Speaking of Jane Galt (and we’ve done that a lot lately): this is a classic by Aunt Jenna

Dood, this is, like, way too smart for most of us to respond to. Damned autodidacts readin everything…..
McArdle smells!

Slightly more seriously, I think the reason most self-proclaimed libertarians today end up supporting CheneyCo is more pathological than political. Most libertarians I’ve encountered, which is to say not the intelligent, Mona types, have to discount, ignore, or misinterpret vast amounts of reality to justify their views, as do neo- and theo-cons. It’s like two schizophrenics deciding to tolerate each other’s delusions so they can have some company.
Mencken was a man of his time, or more rightly, a man of part of his time who stopped developing around the time Roosevelt took office, but he was fundamentally intolerant of delusions. And he was one of the first Americans to have half a clue what Nietzsche was actually on about, back when Heidegger was helping the Nazis distort his thought into something they could use. Nietzsche never had a theory of the will to power, dammit. (Or, more accurately, he considered developing one then pulled back after realizing it would force him to become what he hated.)
So, yeah, glibertarians smell.

Ohhh, I found another good link in my trove: Propertarianism is a Gift from God!

its all about socializing costs and privatizing gains, man. that’s the american way.

its all about socializing costs and privatizing gains, man. that’s the american way.

Except when poor folks do it, in which case it’s called either “crime” or “bankruptcy”—the latter of which is held in similar esteem to the former.

Dood, this is, like, way too smart for most of us to respond to.

Nah it’s not. Thanks, but it’s probably just incoherent and sloppy like everything else I do. But you’re right about Mencken and sophie’s dead right in general.

Your penultimate sentence should be engraved on Megan McArdle’s forehead. Henley and Mona, I’ll leave off the hook.

As I commented at Roy’s site:

The thing that the wingnuts and glibertarians have to come to terms with is this — medical expenses are going to be very unevenly divided in society. It is not unusual in health plans for 80% of the expenditures to be made on behalf of 20% of the people. What you don’t know is whether or not the bell tolls for thee. That is why we pool risk rather than try to each self finance future medical expenditures. The bottom line is that if you are really sick you would never be able to put away enough money to cover it. So we should all accept that we throw our money into a big pot and some will get more of it than others. And you know what — those of us who don’t take much money out of the pot — we’re the fucking lucky ones. Because we’re not sick — and not to sound like an old cliche, but you really can’t put a price on that.

But of course our glibertarian friends all think that they are lucky and that life will just be ponies and riches for them and screw the rest of us. A philosophy for 13 year olds.

So, HTML, what do you reckon these people think they’re on the frontier of? I mean, aren’t the working poor the Laura Ingalls Wilders in the current scenario, not NRO Wingnut Welfare cases?

William Bennett in his lectures reads admiringly from an account of the Donner party written by a survivor that tells the story in spare, stoic style. He puts the letter down and asks incredulously, “Where did those people go?”

Wouldn’t you think that would be obvious?

And you know what — those of us who don’t take much money out of the pot — we’re the fucking lucky ones. Because we’re not sick — and not to sound like an old cliche, but you really can’t put a price on that.

So true. One of my law profs was a tort attorney for many years. She says she never once saw anyone who received a big settlement who wouldn’t have given it all back to be the way they were before they were hurt. But the libertarian and conservative toads would like to pass laws so these people can’t get decent compensation. So called tort reform is like bankruptcy reform: Morally bankrupt.

“So we should all accept that we throw our money into a big pot and some will get more of it than others. And you know what — those of us who don’t take much money out of the pot — we’re the fucking lucky ones. Because we’re not sick — and not to sound like an old cliche, but you really can’t put a price on that.”

Of course the response to that would be that poor sick people are increadibly lucky because they get treated in nice, big fancy hospitals that they don’t have to pay for (except for when they don’t), and all they have to do is give up every red cent they ever earn in their life, in retun for the remarkable (compelled) generosity of the wealthy – who are generally wealthy! After all, lucky poor people get rides to the hospital in shiny new ambulances with cool sirens, where the downtrodden wealthy must drive themselves, or get a friend to do it for them!

Contemporary conservatives still value that old American character. William Bennett in his lectures reads admiringly from an account of the Donner party written by a survivor that tells the story in spare, stoic style. He puts the letter down and asks incredulously, “Where did those people go?”?

I think this is a tragic misreading of Mr. Bennett. He, and all his cohorts, do not admire these people for their fortitude. He desires them for their meat.

Or shorter wingnut and glibertarians-sphere: The DFHs and Civil Rights activists came along and forced us to treat them as humans. Now we are hungry!

Quoth the tiny left one:

A philosophy for 13 year olds.

I came to this very conclusion a couple weeks back when confronted with the preponderance of self-proclaimed libertarians amongst the technical elite. I thought, being a recovered libertarian myself, I was just being hard on those who had not yet started along the path to emotional maturity, but it really does ring true, doesn’t it?

The hell with reading Hayek.

I think it would be more helpful if they had to actually spend some time on food stamps and welfare — and not some set time like a month or something but an indeterminate amount of time that could be the rest of their life for all they knew — before they were allowed to comment on whether those programs were worthwhile or not.

So called tort reform is like bankruptcy reform: Morally bankrupt.

Or, to put it another way, lately it’s become much easier to declare moral bankruptcy than financial.

