.
Dread Pirate MisterMix posted the YouTube clip earlier today. I liked it a lot more than he did, but then I’m a big believer in cherishing old grudges remembering our common history. More information on Saturday’s rally here.
Arguing for the opposition, Mark Ames at NSFWCorp digs ups some very interesting 1970s-era Libertarian documents that read very much like Scientology tracts:
This Saturday’s “StopWatching.Us” protest in Washington DC promises to be the Mother Of All StrangeBedfellowsPaloozas, the apotheosis of sentimental Boomer politics in which right-wingers hold hands with left-wingers in a righteous People’s Crusade against the government Death Star.
I wouldn’t be the first to point out how embarrassingly easy it has been for rancid Koch libertarian front groups to convince those on the Left that they are all on the same team. As Salon writer Tom Watson wrote, the event is “fatally compromised by the prominent leadership and participation of the Libertarian Party and other libertarian student groups [who stand] in direct opposition to almost everything I believe in as a social democrat.”
What hasn’t been revealed until now, however, is how the libertarians got so good at fooling their lefty marks. For that you have to look back 35 years, to an amazing series of articles in the Koch brothers’ REASON magazine in which prominent libertarians lay out to a new generation of followers a playbook of “tricks” to fool earnest leftists, liberals and hippies into supporting their cause…
The problem in the “strange bedfellows” coalition gathering together is the vast difference in their approaches. The Left and liberals who are part of this coalition have not, to my mind, thought through the politics. For the Left, the question over whether or not to join the StopWatching.us coalition with all those right-wing and libertarian outfits comes down to a moral, quasi-religious question, a question of ideals or lack of ideals: Are you for or against Big Brother government spying?…
There’s no political program presented by the Left as an answer to NSA spying; there are no deals cut with interest groups in-advance, no fleshed-out politics of what would come after abolishing or not abolishing the NSA, and who would benefit from this new arrangement and who would lose out… more importantly, from the Left there’s no suspicion about what the libertarians have thought out, what sort of broad political program, or deals cut, or interest group backing might be shaping their right-wing allies’ interest in StopWatching.us…
Ames’ investigation of REASON’s Straussian scheming is well worth reading, whether or not you agree that the StopWatchingUs lefties are making themselves pawns of the Koch brothers just by protesting. I’m of the opinion that, just because Rand Paul disowns jumping off bridges and drinking bleach, doesn’t mean I should swig Clorox while standing atop an overpass.
kindness
It isn’t as if the Teahaddists have a copyright on stupid. That being said I run into less stupid liberals than I do intentionally stupid conservatives. Both can be just as stubborn though.
Rex Everything
Typical glibertarian rationalization, you right-wing tool!
The Sheriff's A Ni-
True, but I’m also of the opinion that whoever sides with the Randites has no excuse to say ‘whocoodanode’ if the spawn of Nader Both Sides Are Bad contingent gives the GOP the White House in 2016.
Keith P.
Libertarian documents? Kifflom!
Baud
Splitter.
Rex Everything
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: The “Nader Both Sides Are Bad contingent” can’t pull it off without a right-leaning Donk who never offers anything but excuses.
Baud
And what’s the point of protesting if you don’t want people to watch you?
It’s more like StopWatchingUsAfterThisOneTime.
DFH no.6
No, this is how firebaggers are created.
The bad far outweighs the good.
Sorry to be a Captain Bringdown, but gov’ts (very much including ours) are never going to Stop Watching.
Not until global warming puts us all the way back to the Stone Age, anyway.
Then we’ll just start this shit all over again, qua “A Canticle for Leibowitz” or the less well-known though more-hopeful “Earth Abides”.
RP
Ugh…I can’t stand Cory Doctorow.
Rex Everything
Rosa Parks didn’t want to hurt her tender feet by walking to the back of the bus—then she MARCHED?! Bwaa ha ha, what a hypocrite!
shelly
The one (pretty sane) RW radio host I sometimes listen to has been sounding these past couple days, like they’re going down that same old 2012 road. Citing the problems with the ACA website, he thinks this will impact mightlily on the 2014 elections and beyond. But what really struck me was the language he uses. “I feel the mood is shifting. The tide is starting to turn…” In other words, feelings and wishful thinking, rather than reality. Just like Peggy Noonan’s infamous article right before the election, where she insisted that it was all turning towards Romneys victory, cause she saw a couple of Romney lawn signs.
piratedan
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: granted, imho just another wedge to try and divide up the big tent. You want a tighter Patriot Act or its complete dismantling, elect Democrats because sure as fuck, the R’s aren’t going to do it.
Tommy
I like what Charles P. Pierce says about Libertarians:
That pretty much sums it up for me.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Rex Everything: Don’t worry, Rand will make sure to fuel you with plenty of ‘Donk excuses’ so you’ll pull the lever for anyone but the D come 2016.
Keith G
@Baud:
You are being glib, aren’t you?
edit
@RP:
Ntl, he is well spoken on this issue.
Rex Everything
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: Seriously, if I vote for anyone but the Democrat in 2016, you can bet your sweet ass it won’t be because of anything Rand Paul has to say.
Baud
@Keith G:
Moi?
TaMara (BHF)
This ad is running here non-stop, I guess Congressman Coffman if feeling vulnerable come 2014. It so needs to be mocked.
Thank Mike Coffman
Tommy
@Rex Everything: In my pretty “Blue Dog” district I might vote for the “Green Party” candidate. I don’t usually because the Democrat is usually in a pretty tight race with the Republican. Yet the last couple elections they’ve run “Tea Party” folks and they are getting their asses kicked in the general elections. Lot of “middle of the road” folks in my district and it is totally clear to them the “Tea Party” people are bat shit crazy.
Howard Beale IV
A Must See.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
So our regular progressive betters (TM) are dupes of the kochsuckers?
hoocoodanode?
Mnemosyne
It’s almost like they’ve never even heard of ALEC, fer chrissakes.
