Nothing Is Funnier Than Angry Cracked-Out
Libertarians. Nothing.

Pssst. Secret time. I’m a lot more libertarian than I let on in this blog. I’m generally against gun control, and I don’t believe in nanny-stating people with things like mandatory seatbelt laws. Where I split with libertarians is usually on things like supporting organized labor (I’m unquestioningly pro-labor in the vast majority of cases*), but I’m very sympathetic to their point of view in a lot of ways. Real libertarians — i.e., not the Glenn Reynolds variety — have been very good about opposing things like torture and warrantless spying on American citizens, and for that I tip my hat.

That said, some libertarians can be pretty damn wacky. And as The Editors and Sifu Tweety know full well, hell hath no hilarity like a libertarian scorned. I mention this because I found the following comment posted in one of my “Ha-ha-Glenn-Reynolds-wants-to-have-his-brain-downloaded-into-a-robot-and-fly-into-space” threads. It reads as follows:

You live in the golden age. It lasts until the oil runs out. After that it’s back to 1850 except for the part about having already dug from the ground everything that’s easily diggable, so make that 1750. Let’s see you fight cancer and AIDS with no equipment. Hunger? You’re going back to plows pulled by oxen; good luck feeding yourselves, let alone anyone else. Poverty? In the new old world, even the rich will be poor. “All your toys are belong to us.�

And that’s the good news. What’s the bad news? Well, there’s an unstable island in the Atlantic set to collapse and trigger a supertsunami that will wipe out the East Coast of America, there’s a finely balanced underwater rock in the Pacific set to do the same to the West Coast, the Yellowstone magma pocket could go any minute to finish off the middle of the country, we’re overdue for a major asteroid strike that will take care of the rest of the planet, and oh yes, it seems that the only thing staving off the next ice age is global warming.

Let’s see you cope with those challenges in the new 1750.

You’ve got one opportunity to become more or less self sustaining by getting into space in a big way, and this is it. There are no second chances. Have fun, and when it’s too late just keep repeating “It’s only science fiction.�


To summarize: “BWAH-HA-HA, WHILE U R STUCK IN YOU’RE GAY EARTH BODY AND DOING PHYSICAL WORK, I WILL BE A SPACE BOT AND DOING HOT ROBO-CHIX!!!1!”

Raise your hand if you think this guy looks something like this:

nerd2.jpg

Anyway, that was our very first pissed-off transhumanist troll. I can only hope we get a few more before the Singularity occurs.

Gavin adds: Well, those are some real problems he’s identifying, but isn’t space basically a vast, empty and frigid vacuum save for a few relatively nearby planets, none of which can naturally harbor human life? I mean, say you’re on a flight somewhere and there’s some bad turbulence and they run out of vodka and little packages of Chex Party Mix. This clown would be like, “We have only one chance. We must develop a plan for jumping out of the airplane.”

*Exception is the baseball player’s union.

 

Comments: 115

 
 
 

That can’t be him.

Real transhumanists are Mac-exclusive.

 
 

And, of course, now you change the picture. /sigh.

 
 

Sorry dude. I found the pic with the Cylon guy, and it was love at first sight.

 
 

(And for any offended nerds out there- I assure you that I myself am a nerd. It’s just that I’m not, you know, insane.)

 
 

All that stuff is going to happen all at once?! I better dig me a bomb shelter!!!!!!! By hand because it’s 1750!!

 
 

Brad, how would you define “generally against gun control”?

As for the rest, you sound like a liberal. Unless you’re secretly against liberal tax ideas.

 
 

Uhhh, is the little rocket ship between the robot’s legs his “Detachable Penis”?

Just askin

mikey

 
 

Gary- Oh, I’m a liberal all right. But I do think that bearing arms (the non-automatic sort at any rate) is a right that people should have.

 
 

He looks like a very typical Fan.

I sort of fit in Libertarian Left, which means a distinct bias against corporations.

 
 

Did they still have pirates in 1750? If so, I would like to be a pirate.

You know why? Because in the future we’re going to be living underwater, like Sea Lab and/or Quest. Only a total loser would still be thinking in the space travel paradigm. We’ll harness power from magma flows and use dolphins to communicate with distant settlements. And we’ll be all like, “Suck it, giant ocean rock! Your tsunami can’t touch us!” Oh, and my robot pirate body will be SO much more 133t than yours. Seriously.

And if that doesn’t make sense to you, then you’re a communist.

 
 

But I do think that bearing arms (the non-automatic sort at any rate) is a right that people should have.

Yeah, but what’s your opinion on the ownership of phased plasma rifles with a 40 watt range?

We need to know if we’re going to judge your libertarian credentials.

 
 

Once More Unto the Breach…

Once more. Or close the wall up with our English dead! [Warning: San Diego State Before I Discovered Ska Edition]…

 
 

Isn’t that the nerdy movie review guy?* I mean the guy in the picture, not the transhumanist troll?

*I’m aware how little information this description contains in trying to identify him

 
 

D.A.- that’s what my roommate just said. So I think you’re right.

 
 

I think that dude is Steve Den Beste’s brother, you know the hip love-machine brother.

 
 

I’m a Libertarian of the Viking persuasion. I feel at liberty to do and take anything I want. Right now I’m looking to pillage a drug store and get some Gold Bond for these God damned reindeer boots.

 
 

But I do think that bearing arms (the non-automatic sort at any rate) is a right that people should have.

You’re either for personal ownership of all weapons up to and including thermonuclear warheads, or you’re a pansy-ass liberal. I think we all know what side of that fence you fall on.

 
 

That is, personal ownership of all weapons (except for Persians, Arabs, Polynesians, Chinese, Mongolians, Indians, American Indians, Puerto Ricans, and other various and sundry America-haters).

 
 

I do believe that is the one and only Harry Knowles.

If you don’t plan eating for a few days, read his review of Blade 2.

 
 

Personally, I think this blast from the past would’ve worked just as well as the picture of Knowles.

Do you think they’ll be space zombies in the transhuman world of the future?

 
 

Brad–

Stop. You’re going to make me take libertarians more seriously than I want to. Note, for your amusement, that I’m probably older than your father. My “take”? Libertarianism is the political philosophy of a smart 14-year-old: well able to manipulate abstractions, but unaware of how he (and, by extension, the real world) really works. He (not you, mind you. The hypothetical teen) has no real history, and so doesn’t know the lessons of history: that institutions lie/kill/etc. (read: corporations as well as gov’t.), that people are a lot of nature as well as nurture, that privilege is entrenched, etc.

