Boer Deng, at Slate, went to the Young Americans for Liberty convention this week :
… It takes dedication to a cause for students to give up a part of their summer vacation, dress up in a suit, and go off to Virginia for days of political lectures—and these convention attendees did not lack fervor. But this crowd of young libertarians seems to loathe Republicans more than it dislikes Democrats. Some think it’s time to stop hiding behind the GOP and are unimpressed with party rhetoric from the panel. “We’ve heard it all before,” sighed a student from Cincinnati. “Sharing the party with Republicans makes us have to compromise our principles,” said another. Two women I spoke to voted for Gary Johnson in 2012 and professed an enthusiasm for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate in that election…
More young people seem to have taken up the “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” label that some at the YAL conference used to summarize their beliefs—there were 325 participants in this year’s conference, compared with 60 in 2009, its inaugural year—but their “liberty-loving” Republican representatives are not quite with them… As for the notion that these congressmen can bring youths into the GOP fold—that may prove a distant hope. The ones at YAL are fomenting idealistically for a strong third party, not to revitalize an existing one. “Don’t give up on the Republican party,” Rep. Thomas McClintock told the audience. Apparently, some already have.
Which gives me an excuse to link to Heather Digby Parton’s most excellent rant, “Proof the GOP’s newfound “libertarianism” is a big ol’ sham” :
Earlier this week, ace researcher Lee Fang did a little digging and found that for all their alleged commitment to libertarianism, the Koch Brothers are helping to elect a whole lot of right-wing theocrats and national security hawks, which seems just a little bit hypocritical. After all, everyone says that this libertarian influence in the GOP is bound to create a new and different party which will inevitably become more socially tolerant and less given to imperial ambition…
This should not be too surprising to anyone who’s been following the rise of the Koch brothers since they burst on the scene in the 1970s. They were at that time, as much younger men, committed to forming a viable Libertarian Party, and created the Cato Institute as its philosophical and ideological home base. David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket in 1980 and campaigned for full abortion rights and the decriminalization of drugs, homosexuality and prostitution, while calling Ronald Reagan nothing more than a liberal squish. But no one should be shocked to find out that these billionaires really had one big priority: themselves…
They figured out right after that race that a third party was a quixotic waste of time and set out to take over the GOP. And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why so-called isolationist social liberals would pick the party that was at that very time criminalizing every drug crime they could dream up, demonizing gays, trying to roll back abortion rights and spending hundreds of billions in the biggest military build-up in history….
It’s clear that Nick Gillespie’s Libertarianism is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the plutocrat wing of the Republican party. But is there room for a Cory Booker/Ron Wyden school of “fiscally conservative”, small-l libertarianism in the Democratic party?
As the bigots never tire of reminding us, fifty years ago, Dems were the party of “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”. That changed in the historical equivalent of a heartbeat, between Nixon’s 1968 campaign and Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election. The Boll Weevil Democrats fled for the GOP when it became clear that “their” party was not going to renege on LBJ’s Great Society proposals. Is there a way to persuade those young “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” YALers that there is nothing “conservative” about the Kochsucker GOP’s assaults on the economy and the environment, both nationally and globally?
Mike J
99% of the Democratic party is fiscally conservative. Wanting the country to be able to pay its bills is about as conservative as you can get. Republicans just want to party on the credit card and then default on loans.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
Where is the music thread I requested? I am not happy.
Karen in GA
@Mike J:
IOKIYAWhiteGuy.
Suffern ACE
Jobs I didn’t know existed until today: Langur monkey impersonator.
Suffern ACE
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): cheer up. Any thread can be a music thread.
KG
@Mike J: a few years ago, as I was beginning my drift away from the GOP, I had a conversation with my dad (who is by no means a social conservative, but very much a cut taxes and spending solves everything type), I told him that the differemce between the parties was that Dems were tax and spend while eh republicans were borrow and spend. Then I mentioned that if those were the choices, tax and spend was more logical because it was cheaper in the long run. He couldn’t quite accept this.