One of my law profs was a tort attorney for many years. She says she never once saw anyone who received a big settlement who wouldn’t have given it all back to be the way they were before they were hurt. But the libertarian and conservative toads would like to pass laws so these people can’t get decent compensation.

My biggest issue with the Glibertarians (great term, and great way to distinguish between the insane and the not so insane) and conservative kleptocrats is that they assign corporations the same rights and privileges as actual people but not the same risks and responsibilities.

Take their reaction to the whole sub-prime fiasco, for example:
The people who are facing foreclosure because of predatory lending practices deserve what they get, they should have known better, they were stupid, they were financially irresponsible, they’re all deadbeats, etc.

The banks and mortgage companies that engaged in predatory lending and made the ridiculous loans in the first place, well, we’ll have to bail them out otherwise “the economy” will suffer. And besides, those homeowners should have known better than to take out those loans anyway….

As long as we keep protecting corporations that do stupid things (like they want to with tort reform), the invisible hand of the market is never going to be able to slap them upside the head. And their entire philosophy depends on that happening, doesn’t it?

the thing about tort reform that has always gotten me is that corporations profit on the those poor ignorant consumers. in my youth I worked at a big law firm that represented a manufacturer of three-wheel atvs. it was amazing how these manufacturers resisted real public information. they wanted to those poor dumb consumers to put their little kiddies on those things. and they still do (only now at least they have four wheels, which makes them more stable). so this idea that people who sustained injuries should be on their own ignores the fact that their money lines the pockets shareholders and ceos. nothing strikes me as more immoral — except maybe payday loan companies.

Moral bankruptcy is much more lucrative.

Candy,

Your comment re: torts is too true. I know one of the leading PI lawyers in DC very casually and am familiar with some of his cases that have resulted in large settlements. His clients are broken, broken people. You would not trade places with them even for their multi-million dollar settlements.

Thus glibertarianism is an agreeably tautological premise: by destroying the government’s part in the social contract (”there’s no such thing as society!”) you’ll manufacture a self-reliant and cannibalistic populace who will in turn eschew the government’s help… etc.

This could seriously backfire against the state. It is nearly possible today to form a self sufficient community and still maintain a post industrial life. With a good alternative energy source and a Fab Station you could easily manufacture your own consumer goods as you need them. Though probably not 45nm IC chips but who knows? It probably won’t happen in my lifetime But I would fully expect with continuing advances in technology that nation states may become a thing of the past. The pressures on the state are heavy. Global climate change, peak oil and other pressures might spell the end for the state. Though I would think remnants would remain.

“My biggest issue with the Glibertarians (great term, and great way to distinguish between the insane and the not so insane) and conservative kleptocrats is that they assign corporations the same rights and privileges as actual people but not the same risks and responsibilities.”

Which is remarkable given the original justification for the formation fo corporate entities – to do public works that the government could not accomplish because of a lack of expertise or because of the mere size of the job. Public corporations were formed to build railroads, bridges, highways, etc., and they did a good job. Why? Because if they slacked off or misapropriated public funds, they could be sued just like an individual could be.

Further, the whole concept of the corporation is entirely collectivist in nature. Collectivism, as we hear from the wingers, is one step removed from Satanism and bread lines. Hell, our markets are entirely collectivist in nature, which is why we invest in them – risk is spread out among all of us (hmm kinda like single-payer health care!).

Yet, when it comes to aiding the individual (whom wingers purport to worship and love (especially if they are individually just like them!)), in getting a lef up, at the expense of the collective corporation, which they hope to imbed with more and more immunities from public scrutiny and legal liability, we hear the whining of creeping socialism and the destruction of liberty as we know it.

Somehow “9/11 changed everything” also means that we need to go back to the virtues of the era of industrialization – I imagine because taking care of your neighbors and fellow citizens is a sign of weekness that will prevent us from defeating the Islamohippies.

The reason I have a problem with much of this is I don’t understand the drive to neatly build a fence around your political and economic worldview and give it a name. Why is it so important to so specifically delineate your particular -ism? And the other side of that coin, why must all one’s opinions fit in a neat box? If I like fiscal restraint, non-interventionist foreign policy, small military, large scale government programs to help smooth out the natural inequities, a free market that is fair and a government that will enforce that fairness, and big science, what exactly am I? And why does it have to have a name? It won’t change my beliefs if you call it “Boogerism”. They’re still my beliefs, and if they aren’t internally consistent, who says I have to change them?

I never gave a moment’s thought to any of this until I watched the supreme court choose the (wrong) president. I sat in front of CNN and cried. Not because I knew what an assclown bush was, I really didn’t at that point. But because nothing could signal the end of America, not the nation so much as the vision, like a coup d’etat. And that’s what it was.

But before that night I wasn’t particularly political. I knew my left from my right, but that was about it. I just don’t get all this political navel-gazing and taxonomy. Maybe that’s just me, huh?

mikey

mikey, nope, that’s not just you.

So we should all accept that we throw our money into a big pot and some will get more of it than others. And you know what — those of us who don’t take much money out of the pot — we’re the fucking lucky ones. Because we’re not sick — and not to sound like an old cliche, but you really can’t put a price on that.

KTLN, since I am actually a Religious True Believer (all hail Sekhmet, Goddess of Consequences!), I have tried arguing with “devout” (self-identified religious) Glibertarians that my God wants us to share our extra with those who have less now, because tomorrow we could be stranded at the pointed end of the equation. That’s when their lips, to quote the great Molly Ivins, “pucker tighter than a chicken’s butt”, as they mentally rummage for slogans about separating the Deserving from the Undeserving and the Saved from the Damned.