You’re the first person I’ve “met” who I respect who talks Libertarian, so pass the grain of salt. Still: say it ain’t so. (Gun control: surely not. Guns don’t kill people. People who have guns kill people. Etc.)

 
 

So, like this is gonna happen overnight; the oil is gonna get turned off at the tap, and suddenly we won’t have any, like solar power or wind power, and all the things that we make out of petroleum byproducts will immediately disappear – even, you know, the recyclable waste piled up — before we can figure out how to make them using cellulose or some damn other thing?

The good news is, I guess, my dining room chairs will all turn into original Chippendales or Duncan Pfyfes.

 
 

MrWonderful- caaaaaalm down, amigo. I just said I’m more libertarian than I let on, and there’s some libertarians whom I read on a regular basis (Henley, Arthur Silber, the saner REASON kids). I’m not a Randian by any stretch of the imagination if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s more that there are some elements of libertarianism that I find worthwhile.

 
 

I really don’t understand the scorn and derision being heaped on the idea of space exploration and colonization. Maybe it’s a generational thing – I grew up on the Space Program, science fiction, and ST:TOS, so “Should we go into space?” has always struck me as a silly question.

Here’s the thing: humans won’t stop breeding, won’t stop consuming, and won’t stop looking for more resources after we run out of the ones we have. We’ve outwitted Malthusian predictions over and over again, because we are a clever species. But each technological advance that enabled us to overcome every successive carrying capacity limit only led to more humans with higher quality of life/materialist expectations.

Just for argument’s sake, think of agriculture and energy production as efficiency indicators: technological advances enable us to get more food and more energy from the same amount of acreage or barrel of oil. That looks good, until you factor in the increased population that inevitably results, so the higher efficiency curve levels off as the required ouput increases. And that doesn’t even take into account the secondary and tertiary effects of the advances that enable the efficiency; i.e., more waste products, more habitat destruction, more extinctions, and more mutagenic/viral wildcards. Soon enough, you’re right back where you started – pushing the limits of the known carrying capacity – and looking around for more ways around it.

There are only two ways that cycle stops.

Either there is a huge and hideous crash – environmental, economic, viral/bacteriological – that kills off a significant part of the human population, and takes most of the non-human species with it.

Or humans find new sources of what we need to survive and prosper.

At this point, the only way to find “more” here on Earth is to keep on despoiling, keep on using up, keep on competing with every other nation and species on the planet.

What does that leave?

People who advocate space travel, exploration and colonization aren’t saying “Well, let’s use up Earth and then find someplace else.” We’re saying “Let’s find someplace in addition to, and get out there before we use up, Earth.”

Inventing and using more eco-friendly technologies in agriculture, transport, industry and manufacturing are great – but they’re not enough, and they’re never going to be enough, because humans won’t stop breeding. We’re adding another billion humans every, what, two years now? At some point, there simply won’t be enough efficiencies we can find to keep ourselves fed, clothed, housed, and warm without wrecking the place, no matter how hard and conscientiously we try.

Yes, unless we find an “Earthlike world” – highly unlikely unless we have some kind of anti-relativistic drive that lets us travel tens of millions of lightyears in a generation – we’ll need to terraform. I don’t get what’s so awful about that. If you live in a highly urbanized area, you already live in what amounts to a terraformed environment. Air conditioning, central heat, shopping malls, theme parks – are already artificial life support systems and ersatz versions of “the real thing.” And terraforming doesn’t just mean living in subterranean bubbles or under domes: the science exists, at least theoretically, to transform a planet into something Earth-like, from the gases and microbes up.

Yes, it will take a very long time. Centuries, maybe.

But those centuries will pass even if we stay confined to one planet.

What will life on Earth look like in 500 years, in a thousand years? How long can we keep dodging Malthus?

Unless you like the idea of a crash that kills off half the humans living on the planet – unless you like the idea of the environmental damage that will happen along the way, that degrades and kills off everyone else before it’s humanity’s turn – then there are no alternatives to finding more places to live besides this one single planet.

 
 

Not even Bea Arthur singing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzXKySxPFCI – The Bea-Bomb has been dropped, I repeat, the Bea-Bomb has been dropped!

 
 

Not to mention the fact that the intrepid space explorers flying off to another planet in the nick of time before the great Hand o’ God turns off the Oil Tap will have to…uh…dig everything out of the earth and feed themselves, only the difference between them and us is that we won’t have to create an artificial environment that sustains us with the atmosphere and temperature we need.

So pretty much the intrepid explorers who escape our oil bereft planet are going to be oil bereft themselves, only in a much more inhospitable place.

 
 

/\ /\
I should’ve prefaced that comment with:
Nothing Is Funnier Than Angry Cracked-Out
Libertarians. Nothing.

 
 

But I do think that bearing arms (the non-automatic sort at any rate) is a right that people should have.

But I doubt you’ll condemn liberal efforts to take guns away from law-abiding citizens.

 
Herr Doktor Bimler
 

Elgfrothi said,
I’m a Libertarian of the Viking persuasion. I feel at liberty to do and take anything I want. Right now I’m looking to pillage a drug store and get some Gold Bond for these God damned reindeer boots.

Elgfrothi, have you been drinking the Chateau Wampanoag 834 again?

 
 

Casey- I’m not deriding the idea of space exploration and/or colonization. I’m deriding elitist assholes whose sole goal is to escape Earth and leave all those dirty non-transhuman people behind.

 
 

jrm78, you are merciless. I may become a Latter-Day Luddite if this war continues much longer.

 
 

But I doubt you’ll condemn liberal efforts to take guns away from law-abiding citizens.

Uh sure. Gimme an example where this is happening.

 
 

CaseyL

>> because humans won’t stop breeding.

Says who? They’ve already esssentially stopped breeding in Europe and Japan (well, not literally… but populations are shrinking there). The US is growing mostly through immigration. China and India are still growing, but their growth is leveling off very rapidly. In fact, the only areas still booming are Africa and the Middle East, and if we can solve the problems of war and poverty there (as we pretty much already have in Asia), there’s every reason to suspect that populations will level off there as well.

So why do we need to leave, again?

Sean

 
 

It happens all the time in places like Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Detroit.