Omnes Omnibus
The Pauls and their ideological kin have a political agenda that is almost entirely antithetical to what I would like to see come to pass. On some occasions, our paths may intersect, but we fundamentally have different goals. So I would say that “he who sups with the devil should have a long spoon.”
Baud
I’m on Reddit a lot, which is a libertarian/Pauline hangout, and I haven’t seen this event on the front page. Makes me wonder how big it will actually be.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
That’s fine, but my advice is to avoid helping out those who would pour bleach down the throats of your allies. If one group involved in a large event is organized and planning and another group is not, then most of the organizational and political advantages are going to accrue to the former and the latter is going to get fucked.
It is an iron law of politics: you cannot ally with just a part of a particular political group’s ideology. You ally with all of it or you don’t ally with it at all. IF you are thinking strategically and are organized you can cut deals with them on specific issues but going to their rallies is just stupid. If you advocate in ways that empower the libertarians on one issue, you empower them on all issues.
Keith G
@Baud: I had to ask, since inflection is not available.
Anyway, consciousness raising is a good thing event if not all the intentions come from pure places.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: Same here. That I sometimes agree with them, like on property rights, pains me a little. And at some levels their broad ideas make sense. But when you get into the weeds about how they’d govern things go all sideways and make me dislike them a lot. IMHO you can not govern a nation based on their views. It just doesn’t work.
Spaghetti Lee
Thing is, the Pauls are liars. Any debate over whether it’s “worth it” to cast your lot in with them in exchange for protections of civil liberties is moot, because Paul doesn’t actually care about civil liberties. If he was ever elected President (puke) he’d govern as a right-wing Republican. But everyone here already knows that. All the same, I can’t get too angry at people who sincerely do care about civil liberties flocking to one of the most visible politicians on that subject, even if he is a giant hypocrite. I also think it’s dumb to laugh at those people, instead of trying to convert that passion and energy to something good and useful.
TBogg
This is how the Rand Paul brogressives will try and rope in well-meaning progressives who think drones and the collection of metadata is more important than voting rights, healthcare, access to abortion, and the social safety net. Because those big picture amorphous moral conflicts make them feel noble at heart as opposed to the gritty day to day real problems people in America have.
It’s the first shot at splitting off votes for 2016.
lamh36
https://twitter.com/tbogg/status/393524782961926144
Omnissiah
And Rush Limbaugh likes good whiskey, doesn’t mean I’m gonna fucking march with him, you dig??
Baud
@TBogg:
Yep, and as usual the many progressive Democrats in Congress who support those goals you mentioned are simply ignored.
Rex Everything
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Point taken, but my problem with the Balloon Juice faithful is their pretense that writing about and calling attention to civil liberties/privacy issues constitutes “allying with” Koch, Paul et al.
Tommy
@Baud: Many folks can at first think I am a Libertarian. I am not. That I think I ought to be able to grow a pot plant in my garden or let people smoke in a bar (if I owned one) doesn’t make me a Libertarian. Heck I think you should be able to buy a tank if you want one, you just need to register the darn thing. IMHO if you take Libertarian thinking to its logical end, we’d be living in like a Lord of the Flies world. Every person for themselves. I don’t want to live in that world.
The other problem I see is if Paul runs for POTUS he might pull some “liberal” votes to the tune of a few points on issues like pot and spying on us. That is sad cause I think the most liberal people we have in the House and Senate are really strong on these issues. We just have so many middle of the road Democrats this isn’t noticed enough.
LanceThruster
Unless I’m actually wearing a raincoat.
Baud
@Keith G:
I have no problem with the idea of a rally on this issue. Liberal love of libertarians will earn my ridicule every time, however.
Spaghetti Lee
@Tommy:
I’ve had that feeling myself, a sense that if I find myself agreeing with Ron Paul even by accident I ought to double check things. But you know, I think that’s a bad impulse, and I think it’s caused liberals to cede ground to libertarians on issues they should, by rights, be able to claim. Opposition to state power and surveillance was a liberal issue before the modern Koch-fueled libertarian “movement” was even in its infancy.
Ron Paul is odious, but his fanboys are so passionate that I can’t help but wonder if the liberal movement should try to get a piece of that passion, and find a liberal Paul, someone who has the pretty rhetoric and ideals that draw people to Paulism in the first place, but without the gross underbelly of lunacy and ties to neo-fascists. Even if you think Paul’s supporters are generally idiots, I think the left should still rub elbows with them occasionally, if only to make sure the libertarians aren’t the only ones talking about freedom and fooling people into thinking they ‘own’ freedom as an issue.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rex Everything:
When the writing and calling attention is filtered through Paulite/Right Libertarian frames, it is.
Valdivia
@TBogg:
Thank you for saying this.
Keith G
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agreed.
I am rushed, so in my quickness I hope I can adequately flesh this notion out:
It seems to me that Democrats have at times given libertarians fertile soil to nurture their positions.. This is particularly the case in the last five years when some of the current administration’s behaviors have strayed from that which is more ideal to civil libertarians.
That space has given folks like the Paulites a chance to garner some cosmetic legitimacy – legitimacy that they then go on to torch as they opine on other topics.
But sooner or later, smarter libertarian leadership will emerge and occupy political space that should be held by Democrats and they will not be racists. Will that be problematic for the Democratic Party?
Baud
@Tommy:
@Spaghetti Lee:
Liberals and libertarians might overlap on some issues. The difference is that liberals arrive there by focusing on maximizing liberty for the greatest number of individuals, while libertarians focus solely on the existence of governmental restrictions.
That, and liberals are diverse while libertarians are largely a white male social club.
Rex Everything
@Omnes Omnibus: What if the Kochs and the Rands exert their influence via ouija board, or more nefarious still, pure telepathy?
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed, and that’s what separates a true “firebagger” from a plain old liberal who criticizes the president from the left, although the terms are frequently used interchangeably.