Because John Emerson makes an excellent point; although many self-proclaimed Libertarians also claim to be Religious, none of the Judeo-Christian libertarians I’ve debated are willing to embrace the communalism encoded in the beliefs they profess on their Sabbaths. For Bennet and Buckley and their followers, “Religion” is not about their spirituality, it’s about clubbing together for the (highly secular) purpose of enforcing groupthink and punishing unbelievers. By their actions, they don’t believe in God, but they do believe in the Pope — it’s all about the authoritarianism. “Religion”, for these people, is another set of badges and code words designed to draw the narrowest possible circle of those to whom they need to act connected; everyone else is an expendable Other (not Christian; not the right kind of Christian; not the right variety of the right kind of Christian; not a member of their particular congregation of the RVRKC; not a sufficiently rigorous practicioner of their congregation… ) Because, I’ve come to believe, “Libertarianism” is not so much a political theory as a religious belief — the worship of the Singular Perfect Self as embodied by the individual Libertarian.

And that’s why I prefer the “rationalist” Libertarians to the so-called “religious” Libertarians. The rationalists are every bit as wrong about the way the world works, but at least they’re honest about their selfishness and solipsism.

Sadly, another of my law instructors was a prosecutor and now works for an insurance company. She brought in the venerable old urban legend email The Stella Awards the first day of class to share with us. She put it up on the overhead and was going over the “cases” with lots of drama and much tsk tsking. Many of the students in the class were oooohing and aaaaahing over these terrible con artists getting all this money for being stupid. “That’s an urban legend!” I blurted. “None of that is true!” I was absolutely appalled.

I’m happy that the grade in this class depends on an open book midterm and final. I don’t think she’s gonna like me.

HTML is absolutely right about people being unable to get a fresh start. All of the big insurance bastards who are the main source of employment in this town do criminal background checks before they hire anyone. I know a guy who has worked for a major financial services corp as a temp for about five years, but he can’t be hired full time (with PTO, helath benefits, 401K, etc.) because he has a fifteen year old criminal conviction on his record. Never mind that he hasn’t received so much as a parking ticket in all these years, nor has he had a drink in all that time; he’s simply unemployable because HR says so. It’s fine for him to do the job as a contract employee, though.

Gah! I’m going to go do something to get my mind off of this for a while. It makes me crazy.

Because not all wingnuts are the same, and there are reasons why? And to describe those reasons isn’t just navel-gazing.

Anne Laurie, that’s pretty interesting in our typically useless, navel-gazing way. All things being equal, I’d rather deal with a religious nut than a “rationally” evil libertarian a la the typical Randroid. I guess because the latter is like a cousin to my thinking, and the former is completely other. Religious nuts are just crazy; secular glibertarians have a rational basis for their Social Darwinism — they really think themselves superior, and really want “inferior” people to perish.

Take William Jennings Bryan, for instance. Bryan was a nut, and Mencken was right to poke all sorts of fun of his performance at Dayton, TN. But Bryan was also opposed to social darwinism for very humanist reasons we’d all identify with. I have to say, if forced to choose, I’d probably take Bryan over, let’s say, Ayn Rand (who merely echoed and amplified the theories of Herbert Spencer, against whom Bryan was reacting and to whom many a glibertarian, consciously or not, has built an intellectual altar).

Anne L.

It’s always amazing to me, an atheist who has actually read the Gospels, that so-called Christians can embrace the utterly depraved Social Darwinism of the right. The congnotive dissonance is mind boggling.

I’m also astonished by the lack of imagination amongst our libertarian friends who somehow cannot conceive of themselves being sick, helpless and in need. Not to be morbid, but I think once you’ve reached the age of 30 it should be apparent that we are all but a moment from disaster — a car accident, a heart attack, a cancer diagnosis, etc. — and that none of us is invulnerable. In a word, we need each other.

Alright, I’m getting morbid, it’s 5:45 and Friday and drinks must be poured.

In solidarity to all.

I too was struck by that sentence in Roy’s piece. It’s certainly changed within my lifetime; twenty years ago you could still pull up roots, put down in a new town 500 or 1000 miles away and make a clean start. Today, the credit card companies, the utility companies, the bill collectors will not let you go. I’m a big fan of the information age, but its burdens fall heaviest on the working poor.

I’m not edumacated enough to argue the virtues of libertarianism, but to me it just seems like libertarians are people who think government is evil, but multinational corporations only have the best of intentions.

…IOW, secular glibertarians and fakey-religious ones (like Buckley and Bennett) are sociopaths in the truest sense of the word.

Whereas the religious nut who is a true believer in God is merely crazy. Bryan did believe, and whatever else we think of that belief (especially when it was used to justify superstition at the expense of science), it did inculcate in him compassion for society’s downtrodden. This immediately makes such a religious nut superior to the glibertarian for whom empathy is an alien concept.