The reason why those towns are filled with crime is due to their repressive laws about gun ownership.

Brad might be buying into the nonsense from Kos about how the Democrats just need to claim to be libertarians, and that would solve everything.

Granted, I wouldn’t be taking advice from a guy who hailed the murder of Americans in Fallujah.

The news about the Democrats exploiting the deaths of our soldiers in Iraq for their own gain is going to cause a lot of pain for Democrats.

You see, the Republican party is on the offensive to prove that we are still the best choice for America.

 
ned fucking flanders
 

Geez, Gary, I’d sure like to see some actual evidence that “repressive laws about gun ownership” actually lead to increased crime. And nothing from John Lott, please – I mean not-faked research.

And Brad, as odious as the concept of a union for millionaires is, I can’t believe you’d back the baseball owners over the players. Shit, the players deserve the lion’s share – I mean, who the fuck goes to Yankee Stadium to watch Steinbrenner?

 
 

tigrismus-

yeah, it’s been something of a carpet bombing run with teh Bea.

I’ve been having trouble topping it. so here’s a pathetic attempt:

 
 

I never got people who say we’re “over due” for a meteor. That’s kinda.. like… being over due for getting a splinter in your eye.
Nutjob Conspiracy Theory: The next-gen power-source is already to go, the Big Companies are holding on to it until the gas crises really explodes, so that they can be hailed as saviors and charge five times as much for the product. This is, of course, being masterminded by the Gay Mafia and Rovian Youth, a puppet organization for the Peoples Front of Kos.
All will be as it was, until Xur and the Ko’dan Armada show up to do battle with the Church of Scientology for the fate of life as we know it.
I know the Snuggle Bear is in this somwhere… but HOW?!

Don’t you get it Brad? FIrst they make you wait half a week to get your new high-powered, full auto rabbit hunting rifle, then they try to make sure that serial killers don’t get a Mac-10, next thing you know, they’re trying to ban low-calibre personal defense sidearms from day care centers. It’s a slippery slope. Slippery, like a greased-up gecko.
Here’s how to have fun with the gun-lobby. Enact a law that, upon birth, every citizen is giving one firearm, and only allowed to have that one firearm. But, the fun part is that it’s a musket. If you’re VERY good, when you turn 18, you get one with rifling.

 
 

Preserve the right to keep and bear robot arms.

 
 

Yup, Libertarianism is the philosophy of a smart 14-yr old. When I was a smart 14-yr old, I was a Libertarian. Now that I’m a (not so smart) (not so young) guy, I’m a Libertarian-leaning Democrat. I believe in the free market – but I don’t pretend that externalities (e.g. environment) have no value. I have no beef with gun ownership; I have some sympathy for people who live in areas where gun violence seems epidemic, but that’s not my fight. However, it is true that the way the current administration pisses on the bill of rights has given me some respect for the hardcore gun owners. At the core, they recognize that America is not about being the safest country in the world, it’s about being the most free (freeest??). “You can have my first amendment when you pry it from my cold dead fingers” is a sentiment that I’d like to hear more regularly. If you’re so scared of terrorists that you’re willing to scrap the Constitution’s protections against tyranny, that doesn’t make you a patriot – it makes you a pussy.

 
 

You see, the Republican party is on the offensive to prove that we are still the best choice for America.

BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!11!!
*sniffle*
…HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAA!!one!

 
 

I’m in. Give me Brown Bess and I’ll be just fine, thank YOU!!

mikey

 
 

hee hee hee, ohshitIjustcan’tstop, chortle chuckle….

 
 

Gary, troll better. I live near DC, and PG county, and I can tell you right now that the gun violence has NOTHING to do with “repressive” gun laws. Ass.
About a month ago, two Fairfax County police officers were ambushed and gunned in front of a police station down by a kid with several firearms, including an AK-47. If I felt like it, I’d google up a page reporting on how many adults and children have been killed IN their homes by stray gun fire, from drug deals or gang violence in DC. Just a few example sot of many.
You’re welcome to go to their families and explain to them that the reason their loved ones are dead is because of repressive gun laws, but fucking expect anyone to help you get your ass out of the room in one piece.
Educate yourself. Troll better.

 
Herr Doktor Bimler
 

CaseyL said
Unless you like the idea of a crash that kills off half the humans living on the planet – unless you like the idea of the environmental damage that will happen along the way, that degrades and kills off everyone else before it’s humanity’s turn – then there are no alternatives to finding more places to live besides this one single planet

Mass starvation, resource depletion, super-tsunamis, video wars… These are all bad things. But could someone explain how finding other planets to inhabit will prevent them? How do people in space help to relieve Malthusian pressure or provide Earth with new resources? Inquiring minds would like to know. Vast, cool, unsympathetic but inquiring minds.

You write Either there is a huge and hideous crash – environmental, economic, viral/bacteriological – that kills off a significant part of the human population, and takes most of the non-human species with it. Or humans find new sources of what we need to survive and prosper — as if the two are mutually exclusive. Or we can have both! We can have our cake and die en masse of starvation!

 
 

Geez, marq bwa-hah-hahed right off the edge of my screen. Are you OK? I think you fell on my printer.

 
Phoenician in a time of Romans
 

Not to mention the fact that the intrepid space explorers flying off to another planet in the nick of time before the great Hand o’ God turns off the Oil Tap will have to…uh…dig everything out of the earth and feed themselves, only the difference between them and us is that we won’t have to create an artificial environment that sustains us with the atmosphere and temperature we need.

So pretty much the intrepid explorers who escape our oil bereft planet are going to be oil bereft themselves, only in a much more inhospitable place.

I’m sure they’ll be devastated by their inability to run SUVs, just as you’re devastated by your inability to light fires using dried buffalo dung.

I’m going to lean more towards the Transhumanist camp here, and I’ll provide a challenge to everyone scoffing at that idea.

Consider what life was like in 1906. Consider what it was like in 1806.

NOW explain to me why you should be considered more realistic than the transhumanists about life in 2106 or 2206…

 
 

Fun with ellipses!

You see, the Republican party is on the offensive to prove that we are still the best choice for America.
becomes…
… [T]he Republican party is … offensive to … America.

 
 

I saw that picture and wondered when Dafyyd ab Hugh grew a beard and dyed his hair.

 
 

Brad, that dude is talking about a chucnk of one of the Azores or Canary Islands I think. A huge unstable chunk of volcanic shelf. It is not probable, but he’s not talking about a completely made up situation.