All that is to say that I think there is a place for these kinds of voters (who I tend to align with more) in the Democratic Party. It’ll take a willingness to hear each other out on fiscal issues, but I think there’s an opening.
NotMax
Libertarianism is long, long past its sell-by date yet still continues to be dished out.
325 participants? Gotta be a downer when the entire convention can readily fit into the small ballroom of the hotel.
lamh36
Just came from seeing Get On Up (sorry Dede JohnDoe Miner). I liked it. All I can say is if Jamie won an Oscar for Ray, then Hollywood just needs to go on ahead and give Chadwick Boseman the Oscar right now (won’t happen, but still). The whole cast was awesome Nelsan Elis as Bobby Byrd, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer. Jill Scott, did her thing. Somebody need to give her a movie of her own, like now! And cheers to Mick Jagger and the music producers of the film.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@KG: Pay for what you get..
Villago Delenda Est
As I have stated before “Libertarianism” is nothing more than a rationalization for adults to behave like three year olds. It’s neo-feudal in nature..they’re all for THEIR liberty, but not so much for the “natural lower orders”, you know, like all those melanin-enhanced types…which is why Libertarians have a pretty strong racist streak running through them. Ron Paul, for example, saw no problem with allying with outright white supremacists.
They don’t seem to get that when you have 300 million people (hell, when you have TWO people) that someone’s liberty is going to clash with someone else’s liberty. That’s why we have government, to sort it out between clashing rights, particularly negative rights that they seem to be utterly oblivious to.
Over the 4th of July we had, locally here in Tracktown, USA, the usual spate of dipshits bitching about restrictions on their liberty in the form of fireworks bans, and their utter obliviousness to the rights of others to celebrate the 4th in a much quieter way…particularly vets of Iraq and Afghanistan who associate loud booms with a need to seek cover at once. This is why I hate these motherfuckers…they don’t even bother to respect others, especially those they claim to revere, like veterans.
danah gaz
American Libertarianism isn’t a thing. The term “libertarian” was stolen from anarchists in the early 20th century by capitalist assbags.
Furthermore. Murray Rothbard and his flying monkeys stole left-wing anarchist terminology and applied it to right wing capitalism to make it sound populist, and basically confuse everyone except actual anarchists (who are, as a rule, anti-capitalist)
Seaworthy douche-canoes, the lot of them.
KG
@Villago Delenda Est: that’s definitely a strain of the older libertarians, and they are a lost cause (like Yglaseis and his campaign against professional licenses). But I think it is less present in younger libertarians who recognize that threats to liberty can come from places other than the government. I think there’s a place for a socially liberal/fiscally conservative polity that recognizes government is a tool and not some other evil entity determined to enslave everyone
danah gaz
@Villago Delenda Est:
This.
JustRuss
I find it interesting you mention the assault on the environment. In my experience, libertarians don’t give a crap about the environment, since protecting it requires regulation of industry, and regulation is, of course, the root of all evil.
Mike G
Everything Reminds WSJ Columnist of Hitler
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/everything-reminds-wsj-columnist-of-hitler.html
“Stripped of any pretense to prescriptive analysis or specific policy goals, Henninger has instead opened a window into the underlying pathology of his worldview. Reading the column is like listening to Dick Cheney mutter in his sleep.”
Tommy
@Villago Delenda Est: I go with the Charlie Pierce’s five minute rule here. Yes he has a rule on this topic. You listen to a good libertarian, say Ron Paul, and they make sense for five minutes. You start to say, yeah I can get behind that. Then at the 5.0001 minute they totally go off the rails and you feel like you need a hot shower.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Just bought this massive new computer and I was stunned when I was moving all my files from the old computer to the new computer how much music I had in iTunes. For a year plus I’ve been hooked on Pandora and maybe not opened iTunes in years and just hit shuffle. Not noticed that if I hit play from the first to the last song it would take 37.5 days to get through it all. I just hit shuffle a few minutes ago and I have to say I got really good taste in music :).
