long as the majority of the people of enlightened Kentucky support the war?
Turgidson
@Kay:
Libertarians often profess to care about the environment, then (of course!) say the market will punish polluting actors who introduce negative externalities, and big gummit just gets in the way of this process taking its course.
The smug self-righteousness they can maintain because they are well aware their ideas will never be tried in their pure, unsullied form is very tiresome. They’re right, their ideas won’t be tried. Because they’re fucking batshit insane. I mean, the Kochs and their various Kochsuckers aren’t real libertarians – they want to bend the government towards doing actively their bidding, not just “getting out of the way.”
Kay
@Turgidson:
The Kochs are a really good example of the backflips libertarians have to do.
All that money to cancer research while causing cancer. Unless it’s not compensatory. Unless they’re patenting cures or something. so not compensating for the damage they do but instead creating a vibrant market :)
I read this New Yorker piece on them and I felt like I needed a mental health professional to unravel it for me.
Rex Everything
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Yeah dude, sorry but if you’re pointing out that Rand Paul is a shithead, or that he’s mostly animated by greed and service to power, or that the libertarian movement is a movement by and for assholes, you won’t get any argument from me. You’re right, but just at the moment, it’s not the point.
Turgidson
@Betty Cracker:
Yes. Conor especially just took the opportunity to ignore the substance of what Rand was getting criticized for and grandstand about how liberals can’t say anything bad about Rand because DROOOOONES. Conor’s beautiful libertarian mind needs a hero and Rand is it.
And Sullivan was just in a pissy mood, still grieving over the only woman he’s ever given a shit about’s death, and wanted to punch some hippies. He did it a couple other times that same day – notably saying the left is, I quote, “braindead” because they don’t want to cut Social Security in order to address a fake crisis created by rich assholes at a time when income inequality is at crime-against-humanity levels. And Sullivan hasn’t had a Republican to slobber all over in a while, so Rand talking to the blahs at all, let alone WHAT he said, was as good a chance as any.
lojasmo
@Thomas F:
Makes a damn sight more sense than what you posited. As proof, the resident contrarian douchebag troll agrees with you.
RSA
@Turgidson:
I hate that argument. It typically ends up with the hypothetical players in court. Libertarians don’t seem to believe in an ounce of prevention.
David Koch
he’s the anti-ed schultz alright. Ed had ratings.
Gosh, I can remember when mistermix would wax poetically about how he and his father would sit around and watch Ed together. How Ed was great because he could appeal to the working class types in the Dakotas like mistermix’ pop.
Now he makes fun of Ed. And for what? So he can feel superior rubbing elbows with upper east side coffee house limousine liberal like Hayes. No wonder why so called liberals lost the working class voters they say they care about.
David Koch
Just think if we had only listened to Freddie we’d have a classy First Lady in the White House like Rielle Hunter.
Turgidson
@RSA:
Right, and just the obvious fact that things like polluting drinking water or air are not easily quantified and corrected for even in an extremely efficient and free market. Individual consumers can’t just be like…hmmm, my drinking water tastes funny and I’m getting sick. I think I’ll punish Koch Industries for that and make them pay a fair price for their behavior. Lawsuits can do some of this work, but rarely to the extent that the bad actor actually pays “market value” for the harm it caused, or victims are fairly compensated. Between powerful actors steering complaints against them towards friendly ADR settings to avoid huge liability and the flawed nature of class action suits, it almost never happens.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Rex Everything:
I think it’s you that’s missing the point. It wasn’t mistermix or Chris Hayes who made it a minor point. In the context of Paul’s speech as a whole, the point of which was ‘Democrats enslave black people’, the war on drugs bit that he offered was a minor point.
Watch the video again. Hayes makes this point precisely: That while there might have been a single good idea within Paul’s speech, it was obscured by the argument in bad faith surrounding it.