Dude, please don’t ever use the phrase nanny-state ever again, and wear your god-damned seat belt. Don’t be a munchwad.

 
 

CaseyL:

Not to poop on your theories of population and resource use, solidly grounded as they are in the very hardest of Science Fiction, but I think you might have missed a few possibilities in that “Space or Bust” analysis.

I mean, what if the human population and the renewable resources available on Earth come gradually into balance? You know, without that cataclysmic population crash thing?

Or how about this: what if there is indeed a population crash, but its effects are felt primarily in the poorer, less developed parts of the world, thereby leaving largely intact all of the snazzy rocket factories and other industrial stuff that sci-fi nerds commonly mistake for civilization?

And if you do manage to launch your expansionist society into space (thereby dodging the unpleasant thought of a conservationist, and most likely less gadget-adorned social milieu), well, how much time does that buy you?

If your fatalistic view of human nature is correct, and there are a finite number of habitable planets out there, then won’t humanity just burn through all of them as fast as we can breed? You know, at what the nerds call an exponential rate?

How is devouring every useable crumb in all of space better than just stripping a single planet of material useful to life? And what are the ethical implications? If you’re a real Sci-Fi fan, then how do you rationalize extending a slash-and-burn culture to the entire universe, thereby destroying alien life-forms and/or the environments that might one day give rise to them?

I’m not saying Outer Space wouldn’t be a great place to go shopping, but unless we figured out how to sustainably manage this planet first, I don’t think a Colony Ship Project would do us much good.

 
 

Punko- fuck you. I always wear my damn seatbelt. I just don’t think I should be fined if I choose not to wear it.

 
 

I don’t believe in nanny-stating people with things like mandatory seatbelt laws

I’m sorry, gotta disagree with you there Ayn, erm, I mean Brad. 🙂 I’m utterly baffled when I read stuff like this. Does anyone doubt that wearing seatbelts saves lives? It *should* be mandated–in fact, I wish cars wouldn’t even start unless everyone was buckled in. My brother was a paramedic for 20 years and he could bore you for hours with stories of people that would be alive or able to move more than their eyelids if they’d just buckled up. Jeebus, it’s like those asshats that think wearing a helmet while riding a motorcycle at 90 miles an hour is an infringement on their freedoms, maaaan. No, dickhead, it’s because the government, evil as it is, as much as it has the Black Helicopters fueled and ready to go to invade, has a vested interest in keeping you alive and not burdening the rest of us with the trauma and expense of your body parts being splattered over a quarter mile radius.

*Cough* Sorry. Except for my position that all drugs, gambling and prostitution should be legalized stat, I don’t have a libertarian bone in my body, I guess.

Anywho. It’s a nice fantasy, escaping to the stars to leave this clusterfuck behind. I simply don’t see how it’s possible at any point within most of our lifetimes. We can’t even do the space shuttle on a reliable basis, the International Space Station will never live up to all its wild claims etc. I mean, just to get a human to Mars would take over six months; not only are we not even close to solving the propulsion problem involved, are we so close to becoming to transhuman that the fact that the human body couldn’t take it either mean anything? I’d love it if we discovered a rip in the space-time continuum and could travel to the Orion Nebula in three hours, but it’s going to be *centuries* before we’re ready to colonize off-planet.

 
 

No, dickhead, it’s because the government, evil as it is, as much as it has the Black Helicopters fueled and ready to go to invade, has a vested interest in keeping you alive and not burdening the rest of us with the trauma and expense of your body parts being splattered over a quarter mile radius.

I dunno. Sometimes I think we save entirely too many lives. My attitude has evolved into, “If you don’t wanna wear a helmet, fine. But if you get hit while not wearing a helmet and you don’t have insurance, you’re fucked.” You can either be free or dead, basically.

 
 

Phoenician in a time of Romans said,

“NOW explain to me why you should be considered more realistic than the transhumanists about life in 2106 or 2206…”

Law of diminishing returns.

Also, non-renewable resources.

Any other questions?

 
 

Not even mentioning that the Biodome was a bust, and we can’t even rebuild New Orleans with y’know, oxygen around us. So what makes people certain we’re gonna create colonies considering all the resources would have to come from, y’know, us, and then be transported and manned…

Oh, right, terraforming. Who gets to be Spock’s brain?

 
 

Personally, I’m of the opinion that all motorcyclists should just be shot as soon as they purchase a bike. It’d save time, and I wouldn’t have to listen to them revving their fuckin’ hogs at all hours of the day and night. I get it, you’ve got a cock you need to compensate for, turn it the fuck down. I’m trying to get some sleep here.

 
 

Brad R.-
Damn straight. It seems like local governments are using stupid laws (ie. seat belt laws) as justifications to further invade our privacy, and to fill budgetary gaps, aka “revenue enhancement”. They recently did a traffic stop in my area during the morning rush to check for not drunks, but fargin seat belt violations. WTF?

And to those who think that being downloaded onto a robot will solve all the world’s problems and usher in some new-fangled u-techno-pia, just remember that even space robots have the blues.

getting late going to bed

 
 

GOOOO OAKLAND

 
 

or try this link…

 
 

All will be as it was, until Xur and the Ko’dan Armada show up to do battle with the Church of Scientology for the fate of life as we know it.

I don’t know what is worse: that you dropped a Last Starfighter reference or that I recognized it as a Last Starfighter reference.

 
 

Are people still treating Gary as if he’s a real-life talking points generator who is actually, sincerely making these points, or is this a running gag I’m not in on?

 
 

one last comment – could robot vids become the next progression in the videowarz?

 
 

norbs: I think the Ruppert(s) has just become the Sadly, No! family pet. It’s not like there’s any thought behind it, so you can’t really be *mad* with the poor guy. Unlike all the Goonsteins and Pattericots, he’s just a big dope.

There’s an omega in every pecking circle, and Gary does such a great job of it.

 
 

You know, there are good economic reasons for seat-belt laws, in addition to the self-endangerment rationale that people are discussing here.

It’s a lot more expensive for a government to deal with an accident that results in death or serious injury. There’s more police work involved, more potential legal hangups, more medical treatment, more damage to the local economy due to absent workers, potentially more use of social programs like child services, and so on.

Traffic fatalities and injuries are expensive, and a good chunk of that expense is borne by the government.

