I don’t agree with the swipe at lefties, obviously, but otherwise Ann Althouse of all people nails what is so dumb about the libertarian anti-civil rights position:
A few years ago, I was at a conference with libertarians, and I was confronted with exactly this point of view. I expressed my concern that they were putting an extreme and abstract idea above things that really matter in the world. I challenged them — in what I thought was a friendly conversation — to explain to me how I could know that their commitment to the extreme abstraction did not, in fact, have an origin in racism. Which came first, the proud defense of private property or the shameful prejudices that polite people don’t admit to anymore?
For raising the subject, I was loudly denounced, both at the dinner table table, and on the Reason Magazine website. As I said at the time:
I am struck — you may think it is absurd for me to be suddenly struck by this — but I am struck by how deeply and seriously libertarians and conservatives believe in their ideas. I’m used to the way lefties and liberals take themselves seriously and how deeply they believe. Me, I find true believers strange and — if they have power — frightening.
I appreciate libertarians up to a point, but the extreme ones are missing something that is needed if you are to be trusted with power.
That’s always been my gripe with libertarians: they’re too happy to say things like “well, if we started starving the poor, they’d learn to feed themselves” or “if enough people got shot for starting fights, people would stop starting fights” or “eventually, the free market would make racism unprofitable.”. There really aren’t any reasons to believe any of these sorts of things, especially in the absence of any data. (EDIT: I mean data supporting these statements, not data refuting them.)
georgia pig
There really aren’t any reasons to believe any of these sorts of things, especially in the absence of any data.
Um, Doug, there’s actually data that strongly suggests they’re not true.
Martin
There is data – there’s the entire history of the United States prior to 1964. The US wasn’t populated by fucking space aliens prior to that point – it was us the whole time.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
“eventually, the free market would make racism unprofitable.”
Three hundred plus years of data(in the US) doesn’t make a dent on Glibertarians?
Gregory
To be fair, you have to admit Althouse is an expert in dumb.
PiledhighDeep
I think that’s why libertarians are more dorm room philosophers than people that actually have run successful societies.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Martin: Dasm!! You beat me to it.
DougJ
@georgia pig:
Yes, good point. I mean data supporting the libertarian argument.
Gregory
That’s worked so well in Iraq, after all.
MTiffany
Then the real problem with libertarians is that they live in a fantasy world where money, rather than being the root of all evil, is the wellspring of all that is good. And that is essentially the heart of what they believe: all things that are profitable are good, otherwise, they wouldn’t be profitable.
Alex
Crooked Timber had a series of great articles on libertarianism back in April, and they talked about how libertarians just speak a different language then everyone else, and it basically comes down to the possibility of freedom having more value than freedom itself. In other words, someone who is ground between the wheels of society and nature is more free than someone who is taken out of those wheels by the government. Crazy, but there you are.
And re Althouse: Blind clock, stopped squirrel, etc.
Amanda in the South Bay
Which came first, the proud defense of private property or the shameful prejudices that polite people don’t admit to anymore?
A little bit from column A, a little bit from column B…
Bob
You, and many others, have once again pointed to the “glib” in glibertarian.
Zifnab
If the BP oil spill and the Iraq War and the credit crisis have taught us anything, it’s precisely the opposite. There’s buko bucks to be made by acting amorally. Society will not simply step in, say “No”, and boycott the whole affair.
The mega-banks will act recklessly until they collapse. And those that survive the collapse will pick themselves up and jump right back into acting recklessly again.
The oil barons will spend half their time in the three-way blame game and the other half of the time trying to weasel themselves out of responsibility. Meanwhile, no one in America (that I’ve seen) has given up gasoline.
And military contractors continue to rack in profit like crazy mothers.
You know why it took a nation-wide Civil War to end slavery in America, and a second wave of civil revolts to end segregation in the South? Because there was a fuckton of money on the table to keep the cheap labor flowing.
The terrible thing that libertarians don’t want to talk about is how war and bigotry and massive waste are EXTREMELY profitable. The situation will not fix itself. The situation will get worse.
kommrade reproductive vigor
A libertarian is just a neo-con who worships a twisted idea of the Free Market instead of a twisted idea of God and Jesus.
Short Bus Bully
Holy fuck, these people make hard core socialists look reasonable by comparison.
