Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

All hail the time of the bunny!

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

The words do not have to be perfect.

You are here: Home / Politics / Glibertarianism / I want a brave man, I want a cave man

I want a brave man, I want a cave man

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Sometimes we get tired of making fun of Nick Gillespie. Fortunately, Jon Chait is on the job:

[B]laming the president for failing to “kick the asses” of leaders of the opposing party is a really dumb way to think about government, and especially so for a libertarian. Your analysis is that the president needs to compel the opposing party to accept policies it doesn’t like? That’s a libertarian analysis?

Reader Interactions

53Comments

  1. 1.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    OF course it’s a libertarian analysis. As long as you accept that LIbertarianism is functionally no different from GOP Trolling no matter how much they insist they’re ‘independent thinkers’.

  2. 2.

    Keith P.

    At least no one’s said Obama should just jawbone the other side. (no one’s said “jawbone” yet, right?)

  3. 3.

    Soonergrunt

    Nick Gillespie is not, and never has been a Libertarian. He has always been a GOP stooge.

  4. 4.

    Linnaeus

    OT with apologies: I’m sure this was mentioned in a prior thread, but if not, Tbogg is back.

    ETA: I now see that it was mentioned. Carry on.

  5. 5.

    fuckwit

    Fuck Fonzie.

    I need to do other things than pay attention to this insanity, but I can’t stop.

    Auugh…. going outside for a while.

  6. 6.

    Ash Can

    Nick Gillespie is “libertarian” in exactly the way a mob of delusional theocratic extremists are “conservative.” Fuckin’ words, how do they work??

  7. 7.

    srv

    When is the Fonz going to move to Somalia and assume his dictatorship?

    Perhaps he means the only way Obama can’t enslave us in his soshulist agenda is if he becomes a dictator.

    Does anyone have a citation from the Pinochet-Noonan Book of Logic for that?

  8. 8.

    Professor

    OT if you don’t know already, Charlie Pierce informs us that TBogg is back at the Raw Story. His domain name is Beach Blanket Boredom. Sorry to butt in like this!

    ETA Sorry this has already been mentioned!

  11. 11.

    MikeJ

    @Keith P.:

    At least no one’s said Obama should just jawbone the other side.

    Judges 15:15

    And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.

  12. 12.

    Culture of Truth

    Leather-jacket wearing libertarians fancy themselves tough guys, admire authortarians assholes.

  13. 13.

    clone12

    You can either brag having abundance of quaility X or you can actually instantiate it. For example, Albert Einstein didn’t write an autobiography titled “I’m such a smarty smart dude; did I mention I am really smart?”, instead he did things like come up with a completely new paradigm in physics that leads people to say: “Wow, this guy is pretty smart”.

    This is all you need to know about the supposed abundance of quality X among organizations that go out of their way to proclaim their overflow of quilaities in “pravda” or “reason”.

  15. 15.

    Punchy

    That’s a libertarian analysis?

    Yes, because it blames the Preznit. If Nobama could be blamed for Zima, malt beverage boycotts would become a liberterian rallying cry.

  18. 18.

    Trollhattan

    Each and every time Gillespie show his beleathered self on Maher, I expect Maher to introduce him as The Fonzie of Freedom and yet, that never happens. Then I haz a sad because I know Maher is going to let him spew his typical spew, unchallenged.

  19. 19.

    NonyNony

    Ah, I see that people are assuming that the word “libertarian” and “liberty” are related again. But they’re actually two unrelated words that just look similar in English.

    To use an analogy off the SAT:

    libertarian:liberty :: feudal:feud

    Liberty is of course from the Latin libertas which roughly means “freedom”, while “libertarian” is from an obscure dialect of Asshole libertera which roughly translated means “I got mine, so fuck you all”.

  20. 20.

    geg6

    Well, it’s been fun kicking the mouthbreathers in the House and Nick Gillespie around, but I now have to go and sit through a two-hour presentation on our new healthcare options in the open-enrollment for benefits meeting they’re having today. Wish my employer provided health insurance cost as little as the stuff I found on an ACA premium calculator for people in my income level.

  22. 22.

    Jamey

    That’s not a Libertarian analysis. Libertarians don’t analyze; they “feel.” But because they’re usually such arrogant twats, they contend that their feelings are, in fact, valid statements on policy, economics, and human nature.

    So, removing the mythic quantity of “Libertarian analysis,” we’re left with the more obvious outcome: Nick Gillespie is a stupid and small-minded person.

  24. 24.

    eemom

    omg, I said to myself, that headline has to be the dumbest fucking thing I’ve seen yet.

    Oh, it’s that “Reason” thing? Oh SHIT, I hope BJ doesn’t —

  25. 25.

    Keith P.

    @MikeJ:

    George 13:6 – “And he jawboned the people of the desert, as their oil price was unjust. And they ignored him. He walked with them, hand in hand. And they ignored him.”

  30. 30.

    shelly

    I’m preparing for Teapartier’s to scream ‘Obamacare failure’ cause there were problems with people accessing the website and phone number.
    Yeah, cause so many people are trying to get on. It’s popular!

  34. 34.