It’s not just a case of the government wanting to prevent you from doing something stupid— it’s also a case of the government not wanting to pay for the consequences of your stupidity.

 
Herr Doktor Bimler
 

You know, there are good economic reasons for seat-belt laws

Against that, there is the slippery-slope argument. First they make seat-belts mandatory… then they ban slippery slopes… and playgrounds are poorer for it.

It’s the thin end of the slippery slope. Or possibly the start of the wedge.

 
 

Myself, I don’t see the transhumanists’ pseudo-Christian death avoidance fantasies as realistic models for the future, short or long term. I’m looking forward to a Mad-Maxian post-apocalyptic dystopia myself. I’ve already bought the football shoulder pads and hockey mask, and have begun eating dog food so I’ll be used to the taste. Mmm, Alpo!

 
 

My ‘libertarianesque’ views only extend to behaviour thay only hurts yourself. Hence, I think (most) drugs should be legalised, but I’m all for strict gun control. But I’m also for mandatory seatbelts, because a full-sized human hurtling through a windshield can be as dangerous as a pistol, in the right (or rather, wrong) circumstances.

 
 

[…] Gary Ruppert: The news about the Democrats exploiting the deaths of our soldiers in Iraq for their own gain is going to cause a lot of pain for Democrats. […]

 
 

PS Holy cow, I just found out about a ‘real’ cyborg! this guy takes the transhumanist cake!

 
Herr Doktor Bimler
 

I really don’t understand the scorn and derision being heaped on the idea of space exploration and colonization.

Scorn and derision is what some people do best. From each according to his abilities…

Phoenician in a time of Romans said,
I’m sure they’ll be devastated by their inability to run SUVs, just as you’re devastated by your inability to light fires using dried buffalo dung.

Therein lies the point which I think you are missing. For our hypothetical colonies on a terraformed Mars, we are postulating some reasonably advanced energy supplies, as a substitute for fossil fuel. Solar energy, presumably, since no-one has said anything about uranium or thorium deposits (lack of plate tectonics, mumble mumble mumble).
OK, everything is solar energy in the final analysis, but you know what I mean.

Having postulated this renewable energy tech., whythehell not use it on Earth as well, in which case the whole reason for terraforming Mars becomes moot?

If we come back to the theme of intrepid space explorers flying off to another planet (which, to be fair, may not have been the topic of your snark), whichever technologies they have acquired to sustain their survival in that less-than-friendly environment, these can equally well be applied to forestall the various apocalypses on Earth.

Unless you assume some rather selective laws of physics [“Warning: The guarantee on this Acme Solar Cell is void within gravitational fields stronger than 9 metres-per-sec-squared”]. Or a cruel technological embargo.

 
Herr Doktor Bimler
 

“Real” cyborgs? See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stelarc

 
 

Say this crash does happen and we go back to 1750. Wouldn’t be so bad. It’s not like we need televisions and blenders and oil products anyway. In the world I see — you’re stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You will wear leather clothes that last you the rest of your life. You will climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. You will see tiny figures pounding corn and laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of the ruins of a superhighway. Meanwhile, their spaceship will hit an asteroid or a solar prominence or something.

 
 

This will all be pretty funny when we’re all dead.

 
 

Fine. Out-philosophise us all.

 
 

Brad R. is banned. And fined. For undisclosed reasons.

What I heard is he doesn’t wear his seatbelt.

And his best friend is Rudy Seanez.

And he has his sensitive pants on 2night.

 
 

“OK, everything is solar energy in the final analysis”

Geothermal energy is not solar, not even in the final analysis.

Pure gravitation. No fusion necessary. Some assembly required.

 
 

Seriously, though, you are free or dead, but oops you just orphaned three kids!

 
Herr Doktor Bimler
 

Geothermal energy is not solar, not even in the final analysis.

Pwned.

In the world I see — you’re stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You will wear leather clothes that last you the rest of your life. You will climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. You will see tiny figures pounding corn and laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of the ruins of a superhighway.

I for one welcome our Society for Creative Anachronism overlords

 
 

I think BradR has the right of it here. If we make seat belt use mandatory because of the burden of death on the state, then healthy eating should be mandatory. Daily exercise should be mandatory.

“Stop typing on that keyboard so much! You’ll give yourself carpal tunnel, and deprive the economy of your valuable work days!”

Geothermal energy is not solar, not even in the final analysis.

The heavy elements were all created by fusion, and without them there would be no geo for geothermal energy.

 
 

I think BradR has the right of it here. If we make seat belt use mandatory because of the burden of death on the state, then healthy eating should be mandatory. Daily exercise should be mandatory.

Seat belt laws are very beneficial to a community, especially those with low income. Why? Because the more people who wear their seatbelts, the less serious injuries and death will occur in the state due to vehicle accidents. This reduces law suits and insurance claims (both amounts and actual claims). This, in turn, helps reduce insurance costs for everyone in that state. Also, if I get in a car wreck with you and you die because you weren’t wearing a seat belt, I’m suddenly in all sorts of trouble that I wouldn’t have been in had you lived.

There is a very selfish, individualistic streak inherent in libertarianism that drives me crazy. To be frank, we as a community don’t care if you as the individual run out and kill yourself. But if you raise our insurance costs and inflict hardship on the rest of us, then it becomes our business. Libertarians don’t seem to understand this simple fact. You should be free to do whatever you like, marry who you want, speak your mind freely, etc. But when your actions have undue negative repercussions (second hand smoke, for example) on others, you’re fair game for a little friendly regulation.

And finally, if you don’t wear your seatbelt, you’re an idiot and deserve a ticket. Didn’t you pay attention in Driver’s Ed 😉 ?

 
 

There is a very selfish, individualistic streak inherent in libertarianism that drives me crazy.

That’s the more Randoid libertarianism, and yes it completely sucks.

I’m more into the “do what you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone else” sorta libertarianism.

 
 

But when your actions have undue negative repercussions (second hand smoke, for example) on others, you’re fair game for a little friendly regulation.

I used to disagree about second-hand smoke. But then Boston bars all banned smoking and it makes going out a much more pleasant experience. Plus, it helped make quitting easier for me.

So yes, some soft paternalism can be a good thing.

 
 

I for one welcome our Society for Creative Anachronism overlords.

My Viking friends and I once killed and ate an entire Renaissance Festival.

With a good Chianti.