Suffern ACE
@Mike G: yep. That’s the lesson I take away from WWI as well. It is never too early to invade because you’ll just have to do it later anyway. Just like Austria and Serbia. Oh wait, that doesn’t work. Negotiations might have been in order there. So…Munich!
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
Did you ever see Jill Scott’s HBO miniseries of “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”? It was really good. Scott had a baby shortly after the series ended (IIRC, she was pregnant during filming) so I think they weren’t able to convince her to go back to Botswana. Definitely worth seeing if you haven’t yet. Anika Noni Rose (aka Princess Tiana) is the co-star.
Not Adding Much to the Community
What does “fiscally conservative” mean except “keep the money in the rich guy’s pocket?”
Anoniminous
I am wearily familiar with Libertarianism and it’s psychotic baby brother glibertarianism. The bottom line: the ideology is protected from Reality by a Dunning-Kruger cocoon coupled with epistemic closure and side orders of Formal and Informal Logical Fallacies.
Tommy
One of the things I like about working for myself is I can send this email to a client, in affect firing them.
I will wait till tomorrow to send, but it will feel good …..
Ruckus
@Tommy:
When I no longer wanted to do work for a particular customer, I’d raise my rates by 50-100%. If they were stupid enough to bite on that quote at least I made somewhere near enough for the grief. Next go round, same rate increase, on top of the first increase and double the time requirement.
Never got to round two and never had to tell them to piss off. And I only had to use round one once in 33 yrs.
Tommy
@Ruckus: Interesting. Pretty much what I did. He just keeps trying to find ways to come back to our first contract and saying things are not done under it. I am pretty anal about my estimates for work. Detailed. They don’t say I’ll do a web site for you, they outline exactly what I will do.
Been doing this type of work for five years, and this is the first issue I’ve had with this. Talking with a lawyer to make my contract more iron clad. As I said in the last graph of what I posted he will never be happy. Never. I get now 100% of ,my businesses now through referees, I like to think I am good at my job, but this dude sucks!
Mike G
@Tommy:
Man, sending a letter like that is a real luxury most of us don’t have in a corporate world full of talentless phonies and never-wrong authoritarians.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
100% agreement.
tsquared2001
@Not Adding Much to the Community: Always and never ending.
Tommy
@Mike G: Yeah. I feel like I put my time in as a drone. One of the main reasons I wanted to work for myself is I didn’t want to have to deal with assholes. Taken seven years to get to where I can fire a client, but it feels so darn good. Did it once in the past, but was just a client that I liked working with, but they couldn’t ever make any decision. We agreed to just move on. This dude I know will argue with me. I will have none of it.
Ruckus
@Tommy:
Customers from hell. If you have a business, any business, you will sooner or later have one. What they really are, are bullies. Only instead of lunch money they want control. They don’t really have any idea what to do with that control, but they want it anyway. Another way is to just decline to quote the job. Just too busy is the excuse, come see me in a freedman unit. I had that one prepped and ready but never had to use it. I just figured I was always too busy to work for assholes no matter how much time I had on my hands. I even quit what started out as my dream job that also had decent pay and good benefits when my boss morphed into an asshole deluxe.
danah gaz
@Mnemosyne: ZOMG – I *loved* that show. Best book to TV adaptation ever. The casting was flawless, and of course, I love the story.
Tommy
@Ruckus: That is a good point and clearly accurate. I used to be in my “corporate”
days the bully, The guy taken into a meeting to in fact be a dick. I didn’t want to be that guy any more. I just need to stand up to him. Again, another thing I didn’t want to have to do. But our conversation I will be blunt and it won’t be nice. I bet he thinks I am a push over. He would be mistaken!
tsquared2001
Who wouldn’t want to be a libertarian?
1. Nothing is ever my fault.
2. Even if it was my fault, you can’t hold that against me.
3. Profit!
My nephew has some serious tendencies towards that ethos and I just thank Bob that he also thinks voting is for suckers. Lazy fuckers.
Major Major Major Major (formerly J.Ty)
songs
dogs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LXTFrO2epw
science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLkGSV9WDMA
religion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-F3n_G_0O0
tsquared2001
@Major Major Major Major (formerly J.Ty): The science link is tripping me out. Cool lyrics and a beat you can dance to.