If you want to, like Friedersdorf, riff on the good idea within, so be it. But if you want to dismiss Hayes’ critique of the speech as a whole, you’re missing the forest for the tree.
David Koch
@Another Halocene Human:
2016 is gonna be fun.
The self-proclaimed True Progressive Betters like left-moonbats Glenn, Cenk, etc. will support Baby Doc because of pot and DЯØИ3Z, driving the firebagg/PUMA coalition into a tizzy, who will counter by charging blanket sexism
it’s gonna be the greatest fireworks show evah!
Cacti
@David Koch:
My dislike for Ed was mostly from him being a Limbaugh clone. But he does speak blue collar white guy in an authentic way. No way wine track, buddy holly glasses, Hayes pulls in the same audience.
Plantsmantx
@Hunter Gathers:
Ah, yes. Thank you, Hunter Gatherer. There is absolutely nothing praiseworthy about Rand Paul’s appearance at Howard. He willfully condescended to, bullshitted and lied to the audience, and he meant for them to know he was condescending to them, bullshitting them, and lying to them.
Rex Everything
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Right here is the basis of our disagreement. To me, this particular tree, so consistently, maddeningly missed by every politician of any prominence, is under these circumstances worth missing the forest for.
ETA: I’ve been meaning to say for awhile now that I’m glad the Balloon Juice commentariat has moved past the phase where “Fuck you!” is the answer to every dispute. There’s hope yet.
gelfling545
@Omnes Omnibus: Over and over, Charles Pierce’s “5 minute rule” is proven correct.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rex Everything:
Fuck you.
ETA: Someone had to do it.
Lurking Canadian
@Kay: Actually, yes, that’s their plan. I have had libertarians tell me, with a straight face, that since property rights regimes were “known” to be the solution to the tragedy of the commons, the only way to solve environmental problems was for some private concern to have property rights over every bit of land, water and air.
That this is completely batshit insane doesn’t bother such people. Libertarianism is not a political or economic doctrine. It’s a religion.
Rex Everything
@Omnes Omnibus: Aw man! It’s like 2011 all over again.
Mandalay
@Rex Everything:
This, many times over.
One thing is for sure: the pontificating do-gooders here who want to throw Paul to the wolves because he is disingenuous, or he lied about something else, or he really wants to to dismantle government, don’t have any relatives doing hard time for minor drug offenses, and they don’t really give a shit about people doing hard time for minor drug offenses. Because if they did that would not be their response.
So what if everything else said about Paul is true? Why not work with the fucker to fix a massive injustice? It’s seems that taking the moral high ground and wallowing in the injustice of it all is far more important than its resolution to some.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Mandalay:
Because he isn’t offering it up in honesty, but rather using it as a sap to undermine federal authority. If he was legitimately concerned, he’d offer up a constitutional amendment that would end this not only at the federal level but at the state and municipal levels, too. He’ll never do that, because it’s toxic for him at the lower levels, because, like his father, he isn’t a civil libertarian but an anti-federalist whose electoral base is anti-federalist.
eclecticbrotha
I thought it patently absurd that Hayes felt the need to apologize to a bunch of his white blogger friends about being mean to Rand Paul after Paul’s attempt to talk down to a bunch of black college kids at Howard U. I think its even more absurd that white liberals continue to push legal weed as a way to save the hood. Black people aren’t being incarcerated for smoking weed, they’re being tried and convicted for trying to sell it.
Rand Paul has no intention of standing up for things that will actually help black people. None. As Rikyrah mentioned upthread, Paul’s record shows that he intends to screw over wide swaths of the public yet you have liberals playing the fool on Paul’s behalf because he’s against imaginary drone strikes on Grandma at Starbucks and making weed legal. If you’re not gonna 1) advocate for better school systems to improve access to quality education and 2) fight for more employment opportunities so urban folk can live above the poverty line and pay their bills without succumbing to the lure of a quick buck they can make from selling weed and crack on the streets, then all you’re really doing is blowing smoke up black people’s asses, insulting our intelligence and taking attention away from the real issues plaguing our community that continue to go unaddressed.