 
 

We were wearing our helmets.

 
 

I’m all for smoking restrictions, as second-hand smoke does hurt people directly. But as I said, me not having a healthy diet DOES increase your insurance premiums. Why don’t you ban tortilla chips? My heart would thank you (but that would be while my hands were strangling you to death).

You could simply have higher insurance premium rates for people who do not wear their seatbelts. If someone who claims they wear their seatbelts gets into an accident without it, they lose their policy. If the only person I’m substantially hurting is myself, it’s really none of your business.

 
 

The baseball union is full of a bunch of millionaires complaining they don’t make enough money, yes, but they’re fighting a pack of billionaires who are raking in the bucks on rapidly rising ticket sales. I don’t blame the players for wanting a bigger slice of the action – it’s not like anyone goes to the game to see how well the GM is managing the team. (note: all “facts” are derived from approximately 1993, which is pretty much the last time I stopped paying serious attention to baseball)

 
 

Sounds like someone got a ticket for not wearing his seat belt. Which I also hate. Fucking nanny state.

 
 

I’m more into the “do what you want as long as you don’t hurt anyone else� sorta libertarianism.

Me too, I guess. I just don’t like the word “libertarian.” I like to be free to do as I choose in matters of my personal life, but I expect and demand that regulations be provided to make my surroundings safe and help make life more fair (anti-discrimination laws, anti-monopoly laws, etc.), which are going to inevitably encroach on someone’s definition of “freedom.” This makes me a liberal. I believe we all need to sacrifice some freedoms (such as the freedom to run around naked screaming, “Fire!”) for the common good. I don’t mean to sound like a wingnut when I say this. Obviously, we don’t ever sacrifice those freedoms which are guarenteed in the Constitution or basic human rights.

Being a libertarian is all fine and good on a personal level, until you’re put into a position of power over others, such as the owner of a mid-sized company. That’s when your exercise of freedom starts to take a heavier toll on those beneath you on the economic and social ladder. So a person is free to be a bigot on a personal level, but he’s not free to extend that bigotry to the operation of his company. Libertarianism encourages a form of individualism and exceptionalism that I feel is kryptonite to liberalism.

 
 

You could simply have higher insurance premium rates for people who do not wear their seatbelts. If someone who claims they wear their seatbelts gets into an accident without it, they lose their policy. If the only person I’m substantially hurting is myself, it’s really none of your business.

It’s an interesting alternative. But I don’t think giving insurance companies the power to drop people who get in accidents will be a good long-term solution. They could (and probably would) start investigating every single accident to make sure the occupant was wearing his seat belt, as a way to try to get out of paying for the claim. How can you prove you were wearing your seatbelt? How can the insurance company prove you weren’t? I sense lots of law suits.

 
 

But as I said, me not having a healthy diet DOES increase your insurance premiums. Why don’t you ban tortilla chips? My heart would thank you (but that would be while my hands were strangling you to death).

This is true. But the “freedom cost” to enforce a healthy diet far outweighs (*snicker*) the potential benefits. We’d have to ban thousands of products, institute dinner time surveillance (which would violate privacy rights), and become a dietary police state. All this to save a couple of bucks on your health insurance. Few would argue that the benefit justifies the cost. On the other hand, taking 5 seconds to fasten your seatbelt is easy to do and the violation can be enforced in the process of enforcing other traffic laws, so there’s no need for exceptional draconian tactics. Enacting the law increases public safety, reduces insurance premiums, and cuts down on law suits resulting from death and injury. In this case, I think the benefits justify the cost.

 
 

Funny, I’m always been of the persuasion that people are stupid and selfish and you need laws to cut down on the effects of that. But thinking about mandatory seatbelt laws, I agree that that’s a personal choice. I don’t think that the human-projectile-through-the-windshield-hits-innocent-bystander scenario happens that often. I had an argument (a civilized one) the other day with a longtime about city-wide smoking bans in restaurants, etc. She thinks it’s up to the business owner and the patrons. The patrons can decide whether or not to go to that store or bar based on whether they mind secondhand smoke. I think that that puts an undue burden on the patrons, who then can’t go to a whole range of places because of the smoke, whereas the smokers can still smoke somewhere else, like outside the business before they go in. It’s privileging the interests of the smokers over those of the nonsmokers, and privileging Almighty American Business over human health.

My friend cited the example of one restaurant that went nonsmoking then changed back a few months later because it had lost so much business. I say that is an isolated case, and results from NYC, for example, show that overall business in bars and restaurants did not decline after their smoking ban. A study (maybe more than one; I don’t have references) showed that incidence of lung disease decreased in LA or NYC, I don’t remember, over the multiyear period after the ban went into effect. So if a law infringes on personal freedom but does a lot of good for the public health, what’s the problem? You can be a purist and stick to abstract principles (“the guvmint has no right to tell me not to allow smoking in my restaurant”–which I agree with, by the way, but I can suck it up; it doesn’t mean it isn’t a worthwhile law to have) or you can be less rigid and allow compromise. As George Costanza says, “We’re living in a society here!!” There’s such a thing as the social contract. And that’s why, even though I sympathize with libertarianism in some ways, I still think that it’s a good philosophy only for healthy, self-interested, self-sufficient people. Ultimately, I believe that protection of the weak is a duty of government. And I know that’s obscene to some libertarians and invisible-handers, but maybe they make too much of a fetish of human freedom. I can’t believe I just said that, because I’m a privacy nut, but it’s the only way I can think of to say it. Some freedoms–the freedom to hurt yourself and possibly others because, hey, it’s up to others to protect themselves from you–aren’t all that indispensible.

 
 

I hate it when people post trivial corrections of their own typos, but I’ll do it in this case because it might not make sense–in my second paragraph above, “longtime” should be “longtime friend.”

 
 

If we make seat belt use mandatory because of the burden of death on the state, then healthy eating should be mandatory. Daily exercise should be mandatory.

“Stop typing on that keyboard so much! You’ll give yourself carpal tunnel, and deprive the economy of your valuable work days!�

If, nothing, this kind of invasion is already institutionalized and begins in every house on the street, it’s called “marriage”. The apron strings of the nanny-state, “momism.” There is something to that.

