Conservertarianism Again Obliterated By Reality
I see that Nick Gillespie has argued that, as a principled libertarian, he wishes that Democrats would stop bringing up the fact that Republicans want to coerce women to carry pregnancies to term. In fairness, this does put him one step ahead of LGM’s resident coservertarian, since Gillespie at least understands that national Republicans wish to avoid discussing their party’s highly unpopular abortion platform whenever possible. Nieporent, on the other hand:
Quite the opposite. You know it’s unpopular, which is why Democrats always use silly euphemisms like “reproductive rights” instead of the policy they actually favor of “abortion on demand.”
Whereas Republican candidates routinely say that they want to ban abortion and then are called “extremist.”
It is nutty, and political science malpractice, to pretend that a question about “Roe” is a more valid statement about what people think about abortion than a question about abortion is.
Well, given his disdain for “abortion on demand,” I really should stop applying the “tarian” to Nieporent. Moving right along, as you can see if you look at actual public opinion data, not only Roe v. Wade but legal first trimester abortions are popular, as they consistently have been for decades. You can muddy the waters by citing polling data about what people think about abortion as a moral (as opposed to public policy) issue, or by asking them if they’d describe themselves using the “pro-life” euphemism, or by pretending that it’s possible to write statutes that only ban abortions obtained for the “wrong reasons” (which means by the wrong people), but abortion bans themselves aren’t popular. Moreover, if you look at how abortion bans were actually enforced, public opinion polls still overstate the real support for abortion bans — getting jury convictions for doctors was enormously difficult, allowing a gray market to flourish, and the Republican platform bows to this reality by (illogically) excluding women from punishment altogether.
Which, of course, is why Republicans in national elections think it’s dirty pool when Democrats bring up abortion rights. Consider George W. Bush babbling about Dred Scott so he could send a message to anti-choice fanatics while leaving the general public in the dark. Ask yourself why Romney argues that abortion has “been settled by the courts.” And why the Romney campaign sends Norm Coleman out to dissemble:
In the frenetic push to win all-important Ohio, Mitt Romney’s campaign is saying a lot of things to a lot of people. And on Monday, a top Romney surrogate told a group of Jewish voters in the Buckeye State that the landmark Supreme Court decision granting women the right to an abortion is in no danger of being overturned should Romney become president.
“President Bush was president eight years, Roe v. Wade wasn’t reversed. He had two Supreme Court picks, Roe v. Wade wasn’t reversed,” former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) told a Republican Jewish Coalition meeting in Beechwood, Ohio. “It’s not going to be reversed.”
Yes, George W. Bush’s justices were not given two votes each, so they couldn’t overrule Roe v. Wade. Fortunately, I’m sure if Romney replaces the Court’s fifth vote for upholding Roe the effects would be the same! At any rate, this is not the discourse of a ticket looking to tout their positions on abortion, for the obvious reason that the Republican platform on abortion is both extremist and unpopular.
Well, I can see one objection to abortion on demand. I’d prefer abortion on request, s’il vous plait.
Neither, it should be noted, would be an accurate term. I, personally, wouldn’t have a problem with a universal health care system that covered abortions but its pretty obvious that there’s no support for that position among any substantial number of Dem politicians and that Dems were willing to accept PPACA without it. The Democratic position isn’t “abortion on demand” but rather “freedom to contract for abortion services.” No doubt libertarians, seeing it as an issue of freedom on contract rather than public subsidizing, will now accept the pro-choice position and — wait, I forgot, libertarians and unicorns don’t exist.
It’s worse, actually. Horses don’t believe or say that they’re unicorns, whereas MANY conservatives believe and assert that they’re libertarians.
I’ve addressed the inanity of the phrase “abortion on demand.’
Excellent.
Very nice indeed! I hadn’t thought of the intended shaming aspects of the phrase.
Was there ever a time Davey took a libertarian position other than “tax cuts for me now, and fuck the poors”?
Sure he has. There’s the classic “business regulations, what are they good for?”
Over at Volokh just recently he argued Lily Ledbetter was a chiseler who got what she deserved. And, shockingly, he did so smugly.
He was a big fan of the United States spending trillions of dollars to attack a country that posed no security risk to the United States, which is central to his point.
If you want an example of where Nieporent is decent, he excoriated a bunch of neoconfederates a few months ago in a Volokh comments thread when said neoconfederates were arguing that the Civil War was not about slavery and other nostalgic positions regarding the Old South. Obviously, as you would expect from a libertarian, he doesn’t care very much for people who make excuses for slavery.
But he’s hopeless on abortion.