Mnemosyne
@Mandalay:
Because he has no interest in working with you on it. He wants to pontificate and make himself look good, but when he had an opportunity to actually do something, all he did was try to give judges more discretion to let nice white boys get off with a slap on the wrist.
Why waste your time with Paul when there are people in Congress who are trying to make real, substantive changes but can’t make any headway because grandstanders like Paul are sucking up all of the oxygen?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: Why doesn’t Paul join in with these people? They introduced legislation in the House; he could do the same in the Senate. There are people who are doing actual work on the issue rather than talking a good game for a couple of minutes during a speech.
Ruckus
@eclecticbrotha:
I think you are 100% correct.
However I think the problem goes deeper.
They are wrong but they do this in such a way that they get support from people who don’t care if you get screwed as long as they don’t. Mandalay has asked the question about why don’t we work with them on this one issue. Your explanation is why. Their goal is not anywhere near what it sounds like, their goal is to return to a time when someone didn’t have to be filthy rich to buy government because the government that you had to listen to was tiny. And they or someone like them owned it. They don’t have and can’t get enough money to own a national government, but they can own a small state/local government. Sort of like the Kochsuckers have been purchasing WI.
rikyrah
You cannot write the history of Black people, post Civil War, without it going through Howard University.
Thurgood Marshall went to Howard U Law School.
Charles Hamilton Houston – the architect on how to defeat Jim Crow – was the Dean of the Howard Law School during Marshall’s time there, and built an entire stable of Civil Rights Lawyers.
Literally, post Civil War America’s contributions from Black America cannot be written without Howard University.
The list of important/famous Black people that have some connection to Howard is tremendous….
from Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. (first Black to achieve the status of General in the Army)..to Vernon Jordan to the Senator Edward Brooke (whom Paul couldn’t even say his correct name)…to Toni Morrison..,..the list of Alumni from Howard who have made an impact on the Black community is huge.
You don’t go onto Howard’s campus, where the plan to dismantle American Apartheid was shaped, talking about
STATES RIGHTS.
Everything about Paul’s visit was offensive to the mission of Howard since its inception.
And please stop hiding behind the whole ‘ Rand Paul is against the drug war’ bullshyt.
I think I missed Paul’s speeches on the Senate floor railing against the Prison Industrial Complex, which is on its third generation of Young Black Men as its cash crop….maybe you Paul defenders can drop the links here so that I can catch up..
I also think I missed Paul’s speeches about the slave labor that proliferates in the Private Prison System around this country…once again…drop those links.
I also missed Paul’s speeches and work against the racial profiling by police departments across this country and their harassment of Black and Brown folks on a daily basis…but, be sure to drop those links….
As you can tell from my comments, you can totally miss me with any remote kind of defense of Rand Paul, just cause folks wanna smoke their dope in peace.
He wants all into my uterus…
and wouldn’t have lifted a finger to relieve my ancestors of the debilitating state of American Apartheid…
but, I guess, since it wasn’t your ancestors who had to live in the Police State known as Jim Crow America…
you can overlook all of that, cause hey…Paul wants you to smoke your dope in peace.
Mandalay
@Omnes Omnibus:
He doesn’t join in with those people because he is working on his own bill in the Senate with Sen. Patrick Leahy: S.619 (Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013). IMO it has much more chance of being enacted into law than the one you cite.
Paul is doing actual work on the issue: bill S.619. Your comment suggests that you were not even aware of that.