So if a person thinks that concentrating too much money (power) in one place is to be worried about, they hate all poor people? One look at how many civilians were murdered by their governments in the 20th century alone should give you pause about how much of your freedom you are giving up for security, whether it be security from terrorists or economic security. And it is absolutely amazing that people who talk about the social contract, brotherhood of man, etc actually think that if a government program didn’t exist to, let’s say, provide school lunches then these kids would starve. Your trite characterizations notwithstanding, no libertarian (or glibertarian, tee hee) would look the other way. Unfortunately, our fellow citizens tend to elect Bush types so it’s good to have people around to say, hmmm, why don’t we try to work this out together rather than send a bunch of money to corrupt vile people that are only going to use it to get thousands of people killed. Sorry, I know this is rambling but it’s late on Friday and I’m off.

Dorothy,

My biggest issue with the Glibertarians (great term, and great way to distinguish between the insane and the not so insane) and conservative kleptocrats is that they assign corporations the same rights and privileges as actual people but not the same risks and responsibilities.

Why do we have this concept of corporation as legal entity at all?

How about we all are personally responsible for our personal actions, regardless of the context in which they occur?

And why aren’t actual libertarians at the forefront demanding that individual rights far outweigh any concerns of fictional legal entities? It would be easier to take them seriously if they actually care about, you know, liberties.

zsa, I did a search at reason on the word “liberty” and got 500 results (the max, I guess). I’m sure not all of these are directly related to liberties but maybe you could make the effort to read a few and actually become, you know, educated on the topic?

Except when poor folks do it, in which case it’s called either “crime” or “bankruptcy”—the latter of which is held in similar esteem to the former.

The point I meant to imply in the ‘Iraq is the new frontier’ parenthetical is cui bono? Since it is the rich children of wingnuts who go to make their fortune in the frontier of Iraq, lawlessness and graft there are allowed to flourish — the ‘right’ people benefit. Here, not so much — the ‘right’ people benefit from a corporate-government collusion in the form of bankruptcy laws, pending tort reform, etc.

And it is absolutely amazing that people who talk about the social contract, brotherhood of man, etc actually think that if a government program didn’t exist to, let’s say, provide school lunches then these kids would starve.

See Floyd Alvis Cooper, David Frum, or any other of the links in the piece…

Yes, noted libertarian David Frum. Well done. I googled Cooper (not having heard of him before) and he seems like a grade-A moron. So what? No time to follow all the links but if you have found a libertarian saying something stupid, congrats. That only proves they are human, which means they have normal human emotions for their fellow man. Why the fact that they happen to disagree with you about the means to achieve similar ends should cause you such agita is beyond me but take comfort in the thought that you have constructed this “glibertarian” out of whole cloth and it is has no basis in reality.

Jason, I did a search at google on the word “liberty” and got a lot more than that. What’s your point, that libertarians use the word “liberty” a lot?

What I’d like to see from libertarians is a little outrage over corporate personhood. Then I would perhaps take their use of the word “liberty” to be more of an actual concern for liberty, and less facile lip service.

In the most concrete example, corporations enjoy “free speech” rights that allow them to make campaign contributions. Why am I, an actual person, forced to compete dollar for dollar in the political sphere with a fictional entity that has no actual existence?

Doesn’t this run counter to the libertarian reverence for individual liberty? Since you’re apparently so, umm, educated on the topic, perhaps you could address the point?

William Bennett in his lectures reads admiringly from an account of the Donner party written by a survivor that tells the story in spare, stoic style.

I haven’t read that account, but I’d like to say: You call it stoic, I call it numbed horror.

There’s no reason to think that those with money tend to consider themselves superior to those without, and no reason to think that depending on the generosity of the wealthy is a bad idea. Certainly not the whole of human history…

And yes dumbass, there are children who would starve without the school lunch program. Even if they don’t die outright malnutrition at such a young age can create a lifetime of health problems. And of course they can’t expect any help dealing with those health problems, they brought it onto themselves by not working hard enough, right? If you’re so tight with your money that it offends you when a few bucks of your tax money go toward feeding needy children, then fuck you.

I fail to see how Glenn Reynolds or any other Randroid is working toward “similar ends” as someone who actually wants to see starving children fed.

Maybe somewhere deep down they feel it’s a bad thing when children starve, but it’s certainly not worth peeling away any of their fully deserved wealth to prevent it. Oops, I mean it would create an unhealthy dependence on the government, so we must let them starve for their own good. Yeah, that’s the stuff.

Yeah, yeah. Keep trying to appear smart and above-the-fray, JasonC.

Seriously, I’ve seen this act before. Wingnuts, usually of the misanthrope variety (e.g. they’re not stupid, they just lack compassion), try a little too hard to distance themselves from the organs and pundits of the right wing, all the while repeating the same tired talking points. They fancy themselves as smarter than everyone else, and have enough smarts to know that linking to, say, the National Review for a serious argument is likely to get you laughed at around here. They viciously protest that they are Really Thinking For Themselves, and tend to react with a guilty ferocity when accused of being a tool of the right wing.

Above all, they seek validation for their indefensible worldview, so they troll at sites like these, trying to get people who really are smart, and who have a healthy sense of compassion, to approve of their opinions. It’s a very insecure thing to do, and I suppose it gets back to why people like this hold views like that in the first place—they have an inflated sense of self-worth, and their key delusion is that they would be at the top of some kind of Randian paradise, and not the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

Umm, David Frum used to be the glibertarian at WSJ. But you’re right, I made all that shit up: the 2x4s, Instapundit’s fascism, Randroid psychopathy, all of it.

Somehow “9/11 changed everything” also means that we need to go back to the virtues of the era of industrialization – I imagine because taking care of your neighbors and fellow citizens is a sign of weekness that will prevent us from defeating the Islamohippies.