You’d be surprised. Ever been to antiwar.com? There is a meaningful libertarian/neoconfederate overlap – and oddly enough, it tends to also overlap with Old Right, Taft-style isolationism.
Ever been to antiwar.com?
Hell, ever hear of Ron Paul?
Yes. A lot of libertarian antiwar types are against all types of government interventions into anything, not just war.
Meaning, they don’t like anti-slavery, anti-segregation, or anti-discrimination government intervention, either. They are anti-Civil War and are Confederate apologists.
It is rather extraordinary to see people who proclaim themselves to be particularly concerned with human freedom who declare Abraham Lincoln to be a great villain.
The freedom of self-determination is pretty important, I’ll admit. More important than the freedom not to be a slave? Well, depends on who you ask and what shade their skin is.
And, of course, the South had the right of self-determination, which doesn’t entail “the right to never have your section lose an election conducted under the rules you agreed to.”
Facebook group for Anarcho-Confederates
(Anarcho- of the anarcho-capitalist type, of course)
Nieporent is hopeless on pretty much everything, certainly everything he has ever posted here.
Actually, being able to sell yourself into slavery is not an atypical libertarian position.
One would hope that they’d be against kidnapping people into slavery, but one hope libertarians would be reliably against torture as well.
Good for Nieporent for standing up against US chattel slavery in a Volokh thread. “Not as bad as one could easily have been” is a low, but important, bar to clear.
I thought that was the real definition of libertarianism, as opposed to all the philosophical horseshit (which none of them ever really believe or consistently apply to anything that does not benefit them, the rich, and corporations) that they use as a smoke screen.
Liar
Consistency.
I rest my case.
I’m not revisiting that thread, but there’s nothing inconsistent at that link.
Saying you’re not doing something, while simultaneously doing it, must be some sort of libertarian meme.
Liar.
??? i don’t grok the word choice here … incorrect, erroneous, mistaken, wrong, false, unsound, fallacious, innaccurate, vague, cryptic, unclear,… but how does the word ‘liar’ apply here?
Obviously anyone who thinks, as I do, that libertarianism is a destructive, delusional ideology with no grounding reality that serves to give cover to sociopaths is a liar.
That is absolutely laughable four years removed from the second Bush administration.
Hell, you all practically admit that Obama has to be borderline sociopathic just to get reelected.
That is absolutely laughable four years removed from the second Bush administration.
A cruel man might point to Reason‘s 2004 archives to find their opinion of Bush.
Yes, yes, I know: pro-Bush libertarians were No True Libertarian.
Check it out:
http://reason.com/archives/2004/11/01/whos-getting-your-vote
Reason contributers:
Bailey – Undecided between Bednarik and Bush (note: when he responded to the 2008 questionaire, his response was: “Obama. The Republicans must be punished and punished hard.” and said he was embarrassed and ashamed of his Bush votes)
Tim Cavanaugh: Bednarik (“because he’s not Bush either)
Steve Chapman: Undecided between Kerry and Bednarik (it turned out to be Kerry)
Brian Doherty: “Principled Non-voter” but would vote for Bednarik
Nick Gillespie: Bednarik (but didn’t plan to vote and didnt’ vote)
Julian Sanchez: Kerry if it mattered (Bednarik was “embarrassing”)
Jesse Walker: undecided (but settled on Bednarik)
Matt Welch: John Kerry
http://reason.com/archives/2008/10/29/whos-getting-your-vote
So, roughly 50/50 of those who cared enough to choose.
I’m impressed, actually.
I tallied the responses from the 2012 edition.
in 2004:
Kerry got 6 votes, Bush got 5 (three of which expressed their regret)
in 2008:
Obama got 6 votes, McCain got 0
One of their contributors actually worked on Al Gore’s campain in 2000.
And considering the Gary Johnson endorsement was universal from the responders, that means zero votes from Reason contributers for a republican candidate in the last two elections, yet six for the democratic candidate.
This year’s edition includes everyone either going for Gary Johnson or not voting.
it is my sincere hope that the zero-sum social darwinism will be bred out of the species … yielding a zero-sum victory for the non-social darwinian partition …
There are plenty of libertarians that support causes that they do not directly benefit from, and DrDick knows it.
Therefore, he is a liar.