Spaghetti Lee
@TBogg:
I think our counterstrategy should be to remind people that group A and group B spring from the same impulse: opposition to oppression. That’s where liberalism and libertarianism both come from, the idea that people should generally be free to do what they want and not be harassed. The split comes in when liberals realize (correctly) that capitalist interests can be quite oppressive themselves, and to maintain freedom in reality and not just in theory, those interests need someone to keep an eye on them. Meanwhile, libertarians wandered off into la-la-land where freedom is your reward for being rich and poor peoples’ freedom exists at the rich peoples’ mercy.
If Rand Paul is the candidate and if he takes that tack, you’ve gotta push back somehow, else people will end up believing them. Myself, I think it’s a great opportunity to re-establish that liberals believe in real freedom, not the twisted libertarian apologia-for-aristocracy version.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
Really, if you can’t beat your wife with impunity, what’s the point of having any freedom at all, amirite?
Omnes Omnibus
@Keith G:
I tend to doubt it. Libertarians still won’t have a workable set of policies. Also, while the new bunch may not be personally racist, libertarian policies don’t work to the benefit of the non-privileged. Fundamentally, libertarians are conservatives who want to smoke pot.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
It’s all a continuum.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rex Everything: Enjoy the rally.
Kay
Sorry. I don’t join with virulently and relentlessly anti-labor people.
The last love-fest between liberals and libertarians revolved around TSA. We all decided those GED-holding thugs in TSA were the enemies of liberty. Oddly enough, that smear campaign occurred right as TSA employees were organizing and voted to join a labor union.
Rand Paul doesn’t want to get rid of the TSA. He wants to privatize the TSA. He introduced legislation to do that.
Eric U.
@piratedan: the obvious big brother overtones of Reagan’s platform is why I became a rabid Dem in the first place. Yeah, they aren’t perfect, but if we have any chance at all to maintain our civil rights it’s with the dems
WereBear
I think that common phrase is too minimal. Libertarians, as presently constituted, simply want to do anything they want.
Baud
I actually wouldn’t mind seeing Rand steal some of Cruz’s thunder right now.
Rex Everything
@Omnes Omnibus: Who’s going to a rally? Do you have shit for brains or something?
Omnes Omnibus
@Rex Everything: Wow.
lamh36
Prob with uniting with Liberatarians is that many of the loudest are just Paulites apologist and are as crazy as tea party extremist.
If there were one thing “progressive” libertarian should learn from Civil Rights Movement, it’s that one bad apple really does spoil the whole bunch. The CR activist worked darn hard to make sure the at least on the visual surface, that there was no distracting characteristics of the protestors or activist and did their damndest to make sure that their rallys were unified and nothing distracted from their message (i.e. like the March on Washington, that did not allow many if any “self-made” signs by marchers that weren’t exactly on the message). All it takes is one stupid idiot with one stupid sign or t-shirt and the whole “Message” goes to shhh.
Does anyone trust Paulian Libertarians to be anything but assholes? You lie down with dogs you are bound to get fleas.
So please find a better left-leaning Libertarian with some bravatas, but don’t fall for the Paulian okey-doke just to put it out there.
ranchandsyrup
I think the influx of
rats fleeing the GOP ship“moderates” should heighten the contradictions with the libertarians.lamh36
@Kay: see this is exactly it.
Yeah, X Libertarian sound good on this one thing, but the other shhhh he opines on are completely against anything you believe from the left.
Tommy
@Spaghetti Lee: There is a story I tell that I think is very telling. It was 2007. Driving to Flordia for my brother’s wedding with a short stay to do some camping in TN. Drove across the entire state of TN on a rural highway. I am not sure I saw a single sign for McCain. A few for Fred Thompson. But dozens and dozens for Ron Paul. I was stunned. They were outside of trailers that looked like they were about to fall over and outside of huge homes with hundreds of acres of horses.
That was when it hit me there was a lot more to that “movement” then I realized. A lot more. I am not sure they can ever win the White House, but there are a lot more of those folks out there then I think most folks and our media realize.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: Since the Civil Rights era, a lot of protests on the left have suffered from trying to be too many things to too many people. Focus helps.
Edited slightly.
Keith G
@Omnes Omnibus: I hope you are right, but they may not need a full set of policies any more than Ross Perot needed a full set.
All that is needed in a solid entrée into a topic that touches the right nerves.
Kay
@Baud:
I hope he does a Big Labor rant.
Or, he can opine on the Commerce Clause! No matter that that commerce clause is the underpinning of everything from federal environmental regulations to the Civil Rights Act.
Baud
@Keith G:
That’s always a risk. It’s the same argument Blue Dogs make when they don’t want to see Democrats do something they think is too liberal.
Tommy
@Baud: I worked my entire life in technology. Now as with any group of people in our society there is a wide range of political leanings within the tech community. But I find time and time again there are a lot more Libertarians then in the public as a whole.
Most I work with and talk to seem to think information should be free, they should be able to smoke pot, the government shouldn’t spy on us, they can own whatever gun they want, and basically the government should stay out of their house and/or bedroom.
IMHO far left liberals like myself kind of agree with them on almost all of that. Maybe not the guns, but the rest. Seems we as others have said here, shouldn’t let them co-op these topics as their own. We should own them. Cause outside of maybe taxes and guns we are right on these issues. If we “owned” them they’d have no need for the Libertarian party.
Cacti
Good thing the shutdown’s over.
There wasn’t nearly enough libertarian wankery here at Rand Paul-Juice during those few weeks.
Mnemosyne
@Rex Everything:
So you didn’t bother to actually read the post before you jumped in to defend the honor of libertarians?
Hint: it’s about an upcoming rally. Hence the discussion of, you know, upcoming rallies and who is or is not planning to go.
Liberty60
@lamh36: Rer: message discipline-
Agreed, and thats one of many things that turned me off about Occupy. They weren’t willing or able to control their message.
