Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

I was promised a recession.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

This really is a full service blog.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

The willow is too close to the house.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Glibertarian Chewtoy Open Thread: McArgleBargle vs Roe v Wade

Glibertarian Chewtoy Open Thread: McArgleBargle vs Roe v Wade

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Look, if a major social issue doesn’t directly impact McMegan — or if she can’t see it impacting her, in the next six months or so — why should anyone care about stuff like ‘but people will die’?  It’s just another inning of inside baseball, amirite?

Reader Interactions

74Comments

  1. 1.

    Kropacetic

    “Personal responsibility” according to Republicans: You are personally responsible to address the consequences of whatever shitty action someone with any modicum of power over you takes. It is out of bounds, however, to act against those with power; especially those with power on my side.

  3. 3.

    lollipopguild

    Freedom for me rules and pain for thee. Also known as “Heads I win, Tails I win”

  4. 4.

    Ann Marie

    I got a scare message about how this site is not secure and I should not open it. Obviously I went ahead and opened! I’m on a Mac using Firefox.

  5. 5.

    Suzanne

    Matt Schlapp gave the game away earlier in the week: they want white women to have more babies for the state in order to slow down the Great Replacement, and they will make that happen via force if necessary.

  8. 8.

    Kropacetic

    ‘@Suzanne
    Women, please take a number and present yourself to your designated procreation chamber. Your assigned breeding partner will be with you whenever he feels like it.

  10. 10.

    Suzanne

    ‘@Kropacetic
    It’s amazing to me how this is happening in large part because low-status men are having a hard time.

  13. 13.

    Suzanne

    ‘@Kropacetic
    I mean, low-status men could work on themselves. Interesting, smart, funny, good-looking people still get laid, married, employed.

  14. 14.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Libertarians are just total fuckheads who understand precisely zero about human behavior.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    And as for Schlapp, he needs to be sent to the 12th Century via Obama’s time machine where he’d be so much happier.

  17. 17.

    Almost Retired

    But…but…but I thought Blue States were tax-addicted, gun-snatching, hyper-regulated hell holes, where Critical Race Theory is taught to toddlers by Drag Queens? Libertarians are supposed to move there?

  18. 18.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@Timill

    That should be fixed now. We had to renew the domain but we just did that, so all is good now if you refresh. If you’re not good, please let me know.

  19. 19.

    Kropacetic

    ‘@Almost Retired
    You vote your dollars with the market you have, not the market you might want or wish to have in the future…

  22. 22.

    Suzanne

    ‘@Kropacetic
    Like, I am unattractive and have a terrible personality and I manage to scrape it together every morning. I really don’t understand why these dudes who look like piles of mashed potatoes with terrible facial hair and spend the weekend drunk should have more social or political influence than I do.

  23. 23.

    Patricia Kayden

    Wow. Finally getting to read Balloon Juice. Hope things get back to normal real soon!!

  25. 25.

    JPL

    ‘@Debbie, I still remember when a candidate for local office praised her to a constituent. Even though city politics is nonpartisan, I dropped out. Not doing that again.
    MTG is now calling for only hard work americans deserve formula. Her district has those who receive supplemental formula from the WIC program.

  26. 26.

    JPL

    MTG originally planned in my district, and since the repubs knew she would lose, gave her a safe battleground north of me.

  28. 28.

    Wag

    Libertarians are all assholes who assume everyone is as amoral as they are, and who don’t want to share their pitiful earnings with anyone who doesn’t meet their color standards.

  29. 29.

    Kropacetic

    ‘@eclare
    You can reply using words. An @ symbol and the username may provide some additional clarification as far as whom you’re responding to.
    Glad to be of service.

  30. 30.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@eclare

    reply was not included in this wordpress theme.

    I just type @theperson’snym and then type my comment. I warned you guys that this home away from home site would be rudimentary. :-)

  33. 33.

    CaseyL

    Libertarianism is an 8-year old boy’s revenge fantasy for all the stuff his parents won’t let him do. That adults are libertarians boggles my mind; that **women** are libertarians goes beyond mind-bogging; it’s like chickens advocating for Colonel Sanders.

