Y'know how Patrick said, in ct #6, "Meanwhile, if dimbulb Park Service cops decide to beat up on libertarians, then I'm a libertarian"?
I'm moved by a similar spirit myself, but more along the lines of If commenters are going to dog-pile onto libertarians and reduce them to a cartoon stereotype, then I'm a libertarian. I just stuck Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom onto my Amazon wish list.
So does this.
#94 ::: j h woodyatt ::: April 14, 2008, 05:13 PM:
Now, do I think the "victims had it coming" here? No, of course not. I don't like it when the cops bust up my rave for no good reason, and I don't see why anybody else's rave ought to be a problem for them either.
However... libertarians. I'm trying really hard not to succumb to schadenfreud, and I don't particularly need to join in the dogpile, but I fear I'm not going to be able to come across with enough sympathy if this is going to be one of those salute the flag moments. I'm acquainted with a fair number of Silicon Valley pinhead libertarians, and they are not— as a class— my favorite sort of people with which to work on a project that requires any kind of collaborative spirit.
#96 ::: albatross ::: (view all by) ::: April 14, 2008, 05:46 PM:
Terry #91: I have to say, most of the positions you described there looked really, really different from what I've understood of libertarianism. If you distrust government power, it's hard to see where you'd come to think that including torture in the set of punishments available to the government would be a good thing, frex. If you don't think the state should be interfering in market transactions to achieve social goals, Jim Crow laws are really hard to justify. Pushing the Indians off their land seems similar.
I am supremely not interested in doing the one-man-against-the-dogpile thing here. Enough so that I've hesitated to post this.
albatross has a lot more willingness to argue than I do.
#97 ::: P J Evans ::: April 14, 2008, 06:01 PM:
albtross @ 96
That's a lot of what the 'Libertarian Party' says when they're pushing their propaganda: business regulation and zoning laws bad, etc. (Right up until the guy next door wants to put in a business or build a house that the 'Lib' doesn't want next door, then he'll be organizing petitions against it.)
#101 ::: mjfgates ::: April 14, 2008, 06:59 PM:
Libertarians don't like Jim Crow *laws*, exactly. It's just that if a merchant just HAPPENS to have a policy that some people can only use the special "colored" restroom, well, he's exercising his freedom over the restrooms he owns. If ALL the merchants do that, they're exercising THEIR freedom. And if a mob descends upon the one merchant who doesn't do it, and burns down his store and murders him and his family, he's perfectly free to try to defend himself against them, and when it doesn't work, why, the tree of liberty etc. Very creepy, to hear that particular quote used as a *defense* of rule by the KKK or similar gangs of criminals.
#118 ::: j h woodyatt ::: April 14, 2008, 09:23 PM:
I guess I could expand on my previous remarks by noting that it feels awfully weird to be invited to participate in the deconstruction of the ongoing cultural hegemony of contemporary American authoritarians using a collection of Washington DC Libertarian activists as the illustration. Yes, they were treated unfairly by the cops. Yes, the commenters at The Wreck Of The Megan McArdle are contributing in various classifiable ways toward the furthering of the cultural hegemony that this kind of police mistreatment depends upon. I mean: compare the linked videos to this one that went around awhile back. Underneath it all, I'm having a hard time getting cranked about the Park Police arresting one person at the Jefferson Memorial and questioning them for five hours, never mind that it's someone who probably cheered when I was arrested in San Francisco on January 16, 1991 under terms that were basically a reading of the Riot Act.
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Date: 2008-04-15 02:35 pm (UTC)Y'know how Patrick said, in ct #6, "Meanwhile, if dimbulb Park Service cops decide to beat up on libertarians, then I'm a libertarian"?
I'm moved by a similar spirit myself, but more along the lines of If commenters are going to dog-pile onto libertarians and reduce them to a cartoon stereotype, then I'm a libertarian. I just stuck Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom onto my Amazon wish list.
So does this.
#94 ::: j h woodyatt ::: April 14, 2008, 05:13 PM:
Now, do I think the "victims had it coming" here? No, of course not. I don't like it when the cops bust up my rave for no good reason, and I don't see why anybody else's rave ought to be a problem for them either.
However... libertarians. I'm trying really hard not to succumb to schadenfreud, and I don't particularly need to join in the dogpile, but I fear I'm not going to be able to come across with enough sympathy if this is going to be one of those salute the flag moments. I'm acquainted with a fair number of Silicon Valley pinhead libertarians, and they are not— as a class— my favorite sort of people with which to work on a project that requires any kind of collaborative spirit.
#96 ::: albatross ::: (view all by) ::: April 14, 2008, 05:46 PM:
Terry #91: I have to say, most of the positions you described there looked really, really different from what I've understood of libertarianism. If you distrust government power, it's hard to see where you'd come to think that including torture in the set of punishments available to the government would be a good thing, frex. If you don't think the state should be interfering in market transactions to achieve social goals, Jim Crow laws are really hard to justify. Pushing the Indians off their land seems similar.
I am supremely not interested in doing the one-man-against-the-dogpile thing here. Enough so that I've hesitated to post this.
albatross has a lot more willingness to argue than I do.
#97 ::: P J Evans ::: April 14, 2008, 06:01 PM:
albtross @ 96
That's a lot of what the 'Libertarian Party' says when they're pushing their propaganda: business regulation and zoning laws bad, etc. (Right up until the guy next door wants to put in a business or build a house that the 'Lib' doesn't want next door, then he'll be organizing petitions against it.)
#101 ::: mjfgates ::: April 14, 2008, 06:59 PM:
Libertarians don't like Jim Crow *laws*, exactly. It's just that if a merchant just HAPPENS to have a policy that some people can only use the special "colored" restroom, well, he's exercising his freedom over the restrooms he owns. If ALL the merchants do that, they're exercising THEIR freedom. And if a mob descends upon the one merchant who doesn't do it, and burns down his store and murders him and his family, he's perfectly free to try to defend himself against them, and when it doesn't work, why, the tree of liberty etc. Very creepy, to hear that particular quote used as a *defense* of rule by the KKK or similar gangs of criminals.
#118 ::: j h woodyatt ::: April 14, 2008, 09:23 PM:
I guess I could expand on my previous remarks by noting that it feels awfully weird to be invited to participate in the deconstruction of the ongoing cultural hegemony of contemporary American authoritarians using a collection of Washington DC Libertarian activists as the illustration. Yes, they were treated unfairly by the cops. Yes, the commenters at The Wreck Of The Megan McArdle are contributing in various classifiable ways toward the furthering of the cultural hegemony that this kind of police mistreatment depends upon. I mean: compare the linked videos to this one that went around awhile back. Underneath it all, I'm having a hard time getting cranked about the Park Police arresting one person at the Jefferson Memorial and questioning them for five hours, never mind that it's someone who probably cheered when I was arrested in San Francisco on January 16, 1991 under terms that were basically a reading of the Riot Act.
Emphasis added.