Actually, the whole “corporation over people” bullshit started with Reagan. 9-11 just gave the kleptocrats enough cover to go hod wild.

My favorite is the guy who earnestly tells you that he’s not a “libertarian”, he’s an “objectivist”.

Libertarianism, like communism, is a political philosophy based on absolutes. Unfortunately, these types of systems don’t hold up well in the real world. The real world is messy and does not bend itself to conform to our ideals.

Plato had his head, like, totally up his ass.

The whole 9/11 exploit is the whole “wartime” dodge.

“All bets are off – we’re at war now.”

“The rules are different in wartime.”

“We could afford that kind of sentimentality in peacetime – but we’re at war now.”

Funny thing is, I don’t remember anybody playing that silly game during vietnam.

We were fighting a war. But nobody was pretending we needed to be on a wartime footing on the homefront.

But if you wanted to take away some rights, do something outrageously barbaric or steal a great deal of money, “wartime” gives you all the explanation you needed…

mikey

“There’s no reason to think that those with money tend to consider themselves superior to those without”

I beg to differ. Many of those with justify their enhanced station in life with some sort of nod to their merit, and with a bit of blind spot to those life circumstances that may have stacked the decks in their favor.

To the extent these folks feel they have more because they have done something to deserve more, then it is fair to think that they consider themselves better and/or more deserving than those who have less.

Plato had his head, like, totally up his ass.

Yes! QFT, and thank you for saying it. So much of what’s wrong with western civilization can be traced back to that asshole. Though the allegory of the cave is alright.

sophie, would you believe that I debated whether to put a [/sarcasm] tag at the end of that 1st paragraph?

I blame the pain meds. And the shiftless American proletariat, of course. [/sarcasm]

Your trite characterizations notwithstanding, no libertarian (or glibertarian, tee hee) would look the other way.

And this JasonC establishes the extent of his delusion.

It’s treatable, son. Go get help.

You people are way too smart for me. I barely even remember reading Mencken. (The unfunny one.)

I guess I’m a bit of a libertarian because I believe that government ALWAYS desires more power, and that in our particular system the battle between the branches of government eventually supercedes the rights of the individual. Our system panders to voting blocks, and the individual is the smallest one out there. Thus, there is a Federal Law prohibiting effing JARTS.

I’m not one of those libertarians that think we should dismantly social programs, not even close. But I sure do believe in a tax system that doesn’t rob me of my most precious asset; no, not money, but time. We’re collecting money here, not sending a man to Alpha Centauri. With a couple of numbers and some decent H.S. math, the average American citizen should be able to calculate Bill Gates’ tax nut. (Which should be larger than mine.)

No, I come back to believing that on balance, the individual IS more capable than the bureaucracy, that I should be able to die when I want to, I should be able to ingest what I want to, I should be, by and large, left alone by my government in my house and person. I’m a big fan of the Bill of Rights.

Pure libertarianism is as stupid as pure capitalism or pure socialism. But I think we have some ground to recover on the libertarian side of this particular triangle. And government never gives that power back, historically speaking.

Not without a lot of blood being spilled, anyway.

Anyway, love the blog, like, totally.

I have respect for that form of libertarianism, John. I guess I don’t quite understand the desire to hold onto the name “libertarian” though. Regardless of what anyone may belive is the true libertarian way, the name has been permanently damaged by those who claim it the loudest.

Maybe if the “glibertarian” label can gain some traction “libertarian” can be rehabilitated, but who really cares? It’s just a word. Find another.

John O,

How complicated is it for you to do your taxes, really? And actually the reason the tax code is complex for some people is that the government has been persuaded to grant certain goodies to try and encourage certain types of behavior. If what you are advocating (and you don’t really say anything of substance) is say, a flat tax — well that is bullshit. We can simplify the tax code tomorrow and still tax the rich at higher rates.

By the way, by any such measures I fall into that category, although it’s hard for me to full accept.

The government should be our collective countervailing weight against corporate power. And it should be the means by which universal rights of citizenship are guaranteed, i.e. universal health care for one.

I guess I’m a bit of a libertarian because I believe that government ALWAYS desires more power, and that in our particular system the battle between the branches of government eventually supercedes the rights of the individual. Our system panders to voting blocks, and the individual is the smallest one out there. Thus, there is a Federal Law prohibiting effing JARTS.

Dude, I totally sympathize. I want my lawn JARTS; I want my cigarettes; I want my sex, drugs, rock and roll; my free speech (and by speech, I mean just that, not what it has come to mean to libertarians: the “freedom” of corporations to bribe politicians). If corporate personhood were repealed, I’d make many more libertarian-sounding arguments than I do now.

I guess I’m a bit of a libertarian because I believe that government ALWAYS desires more power

I agree — but I also believe that the corporations also ALWAYS desire more power.

I’m perfectly willing for both to exist, and for both to have certain powers and abilities that individuals don’t. But I also want individuals to have certain powers and abilities that neither corporations nor government can even aspire to.

I’m an anti-authoritarian, I think. And the modern strain of Libertarianism is all about removing all limits on the authoritarian power of megacorps.

KTLN,

More complicated than they should be, and that’s even given that I’ve wedded myself to a certain lifestyle and investment portfolio that makes my life easier. As in, I cannot stand the idea of needing someone else to figure them out, find some dodge for me. Still, as simple as my finances are, it should take seconds, maybe minutes, not the few hours it does. Even using Turbo Tax.