  34. 34.

    Scout211

    ‘@alang, @WaterGirl,

    Thank you so much for responding so quickly to that security glitch and fixing it within minutes.

    Holding this “home away from home” together with baling wire, string and paper clips is hard work! We all appreciate it. Very much.

  36. 36.

    JWR

    ‘@eclare: I don’t think you can do that. Others have copy/pasted a user’s name and created a poor man’s blockquote using quote marks. But others will know more than me.

  37. 37.

    Anne Laurie

    @CaseyL: that **women** are libertarians goes beyond mind-bogging; it’s like chickens advocating for Colonel Sanders.

    Libertarian women are taking advantage of a ‘scarcity premium’. Since there are so few women and so many (desperately horny) men at any given libertarian gathering, it’s easy for a woman who feels overlooked / underappreciated in other circles to become a Queen Bee.

    I first noticed this when I was still in college, *many* years ago. Lots of self-proclaimed libertarian woman will admit — gleefully — that they’re taking advantage of their rarity status. Don’t know if McArdle has ever had the self-awareness to do that… *but* she got her start in the blogging community by being the Only Chick in the Room when Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, Dave Weigel et al were ‘the blog squad’.

  40. 40.

    Spanky

    Is McArgleblargle really a Libertarian? I thought she was just a plain vanilla idiot.

  42. 42.

    HeleninEire

    Just discovered we are back(ish). Wow this has been a long blackout.

    Anyway…sitting at JFK headed to Dublin for a week. WOO HOO!!!

  43. 43.

    Steeplejack

    ‘@Suzanne:

    Like, I am unattractive and have a terrible personality and I manage to scrape it together every morning.

    You’re likable enough, Suzanne.

  44. 44.

    Sure Lurkalot

    ArgBarg’s comment about the Roe decision leading to the focus on “seizing the courts” is especially egregious considering that Bony Carrot had only one qualification that got her confirmed. She is completely devoid of any fitness or experience for the appointment and yet there she will sit for 30 or 40 years.

  46. 46.

    Soprano2

    So glad for this site! Libertarians think we don’t need rules because doesn’t everyone know what is the right thing to do? Ask them how we’re going to maintain streets without taxes – they have no idea or stupid ideas.

  47. 47.

    Kropacetic

    “Ask them how we’re going to maintain streets without taxes – they have no idea or stupid ideas.”
    Like making every road a toll road? What happens with a land dispute between road owners?

  49. 49.

    Suzanne

    ‘@Steeplejack
    I have to say that I cringed so hard when he said that. I related, a lot.
    Also when HRC said she reminded men of their ex-wives. It’s a vibe.

    Unlike a lot of men, tho, I never considered my dry spells to be a matter of political importance.

  50. 50.

    Kropacetic

    “Unlike a lot of men, tho, I never considered my dry spells to be a matter of political importance.”
    Clearly, you need to connect with a community of people who identify first with their inability to get laid to set you straight on that score.

  52. 52.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@HeleninEire

    Have a great trip! Subaru Diane forwarded a screen cap of your facebook post earlier this week where you speculated that I had written the blurb on the splash page. Of course I did! Anyway, your made me laugh.

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    ‘@geg6

    You have no idea how hard it is to find a WordPress theme that includes a sidebar and isn’t just a screen filled with a hundred different rectangles.

    After a couple hours of going through one bad theme after another last night, this seemed like the least bad. But of course it’s so old that it didn’t know about a lot of things. Strikeout isn’t even an option when creating the post itself.

    Hopefully Balloon Juice will be back up before I’m tempted to go searching for a better theme.

  54. 54.

    HeleninEire

    ‘@Watergirl. LOL of course you did! . Thanks I am very excited to get back.

  55. 55.

    Gin & Tonic

    ‘@Steeplejack, if plain ASCII was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for us.

  56. 56.

    Steeplejack

    ‘@Gin & Tonic:

    Touché. “ASCII”: Aramaic Standard Code for Information Interchange.