At ours, we had a march with about 1500 people; there were about 10 Paulites, but they had made a ginormous banner, and rushed to take the head of the group, making it look like it was a 1500 person strong Ron Paul march.
A Humble Lurker
You are vastly overestimating Rand Paul.
@Rex Everything:
Because these people are totally equivalent to Rosa Parks and what she was up against?
Kay
@lamh36:
Yeah, it can be politically tricky to expect labor to provide “boots on the ground” for the next agenda item when also palling around with Rand Paul. Not to mention relying on AA turnout in elections when allied with Mr. “I don’t believe in regulating private entities” like, um, LUNCH COUNTERS.
I’m not clever enough to pull that off :)
lamh36
Also too, I find it ironic that Obama is racked over the coals for his “bipartisanship” efforts with GOP because WTH would a Dem want to work with a bunch of people whos policies and opinions are completely opposite of what Dems/Liberals…and yet, people are perfectly okay with the linking of arms between “liberal” Liberatarians and Paulite Liberatarians, just because the Paulites get so much air time.
No thank you. If advancing my pet issue means also advancing the Paulite “movement” I’d seriously think twice about using that strategy. I’d rather go on my own without the crappy Paulites
Rex Everything
@Omnes Omnibus: And even if I were going to the rally, no one, not even Mark Ames, has alleged that it’s sponsored by the Kochs or Rands. (All Ames said was that glibs would be there.)
But you’re sure that, somehow, the Right/Libertarians will be “filtering” the whole thing through their “frames” or whatever, and influencing the Left’s narrative to the extent any Lefties comment on the event.
Sounds an awful lot like a rudimentary Democratic stab at epistemic closure.
Baud
@Cacti:
Both AL’s post and virtually all the comments in this thread have been critical of libertarians and the liberals who love them.
Mojotron
brogressives and Doctorow is shrill aside, I think that our “security” state is grossly out of control and our policy of extrajudicial assassinations by drone is morally indefensible. These were issues that blossomed under Bush but still exist under Obama, in some cases slightly reigned in, in others expanded. This did not keep me from voting for Obama in ’12, will not cause me to support either Paul in any way, and will not fully sway me from voting for the Dem candidate in ’16. However, that does not mean that I don’t want these things changed and I see no way to do that other than trying to find common cause with libertarians and their ilk.
Also the Pauls are the outliers in the GOP in terms of their opinion on defense spending and the security state, but they’re far more likely to peel voters away from a potential GOP voter than a dem one. Most of the Rs are pretending to be shocked now but there is no way that they will take a pledge to dial back defense spending or not bomb country X, and this is far more likely to make a wedge issue on the republican side than the dem. I agree with Ron Paul that we should shut Gitmo down and supposedly Obama does as well, not to sound like a 3rd way shitstain but can’t we figure out a way to get that done instead of drawing bright lines?
Belafon
@Omnes Omnibus: And that’s the difference. Ask a Libertarian how they would enact their policies, and all you’re left with is “make the government smaller,” which we Liberals know will not work. Health care is a perfect example: It’s taking the ACA to force competition in the marketplace to drive down prices.
Rex Everything
@Mnemosyne:
Never have I done any such foolish thing; certainly not above.
Yes, I know. Dude pretended my skepticism about his theories meant I was going, joining hands with Libertarians and all the rest of it. It’s just such bullshit.
? Martin
@Tommy:
Meh. Libertarians are just people that believe that collective programs should only be applied by exception. They may pick and choose their programs in various ways – but ultimately it’s a movement centered around a formula for discrimination by omission. Appalachia is full of libertarians? No shit. Libertarian is what in 1960 was called a state’s rightist or in 1860 a confederate. There’s always been more to that movement.
Baud
@Tommy:
So why aren’t those guys more liberal? It’s because of demographics and because they oppose a lot of the things liberals care about, even if they don’t admit it.
I’ll be fair and say that there also might be a thread of antiestablishmentarianism there, so they might have a different outlook if a Republican were in the White House. But I think that’s probably marginal.
Tommy
@Mojotron: I am watching Crossfire on my DVR. It stuns me Powers (the so called liberal) is twisting herself in knots trying to justify our spying on the French and anybody else.
What I HATE about my party is that we don’t hold our own to the same standards we hold Republicans to. Now I know not everybody does this, like here most often, but it pisses me off to no end. If McCain or Mitt was in office and we found out what we’ve found out via Snowden, we would be livid.
And we should be livid, but nobody on my TV (outside of like Maddow and Hayes and a few others) seems to notice their double standard.
Baud
@Kay:
If it’s a speech, he’ll just bash Obama.
lamh36
@Mojotron: ok, but what did Ron Paul ever do to try to close Gitmo when he was in office.
For that matter what legistlation or votes have Rand Paul taken or done other than just grandstanding “filibusters” to really be anything other than a mouth piece.
As for Ron Paul, he “indirect” (yeah right) embrace of racist publishing and funding was enough for this woman of color to say…yeah no thanks Ron you and your son can both kick rocks.
Yatsuno
@Rex Everything: Winning friends and influencing people. U r doing it rong.
Tommy
@? Martin: @Baud: I’ve talked to them about this for hours and at their core I call them “pocketbook” voters. They hate they are taxed. They don’t want to pay any taxes. They of course won’t admit they want kids to starve or have roads that you can’t drive on, they don’t want to think about where their tax dollars go. They IMHO like to stick their heads in the sand on this. That taxes pay for things they need and/or use.
Cacti
@lamh36:
Ron and Rand Paul are joined at the hip with the trash of the neo-confederate movement.
Not a big deal to the brogressives because it’s not their civil rights that anyone is gunning for.
Botsplainer
Stated alternatively, during the Paul Administration, just because the Federal Government won’t be used (or strong enough) to:
-keep locals from forcing useless splits to bring in their monthly product for testing or to keep local pols from forcing wands up cooters;
-keep locals from clearing uppity spades and wetbacks from lunch counters and other businesses;
-make sure that the PO-lice don’t keep to their main task, ie jacking those people;
-make it hard for locals to keep spades, splits and wetbacks from voting, because that can only be trusted to white men,
then so long as we make sure that no white dudebro, computer dork, righteous businessman, conservative activist or racial supremacist conspirator militiaman has his emails and cell records collected, tagged or available for hypothetical review, then it’s all good.