Ruckus
@Tommy:
I think most of us can be assholes, it’s just the nature of animals. Some take more provocation to land there than others. The hard part is choosing not to be one and sticking with it.
I call it growth.
Major Major Major Major (formerly J.Ty)
@tsquared2001: It’s in response to their version of “the sun is a mass of incandescent gas”, to be fair. I just love that they updated their science and made a new song about how they learned something!
BillinGlendaleCA
OT: I’m scanning my negatives, this roll was taken at Yellowstone.
Scary face on a mountain
tsquared2001
Is it just me or are Ruckus and Tommy doing the libertarian two step? Bully. Animals. Love sending fuck you emails. And no @Ruckus, being an asshole is NOT ordained by natural selection
tsquared2001
@Major Major Major Major (formerly J.Ty): I emailed the link to my nephew, I liked it so much. When I was a kid, I always heard the expression- that one could use some churching. I have gone with the science version of that.
Major Major Major Major (formerly J.Ty)
@tsquared2001: You are my favorite person right now and it has no reason to do with anything.
tsquared2001
@Major Major Major Major (formerly J.Ty): I CANNOT wait until my nephew sends me a quite pissed off text later this morning, sweating me about that forward.
That will be fun.
Robert Sneddon
@Ruckus: Someone I keep in touch with was recently asked to do some very specialised firmware software work by a former employer on contract. Rough precis of the negotiation:
“Usual rates?”
“Yup. Oh, and you’ll have to pass a drugs test. New regs from the head office for contractors working on firmware.”
“Ummm… OK, new rates. My usual fifty bucks an hour for doing the code and another hundred and fifty an hour for pissing in the cup. Weekly overtime escalator of 150% after forty hours applies to the pissing too.”
“…I’ll get back to you.”
I’m still waiting to hear what the result was.
Glocksman
@Tommy:
God, I wish I was in your position.
However as a corporate wage slave to TJX, my opinions mean jack shit to my employer despite my 17+ years on the floor, and I need my job both for the income and the good health insurance that’s included.
Though to be honest with myself, my position is solely because I’m a lazy shit who didn’t give a damn while I was in school and didn’t pay attention to my Grandmother’s admonition that your education is something they can’t take away from you.
Glocksman
@Ruckus:
Heh.
Before I started working for TJ Maxx (Evansville DC), I worked as a line cook/short order cook/manager for a local bowling alley’s attached buffet.
As such, I had to deal with that type of ‘customer’ frequently.
Every time except one, I kept my head and was civil and friendly even when it was obvious that they were assholes looking for a target.
The one time I didn’t was because even after I told the asshole that wanted white meat fried chicken ‘now’ that I didn’t have any available and that I had some frying that’d be done in 10 minutes, he followed me into the kitchen and kept berating me that he was a customer and didn’t deserve to wait.
At that point I told him he could either leave the premises never to return or I’d call the police and have him arrested for trespassing.
He said he knew the owner and would get me fired.
I told him to go ahead and gave him Mike’s phone number.
The outcome of this was that he did call Mike and after I explained what happened, his only response was that he was glad I didn’t have to call the cops.
Frankensteinbeck
The Koch Brothers can say they’re libertarian all they want. They’re funding the theocrats against the plutocrats, and have been since their daddy helped found the Birchers.
@Not Adding Much to the Community:
It also means ‘I want to hurt poor people.’ The ‘Fuck you’ is as or more important than the ‘I got mine’.
tsquared2001
@Glocksman: Grandma was right. I took off 10 years, doing what I had to do to kinda sorta pay the bills and then got a professional job only because I had a very nice degree that looked choice on the resume.
Glocksman
@tsquared2001:
She was right, though my Uncle Jerry who lost his last job before retirement to an Indian work visa holder would disagree.
He wound up unknowingly training his replacement, and the fact that he had a Cornell MBA meant nothing to them compared to the fact that they could pay the work visa holder half of what he was earning.