And I can’t begin to understand how we’ve come to even discuss not smoking in bars, can’t imagine going into a working class bar with wobbly tables and george and tammy duking it out on the juke and patrons sitting on stools staring straight ahead and smoking wordlessly for 6 hours straight, the only life they’ve ever known and how dare anyone disrespect that. Or the worse places they could be if not for their shelter, which is set up to be the blue collar outcasts home away from home. I grew up in bars like that, prolly baring little resemblance to the bars folks have in mind when they talk about legislating away smoking in “bars,” clueless nanny-mom yuppie nightlife elitists, learn about the environments you encroach upon, fuck anyone who interferes with mores they know nothing aboot.

 
 

Goddamnit, I’m sorry I forgot to close the goddam tag.

 
 

Spunji, I agree. I wouldn’t mind civilization being wiped out, even though I know that as a soft suburbanite I would likely die in the trauma. (I think anyone who wants a mass depopulation should be prepared to die in the process. Likewise, anyone who want a more hierarchial society should be prepared to be on the bottom)

 
 

It happens all the time in places like Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Detroit. The reason why those towns are filled with crime is due to their repressive laws about gun ownership.

Bullshit, Gary. Here in Philly the state legislature overturned the city’s gun laws, and we already have had more than 200 murders this year.

 
 

OK, though I’m a huge fan of italics, I’ve decided to close the tag.

 
 

Oh dear, it didn’t work. Good thing I’m a fan, eh.

 
Nancy in Detroit
 

It happens all the time in places like Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Detroit.

The reason why those towns are filled with crime is due to their repressive laws about gun ownership.

I have a gun. I’ve been a gun owner for 20 years. It’s not difficult to get one around here. In other words, fuck off.

 
 

“CaseyL said,
July 14, 2006 at 4:11

I really don’t understand the scorn and derision being heaped on the idea of space exploration and colonization. Maybe it’s a generational thing – I grew up on the Space Program, science fiction, and ST:TOS, so “Should we go into space?â€? has always struck me as a silly question.”

I agree with Brad on this, but for different reasons. He seems to think that most (all? all leading?) techno-utopianism is rooted in elitism or egoism — wow, sorry about all the “ism”s — but to me, that’s beside the point. The real problem is not elitism but escapism. There’s that saying, “The best is the enemy of the good.” Some people — certainly not everyone who enjoys SF, I’m speaking as someone who has five seasons of “Stargate SG: 1” on DVD; but Reynolds seems like this type — treat transhumanism as serious policy proposals. Why try to make health care affordable, or negotiate a solution for the Israel/Palestine conflict? Once people can upload themselves into computers, we won’t have to worry about that! Who cares about alternative energy sources? A fifty-mile-wide orbiting solar panel could solve all our problems!

 
 

But the “freedom cost� to enforce a healthy diet far outweighs (*snicker*) the potential benefits.

Mmmmm…snickers.

 
 

In this case, I think the benefits justify the cost.

That’s just my point…YOU think that restricting my freedom to do actions that do not directly harm you is justified by your altered insurance premium. I think that until I get to decide what exactly YOUR freedom is worth, you should go pound salt.

And I think people too dumb to put on their seat belts tend to get exactly what they deserve (sorry, never had a no seat belt ticket here).

 
 

Re: smoking bans. Please note, I grew up with a mom who smoked two packs a day, just a sniff of them makes my stomach churn, it makes me rnauseous, so I don’t pretend to be objective at all about this.

It’s a very simple thing to me: you can not smoke in an enclosed space. Period. Having A/C doesn’t count. You can smoke outside (even though the mere smell on your clothes will get my stomach going once you return).

I once went to a restaurant in Liverpool and asked for non-smoking seating. What was their non-smoking section? Three tables in a corner. There was no partition, anything. So, I sat there, two feet from a man puffing away, even though I was in “non-smoking”. I had to leave a really good restaurant that supposedly made a killer rack of lamb because of that; those people could have smoked outside, but no, that would have been (in a common English phrase) “the nanny state run amok”. Tools.

 
 

Yikes! What happened to all the shiny happy people that usually inhabit the comment thread?

This isn’t the SN! I grew up with, then again *that* SN smoked two packs a day and gave me a crippling lung disorder, and wouldn’t let me wear my seatbelt.

Then again, I’m glad to see us actually having a discussion about something, rather than just becoming another echo chamber. That’s what I’ve always liked about this site, none of this “stay on message” bullshit.

 
 

Shygetz, I don’t think you understand the economic argument here.

sohei is not saying that his reduced taxes and insurance premiums justify restricting your freedom to, uh, drive without a strip of cloth across your chest.

The economic argument is that you pay for your freedom from seatbelt-fascism through your higher taxes and insurance rates.

Now, in a Libertarian Utopia, of course, there wouldn’t be any taxes at all, and insurance companies would have monitoring devices in your car to determine whether or not you wear your seatbelt (or alternately, you could just pay the higher non-seatbelt-wearer’s rate).

Hmm, maybe you don’t get that magic all-of-the-freedom and none-of-the-cost thing, even in Libertopia.

 
Herr Doktor Bimler
 

I promise to fasten my seatbelt before visiting Pinko Punko’s blog. In case, umm, the bitstream stops suddenly. Or something.

 
Herr Doktor Bimler
 

Elgfrothi said,
My Viking friends and I once killed and ate an entire Renaissance Festival.

Have you no idea how many poly-saturated fats and high-density cholesterol thse things contain? When the govt. takes away our tortilla chips, we can blame it directly on irresponsible consumers like you.

 
 

I’m always amused and frustrated by the vitriolic condescension and kneejerk hatred in left leaning circles everytime someone merely mentions the l-word. I feel for Brad as I too label myself a libertarian and refuse to give up the word to the Randian droids of the LP. What’s wrong with being for liberty? Well, for one thing, libertarianism was a perfectly defensible proposition until it got attached to capitalism. In fact, outside the US, the word means the opposite of capitalism. Strange that a word that was used by people like Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Errico Malatesta has somehow been coupled with unbridled wage slavery run amok.

For this libertarian, big government has always been and will always be nothing more than an institution only capable of building massive prison complexes and war machines for the priveliged few who can profit from them.