Baud
@Tommy:
But would we be livid because we really think it’s wrong or because we’ve learned not to trust Republicans with power?
NotMax
Neither bridge leaping nor bleach swilling are political policy stances.
Let’s do a what if to point out the inherent camel’s nose problem, shall we?
’nuff said.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rex Everything: Hurt feelings?
Tommy
@Baud: I don’t trust anybody, including myself BTW, with close to absolute power.
Baud
@Tommy:
There’s a sociopathic logic to that viewpoint. Everyone has some issue they care about more than others.
Matt McIrvin
@Spaghetti Lee:
That guy was called Barack Obama. But the characteristic didn’t survive the man actually becoming President and having to make governing decisions. I doubt it can.
Kay
@Baud:
I followed Rand Paul’s Senate race. Read about it, watched a debate, etc.
What Rand Paul believes about the US Constitution is incompatible with The House that FDR Built. Those two things cannot co-exist. One or the other has to give way. I already knew this because I went to law school with libertarians and they talk constantly :)
Baud
@Tommy:
Neither do I. But we have to trust someone with governmental power. For me at least, I will trust that someone lot more if he or she comes out of the Democratic Party rather than somewhere else.
Rex Everything
@Omnes Omnibus: Nah. It just gets old. “You really ARE a libertarian, you know.” EVERY goddamn time. For fuck’s sake, you assholes. I’m a socialist.
Tommy
@Baud: There is this story posted on Reddit a year or so ago that I can’t find. Posted to those that “don’t like government.” It is a story of a person that wakes up to his alarm clock, you know that has the correct time cause we have a government agency that keeps track of time. Then throughout his entire day till he goes to sleep, and all the many ways government touches our life in literally everything we do. From weather reports. To power. Food inspections. Roads. Car safety standards. On and on and on.
At points getting so in the weeds I didn’t even realize our government did that, and thought to myself that is pretty darn cool.
Baud
@Kay:
I don’t disagree. But Rand has been cagey in public settings about his positions because he wants to win the election first.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: The Federalist Society true believers. What’s weird is that their views are so different than those of the original Federalists as to be unrecognizable.
Spaghetti Lee
@Tommy:
Assuming we’re talking about the same thing, that’s “A Day in the Life of Joe Conservative” and it’s pretty famous. Well, people-who-argue-politics-on-the-internet famous, I suppose.
lamh36
@Kay: Kay, man, you are talking to yourself, but man do I hear ya though.
I’m sorry, but nothing short of the Paulites denouncing the crazy or at least being reasonable and reality-based in their actual policy ideas, is what it would take to get me to ever join anything they are a part of. And even then, I’d still probably be like naw, no, nuh ah…
Mojotron
@lamh36: Agreed; Rand’s drone position is incoherent & inconsistent and Ron’s “Survival Report” (and mealy-mouthed disassociation non-apology) makes him kryptonite to me too. But instead of doing this 11th commandment circle-the-wagons crap Tommy mentions, is there a way to somehow separate the issues from the awful people supporting them and find common cause, or at least show that they don’t walk the walk instead of making ourselves look like hypocrites?
edit: I’m asking for a friend.
Keith G
@Baud:
I think no one should be trusted with power. To do otherwise is to be willing to subvert the ideals established at our founding.
We lend power, but we must insist on utter transparency and the responsiveness to the need for information. Most Democrats have not held Obama accountable in that regard.
But that is how most partisans tend to behave.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rex Everything: I didn’t call you a libertarian.
Dee Loralei
@lamh36: you gonna watch Grimm and Dracula tonight?
piratedan
@Matt McIrvin: not don’t be getting all poniless here, the policies enacted and the change implemented are more of a reflection of the Senate he had to work with more than his own policy preferences. You get what you can with the votes you have. There weren’t 60 votes for single payer in the Senate and sure as hell not 217 in the House.
Tommy
@Baud: Yes that famous interview Rachel Maddow did with him before he won the Senate said it all, and made him realize he can’t always say what he thinks.
If folks don’t know what I am talking about Rachel got him talking about property rights. Eventually she asked him if I owned a business should I not be allowed to serve African Americans or another group of people. He said I should have that right. He was quick to say that would be stupid as a business owner to do that, but he would not move from this stance that was my right as a property owner.
Tommy
@Spaghetti Lee: You are a scholar and a saint. I swear I have spent at least a few hours looking for that. Never could find it. I want to reference it all the time. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks!
Rex Everything
@Omnes Omnibus: Uh huh.
Baud
@Tommy:
He did the same thing with drones.
@Keith G:
I have no idea what you think Democrats should have done that they haven’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@Keith G: I think that presidents will use every bit of power that is given to them. Some will grab for more. But the nature of the executive is such that if a power is available, it will be used. If you don’t want the executive to do something, either don’t give it the power or, if it already has it, take it away.
Spaghetti Lee
@Baud:
Honestly, most people I know who say that they’re independent/moderate/not really political/fed up with politics/etc. are on the left to some degree. They’re kind of like the people Tommy describes for a lot of issues. I think that some people just have weird mental blocks about political parties and think that identifying with one is surrendering or selling out and such, even if they’d be perfectly at home in one of them. I think that’s part of why so many of them don’t seem gettable.
Anne Laurie
@DFH no.6: Two of my childhood favorites (along with Alas, Babylon and Shadow on the Hearth. But I never considered them instruction manuals.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
I used to struggle with that. Why did they settle on a name that is the opposite of what they are?
To trick us, probably!