And you’re also right, I put out nothing of substance, and I agree with virtually everything you’ve said, except you seem to imply there is no way for a tax code to be fair and simple. Ridiculous.

Exempt a liveable wage, say, for the sake of discussion, $36,000 a year. Bill Gates and me get that exemption. Tax the next “bracket,” for lack of a better term at, say, 20%, flat, maybe up to $200,000/year? The numbers here are completely arbitrary, it is the concept I’m pitching.

The highest rate floats at revenue-neutral to the previous year. First dibs on cuts, first dibs on increases. Those are the people that control the debate, so they’ll have incentive to cut out stupid government spending, which I stipulate in advance is a truly murky definition.

Do the same thing with capital gains, and taxes on business. Exempt enough to incent us to invest, say $12,000/year on capital gains for individuals and some income on businesses that emply fewer than 10 people. Two rates above that, the top one floating just as in the income tax category.

No deductions. That’s the only way to make it fair. SS tax has no ceiling anymore, etc.

I’m not smart like you folks, but I DO read from time to time. Try David Kay Johnston’s “Perfectly Legal” for a horrifying read.

I believe that in many ways the tax code is the root of most of our evils; you’re Enrons, your cynicism about politics, your disconnect by Average Joe in the process. It’s a truly malignant thing to me.

HTML,

Exactly. Pure libertarian arguments are retarded.

But I feel the squeeze of intrustion, personally speaking. Maybe we SHOULD come up with a new name.

*sigh* Intimidating site.

“Your Enrons.”

*blush*

John O,

I have no problem with simplifying the tax code. The 1986 tax bill did just that and it was a pretty good piece of legislation. Unfortunately, both the GOP and to some extent the Clintonistas saw tax goodies as a way of rewarding friends and encouraging what they thought were desirable policy outcomes. So sure, Tax all dividend and capital gains above $10,000 at 25%. Have a marginal rate for income over $1 million at 40%. I’m okay with anything like that.

What I object to (and I think wrongfully thought you might advocate) is “tax simplicification” that is a disguised tax cut for the rich and tax hike for everyone else. The Club for Growth manual. (Or is it the Hair Club for Growth?)

Wally, I should have been more clear, and I apologize:

ALL power structures, from religious to political to my goddamn Condo Association, want more power.

Again, I’m no intellectual, but this seems sort of self-evident and easily verified, so I took it for granted. Always a dangerous thing with strangers!

Bring back JARTS. I survived ’em. They are fun and a humane way of culling the herd.

John O,

And I’m worried about your condo association. Once those bastards get WMD it’s lights out.

I served on a co-op board twice; it made me hate life.

KTLN,

Last time I checked, and it was WAY after 1986, the Code was 17,000 pages of 8 pt. font.

Call me nutty. That’s not “simplified.”

The perfect tax plan pisses everyone off equally, except poor people.

(How many will object to a shot at $3,000/month tax free? And the immeasurable benefit to said poor people that would come from knowing that W. Buffet and B. Gates paid what was at least freakin’ CALCULABLE for Average Joe.)

So I say it is the lack of transparency that is most threatening to the extremely rich; it is the corporomilitarservice complex that would hate the idea the most.

Plato did not have his head up his ass.
Augustine did, and fucked up how people read Plato for a long time.
Plato was quite bright.

KTLN!

Hilarous symmetry! I always say, “the herd has a way of thinning itself out.”

With several other additions and iterations, since I’ve been using that example for a long time, in fact since I found out about it several years after quitting my standard jart-fancy-years. But nobody had to tell ME that flying sharp heavy pointy metal things should not be caught with the ol’ noggin!

Hammers! Axes! Baseball bats! All obviously lethal objects!

I’m telling you, on the curve we are on those will be next, if it were not for the illogical exemptions and corporate power HTML referred to.

(Christ: “To whom HTML referrred.”)

I guess I’m a bit of a libertarian because I believe that government ALWAYS desires more power

???

Me also not smart, but haven’t governments, whatever their desires are, been handing off power to corporations for about 30 years now?

And haven’t they been sloughing off on social and regulatory responsibilities over the same period with the effect of leaving more money/freedom of action in the hands of the wealthy to the detriment of the rest of us?

And hasn’t the campaign rhetoric that convinces the majority to elect the policy-makers who’ve furthered these trends over the last three decades or so been for the most part contemptuous of government power?

Speaking of urban legends…

According to David Foster Wallace, Aristotle had HIS head up his ass, too, when it came to the mathematics of infinity.

The math of infinity has been used very private sectorly. As in, to make stuff better and create lots of jobs.

Aristotle, Wallace argues persuasively, set the whole thing back about 1500 years, so respected was he.

So, the point is, never take The Man’s word for it.

objectivelypro,

Damn right they have. I work in one. You get immune to the horror, and trust me I believe that in meta-terms we bust our ass to do right by our paying customers. But in terms of the details we’re not close.

Part of the reason is that we are regulated by an ENORMOUS number of autonomous regulatory bodies. Operationally and technically, we plain-and-simple can’t keep up with the new rules.

A waste of ENORMOUS amounts of money, except for those regulatory bodies, who have the Power To Fine Big Numbers.