Actually, if you look at the political spectrum as a continuum, the libertarians and socialists (hard core versions) are simply the flip sides of the same card. And that card is power-hungry elitist motherfuckers, the real joker in the deck.
Gregory
Oh, there are reasons to believe those things, all right; they just don’t have anything to do with data. They have to do with justifying one’s stunted, maladjusted — but Ruggedly Individualist! — worldview.
JM
Follow me on this one, ’cause I think I’ve got it.
1) I have my pile
2) I want my pile to myself
3) people who are worried about stuff want some of my pile to aid with this and that
4) to protect pile, deflect their concerns by saying that pile-husbandry will solve everything; posit magical bullshit: save pile
The “magic of the marketplace bullshit” is just a way of rationalizing ivegotmineism. If I’ve really got mine, then I don’t need my community (except for their respect of my pile). If my community needs me and I’m a sociopath, then it’s time to spout libertarianism.
Actually recognizing how much I need my community, pile or not, would take some kind of values or patriotism or something, and that stuff is for suckers.
Stop looking at my pile. If we repeal Obamacare, it will force the poor to stop living such reckless lives and eat right.
Amanda in the South Bay
For all its fuckups, the thing that bothers me the most about libertarianism is its foreign policy approach-the default position is that “its none of our business” in referring to the foreign policy crisis du jour. Why is it none of our business? Because you say so? Maybe it is at least some of our business and we should actually put some thought into it?
Libertarianism is proof that simply asserting that something is true doesn’t make it so.
Zifnab
@JM:
Perhaps they could pay for health care with chickens?
licensed to kill time
Libertarian’s just another word for
whatever I want to do
whatever, whatever makes me feel free
and feeling free is easy, Lord
when I make the rules
oh feeling free is good enough for me
good enough for me and only my liberty
/not Janis
Eric U.
Libertarians will never be in power long because we would all die after a fairly short period of time. Or we would be living in a feudal distopia.
Gregory
@JM:
Fixed.
ETA:
As I was saying….
MTiffany
@licensed to kill time: OMG you nailed it! Somebody grab me the whiskey, I need to sing!
demkat620
If Conway wins, I will drink my self silly.
All this time we have heard that the Paul brand could save the GOP.
Na Ga Ha Pen.
And yes that is surprisingly sane from Althouse.
soonergrunt
@MTiffany:
And this belief is at the heart of a lot of evil in the world. It’s the source of the belief that I should carjack somebody and strip the car for parts rather than have an actual job. It’s the source of the belief that I can sell people CDOs on piss-poor mortgage pools after bribing or blackmailing the rating agency to rate it up and then betting against the CDO with a Credit Default Swap.
There really isn’t any difference between a carjacker and a bankster. Both are equally deserving of the wealth they have according to libertarian ideology.
BooThisMan
I thought it was more like “the ones that are capable and willing will feed themselves, the others will starve to death, both of which are desirable outcomes”.
demkat620
Well, isn’t this great?
This Rand Paul is not a racist! Not at all.
Josh
I come from a poorer background, so I know the realities of many of the things poor people face. When I started college, many of the libertarians I met came from privileged backgrounds and didn’t accept my experience over their belief that their ideas were valid. Needless to say, I went through a lot of grief trying to convince them they were naive idiots.
Comrade Luke
Like I said in the other post:
Josh
@Comrade Luke:
Be thankful that you haven’t had much exposure to libertarians. I’ve met some that were so obstinate in their beliefs they would believe Ron Paul was God even if he admitted and proved he was Beelzebub (actually, when I confronted some of the libertarians I know that Paul is, in fact, a devil pulling wool over their eyes, they started in with the ad hominems).
To tell you the truth, I can’t even stand talking to them anymore. If one of them wants to start a “debate” or some such bullshit, I start with the ad hominems right away to just drop all of the pretense out of it.
They don’t want a debate. They want to feel superior because it’s almost impossible to disprove their bullshit because NO FUCKING EVIDENCE EXISTS TO SAY THEY’RE FULL OF SHIT BECAUSE THEY MAKE SHIT UP!
liberty60
Libertarianism is akin to religious fundamentalism, which posits a faith in intellectual constructs that is so certain, so inerrant, as to be a unwitting form of blasphemy.
Most reasonable people- that is, most people who are aware of their own mortal fallibility- understand that there is balance and proportion and moderation needed in all things. Your right to practice your religion is balanced against societies need to immunize your kids, for example.