  57. 57.

    persistentillusion

    Scout211 May 20, 2022 at 6:03 PM
    @alang, @WaterGirl,

    Thank you so much for responding so quickly to that security glitch and fixing it within minutes.

    Holding this “home away from home” together with baling wire, string and paper clips is hard work! We all appreciate it. Very much.

    So grateful for y’all. And I mean that not only to the tech-literate people here, but also to the Luddites amongst whom I call myself a member.

  58. 58.

    debbie

    ‘@Steeplejack:

    I had no idea what the actual abbreviation was. My favorite is still TWAIN (Technology Without an Important Name).

  59. 59.

    RaflW

    WaterGirl @7:18 PM:

    I’m so thankful for this site! I was getting a bit cracked in the head (more than usual?) from too much twitter and not enough of this here top-10,000 blog chitchat.

    It is throwback! I wanted to edit a comment on an earlier thread. Hahah. I need to up my copy editing game (who am I kidding?).

  60. 60.

    Soprano2

    ‘@ Kropacetic Sure, make all the residential streets toll roads. That would probably be their response, though.

  62. 62.

    Kropacetic

    I was friends with a self-professed libertarian (actual authoritarian) for years. This was certainly *his* answer.

  63. 63.

    Steeplejack

    ‘@debbie:

    It’s actually American Standard Code for Information Interchange, if the joke wasn’t obvious.

  65. 65.

    Tony Jay

    ‘@Kropacetic

    My introduction to Libertarian ‘thought’ was an alternate history novel (‘Moon of Ice’, maybe) where the postwar USA had so little Government that the solution to New York City’s non-maintained and cratered street surface was, obviously, bigger and tougher tyres for those who could afford them.

    Everyone else? Walk. It’s a free country.

    Funnily enough I didn’t find the sales pitch that convincing, but I guess 13 is too old to get really sucked into that brand of woo-hoo.

  67. 67.

    Anne Laurie

    @Tony Jay: the solution to New York City’s non-maintained and cratered street surface was, obviously, bigger and tougher tyres for those who could afford them.

    No lie: The worst-maintained public roads I’ve encountered here in the area around Boston were in the town with the second highest average income (Belmont, for locals — Mitt Romney’s MA home!)

    When I expressed surprise, the people who knew most about Belmont explained that the voting residents who didn’t have Range Rovers had *very* expensive SUVs, so they didn’t care about the potholes.

  68. 68.

    Kropacetic

    ‘@AnneLaurie
    On one of my rare trips north of Boston, I was astonished to learn that Chelsea mostly didn’t have traffic lights, especially in some places where they were desperately needed. Just stop signs, stop signs everywhere.
    There was one spot where they had one but they must not have liked the result, because it was programmed to behave like a stop sign.

  70. 70.

    Madeleine

    ‘@Tony Jay @ Anne Laurie: about fictional NYC streets not maintained— I live near a couple very expensive NYC neighborhoods in the Bronx and they have trulu awful streets. My theory is that they keep the riffraff out. Even taking a walk is difficult. It kinda works—I don’t walk in those neighborhoods often. Being riffraff.

  71. 71.

    Dopey-o

    ‘@Suzanne Like many incels, i am a dull and uninteresting man. Never had a problem with female companionship, tho.
    My super power? I like wimmenz. Seems they can’t resist that.

  72. 72.

    Jinchi

    ‘@Tony Jay

    “Everyone else? Walk. It’s a free country.”

    Was the future in that story sold as a Utopia?

  73. 73.

    lowtechcyclist

    ‘@Suzanne:
    “Matt Schlapp gave the game away earlier in the week: they want white women to have more babies for the state in order to slow down the Great Replacement, and they will make that happen via force if necessary.”

    But…but they told me that abortion was genocide being committed on *black people*!

  74. 74.

    Boussinesque

    So glad to see this place up and running as a temporary home—was starting to suffer from lurking withdrawal.
    As far as Libertarians go, I always thought that John Rogers quote summed it up so perfectly there wasn’t much else to add.

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