That said, a degree gives you options that HS+1 year of college wage slaves such as myself simply don’t have.
I wish I had paid attention to her when I was younger.
tsquared2001
@Glocksman: That is my fear – not exactly a spring chicken so if they want to throw my ass to the curb, not even a hella resume is gonna help.
Which brings us back to the point of Anne Laurie’s post. This whole idea of a dog eat dog world being a workable social construct fucking amazes me. That shit won’t work.
At least, I hope so.
edited
Glocksman
@Glocksman:
The moral behind this story is that a real small business owner realizes that his employees make an impression on the customers and that good employees are worth the expense to keep.
Mike offered good health insurance as a $5/week option back in 1990.
The only reason I left that job was because I felt that TJX was a better long term option given the union won health insurance and guaranteed wage increases.
Cermet
About f”ing time someone else called them ” Kochsucker ” besides me – not only are they the shit that floats (smelling the worse) but the most determined people to destroy democracy since Stalin – who their (thank god he’s dead) father wholly co-oped that insane man’s policy toward the US’ economic destruction (certainly not the mass murder part … )
geg6
The Kochs are nothing but straight up Birchers. That is what their political motivations are and their aligning with the theocrats and racists comes from and shame on Digby for not even mentioning that. She is usually better than that. It’s not a big mystery that they chose those allies and she really should be pointing that out. That article pissed me off because she failed to mention the elephant in the room and I can’t figure out why she would do that.
Baud
Bullshit.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Don’t sugar coat it, tell us what you really think.
satby
@Baud: Yeah, what they loathe about Republicans is that the Rs aren’t able to completely outmaneuver Obama and the Dems to destroy what shreds are left of the social contract.
geg6
@Baud:
Yes, this, too.
RSA
Has Boer Deng looked at the Young Americans for Liberty mission statement?
Propertarian, anti-government, Ayn Rand types whose conception of self-ownership doesn’t even extend as far as being pro-choice. Yeah, that’s new.
TomG
I used to be really into the “small-l” libertarianism stuff 2 decades back (I’m about to turn 50 now). Luckily, I learned about Ron Paul’s newsletter scandal early and didn’t buy the feeble defenses put forth. Nowadays I’m strongly sympathetic to anarchism and left-libertarianism while recognizing the evil of the Kochs and the fact that the Reason crowd is quite self-deluded and doesn’t have all the answers.
I’m a regular reader of BJ and agree with a lot of what’s discussed. Two of my favorite presidents are Grover Cleveland and Dwight D Eisenhower. I don’t know what that makes me, but it’s not where I was 20 years ago.
BillinGlendaleCA
@RSA: Libertarians took the first survey courses in Econ and think they have a mastery of the subject and life in general. Or as my step-daughter put it, they’re IDIOTS.
Baud
@geg6:
Is the Digby mentioned in the post the same Digby who blogs?
@TomG:
It’s rare to see Grover love. I’ll admit, I can’t recall much about his presidency.
Baud
@satby:
However real the differences are between libertarians and traditional Republicans, they both prioritize tax cuts and deregulation as their main goals.
Tommy
@BillinGlendaleCA: I think it was 1984. Had Civics class Required. I don’t recall it being political. Just how a bill becomes law. My rights as citizen. You know stuff like that.
The best class next to touch typing I ever took …………..
I know my rights and I think it pains those in power. That I can rail against them and that is my right.
Ramalama
@lamh36: I once won a scholarship from a drag queen organization. In order to collect my prize I had to appear at their ball, a gig at a huge hotel in Denver. Over 800 people were in attendance, along with the mayor of Denver, and numerous senators/congress wanna-bes. Of course, the dress code was entirely different.
BobS
@Villago Delenda Est: I’m on the planning commission where I live and have similar experiences on an ongoing basis — my favorite is when the same person who at one meeting spoke passionately about their ‘property rights’ being infringed because of the possibility of a new ordinance wants a different new ordinance at a later meeting because their neighbor is doing something to annoy them.