Brad is telling us lots of libertarians are altruists? Rand wept!
okay, i get it … clarification received … otoh, how do we know DrDick (awesome nom de plume) ‘believes’ what you are suggesting … i still think ‘liar’ is a bit of over-reach, impractical rhetorically … but, let us not quibble … as for myself, i do not believe libertarians to support anything beyond the end of their skin, or their immediate tribe’s skin … when i see a libertarian embrace ‘many’ free-rider taxations, i’ll give up my opinion [criteria off the cuff, i'm sure i have more] … willing to be wrong about my ‘beliefs’ … in fact, welcome it … especially, if the other crawls out from under my shadow … in the meantime, libertarians come across as having a wanna-be war-lord law of jungle jiggy vibe … ain’t my fault they don’t know how to craft their message in a way i can embrace it … if it were inclusive, i’d embrace it …
I know absolutely no such thing and cannot think of a single example, except perhaps you. My description accurately describes every self-proclaimed libertarian that I have ever met, and we have a quantum assload of them up here in Montana.
Wanted to link to this post here.
http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/31/liberty-for-all-superpac-vows-to-create
Exhibit upteen-zillionth-and-nth to support my contention that 99% of principled male libertarians are just resentful, self-centered white male supremacists who long for the days when they could legitimately rape their wives and hire only white men to work for them.
I’ve seen no evidence that they give a fig about rights beyond what they want for themselves. Modern libertarianism is just another manifestation of traditional patriarchy.
I think that’s slightly unfair in the sense that most Libertarians, in my view, are the sort of people who hate the poor but think nice gay people can get married and everyone should get high.
With that said, I think there is room for both interpretations over at Hit & Run.
The only libertarian I know is against gay marriage and against gays serving in the military and thinks abortion should be banned. This is anecdotal data, but as noted above, actual libertarians are as rare as unicorns, so it means something. And this is an actual libertarian, who literally (I mean literally!) worships Milton Friedman.
Eh, the anecdata can go both ways. One of the libertarians I know (who is straight) was with me at the demonstration at the State House the day that same-sex marriage was finally settled for real in Massachusetts, and he was so moved that he grabbed a megaphone and gave a kick-ass impromptu speech that had the crowd cheering wildly, while wearing a rainbow flag as a cape. He’s also pro-choice.
On the other hand, his views on economic issues are…somewhat wingnutty. He’s one of those people who grew up poor (legitimately so) and is now highly educated and high-income, and so doesn’t understand what’s wrong with all those other folks back home who didn’t pull it off. That is also more or less the position of two of my four parents (I have stepparents in addition to bioparents). I think “Formerly-poor person who is now high-income and proud of their upward mobility and has little sympathy for the people who didn’t pull off the same feat” is a subgenre of fiscal conservative (whether they’re libertarians, moderates, or plain conservatives overall).
Just like former atheists are the most annoying Evangelicals…
And vice-versa.
Gay marriage is something they can pay lip service to because it doesn’t affect them.
On the get high part, that goes back to what I said about what they want for themselves.
See also online poker. A “principled libertarian” acquaintance of mine won’t play at Sheldon Adelson’s casinos not because Adelson throws hundreds of millions dollars at right-wing causes and candidates that are decidedly against rights for anyone except white males and Israeli Jews, but because Adelson is opposed to online poker.
In response to timb –
If by “libertarian” one means “people who are okay with random brown people being locked up or killed by the state without any form of process but are incensed at the idea of motorcycle helmet laws being enforced”, yes, those kind of people, who generally call themselves “libertarian”, do exist. But if the dictionary definition of the word is applied I stand by my previous comment that libertarians and unicorns do not exist.
Well-stated and I concede
Victory! I win! For the first time in the history of time, an argument has been won on the Internet, and it was won by me! I rule!
Let it not be said that I can’t be an obnoxious winner.
My impression is that they are just self centered sociopaths who think that they are entitled to whatever they want and everybody else should just do as they are told..
This, on economic matters. But much of the best work on police and prosecutorial misconduct and the rise of the American police state comes from libertarian websites.
And, to be fair, I’ve noticed the same dissonance on the left, too: Police misconduct is a big deal if it has a racial component, and is often ignored if it doesn’t. Or governmental mistreatment of the economic rights of the middle class or the poor is given nowhere near the attention that private mistreatment is. (Kelo was outright theft from the working poor, for example, but most progressives didn’t give a damn.)
Most progressives DID give a damn and helped pass the laws to reform it. Many progressives did, however, get a lot less emotional than conservatives because they saw the complicated nature of the issue.
1) “But much of the best work on police and prosecutorial misconduct and the rise of the American police state comes from libertarian websites.”
Yes, nobody on the left cares about this. This is why I read about this stuff constantly on almost anything on the left that isn’t completely invested in the Dem line-of-the-day. Conflating “left” or even “liberal” with “Democratic partisan” is a problem a lot of people have.
2) “Police misconduct is a big deal if it has a racial component, and is often ignored if it doesn’t.”