At some point, IMO, you just have to part ways. People who believe that workers have too much power in this country are either insane or blind. I wish Big Labor was calling the shots. They’re not. Big Money is.
lamh36
@Mojotron: sure, it’s by just accepting that maybe you WON’T get the spotlight you deserve, it happens to millions of people, but still fight on with your beliefs until you can find that pol who will be on all the sides you believe in more than just one.
What I won’t do is give cover to people like the Paulites so that the rest of their crappy agenda can slip through the cracks without being shown to the light, just to advance my one thing.
Ya basically get the situation where, you will have to say… “okay, my security issues are met”…but wait a minute, now this guy is in here for 4 damn years and the rest of his crappy agenda is getting the spotlight and now we got a mess.
It’s exactly what GOT Rand Paul in the Senate in the first place…and now we gotta deal with Paul’s bullshh, like today where there are reports that he is interested in putting the vote for Yellin as Fed Chair on hold…for his agenda that does NOT co-mingles with our own.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rex Everything: Got a link to me saying anything of the kind? If you are buying into the Paulite view of anything, you may be a libertarian’s dupe. But I’ve seen you around enough to know that you are firebagger not a libertarian.
Tommy
@Dee Loralei: I know you didn’t ask me, but yes, yes, yes. Pretty big fan of Grim and well I can’t get enough vampire porn. From the trailers I’ve seen for Dracula it appears they’ve spent a lot of money on it. I can’t wait.
BTW: I am 44 so most stuff on the CW network isn’t what I’d watch. But the Originals is pretty interesting. About the “original” vampires coming to present day New Orleans and well doing vampire stuff. Also a lot of witches and werewolves.
Spaghetti Lee
@Mojotron:
or at least show that they don’t walk the walk instead of making ourselves look like hypocrites?
I think that should be the goal. Because it’s 100% true. The Pauls aren’t defenders of freedom, they’re standard right-wingers who have studied how to appeal to people who actually do care about freedom. Conservatism by nature is not in favor of freedom, because it subverts authority and tradition. Like many people have said, we should own these issues, not fret about libertarian stink getting on us if we’re too vocal about it.
Rex Everything
@Omnes Omnibus: I’d actually consider myself more Betty’s “liberal who criticizes the president from the left” than a firebagger, but OK. I misinterpreted your comment (what I heard was “enjoy the glibertarian-compromised rally you never said you were attending, tool”). I apologize.
lamh36
And unlike you, I have a problem with that, but that is just basic liberatarian stuff, so the fact that a good bit of his policy would adversely affect minorities, women, the poor and disadvantage, is just water under the bridge, because of his stance on security, drones, etc…
This is exactly why if a true “liberal” liberatarian, shouldn’t touch Paulites with a ten-foot pole. If the security issue is enough for you to also be okay with the rest of Paul’s abhorrent policies, then you can forget trying to get anyone other then white folk on your side.
Omnes Omnibus
@Spaghetti Lee: The other thing with the Pauls is that they aren’t against pot laws because they support people’s right to smoke weed. They are against those laws because they are reflexively opposed to federal authority. If the states did it, they would be fine. Same thing on every other issue.
@Rex Everything: Cool.
Yatsuno
@Kay: It kinda sucked, because up until the Aqua Buddha ad mishegas Conway was within striking range of winning. That was a huge mistake.
Dee Loralei
@Tommy: LOL, I love the guy playing Dracula, so I’m gonna give it a go. And you are right, it looks like they spent real money on costumes and set design. Hopefully it’ll live up to your and my expectations. And yea, I’ma big Grim fan, too. I like silly sci-fi fantasy stuff.
The reason I asked Lamh is because she and I have a lot of viewing habits in common, and like many of the same shows.
lamh36
@Dee Loralei: I used to watch Grimm, but with the move to Fridays, it was competing against Fringe and I just wasn’t having it…lol.
As for Dracula, aside from the crazy that was Johnathan Rhys Myers personal life, his acting as Dracula just seems like a perfect fit.
So I’d def adding it to my DVR queue.
ETA: Now that Fringe is over, I did plan to catch back up with Grimm
Anne Laurie
@Matt McIrvin: Thank you for saying this, so I didn’t have to!
Tommy
@lamh36: Wait a second. I have a huge problem with that!
Two points. In an early comment I said here I can empathize on property rights. I also have said many times the problem with them is their ideas at 10,000 feet sound wonderful, but get into the weeds and they fall apart.
Property rights are a perfect example.
I said as a bar owner I should be able to let people smoke.
Sounds great. If people don’t like this they go someplace else. You can hear the Paul crowd chant “free market, free market.”
But then I think about it for more than a second or two. Should a worker of mine have to deal with second hand smoke if they don’t want to? What if that worker is maybe 3 months pregnant? Should I just fire her?
And then you take this “property rights” thing down the logically path and you come to where Paul says I should be able not to serve this or that group of people based on the color of their skin. Their sex. Well anything I want.
Kay
@lamh36:
I think you would get ONLY the libertarian goals that don’t threaten monied interests and NOT get the liberal goals that do.
So, for example, you’d get pot legalization, but you’d also get the libertarian agenda of privatization of everything and no environmental regs. You’d get SS marriage, but no voter protections, because obviously poor people voting scares the shit out of them. You’d get limitations on executive powers but no cuts in defense spending.
I pretty much split it into Big Money vs No Money, honestly. Generally. As a guideline. In law school, libertarians used to tell me that there was a environmentalist “lobby” that was extraordinarily powerful, except there isn’t really any money in environmentalism, and there’s lots and lots of money behind degradation, so I thought that was silly.
Mojotron
@lamh36: Look, I’m not voting for either Paul, giving them money, or supporting them in any way other than pointing out that I agree with pere Paul when it comes to closing Gitmo. This doesn’t prevent me from pointing out how wrong they are about everything else or how terrible Randian libertarianism is. But are we seriously doomed to keeping Gitmo open forever and secretly bombing people because a bunch spineless blue dogs and establishment republicans want it so? Can’t we figure out a way to make the Pauls put up or shut up on the issue we agree on?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay:
“They don’t understand what is important” was the thing I would hear. Which of course means “they don’t vote the way I want them to vote.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Mojotron:
Not having ostensibly liberal blogs linking approvingly to the Pauls any time they say something less than horrifically stupid would be a start.