Tommy
@Baud: Taxes. When my parents pass away, which I hope isn’t soon, I will inherit more money then I can spend in a lifetime, I assume I will use said money the way they do. Give most of it away. Lot of amazing causes out there. My mom is keen on women issues. I think, as a dude, I will follow her.
I say all this because I was raised in a Republican household and many didn’t mind paying more in taxes. It was something you just did.
Tommy
@Ramalama: I hope you owned the place.
OzarkHillbilly
I will never understand libertarians. Yes they are idiots, but a lot of them are some of the most intelligent idiots I have ever known.Totally blind to the fact that the regulatory freedom they worship isn’t freedom at all, but enslavement to the most powerful actor of the moment.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s not about intelligence. It’s about the social subculture they happen to fall into and will probably spend most of their lives in. And I could say the same thing about some liberals who do things that leave me scratching my head.
weaselone
The Democratic Party is the socially liberal, fiscally conservative party. Actual fiscal conservatism in the Republican party had a stake driven through it’s heart after George Bush Sr. lost his reelection campaign. Republican policy is essentially tax cuts, while pretending that cutting more holes in the safety net actually saves money instead of just pushing the costs onto the states, private charities and broader society.
gnomedad
@Mike J:
This. I used to use the “socially liberal; fiscally conservative” line, except what does “fiscally conservative” mean in this context except seeing to it that you can pay the bills? Who’s against that? The Republicans, apparently.
ETA:
@weaselone:
This, also, too.
gnomedad
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yup. My framing is that their utopia of tiny or no government and lots of “private” choices is radically unstable and would quickly devolve into a quasi-government with no tradition of constitutional protections, elections, etc.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
For sure, but I understand them. (more or less anyway)
OzarkHillbilly
@gnomedad: It’s like the “free market.” It has never existed. Every market since the beginning of man has been regulated or captured. Usually both at the same time.
danielx
@Villago Delenda Est:
Shorter: I Got Mine, Fuck You.
geg6
@Baud:
Yes, she’s been given a regular gig at Salon.
Glocksman
@Baud:
True dat.
I make no bones about being pro gun.
That said, I’m not opposed to reasonable regulation as to who can own/carry a gun and am frankly horrified by what some licensed carriers (Zimmerman) can get away with.
When I argue with most liberals, the debate is ‘who should carry a gun’, which is fine.
I may disagree, but that’s my right and it’s theirs as well.
Some insist that ‘no one should own a gun’, which gets my dander up.
They have the right to disagree, but that’s not what the SC (both Federal and State) have stated.
rikyrah
@Mike J:
You are right. Great explanation.
Frankensteinbeck
@RSA:
Last time I heard a guy tell me about the government stepping on his property rights, he also wanted to tell me something about The Negro.
@danielx:
And again, the ‘fuck you’ is as or more important than the ‘I got mine.’
gnomedad
@OzarkHillbilly:
Markets are institutions. They can be regulated well or badly. Plutocrats advocate policies that ensure their dominance and call it “deregulation”.
rikyrah
@Tommy:
Reading that letter just felt good. Why deal with azzes if you don’t have to.
Shakezula
Is this necessary? If they really are socially liberal, the GOP’s “A queer in every closet and a bun in every oven,” platform should have them stampeding out of the room. If they’re still hanging around it must be because the idea of not having to pay taxes or being able to dump weed killer into the nearest creek is too big a turn on to resist.
RepubAnon
@NotMax: The problem the Koch Brothers have with libertarianism is that they also believe in top-down hierarchical social structures. Perhaps they should start the Cognitive Dissonance Party.
gnomedad
Newsmax: Dick Morris: Obama Could Resign
And monkeys could fly out my butt. Though it would be fun having Biden for a while.
rikyrah
Libertarianism never extended to my uterus, as their heroes the Pauls want all up in my uterus. Nor does it extend to my ancestors, because they have no problem with the police state that was American Apartheid.
Can’t be against it… gotta defend those States Rights. Rand Paul just defended States Rights last month while supporting the voter suppression Voter ID laws.
bemused
Anyone read Lee Fang’s book “The Machine” that Digby referenced and if so, opinions?