You obviously don’t like Paul, and I don’t care for him myself, but what are your specific concerns with the legislation that he and Leahy are trying to pass? It seems to me that Paul is doing a lot more on this issue than most Democrats, regardless of his motives and beliefs.
p
“Freddie”‘s take that if Republican A does dumb shit, and liberal B criticizes him, this is per se wrong regardless of substance because Republican A has some good motives/policy positions whatever, is terribly stupid
p
Oh yeah. and Rand Paul and his father are against FEDERAL GOVERNMENT prohibition. It’s their family business, anti-Fedgovment conspiracy. They don’t care at all about state government imprisoning for marijuana.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: I am not a fan of mandatory minimum sentences, so, in a vacuum, S.619 is a step forward. Unlike you, however, I don’t think the law has anymore of a chance of passing than the two bills introduced by Polis and Blumanauer.
Also, while the majority of federal judges do not like mandatory minimum sentences, a good number of them don’t like them because they don’t want Congress limiting their discretion no because they necessarily think the Guidelines are too tough. If it the bill becomes law it will affect a few outlier cases – this is not a bad thing – but it will not have a major impact on federal criminal sentencing.
You are right that I did overlook this bill when I was talking about what Paul has actually done. I do, however, think that this bill actually does nothing about War on Drugs.
No, I don’t like Paul. I think everything he is doing is based on an anti-federal government agenda, so I look askance at anything he says or does. In addition, because of our dysfunctional political-media complex, anytime Rand Paul takes a position that has a surface appearance of reasonableness, it sucks up all the oxygen in the room to the detriment of people who are working hard to achieve actual progress on the issues.
David McCarthy
In summation, the folks here are for an unlimited federal government, at least at the moment, because their guy is currently in power, and because they think an unlimited federal government will give them privileges including racial preferences for minorities, because white men don’t deserve their freedom because white men in the past did bad things.
Too funny.
Some of you, nah, all of you are quite literally useless in any sort of analytic process or debate. You are useless. In fact you are worse than useless. You see only political parties. You are incapable of understanding your own biases. You see no misbehavior by those you view “on your team”. You fail to see your own hypocrisies. You just whine and complain about irrelevant aspects of individuals who are openly, consistently promoting exactly the types of policy changes you prefer because they have some beliefs you disagree with, and because they are members of a different party. Instead you spend time supporting candidates who oppose those policies you say you prefer, because they are in the party you think you must blindly support.
You are pathetic nobodies and your opinions will never matter until you break out of this partisan spell you voluntarily place yourselves under.
I will provide you with the first few steps to intellectual liberation:
FREEDOM begins at the most local level – INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS. “To protect these rights, governments are instituted among men…” The JUSTIFICATION for government grows OUTWARD from that point, NOT INWARD from a totalitarian central federal government, AT LEAST if you want to call yourself an American.
the LEGAL FRAMEWORK for the federal government is the Constitution. it is LIMITED for very good reasons. you ARE INCAPABLE of accepting the reality behind those reasons. you LIVE IN A UTOPIAN FANTASY DELUSION that somehow your implementation of unlimited federal government power will be immune to human nature because YOU DON’T REALLY CARE EITHER WAY. you WANT TO USE FORCE AGAINST OTHERS FOR WHAT YOUR SHORTSIGHTEDNESS BELIEVES IS IN YOUR OWN IMMEDIATE AND LONG-TERM BENEFIT (like EVERYONE who is willing to use force against others to STEAL their property and otherwise VIOLATE others’ rights for their own benefit). EVERYTHING ELSE, INCLUDING THE FREEDOM OF OTHERS, BE DAMNED. you DON’T KNOW YOURSELVES, and you are nothing but gangster wannabes.
you are unamerican scum. and you are delusional. you are the enemies of freedom and deserve to be destroyed. you will take THAT as further motivation to be EVEN WORSE in these senses, because you CONFUSE MOTIVATIONS in your own mind. you don’t deserve freedom, but you are still entitled to it, and to the degree that the Constitution is capable, ensured of it.
but you prefer to fill your personal voids with the rush of never-ending political battles because that is EASIER and MORE TANGIBLE for you than accepting the reality of the world around you, and most importantly, the reality of yourselves.
may God have mercy on your souls.