 
 

[…] This idea of a society at war with itself, a “culture war” – particularly one so overtly hostile to science and the intellectual – is a fascinating one, coming to us as does in its purest state from a rather different part of the political spectrum than the laissez faire, pro-business ideas which come to the fore whenever the financial interests of Republican campaign contributors get involved. It’s probably an idea that exists to some degree in any authoritarian movement – for without an enemy within, who needs your authority? – which is what the Republican party has been, in practice, since Nixon at least. The Trotskyite heritage of the dominant “neo-conservative” foreign policy establishment is another one of these interesting places where the far Right appears to borrow from the far Left, although, really, there’s probably less to it than some might suppose – you could probably trace the idea of violently exporting your superior society back to Alexander the Great at least. A while back, Jesse Walker of Reason – where they still mostly keep their scifi ‘n’ bong hits libertarianism chocolate out of the Bush Kult’s peanut butter – notes the embrace of “political correctness” and “identity politics” by the mainstream Right: Now conservatism itself is an identity, available to anyone willing to adopt a “Red America” persona as superficial and idealized as anything you’d find in a multicultural textbook for second-graders. Blake Hurst laid out the sunny scene in a widely quoted article for The American Enterprise: “People living in the great middle are perfectly happy to be slightly overweight, a little underpaid, and dressed in fashions that cause comment when we interact with our betters… We respect formal learning, but we value practicality over more esoteric fields of knowledge, and treasure self-sufficiency above all… Most Red Americans can’t deconstruct post-modern literature, give proper orders to a nanny, pick out a cabernet with aftertones of licorice, or quote prices from the Abercrombie and Fitch catalog.” Unlike, say, those Blue State snobs in the Bronx. […]

 
 

“Now conservatism itself is an identity, available to anyone willing to adopt a “Red Americaâ€? persona as superficial and idealized as anything you’d find in a multicultural textbook for second-graders.”

I totally agree, the country has become a giant high school where many people feel the need to align their consumption habits with a group norm. “Red State” is now as much of a style as “Goth”, “Wannabe”, or whatever labels those darn whippersnappers are using these days to signify the package of clothes, music, and other consumer preferences that are displayed as a badge of membership to a particular group.

“The Trotskyite heritage of the dominant “neo-conservativeâ€? foreign policy establishment is another one of these interesting places where the far Right appears to borrow from the far Left, although, really, there’s probably less to it than some might suppose – you could probably trace the idea of violently exporting your superior society back to Alexander the Great at least.”

You are right that one cannot blame “the left” for the neo-conservatives, but I think the influence of their past on their policies is rather substantial. It does not suprise me in the slightest that radical “leftwingers” would transition to radical “rightwingers” – the basic Manichean plot remains constant and only the cast of characters changes.

Despite the protestations of the faithful that “our side is motivated by the highest ideals”, both wings have idealogical ‘hangers on’ who aren’t really onboard with the thoughtful theorists but rather identify with a message for more negative personal reasons. “The Left” Includes people motivated by concern for the poor as well as those with personel vendettas against “the rich” or “the system” just like “The Right” contains people who truly believe in the theoretical model of capitalism as well as people who are entirely motivated by racial and anti-gay prejudice, or increasingly a hatred of “hippies” and “political correctness”.
The Neo-Cons were hangers-on of the left and now they are hangers-on of the right. They are the stereotypical “radicals” who are more interested in smashing whatever exists than actually preparing for the next world – a trait on display in Iraq where their contempt for postwar planning, and absolute faith that “it will work out” because they had a special insight into the historical forces at work, were absolutely breathtaking. I was struck by the similarity of their view of post-invasion Iraq and the view frequently displayed by leftwing radicals of the post-revolution society – “smash it first and THEN figure out how to put things back in some semblance of order”.

 
 

As a proud liberal with libertarian sympathies, I have to take issue with the suggestion in the original post that libertarianism is inimical to unions. The biggest obstacles to union power in the U.S. are the Taft-Hartley Acts ban on sympathy strikes and corporate-friendly appointees to the NLRB. Libertarianism is based on the idea that voluntary associations should replace government wherever possible. Sure, this can mean corporations are empowered, but there’s no reason to think that, given solidarity, labor can’t be an effective balance to that power in Libertopia.

 
 

Todd I think you nailed it:

“Well, for one thing, libertarianism was a perfectly defensible proposition until it got attached to capitalism. In fact, outside the US, the word means the opposite of capitalism.”

My introduction to cooptation by agenda-thieving poseurs:

I was a libertarian for one year, in 1980, but I was all libertarian, all the time, after reading Atlas Shrugged and saying “at last I am free”. I ignored the capitalism because I needed the freedom, and when I heard a libertarian was running for president I hooked up with the Ed Clark campaign, as tri-state propaganda director for my district. For months I did all my work from home, mailings and newspaper interviews, til I took a train to Chicago and saw the ridiculous people I was bonding with. I was a punk, high-school drop out and the conventions were peopled with prosperous, white, slick Dow Chemical executives and their PTA wives, the book tables brimmed with Rothbard and Von Mises, and the conversation was all economics. I could’t figure out these ludicrous people and was very troubled by their language til the famous and truly heroic anti-psychiatrist Peter Breggin took me aside and said some people find their way into libertarianism for all the right reasons, and then there’s these jokers. That for some people “coming to liberty” is a matter of life and death and they are the ones the philosophy was made for, who know genuinally and experientally what libertarianism is about.

In a convention of hundreds of attendees Breggin gave a presentation on coercive psychiatry and involuntary commitment, about 10 people stayed to watch it as rich white men straggled in and instantly turned heel and went back to the important freemarket conferences.

If that’s libertarianism I want my money back.

 
 

[…] So. Some of the following I may flesh out here, or not. But this week I joined in thrilling conversations at Ilyka Damen’s blog, (about Dr. Helen , aka InstaStigma) a fantastic two-page thread at Icarus about the dangers of the biologic model of madness, a thread at Two Glasses on how far-right wingnuts keep me sane thanks to Buber’s I-thou dialogic, told Sadly, No! about my tragic childhood, oh and Libertarianism, where I come out of the closet regarding my misspent affiliation with Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, and the day I got fatherly advice from the truly heroic anti-psychiatrist Peter Breggin during my stint as tri-state Propaganda Director for 1980 Libertarian presidential candidate Ed Clark, what an eye-opener that was, and about which I would like to add this: […]

 
 

Y’know, if we got a thread going where we lured in both the libertarians AND the neo-Nazis, we’d really have something going. What THAT would be, I really couldn’t tell you.

 
 

From being born-again to deathbed catholicism to transhumanism, it’s all about the screwing up and then running away.

Irresponsible fuckwits.

 
 

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