Yatsuno
@Mojotron:
One of thos blue dogs was Bernie Sanders. So it’s not as simple an issue as that.
Tommy
@Dee Loralei: I assume you are watching American Horror Story. Over-the-top. I like Grimm and even Haven. My silly “sci-fi fantasy stuff” Friday viewing. Not serious stuff, but a nice chance for me to have some fun :).
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
That was my favorite part of the 2012 election, when they interviewed the Romney donors going into that event. Remember that? The donors felt sorry for the “nail ladies” because the nail ladies don’t understand the economy. I think the nail ladies understand the economy perfectly.
I had to get the quote because I love it so much:
Rex Everything
@Kay: Big Money vs No Money is exactly right. This to me is a huge issue. Righties always act like the Left has a huge amount of money and power. In reality… christ, what is the profit angle behind something like Greenpeace? The Kochs spend a fortune on propagandizing for one reason: their money depends on the status quo. They have dividend checks flowing in and any rollback of the profit paradigm will make those checks smaller. But no person fighting for “socialism” has anything like the same stake in the matter.
Gin & Tacos just did a thing today where he lambasted Thomas Sowell for saying there was this huge entrenched interest in getting the Washington Redskins to change their name. I mean, people believe this! How could there POSSIBLY be money in pressuring the Redskins? How would that even work? It’s a joke. But lots of people believe it, for some reason.
Mnemosyne
@Mojotron:
I think Spaghetti Lee is on the right track — we need to co-opt the Paulites to work on our issues, not work with them on the Pauls’ pet issues.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rex Everything:
People believe that there is money in being a climate scientist. You know, they wouldn’t be advocating for something if there wasn’t an angle to be worked.
Paula
Learning how to balance ideologies of liberty/privacy and security is real thing that people need to engage in terms of higher-order abstract thinking. Telling the government to “stop watching you” is not actually going to do it. Government watches you because you have an implicit contract with it saying that in return for being “protected” and/or “provided” with certain services, some parts of your life are going to be accessible.
What you’re negotiating is the extent to which you security may or may not depend on how much you let government come into your life. Most people know that. So next time people want to rant about the government leaving them alone, you should ask them how they would react if/when man-made violent events occur following on the heels of various arms of the federal government suddenly withdrawing all of its domestic and international surveillance programs? Would they say, it’s a risk, oh well, but at least we are free? Would they really be that sanguine about it? Because no matter how “rare” these events are, it only takes one to dismantle people’s ability to be rational thinkers.
The left doesn’t have an alternative, because what alternative can you erect against mass fear/ignorance? You have to address the ignorance first. No matter how many posts are made about Edward Snowden, they have done little to address the root (willful?) ignorance about most’ people’s complicity in the surveillance state.
Kay
@Rex Everything:
Exactly. Compare that to the huge pile of money that is made gutting environmental regs. I mean, come on. Is this even a fight? Why do I get the pencil-necked science guy who makes 50K, TOPS, and they get The Oil and Gas Industry? How is that a level playing field? Ridiculous.
Tommy
@Rex Everything: I lived almost two decades in DC. I was a Redskins season ticket holder. There is no pressure on them. None.
Only the City Paper has refused to use “redskins” in their coverage. The Washington Post and Times, the two major papers use it. So does WTOP and WJFK the largest AM and FM stations in the area. So do all the local TV stations.
I have to admit I am wearing a Redskins shirt now. I am looking at a lot of pictures of players and the stadium on my wall. I didn’t realize the meaning behind the word. I had to Google it and do some research. It is horrifying. The name should be changed tomorrow. Yesterday.
Rex Everything
@Omnes Omnibus: Climate science is a great example. Lots of people don’t seem to even consider the disparity of money interest there. And it’s obscene.
Ash Can
@Tommy:
What, that the US spies on other nations, including allies? And uses phone records and e-mails as part of that effort? And has the capability to do the same domestically? Not me. Seeing as the US has been doing this pretty much for as long as it’s existed, and other countries have been doing it as long as they’ve existed, I wouldn’t be livid at all. You know what does make me livid? The fact that all this espionage and intelligence capability worked together and reported to the president 13 years ago that Osama bin Laden was determined to strike domestically in the US, and that aircraft were likely to be involved, and the president blew them off. That’s what makes me livid.
If I have a double standard, it extends only to the fact that I trust a Barack Obama to use America’s intelligence capabilities more effectively to investigate domestic terrorists (as well as foreign ones) than a George W. Bush (or any other Republican these days) would, and that I believe he’d be less likely to go after left-wing political groups than a Republican president would. In addition, I think the Patriot Act and all the other national security regulations that were rushed into effect during the post-9/11 hysteria need to be revised, if not repealed, and I’ve felt that way for the ten years they’ve been on the books. But to all of a sudden get the vapors over something that’s not only been going on for hundreds of years but is, quite frankly, essential to our national security is nonsensical.
Baud
@Rex Everything:
The right-wing tale with climate science is that they made it all up for the grant money.
Spaghetti Lee
@Baud:
Sweet, sweet grant money!
Rex Everything
@Baud: How can people buy that? All the grant money in the world wouldn’t equal a day’s profit for the Big Oil machine.
eemom
@Rex Everything:
Generally true, but actually there is one exception. The insurance industry deals in reality when it comes to climate science — because it HAS to. And it is scared shitless.
Baud
@Rex Everything:
It’s not about relative wealth. Scientists lied for grant money. The amount of money that Big Oil has to fight back against the lies is irrelevant.
In fact, the fact that scientist have managed to fool so many people with so little money just proves how powerful they are.
Rex Everything
@Baud: Duly noted, but it seems like that line wouldn’t work outside the 27%.