But libertarians, like religious zealots- see ideology as absolutely triumphant, and unbounded by anything.
So the right to own property is not balanced by societies need for fairness- the right to own property itself will produce fairness, if only pursued more strenuously.
Althouse is right- it is scary.
asiangrrlMN
I have a prejudice, I admit. When someone says to me that she/he is a libertarian, I stop taking that person seriously. Someone, help me!
b-psycho
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Perhaps because our “solution” in practice boils down to either a) randomly murder civilians or b) subsidize the efforts of a 3rd party to randomly murder civilians?
Comrade Luke
@Josh:
They say the same thing about Democrats. One of my friend’s favorite arguments wrt me being a Dem is that *I* have a utopian worldview.
There’s really no rational response to that. It’s just…dumbfounding.
El Cid
In the long run, we’re all dead.
Amanda in the South Bay
@b-psycho:
Right, because every foreign policy choice made by the US government since WW2 has had the exact same consequences as Iraq and A-stan!!!
Or is this a case of convergent beliefs between angry leftists on foreign policy with libertards?
Jager
Last year, my partner and I were looking at a business in Arizona, during the due diligence period I flew over to look at the real estate involved in the deal. One parcel was isolated and we had to pass through another property to get to the land we needed to see. The other property was a long defunct goldmine, when we arrived we were met by the caretaker, a living breathing Yosemite Sam. The guy was packing a long barreled Colt revolver in a western holster and a nine inch Bowie knife and he had an old west style Winchester lever action 30-30 propped against the steps of his trailer. While waiting for the owner of the property to show up, Yosemite started talking his Libertarian bullshit, he even went into the trailer and brought out literature for us to take along, was he a racist? Yeah, he was, cause he was convinced that the “Messicans and them Blacks” would be coming for the whatever gold was left in the mine and if they didn’t show up, the “gubmint” would…the line from the Drs Paul to Yosemite is direct and heavy!
Tonal Crow
But but but but that’s how it worked out in “Altas Shrugged!”
Josh
@Comrade Luke:
Really, I don’t care what they say about Democrats. A lot of liberals and Democrats I know deserve it because, truthfully, though I am so god-damn liberal I bleed green energy, most of the liberals I know personally are fucking idiots. And the Democrats are a political party that I tend to support because they, more often than not (although that is starting to become a little less certain), aren’t as bald-faced in their lies.
I say that from the heart, though.
What’s more important, to me, is that a lot of the liberals I know genuinely care about the welfare of other people, even if some of their beliefs are seriously misguided.
A was harangued by a group of my liberal friends because, among other things, I support second amendment rights. Realistically, I know the realities of the world don’t revolve around sunshine and rainbows.
licensed to kill time
@MTiffany: Set up the Southern Comfort shots, we’re all gonna sing!
Brachiator
@DougJ:
I once had a conversation with a libertarian who was spouting something about the war on drugs that he heard from a libertarian talk show host, and which gets tossed around quite often.
Him: If you stopped the war on drugs, it would take the profit out of them.
Me: When Prohibition was ended, did booze become free?
Him: (Silence) —
I always wonder why during the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955, for example, libertarians did not start the Free Market Express. Clearly, there was a market to be served. Oh yeah, must have been those pesky government regulations, as opposed to white social and political opposition.
Bill Section 147
I am living in a different world…obviously. Liberals I know, read, argue with, are usually not people of Faith or True Believers in the sense that if you have a large amount of data to show their idea may not be right they tend to at least want to discuss your methodology or how the data is being presented.
I do know some who think of themselves as liberal or have liberal views who are idiots and cling to dogma as well as the righties. And we all do fall into our own mess sometimes regardless our beliefs.
What I haven’t found is 50% or more of Liberals who still believe that there really was a Gulf of Tonkin Incident or that LBJ, Carter, Clinton or Obama was chosen by God. As far as I can tell most “liberals” think torture really is torture and are not happy that the US government is still allowing it and covering it up – even though they think generally Obama is doing OK.
The far left fringe can sometimes indulge in Totalitarianist idiocy but none of those liberals has any power.