    IowaOldLady

    Cripes, Shelley Fabares. You have to be as old as I am to recognize that one. Wow, I grew up with a lot of sexism being poured into the airwaves.

  35. 35.

    burnspbesq

    Chait:

    It’s continually amazing to me that this publication publishes commentary on public policy by a writer who lacks even a rudimentary understanding of the policy process.

    Not sure why that would be amazing.

  36. 36.

    MattF

    @peach flavored shampoo: Worth noting that Rubin, last I heard, hates Obamacare. So, her admission that the Teeper strategy has failed is not trivial. She also has notably negative things to say about Sen. Cruz.

  39. 39.

    dmsilev

    Of course there are some benefits to the shutdown. TPM headline: “KKK Rally At Gettysburg Military Park Canceled Due To Gov’t Shutdown”

  42. 42.

    Trollhattan

    @John S.:

    Yeah, that predisposition leaks out pretty often, such as he likes him some gunz because “home invasions!”

    But then he’ll turn around and roast some Republican ass on a white-hot skewer, so modest redemption there.

    Forty million of us! When we demand something, the market must supply it. Like, when California set a high mileage standard for cars sold in this state, Detroit had to make more efficient cars. California, by itself, is the eighth largest economy in the world, the fifth largest agricultural exporter. And, of course, number one in laser vaginal rejuvenation.  Oh, I pat myself on the back. 

    You know, it’s so ironic. The two things conservatives love the most — the free market and states’ rights — are the two things that are going to bend this country into California’s image as a “socialist f*g-topia.” Maybe our constipated Congress in Washington can’t pass gun control laws, but we just did. Because we don’t give a sh*t about the NRA. Out here, that stands for “Nuts, Racists and A**holes!”

    And, while other state governments are working with Jesus to make abortion more miserable — because otherwise women would just use it for weight loss…California is making it easier. And, while immigrants are demonized in Washington and elsewhere, in California, we just okayed driver’s licenses for undocumented aliens. That’s right. We’re letting them drive cars…JUST LIKE WHITE PEOPLE! 

    Because we can’t be worrying about all the nonsense that keeps Fox News viewers up at night…when they should be in bed adjusting their sleep-apnea masks. 

    So, in conclusion, my message to the rest of America is just this: Do not resist!! Kneel before Zod!! California has been setting the trend in America for decades, and it’s not going to stop now.

    http://www.hbo.com/real-time-with-bill-maher#/real-time-with-bill-maher/episodes/0/295-episode/article/new-rules.html

  44. 44.

    IowaOldLady

    @Hungry Joe: Are you telling me that two singers covered “I want a brave man, etc” after Shelley Fabares did it? That is hard to take in.

  45. 45.

    Hungry Joe

    @IowaOldLady: Shelley Fabares did “Johnny Angel,” not “Johnny Get Angry.” I really, really wish I weren’t old enough — and lame enough — to know this.

    “Johnny Angel
    How I love him
    How I shiver when he passes by”

    as opposed to —

    “Johnny get angry, Johnny get mad
    Give me the biggest lecture I ever had”

  46. 46.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @IowaOldLady: Whenever I hear something like “Every girl wants someone who/She can always look up to” I think of this song. (Spotify, pop, obscure, safe for work, etc., etc. Yes, I’m in fandoms with lots and lots of warnings.)

  48. 48.

    PurpleGirl

    Repeat of my post to last thread (#22X or something)

    I went to vote in the Public Advocate runoff (NYC). When I finished, I over heard one of the poll workers and a guy talking about the repercussions of the shut-down. The woman was complaining that she was laid-off. The guy was commiserating with her. I had to say something, had to.

    So I mentioned that they should consider that the one program that the Republicans wanted to end/kill/whatever was the one program that was open for business today. It didn’t matter that the web site might be hard to get (after all you can bring it at other times, over night even). The program was open for business. Everything else is affected, but the one program the Republicans have wanted to kill, that they’ve been prepared to do ANYTHING to kill it, was open for business. I repeated Republican and kill the program as often as I could. They didn’t have any comments for me and their faces looked sick. (I’m sure they were both Republicans or at least anti-Obama.)

    It made me feel good.

  50. 50.

    Suffern ACE

    Every leader is either Patton or a wuss.

    There. I can now write 1/2 the leadership columns. Where’s my contract.

  52. 52.

    Chris

    @Ash Can:

    Fuckin’ words, how do they work??

    Their meaning in politics tends to change over time as reality overrides theory. E.G. “Communism” used to mean “a stage of development in Marxist thought in which capitalism has been superseded and the state has faded away.” The twentieth century turned it into “totalitarian psychopaths whose only redeeming quality is that the people they overthrew were often no better than they were.”

    In the same way, “libertarianism” might have meant something else back in the day, but nowadays it’s pretty much synonymous with “Republican.”

  53. 53.

    eyelessgame

    Well, here’s this – I think that’s exactly right for Libertarian analysis. Libertarians believe the only difference between constitutional democracy and totalitarian dictatorship is that there’s less of the former. That means they see all government as essentially totalitarian, and prefer it to be led by people who act like it.

    Failure to see that the difference between constitutional democracy and totalitarianism is a difference of kind, not only degree is the fundamental flaw in libertarian thought.

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