Omnes Omnibus
@David McCarthy: You have an interesting view of capitalization. Thank you for sharing it with us.
pat
hUh?? Is this guy on the right website?
Scott Supak
@David McCarthy:
#KeepTalkingWingnuts
Wapiti
“may God have mercy on your souls.”
Isn’t that what judges say when they issue a death sentence? Was that some weirdly capitalized death threat?
sven
@David McCarthy:
This seems like it might be your blog:
http://diddymac.blogspot.com/
Pooh
C’mon, that’s straight from the DougJ playbook
Xecky Gilchrist
@pat: Is this guy on the right website?
Well, he’s certainly on the right.
Villago Delenda Est
@David McCarthy:
You’re Paulista scum.
We do not hear your words, petaQ.
Mike in DC
@David McCarthy: Dude, you’re the one who runs a blog that no one comments on, and we’re the ones with opinions that don’t matter? Did you forget to take your meds?
lojasmo
@David McCarthy:
Freedumb!
Lynn Dee
@Omnes Omnibus:
But he does punctuate. I find that combination interesting.
PigInZen
That’s a quality post. I completely agree, we need freedom to deny shit to others. That’s what life’s all about, after all.
Omnes Omnibus
@PigInZen: Well, how can something have value if everyone has it?
Woodrowfan
@sven: His blog is chock-full of da stupids. It should be named the “Dunning-Kruger Effect Blog”
BruceFromOhio
Gee, that’s swell, but I simply have to pass! I’m already on several “step” programs, no time for funsies.
I like the demonstration of whale translation, though: “it is LIMITED for very good reasons. you ARE INCAPABLE of accepting the reality behind those reasons. you LIVE IN A UTOPIAN FANTASY DELUSION” totally reminds me of Dory in Finding Nemo.
Mustang Bobby
@David McCarthy: Are you available for kids’ parties? Note: BYO helium.
ruemara
@David McCarthy: When you get down from that meth high, finish cleaning up the dog shit in the yard.
rdale
@David McCarthy: Perfect example of Charlie Pierce’s Five-Minute Rule when dealing with Crazy Uncle Liberty (!) or Senator Aqua Buddha: they sound reasonable for exactly 5:00 minutes, but at 5:01 either of them will say something so offensive/off-the-wall/unhinged/racist/stupid that your head snaps in amazement as you say “TH’fuck did he just say?”
Sir Nose'D
@David McCarthy:
Well done! You have described me to a T. Will I cease to be antiamerican scum if I follow THE PLAN!!!?? I’m not clear on that part.
mellowjohn
@David McCarthy: YOU, sir, are an IDIOT who OVERUSES his SHIFT KEY!
moderateindy
Look the problem with Paul and his ilk, is simple. All they care about is restricting the Federal Government’s power. They want the states to have the ability to set whatever draconian rules they care to. They also want the states to have the ability to ignore any federal regulations they don’t like. They are at best, morons that have no concept of how human nature works.At worst they are evil conniving scum that are looking to turn our society into a pseudo-feudal state. They complain about big government corruption, while ignoring that state governments are much more easily bought and sold by the highest bidder. They want the “freedom” to have states enact restrictions on whatever they don’t like, be it abortion or homosexuality, or any other moral crusade their FSM tells them needs to be carried out. They don’t seem to grasp that allowing states to set the standards for business and labor regulations is nothing more than a race to the bottom. It would be like adding a dozen little Mexicos. All of them clamoring to do the bidding of any corporation with an extra nickel that might move jobs to their particular state. Want to forego pesky environmental regs, forget about workforce rules regarding min. wage or overtime or safety conditions? Then just come to our ass-backward state and you can dump all your toxic waste straight into the river, and don’t worry about pesky lawsuits from people around your plant getting sick and dying, we’ll have “tort reform” that will guarantee it will cost you next to nothing if you ever get caught and succesfully sued. Oh, and our people will work for $5.00 an hour because they have no choice.