Cassidy
Libertarians are too busy daydreaming about being the rugged hero in social collapse.
Ruckus
@tsquared2001:
Either you have a reading comprehension problem or you fit into the group discussed.
Try again.
Jay C
@gnomedad:
A feature, not a bug….
Stella B.
I volunteered to work for the Red Cross after hurricane Katrina. I was sent to a shelter in Ron Paul’s district. I was standing behind him and heard him say, looking around the shelter, “this is how it ought to be, neighbor helping neighbor.” The RC is incredibly inefficient. The “neighbors” cleaned all the used, crappy clothes and hotel soaps out of their closets and dumped the refuse at the shelter, local optometrists volunteered to replace glasses, then decided weeks later to demand payment from the RC, enormous amounts of monetary donations went to RC overhead. Can someone really be as naive as the Pauls?
Stella B.
@rikyrah: Yes, I only learned recently that libertarians are anti-choice. Even that sentence doesn’t make sense to me.
Pee Cee
As has been pointed out, the “fiscal conservatives” are already the mainstream of the Democratic party. But as for these libertarians who just might be disenchanted with the Republican party for still not being willing to allow them to smoke dope, who cares?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Tommy: Some money isn’t worth earning, and that client’s account sounds like it qualifies. Since you get so much business by referral, in your shoes I might avoid the caustic – and deserved – shots taken at him as a client. It would not be especially good referral promotion for him to send that letter far and wide.
Now that you’ve enjoyed drafting that missive, perhaps a shorter “it seems our approached to site design are too radically different and you would benefit from a different contractor going forward” might be a less pointed way to fire him.
cokane
Every politician wants to claim the mantle of being “fiscally conservative”. Even Krugman says he’s fiscally conservative, just prudent to the times. Standing for fiscal conservatism is like being for the children.
Splitting Image
@Stella B.:
If you think that Ron Paul is naive, check out the tax returns that he released during his last presidential run. Goldbug that he is, he doesn’t invest in bullion. Most of his money was invested in companies that mine gold. He makes a tidy profit when people buy gold bullion, and would stand to make a good deal more if the U.S. went back on the gold standard.
eyelessgame
I was enchanted by seeing last week, for the first time, the neologomorph “libert-aryans”.
The Ls aren’t ever going to be environmentalists. From my best understanding of the thinking, it goes like this.
If one accepts that the Market is the mechanism to find the best solution to any problem – and if you don’t believe that, you’re not a libertarian – then, in responding to the claim “there is a problem with the climate”, one must conclude either (a) the Market will unleash all its laissez fairies to the task and find a best solution, (b) no solution exists and we shall just have to live with the results, or (c) there is no actual problem and they’re making it all up for nefarious reasons.
You can find libertarians taking any of the three positions, as well as “open-minded” ones saying they don’t know which of those is right but one of them has to be. Anyone who suggests (d), collective action (laws, regulations, etc.) is necessary to combat climate change, is by definition not libertarian, because the claim violates the core precept of libertarianism: that laws/regulations interfere with the Market, and result in a worse solution than if the laissez fairies were simply freed to use their invisible hands.
I’ve seen the process work to cause denial of the problem through a basic syllogism – the Market solves all problems; the Market is not solving climate change; therefore climate change is not a problem. You can’t turn them around unless you can get them to admit the Market does not solve all problems – which requires that you get them to repudiate libertarianism.
Ruckus
@eyelessgame:
“That’s some catch that catch 22.”
Villago Delenda Est
@eyelessgame: Adam Smith (here I go again) would fail the “libertarian” test, and he’s the guy who first described market mechanisms.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cassidy:
FTFY
Pogonip
@tsquared2001: It works great if you’re the biggest dog. What these libertarian idiots never think of is that there can be only one biggest dog and that standards for the biggest dog can and do change over time, but almost always they revert back to the biggest dog also being the dog who can bite hardest. Imagine your average keyboard-tapping libertarian in 9th-century Britain, before Alfred the Great instituted the first steps toward modern civilization, and you’ll see what I mean. Libertarians always want to tear down what better men like Alfred built before them, not realizing that what they’re wanting to destroy is precisely what allows them to live.