So we are put in a lose-lose situation, really, not unlike most The Man schemes, where we can shut up and play nice or get hassled, and we spend enormous amounts of corporate money, internally, on our reputation and integrity and anonymous horror reporting system and so forth, but the truth is that the horror reporter usually bears more burden than the Co.

I will not defend any other corporation, but have just a shitload of anecdotal evidence that we are not alone. Where from, does a lot of that stuff come? (LOL)

You guessed it! The Tax Code.

Aristotle was a bit anal, but if you read a translation him not by a British person you’ll be amazed. He was actually a half decent writer, albeit longwinded in that coming from an oral tradition kinda way.
That said, I’m not so sure what DFW was on about, but I’m a Plato guy, not Aristotle.

I met Bennett once. The man is friggin HUGE. He could have fed the Donner Party for a month.

Then they would have all died of arteriosclerosis.

Pretty simple, really. Since the Greeks couldn’t deal with things they couldn’t touch/validate/verify/deal with they pretty much ruled out both the concept of “0” or, more horrifying, “null,” (they had no word for those concepts) and felt the same way about the math of infinity. Basically, “Waste of time.”

Since Plato and Aristotle more or less dominated Western intellectual thought for so long, it took several centuries to start climbing the conundrum-laden infinity-ladder again. It’s the story of those who progressively (and by no means are they finished) started to try to crack the nut again. Most of them wound up in asylums, and Wallace does a nice job of explaining how that could happen to you, too, were this kind of abstraction, infinity, be your primary waking thought.

Just an unbelievable amount of sophistication and presence in our lives is directly attributable to this math.

“Everything and More, A Brief History of Infinity”

WAY over my math head. Math geeks will probably use it to masturbate. And still he makes it, to me, a good read, though with all Wallace I have to go over the good ones more than once to appreciate.

That said, I’m not so sure what DFW was on about, but I’m a Plato guy, not Aristotle.

There was a pop-math book called Zero that went in this direction. Zero and infinity, being bound up together, were intolerable to those Greeks who needed neat and coherent explanations of things, and people who knew there was a square root of two were in serious fucking trouble. Aristotle was one of those intolerant ones and being the foundation of Western science from his lifetime on his zero-and-infinity-less view held sway, space was considered bounded, blah blah blah.

I’m no mathematician or historian, but Zero was a good read with things that read like the kind of exaggeration geeks can’t help but make. Some good trivia.

Hi John!

Hi Righteous!

Do I know you?

You have it exactly right. There was a guy named Zeno, of “Zeno’s Paradox” fame, who posed some questions that Aristotle just dismissed, though to his credit documented, since according to DFW no original Zeno writings exist.

Ah, yes, well, Aristotle did love his little boxes. Having issues with him ignoring what didn’t fit in the box isn’t out of line.
That wasn’t Plato, tho. Plato, Republic in particular, has been horribly, horribly misread pretty much since Christianity started stealing from him. Republic isn’t a manifesto. It’s an introduction to dialectics, and not even real dialectics, but practice, bifrucatory dialectics. I’d make the case why, but I doubt anyone really cares. Point being, Plato was far more nihilistic politically than the tradition has the balls to accept.

See, there ya go.

I know enough to say “All the Greek smart people loved their boxes,” but I’m not even CLOSE to smart enough to even bother Googling “bifructory dialetics.”

So I guess you’re right. I don’t care. 🙂

Well, in fact, you’re right. I don’t care.

However, I am gonna be going around tommorrow looking for excuses to say “bifrucatory dialectics” at every goddam opportunity.

That kicks big ass.

mikey

‘K, that’s just creepy…

mikey

LOL. It gets worse.

I was thinking of looking it up, in retrospect, just so I could use it.

Always love your comments, mikey. Probably no surprise, if we had the science for it.

Oops. Sorry.

“Everything And More” “A Compact History of (the infinity symbol).”

It means, basically, dialectics where everything is split in two. Useful in learning how to think dialectically, but sometimes (conceptual) things have more than two parts…

On topic, bureaucracies tend towards infinity, like the Tax Code, and that’s why I lean “libertarian.”

*cracking myself up*

Thanks, a different brad,

I can understand that, but as an Infinitarian I reject the notion that bifurcation represents reality in any way, except in terms of computers.

Nothing “human,” IOW.

Do I know you?

No, but we had such similar things to say that I thought it best to wave hello.

Ah!

Thank you, RB!

How can we form a movement that isn’t compared to “bowel?”

Great minds think alike.

That’s IT, dammit! “Infinitarian!!!!” “Libertarian” is SO 20th Century.

Slightly not shorter, but more understandable: “Those who believe the human existence is too infinitely variable to try to legislate too much.”

Simple, elegant, and morons still won’t understand! Perfect!

Holy crap, we have a thinking, rational, compassionate, non-egotistical “libertarian”* with a sense of humor!

It’s like I’ve seen Bigfoot!

Welcome, John O.

* Debates about the terminology notwithstanding.

*blush*

Thank you, Simba. That was very nice.

I never call myself “Libertarian.” The furthest I go is libertarian-lite.

Honest to God, I just want to be able to keep up with whether I’m breaking the law or not. I’ll make my choices from there, like everyone else.

It shouldn’t be so hard.

I think that another one of the reasons you encounter so many right wing libertarians (aside from the philosophy’s usefulness to callous promoters of Big Wealth) is that there really is no sort of decently sized cultural space in our country for anyone who considers expanding democracy and liberty to the economic spheres as well.