That is all that the BS libertarian/ state’s rights people advocate, whether they know it or not.They all have this unwavering belief that pure capitalism will somehow save the day, without ever spending a second to study history and see what happens when capitalism goes unregulated.
Their ideas of Liberty will always degenerate into freedom for the few to do basically as they please, while everybody else gets screwed. People will have an illusion of freedom, because technically people could go out and do whatever they want, start a business etc)but there would be inherent barriers put up by those in power that would severely limit any real opportunity. Anyone that doesn’t understand this need only listen to the song 16 Tons, and understand the tag line, “I owe my soul to the company store”. How long before greedy scum-sucking employers in crappy economically depressed states agree to move their operations as long as they can pay the workers with special corporate currency? Liberty! yeah right.
Tommybones
“FANTASY DELUSION that somehow your implementation of unlimited federal government power will be immune to human nature”
As opposed to the fantasy that a totally free market will be “immune from human nature,” where the wealthy and powerful use that wealth and power to accumulate more wealth and power until we’re back in the age of Serfdom. There’s a middle ground, methinks.
A Ghost To Most
@David McCarthy:
What stirred up the faith-based fascist?
2liberal
@David McCarthy:
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-psychological-projection.htm
Look into the mirror, and THINK for a change.
AnotherBruce
Ghost of Eustice Tilly, is that you?????1!111!??
El Cid
If you fail to agree with me, I will say words like CONSTITUTION and FREEDOM even LOUDER, because when I do that means that I am right and that I am more constitutioney and freedomey than you BECAUSE I SAY THOSE WORDS LOUDLY AND REPEATEDLY.
You don’t have to know how to do physics or math well as long as you say PHYSICS and MATH very loudly and repeatedly (and of course angrily and solemntly) too, either.
redbeardjim
UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED.
fuckwit
@moderateindy: Yep. I used to be a Libertarian. I quit when I realized that corporations are a much bigger threat to freedom than governments– and now we have governments owned by corporations, which is pretty much how this became a problem in the first place.
The law of the jungle is that the most vicious, sociopathic gorilla rules absolutely. That is the law of the jungle. That is the “free market”. It’s not civilization, it’s feudalism.
That’s why we need regulation; that’s why we need society. If you leave the free market to decide, it’ll decide on absolute monarchy, eventually, within some finite numberof generations of inherited superwealth.
The writers of the Constitution understood this very, very well. They knew that the difference between useful steam energy and an explosion that scalds everyone is the regulator, so they built in all kinds of clever regulators to the system (balance of power, staggered elections, a combination of federalism and direct democracy).
Sadly, they did not forsee the degree of centralization of capital that modern industrialism would create (from the railroad era onward), or the toxic brainwashing effects of instant mass-media (radio and television, primarily), nor did they expect the kind of massive standing armies we have now and the military-industrial complex that came with it. Those are all problems we have to solve now.
Unsympathetic
It’s always fun to see fascist Republicans using “freedom” as their defense for more restrictions on our individual rights.. initiated by corporations, sustained via government regulators they bought.
Of course, if they believe in freedom so much, why would Republicans put so much effort into buying off the regulators?
Morzer
@David McCarthy:
What, no mention of the kangaroo baramin floating to Australia on huge mats of vegetation?
sherparick
@David McCarthy: And your argument, besides CAPITALIZATION and ad hominem? And nothing says “Freedom” like calling your opponents “scum” and calling for their “destruction.” Yep, you have proven yourself to be a complete Wingnut and a totalitarian.
Sandia Blanca
@David McCarthy: You forgot that we also want you to have an abortion, get gay married, and report to the FEMA concentration camp STAT!
chris
Libertarians live in a pony and unicorn world.
My Small Government: Freedom is Magic?
…Nah, I think the pony and unicorn world is more realistic.
mikem
I don’t live in a UTOPIAN FANTASY DELUSION, but man I really want to.