Rex Everything
@eemom: Good info; thank you.
Liberty60
@Rex Everything:
The same people who are convinced that 2/3 of the federal budget goes to welfare, while the Pentagon is starved.
Rex Everything
@Kay: It wouldn’t be so bad if there were some general awareness of what a David & Goliath situation it is … but the mainstream point of view seems to be that it’s Godzilla vs Rodan. I understand rightwing lunatics swallowing that, but I talk to NPR-listening Starbucks swillers who seem to basically accept it too, & that’s what I don’t get.
Mojotron
@Mnemosyne: I generally agree with that except I don’t consider it co-opting as much as finding common cause (more about the issue itself than a side), and I think hammering them on something like Gitmo is the way to go instead of saying “ewww, libertarians”- if they vote to close it they lose a good chunk of votes and the GOP, and if they vote to keep it open they lose the libertarian purist vote, though most of those guys are dying off from colloidal silver poisoning.
White Trash Liberal
civil liberties has been co-opted by Koch Industries. I remember when the little phrase “civil libertarian” started being bandied about as a positive thing for a liberal to self-identify.
Libertarianism is a crank philosophy whose end result would be Hobbes’ Leviathan. It’s all about making the world safe again for the aggrieved white male. It caters entirely to white males and their fear of being treated like minorities.
I won’t break bread with them, even if they make pretty noises about civil liberties.
You want to know why? Because Rand Paul’s first proposed legislation after his grandstanding fillibuster was to outlaw abortion. How he can have civil liberties credibility when he is on record for limiting a woman’s right to her own body is just… It’s fucking insane.
The tools and means to fix and reform our spy system lies in tried and true liberal beliefs and methods.
Kay
@Rex Everything:
I don’t know why the idea that it’s even-steven, Big Environment versus Big Business, has caught on so broadly.
I’m not an “environmentalist” (in the sense of doing anything about it) and I know that isn’t a level playing field.
Who is the more powerful entity, looking at the US as it is now (not as it was in the 1950’s) the labor unions behind Fight For Fifteen or the huge business lobby behind keeping wages low? With the income inequality that we have now, do you even have to ask? How many times did Ted Kennedy try to raise the minimum wage? He tried for years. Failed.
Linnaeus
Left-liberals should have as little to do with libertarianism as possible.
I’ve made a similar comment to this effect on another thread: there’s the sizzle and there’s the steak, and you sell the sizzle. For libertarians, the “sizzle” is all the talk about civil liberties, but the “steak” (what they’re really about) is propetarianism. You are what you own, and if you own more, then you’re awesome. If you own less, well, sucks to be you.
Frankly, libertarians steal liberal ideas about limited government (in certain areas) and graft onto that a brutal laissez-faire economic vision. There’s no need to have any connection with that on the left-liberal side.
Linnaeus
@Kay:
This is exactly why the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page (and its ilk) should never whine about “Big Labor” ever again. They will continue to do so, of course.
Kay
@Linnaeus:
It makes me laugh at this point. How many income inequality studies do we need?
I love the damning accusation that they’re “self interested” because they’re employed, too. Dismiss what any union member says! Self-interested! End of discussion!
As if all these PACs and billionaire foundations and such aren’t also “self interested.”
At least acknowledge reality. We have two self-interested parties. The question then becomes which one is more powerful? It isn’t even close.
Joel
@Keith G: post directly above yours addresses the issue well.
different-church-lady
It’s not at all intended as a comment on whether he’s right or wrong, but I’ve never been clear on why I should care what Cory Doctorow thinks.
rikyrah
@TBogg:
hey Tbogg…good seeing you here.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
I said this when Justin Amash- the representative for my district…And ALEC- jumped on board the Snowden train a few months back: Who has the most to gain if the NSA is severely kneecapped or just plain axed? Follow the fucking money!
rikyrah
@Tommy:
here’s the thing….
their hero Rand Paul, wants all up in my uterus
and wouldn’t have lifted a fucking finger to deliver my family and my ancestors from Jim Crow.
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah: t
Yep. And I suspect that he has an agenda none of would like even when he suggests something that sounds good. All my benefit of a doubt for Republicans was used up around 1996.
Chris
@Mojotron:
Here’s my thing (in addition to everything that’s already been said) – libertarians aren’t even “dying off.” They were never there in the first place.
How many times has Ron Paul won a presidential election? Never. How many times has Ron Paul even made headway in a presidential primary, you know, like all those Not-Romneys who at least got to spend a few weeks leading in the polls before the party rejected them? Never. How many times has Ron Paul attracted enough votes, however few that takes, to affect a presidential election the way Nader did in 2000? Never.
A lot of us have said for a while that the Pauls are just con artists, but the biggest scam they’ve pulled is to convince so many people that they even matter. They don’t. They don’t bring any significant amount of funding, or votes, or political connections, to the table. We gain nothing by associating with them. If left wing civil liberties activists have beef with the NSA or any other part of the security state, let them speak for themselves instead of lending their voices to these clowns, and further legitimizing the media narrative that says only right wingers are allowed to voice dissent.
gorram
@Kay: Actually, based on the tracts the local libertarians were handing out at pride you wouldn’t get SSM as much as civil unions (and not just for us, either, mind you). Likewise, you can forget about more effective federal (or for that matter local or state) anti-discrimination policies or enforcement, when it comes to LGBT* people or anyone else.
Libertarians are only “socially liberal” in so far as it’s a subtraction from what government already does (and even then… only sometimes). SSM is viewed by many of them (the Pauls included) as a strengthening of the existing expansion of the state into issues of marriage (which are, in their straight- and cisgender-privileged minds, purely a matter of churches… nevermind all of the rights and protections and the tax status they expect as a result of their marital status).
fuckwit
False dichotomy logical fallacy FTW
TerryC
@Tommy:
“Lie down beside me, baby. That’s an order.” -Leonard Cohen