“You know, just because the thing I saw wasn’t there doesn’t mean there wasn’t something there that I didn’t see.” Ann Althouse, Conservative Thoughtmeister
b-psycho
@Amanda in the South Bay: That’d make sense if you were just referring to purely no-strings-attached humanitarian aid. It didn’t sound to me like that was your point though.
mclaren
Libertarianism is the political philosophy of kindergarteners. It boils down to “Gimme gimme gimme GIMMEGIMMEGIMME! F*** you, it’s MINE!”
Comrade Luke
Totally agree, and that’s one of the things that makes it so frustrating to be a “good” liberal; but really, it’s about being an informed citizen.
The libertarian friend I’ve been talking about would LOVE to make some random bullshit talking point, knowing that I would then go dark, research it, and write up a multi-page rebuttal based on the facts. After doing this a few times I just told him I was on to him and he could go to hell :)
Josh
I think I should qualify my statements that many of the liberals I know personally are, to quote myself, “fucking idiots.”
One time I was having a discussion with a friend about the process of actually laying the groundwork for green energy alternatives and why it would be a huge task. You know, for instance, wind turbines only work where there is wind, and we don’t have the electrical grid we need to be able to make wind energy effective for most of the country.
Well, I was also trying to invoke reality, and this didn’t sit well. A lot of my liberal friends have a hard-on for wind turbines, but like to look the other way when it comes to, say, birds and their mortality rate. Birds are not strong in the force, I say, and they often die when they confront a wind turbine.
Also, the process of mining the neodymium for the magnets creates environmental hazards that make coal-mining seem like a sane endeavor. But, hey, most of it comes from China, so who cares, amirite?
Still, it’s much better than trying to argue with a conservative or a libertarian on this issue. They’re just batty. You know, I talked to one guy who claimed the the environment improved since the 70s in spite of the regulations put on the industry, and basically made an argument that bolstered mine and refuted his own, but he just couldn’t connect the dots on it.
JGabriel
Rand Paul to Wolf Blitzer on media questions regarding his Civil Rights stance:
Whiner.
.
jl
When it comes to some kinds of markets, there is not only data, but theory to suggest DougJ’s statement is too weak.
Rand Paul, in his retraction, could not resist a parting shot at the horrors of federal government over reach.
“This much is clear: The federal government has far overreached in its power grabs. Just look at the recent national healthcare schemes, which my opponent supports. The federal government, for the first time ever, is mandating that individuals purchase a product. The federal government is out of control, and those who love liberty and value individual and state’s rights must stand up to it.”
But Rothschild and Stiglitz (sorry this is a repeat for anyone who read my comments during the HCR debate), showed about 35 years ago that there is no competitive equilibrium in some kinds of insurance markets. This problem has been partially solved in ways that might work for auto, or fire insurance, and other kinds of property insurance, but not for health insurance.
So, you have cream skimming, unpredicable increases in premiums, insurance companies resorting to unethical and sketchy rescissions of sick peoples’ policies. Economists who have looked at the history of individual health insurance have found behavior consistent with a lack of competitive equilibrium. Even health care insurance execs admit the market is dysfunctional, and have no objection to regulation to fix it, as long as their profits are untouched in any way.
What are freedom, and free markets doing? Who knows? They do what they do. Only problem is that ordinary people cannot rely on their insurance when they get sick, and they get hurt is all.
What does an extreme libetarian do? Outlaw insurance? But that is interfering with Freedom. Regulation is interfereing wth Freedom. Somehow, any protection for ordinary people in trouble is interfering with Freedom and Free Markets, even though in this case Freedom and Free Markets are doing nothing but churning out chaos.
Extreme libertarianism of the Ron and Rand Paul type is just incoherent nonsense. And there is both theory and data that support my claim.
Sly
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in
But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him
JGabriel
TPM on Paul’s Rapid Civil Rights Evolution:
I wonder how the teabaggers are handling this. By their standards, this must look like spineless wishy-washy liberal kowtowing.
.
Frank Wilhoit
So: she called them out, and they got defensive, and she concludes from this that their beliefs are serious and deep? I would have drawn the opposite conclusion, that they are just plain old run-of-the-mill liars. And so they are, which makes all debate over the ostensible “content” of libertarianism entirely moot. Don’t give them the oxygen of trying to analyze their thinking.
LD50
@JGabriel:
The marketplace will sort that out.
Midnight Marauder
From Rand Paul’s interview with Wolf Blitzer today, I can’t imagine this is going to make his Tea Party base all that pleased:
WHAT?! I’m sorry, what did you just say, Mr. “A free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination – even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin”? It sounded like you said you needed the federal government to get involved. So that it could help.