Bort
If that smelter pollutes, we’ll just all buy our ingots from somewhere else! Fuck libertarians and their shitty utopian philosophy. They vote Republican 99% of the time and then when people complain they shrug their shoulders and say “well actually I’m a libertarian”.
Xboxershorts
@Shakezula:
I’ve been making this point for a long long time. That there does exist a more progressive side to the current neoGlibertarians that were swayed by the KOCH network propaganda but definitely has great disdain for the theocrats that the GOP must cater to in order to win at the national and state level.
These socially liberal fiscally conservative voters are the natural political allies of the progressive wing of the democratic party.
Let me reiterate….
These socially liberal fiscally conservative voters are the natural political allies of the progressive wing of the democratic party.
The best way to win them is to draw them away from the propaganda. They do respond to empirical evidence and rational argument. The harsh criticism about them is deserved only if they’re glued too their propaganda that keeps them voting for theocrats and plutocrats. At the same time, the Democratic party richly deserves it’s criticism for adopting the fairly tale of trickle down economics and their own brand of Plutocrat.
I’ll probably take some heat for this but I honestly believe this with all my convictions
If you really want to change things up in Washington, you have no choice but to ally with them.
Linnaeus
“Socially liberal, fiscally conservative” needs to be retired.
Bruce Baugh
@Linnaeus:
And how.
Most libertarians make a big deal about being clear-eyed payers of attention to the data…but then they absolutely refuse to engage with data like which party’s presidents preside over stock market improvements and which don’t, which party balances its budgets and which doesn’t, which party prefers to spend money on things with high multipliers and which doesn’t, which party favors steady consistent administration, legislation, and jurisprudence and which keeps throwing everything amok through incompetence and petulant whim, which states have populations that are prone to stable relationships, good health, and the like and which are prone to violence, sickness, corruption, and so on….
They’ve got a mental model of how it must be and carry on with the blithe obliviousness of a Mises or Rand to what’s actually happening. And I honestly pretty much never see anything but personal suffering shocking them out of it.
Someone who wants sound, sensible, responsible, planning-friendly, productive, minimally intrusive government should have been backing Democrats for the last forty years and counting.
Xboxershorts
@Bruce Baugh:
There have been some very disgusting democrats that have gotten the DNCs backing in congressional races and at the state level.
The corruption rampant in the NY State Legislature comes immediately to mind.
PA’s Democrats penchant for corruption wound up turning that state an ugly and deep KOCH colored red in 2010.
Neither of the 2 main parties really holds the high ground here in in America.
Matt McIrvin
I’ve been accustomed to hearing this “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” line from totebagger Democrats, and it usually bugs the hell out of me. Congratulations about supporting gay rights; now let’s talk about how much you hate unions and welfare.
I feel a bit ambivalent about the idea of inviting more of these types into the club, but I guess it’s probably better than having them somewhere else.
Matt McIrvin
@OzarkHillbilly:
Someone on Crooked Timber once explained to me the difference between the UK Revolutionary Communist Party and the US Revolutionary Communist Party by saying “the UK RCP were the kind of stupid you have to be really smart to be; the US RCP are just stupid.” And the British outfit eventually turned into some kind of radical libertarians.
Matt McIrvin
@Shakezula:
The libertarians I’ve heard address this, if they’re actually against the right-wing social agenda to begin with, generally insist that the first goal is to eliminate taxes and starve the beast, and then the people will have the power to thwart government on the social authortarianism, which is all government’s fault and would melt away without the state. It’s really a utopian ideology.
Tehanu
@Mnemosyne:
Oh, it broke my heart when they didn’t make any more of those. They stuck to the books, except where they actually improved on them, which is so rare as to be almost impossible. The actors were just amazing, not just Jill Scott and Anika Noni Rose but also Lucian Msamati as Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni — a Shakespearean actor totally convincing as a small-town mechanic. Thanks for mentioning it!