The only sort of libertarianism or libertarian thought that an ordinary person is likely to encounter is going to be of the ‘git yer gubmit hands off mah propty’ types.

The positive aspect of all this is that a lot of people are fairly inherently attracted to philosophies which appear to claim they are highly concerned with expanding human liberty and choice.

The negative aspect is that the non-propertarian side of the libertarian argument is pretty much gone from popular existence, and you have to somehow bounce your way into discussions of early 20th century anarcho-socialism or get to Z-magazine and Parecon or something similar.

Cid,

There are no right wing libertarians anymore, as a matter of political reality.

And, just for the record, when I get accused of being “libertarian,” it usually refers to my LEFT wing side, as in the politics of the “politically correct,” or sexual politics in general, or the aforementined right to die or do evil harmful substances like MJ (Drink up!, says the government) or train my kids to be world-class tennis players in spite of the damage it does.

OK, need to find some food…

Klein’s tiny left nut posted the paragraph of the month, meaty goodness from start to end. And in spite of being clear and true, it takes us toward some real philosophizin’.

“It is not unusual in health plans for 80% of the expenditures to be made on behalf of 20% of the people. What you don’t know is whether or not the bell tolls for thee. …But of course our glibertarian friends all think that they are lucky and that life will just be ponies and riches for them and screw the rest of us. A philosophy for 13 year olds.”

This is John Rawls, you know. A Theory of Justice. http://books.google.com/books?id=b7GZr5Btp30C&dq=&pg=PP1&ots=D0yks1Mwe8&sig=2CPjAs6_YcpsWfNGCY3XXFODxfc&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3Drawls%2Bjustice%26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title#PPP1,M1
What rules do you make for a society before you know where in that society you’re going to be plunked down to live your life? I don’t claim to be an expert on this theory or on the heavyweight discussions about it. I do know, given that he’s fundamentally right, whom I have to read before wasting an hour on Hayek.

Porlock Junior, thanks for the Rawls ref: I was about to cite the concept, but had forgotten the correct attribution. So you’ve saved me from making a complete tit of myself.

Hi, John O. You bring up an interesting issue which is relevant to political views wider than libertarianism, and relevant to what Mikey’s been saying. That is, political thought is not confined along a single, one-dimensional spectrum, left to right. There are many aspects of social/political/economic/juridical/whatever organisation on which we can have views, and that just doesn’t fit into one dimension.

To save me wiffling further, I’ll just say that the political compass takes a step in the appropriate direction.

And I’ve just spent 45 minutes browsing slack-jawed and covetous through the political recommendations (and others) they offered after taking the test (admittedly I already own almost half of their recommendations). Oh, lordy, if only I had flippin’ great wodges of cash to fritter on books…

Portlock, Jr.,

Thanks for the compliment. The Chairman of the Politics Dept. where I went to college used to always refer to himself as “a budding young Marxist who had never read Marx.” I was always a budding young Rawlsian who never read Rawls. I still haven’t, but the first time I read a synopsis of a Theory of Justice, I thought, this is what I’ve been trying to articulate all my life — a gut feeling about how you should think about the world, but never quite so eloquently expressed.

Um…You guys are fascinating and smart and all, but what are JARTS?

Surely not this: “Jarts, if you are unaware, are giant lawn darts that you toss underhand in hopes to make them land in a ring.”

Mr. Wonderful,

Ding, ding, ding — we have a winner. Large, large lawn darts with a weighted sharp metal tip that you throw underhand across a yard where they land in a ring – or your neighbor’s foot – or a child’s head. Fun for all ages.

You kids today with your intertubes, who never knew what it was like to have to steal porn from your local 7-11, you just wouldn’t understand the rough and tumble world we grew up in. On the other hand, the next generation of Americans, IQs dulled by the lead paint on their Chinese toys, will probably be very into Jarts.

KTLN–

Fuck me runnin’. There’s a law prohibiting them? Why? As a danger to the children? Mm-hmm. But isn’t it interesting that there seems to be no law against a child turning on a tv and watching Sean Hannity…

JART to the head, watching Hannity; no objective difference between the two.

There’s a law prohibiting them? Why? As a danger to the children? Mm-hmm. But isn’t it interesting that there seems to be no law against a child turning on a tv and watching Sean Hannity…

Yeah, I wonder what possible set of legal principles would permit restriction of unsafe products but protect Sean Hannity’s right to free speech. It’s as if there were some fundamental document giving Congress the power to regulate commerce, while also guaranteeing freedom of expression.

“William Bennett in his lectures reads admiringly from an account of the Donner party written by a survivor that tells the story in spare, stoic style. He puts the letter down and asks incredulously, “Where did those people go?”?”

Why, they went to Vegas, Bill. Surely a concept you can follow ….

Hi,

There are quite a few types ofBackground checks that can be done on a job applicant. These include credit checks, criminal record checks, driving records, and past employer checks. Even though it may be difficult to find candidates to fill all positions within an organization, cautious business practices require a person to conduct certain essential checks on potential employees. This is undertaken for the sake of restraining probable liabilities that can occur from neglectful hiring practices.

I think wagaman meant to say that a background check should ALWAYS be done on an applicant, even if he is a glibertarian!

[…] I found it especially hilarious coming from the same man who’d written Dead Right, recommending that Americans endure Donner Party levels of duress so that they might rediscover their […]