I can’t imagine Rand Paul will be a very popular fellow at his next libertarian cookies-and-juice social.
@JGabriel:
Or with those clowns either.
Comrade Dread
@asiangrrlMN: Well, the fact that libertarians and liberals have quite a few viewpoints in common regarding civil and social liberties should give you some pause before you completely dismiss them.
JGabriel
@Midnight Marauder: This is what happens when libertarianism meets reality: SPLAT!
.
kuvasz
They are Utopians, and believe in the free market no less than a religious person believes in a deity.
kay
@Midnight Marauder:
See? This is what I love. Why did he think they went to all that trouble? All these years. He thought they were just screwing around for the hell of it? I mean, it was so difficult. Why would they do it if there wasn’t a problem? They had nothing better to do for 40 years?
Good God. He’s now identified the problem. Welcome to 1950! I think we’re moving along smartly now!
Dumb as a ROCK. I shudder to think of him near anyone’s eyes.
asiangrrlMN
@Comrade Dread: I should have used the capital L as in Libertarian. I have yet to meet or read a Libertarian who made a lick of sense. (Libertarian in the Glibertarian vein, I mean). Anyone who talks about no interference from the government is not to be taken seriously. I have actually never met a small-l libertarian, so I cannot speak for them.
JC
Live and let frackin’ live. Ya got a problem with that?
In all seriousness, I’ve always liked Balloon Juice, because it’s where pragmatic, funny, cantankerous, argumentative (but not trollish), and yeah, a bit on the libertarian (you say I can’t smoke here – let’s light up my cigarette!), who can tell each other, “your argument sucks great big monkey balls doofus”, and then turn around and buy the same guy a drink.
Anyway, that’s how BJ exists in my imagination.
I’ve definitely got a bit of the cantakerous libertarian in me – I just don’t equate freedom with hating poor people.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Comrade Dread:
While technically true, the areas where libertarians don’t agree with liberals (i.e. all of their other batshit insane beliefs) tend to override those areas where they do. Anyways, most libertarians as a practical matter tend to side with various unsavoury groups on the right, so who cares? Its not as if most of the libertarian movement was AWOL from 2001-2009 anyways.
Chuck Butcher
@JGabriel:
The problem Libertarians have is that they believe that once exposed to their ideas despite the liberal/crap media people will love them – not that they’ve been dismissed as cranks and idiots already and exposing people to their c&i stuff verifies that.
JGabriel
@Comrade Dread:
Which, as shown by debates over civil liberties and rights in the Bush era, many libertarians are eager to toss aside in favor of “security”.
That said, I’m curious about Rand Paul’s rapid walkback on his Civil Rights statements. Did he get a lesson on how government non-interference was, in fact, not an option? Did he really change his mind?
Or is his new rhetoric just political expediency?
I really can’t tell. Normally, I’d assume expediency, but the sheer incompetence of his walkback could suggest a) that he really did change his mind, and doesn’t know how to express why, or b) panic.
.
JGabriel
@JC:
I think most of the commenters here, even avowed Social-leaning Democrats like me, have a bit of the small-l libertarian in us, at least to the extent that government should be as small as it can effectively be and still serve the common good.
It’s just the big-L right wing Libertarianism that many of us have little patience for.
.
jake the snake
@mclaren:
From now on, I am going to refer to the Tea Party as the Me Party.
Mark S.
Man, I’m not a big fan of Althouse but I highly recommend her post about spending a weekend with Ron Bailey and friends:
Here’s Bailey responding in the comments:
What a rousing endorsement of civil rights!
Comrade Dread
Actually, most of the libertarians I read, talked to, hung out with were pretty much screaming about the Bush administration right alongside the DFH’s.
Can’t tell you how many times I was called a liberal/traitor/unAmerican/etc. by conservatives from 2003-today.
NobodySpecial
@Comrade Dread:
Even in 2008, a majority of self-described Libertarians voted for McCain. They will not vote Democrat regardless of the reason.
Mark S.
@kay:
Good God is right. This nonsense, along with the 17th Amendment a couple days ago, the gold standard. Here we have serious real problems, like oil spills, global warming, financial reform, and these idiots want to reanimate ideas that were stupid and discarded a century ago. Maybe we can have a big long debate about the divine right of kings or the ontological argument for the existence of God! Let’s party like it’s 1399!
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Dread:
So they all voted for Kerry in 2004 and Obama in 2008, right?
If not, then they were bullshitting you.
ETA: Yes, most of the rational libertarian-leaners I know voted Democrat in 2004 and 2008.
LD50
@NobodySpecial: The problem is that for most people who call themselves ‘libertarians’, guns ‘n taxes trump all else.
maus
@NobodySpecial: I have a friend who ran a “libertarians for Obama” site. He was, at least, intelligent and I consider people like him by far the exception rather than the rule. Most people who are “libertarian” are of the Glenn Beck “if i don’t call myself Republican, people will think I’m not partisan!” variety.
JGabriel
Comrade Dread:
Yes, there were many self-described libertarians who opposed Bush’s civil liberties liberties too. But there were an awful lot on the other side. I don’t if they were a majority of libertarians or not so I chose “many” instead of “most”, but they sure seemed like a majority at the time, at least in the media.
To be fair, the media wasn’t exactly giving fair time to any opposition back then, and oppositional libertarian voices may have simply been ignored.
.
Midnight Marauder
@kay:
You honestly have no idea. From the same Wolf Blitzer interview:
As Jed Lewison points out over at the GOS, the ADA has an exemption for just this very problem:
This man’s stupidity knows no bounds.
Morbo
And I’m sure you could eat all winter nutpicking that post.
JGabriel
@Midnight Marauder:
Yeah, I thought it did too, but was too lazy to research it. Glad you and/or Jed checked it out, and confirmed it.
.
maus
@Midnight Marauder: Gosh, he must clearly have forgotten this and he will certainly stop using it as an example of economic SLAVERY placed upon small business owners posthaste.
Bill Section 147
Most Libertarians I know voted based on who was going to possibly raise taxes (I will editorialize here: taxes on the wealthy: one – because they are all sure poor people do not pay taxes in America they just suck up the oxygen; and two – none of them made less than $80K and also themselves/families/parents were large-scale property owners of commercial real-estate). To those Libertarians the Democrats do the taxing. So war, corruption, torture, social issues all trumped by the dollar.
mantis
I expressed my concern that they were putting an extreme and abstract idea above things that really matter in the world.
In other words, being libertarians.
Rick Taylor
I was a Libertarian decades ago. In the form I knew it, it was a philosophical position that one took to be a natural law of the universe, that everything works best when individual rights are completely respected above all else. Once one is convinced of this position, one seeks out evidence justifying it, and there’s a whole intellectual and cultural structure one can refer to to constantly reaffirm one’s own beliefs. Fundamentally, the position cannot be falsified, because every time one can point to evidence of the harm of unregulated individualism, there’s always some government action one can point to as the true source of the harm. So for example, if someone points to the gulf oil spill as evidence we need government regulation and oversight of the oil industry, the Libertarian can reply that the true source of harm was the arbitrary governmental restriction limiting the damages they have to pay to a paltry 25 million dollars. In a truly free society the Libertarian argues where BP would know it had to reimburse all parties for any harm done, it would have the incentives to regulate itself. Since we don’t live in the Libertarian’s utopia and never will, arguments like these are always available, and Libertarians never face circumstances that force them to reevaluate their fundamental position.
WereBear
@Rick Taylor: But who would make BP reimburse anyone?
One of the many flaws in their argument is that BP would be free… not to.
DonkeyKong
Why didn’t Martin Luther King just short Jim Crow? BAM! Freedom + Profit % by a child like understanding of human nature = Megan Mcardle, a perfect Galtian black and white cookie!
Jrod
@DonkeyKong: Damn, but my black-voting futures just went through the roof! Right through the fuckin’ roof! Made a tidy sum on cross-and-gasoline derivatives too.
El Cid
@Midnight Marauder: Nobody needs you & yer damn “facks”. If we need to know what the ADA says, we’ll read it in our guts, not your librul commie ‘printed’ version.
b-psycho
@Rick Taylor: Then what do you do about the inescapable fact that, contrary to the role that has been popularly assumed of government, rather than protect commonly-held resources from those who’d shit in the punchbowl “our” representatives suck their cocks instead?
maus
@b-psycho: My solution is to trust Dems only the slightest bit more than anyone else, which seems to set my expectations properly.