What the fucking fuck? This doesn’t make any sense at all unless you define “police misconduct” to mean “actual policing that involves some privileged white guy”. Again, I read about police and prosecutorial misconduct all the time from lefty outlets, particularly w/r/t the marijuana wars, which affect primarily but not exclusively white people.
3) Actually, I think most progressives thought Kelo was a crap decision and redevelopment agencies are packed with corporate cronies of the relevant politicians, but that Kelo was entirely constitutional and within the law. It doesn’t help that the Conservertarian response is that DON’T YOU SEE STUPID LIBS THAT TAXES AND REGULATION ARE EXACTLY THE SAME AS A TAKING AND SO YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO DO ANY OF THOSE THINGS! Most people on the left would support strengthening takings protections, but that’s not what the Conservertarians actually argue for.
What sites do you visit?
Probably safe to bet that he visits here.
Just to pick a random example, see digby on tasers.
What the hell?
Ferocious Democratic partisans from the black community have done more to restrain police abuses than all of the libertarians and left-wing anti-Democrats in America, by a long shot.
Somehow, “libertarians” don’t seem to understand that the only people defending Miranda rights, disclosure requirements, civilian police oversight boards, etcetera from a position of power are liberals. Sure: Radley Balko talks a good game. Heck, his heart’s probably in the right place. But he’s paid by scum that would happily give the cops the right to mulch suspects if it meant lower taxes and fewer environmental regulation – by scum who might enthusiastically embrace both sides of that bargain – and his only actual purpose as an employee is to draw in the suckers so they’ll give his paymasters the leverage to make that deal.
But he’s paid by scum that would happily give the cops the right to mulch suspects if it meant lower taxes and fewer environmental regulation
To be fair, that sentence is probably true of most of us.
Most of us = Most of Americans?
Or = Most of those on the Left?
Most of both groups are probably paid by those types of people.
Most of, well, everybody.
No, the New London Development Council’s Fort Trumbull plan was outright theft from the working poor. This particular progressive was denouncing that plan back in the 20th century, thank you very much, before Suzette Kelo ever filed her lawsuit.
The Kelo decision, on the other hand, was a bog-standard upholding of long standing eminent domain law. Not every bad or abusive policy violates the Constitution. In this particular case, the lawyers at the libertarian activist law firm Institute for Justice seized upon that particular bad plan as a poster child in order to push a radical constitutional theory that would have required the dismantling of much of the modern state, while leaving other, more plausible arguments against the New London plan lying on the table.
THANK YOU.
Kelo was not groundbreaking or radical or anything like it. It was a correct, precedent-following refusal to overturn a policy that was awful, but constitutionally permissible.
I remain in awe of the libertarian IfJ’s ability to spin this as some grand departure. The Kelo dissent was activist and radical.
The Scalia and Thomas dissents, sure.
The O’Connor dissent, arguing that it is within the court’s purview to judge whether a plan truly advanced a public purpose, and establish standards for doing so, instead of just taking the legislative body’s word for it, would have been forward-leaning, but not remarkably so. I was working as a city planner in a planning office when that decision came down, and we were all pretty much in line with Sandra Day’s thinking.
Yes, it’s the Scalia and Thomas dissents I was thinking about. I’d forgotten about the O’Connor one, or had filed it in my brain as a concurrence, for some odd reason.
Most progressives did not give a damn about hysterical mischaracterizations of Kelo, yes.
You have nutshelled them quite expertly.
I’m sure Mitt Romney doesn’t stay up nights dreaming of the day he can get someone in to reverse Roe v. Wade. But he’d put it on the table as a bargaining chip in a heartbeat.
Given Romney’s religious beliefs and his documented hatred of the gays, I’d assume that he’s got pretty damn conservative social views. He’s shrewd enough not to allow those views to impact his working and political relationships in any way, but based on the reports of his colleagues, I’m not sure he has any friends to speak of outside of church & family. So it’s not like retrograde social views would even come up often. So personally, I’d bet he would love to overturn Roe v Wade.
Why are you sure of that? Everyone thinks Masschusetts Mitt was telling the truth and national Mitt is the liar, but there’s no reason at all the truth couldn’t be the opposite.
And all of the circumstancial evidence suggests that Romney is much more of a national social conservative than a Mass one. There is some kind of trend where elites project reasonable social views on national Republicans whenever possible. It is almost always mistaken.
Also, Mittens was only a social moderate while running for office. Once there, he governed like a conservative fucktard, in every area that the legislature couldn’t reign him in.
National Mittster, MA Mittster, doesn’t matter. He wouldn’t recognize the truth if it whacked him upside the head with a dead mackerel. I truly believe he has no core belief, not one, about anything except himself and his right to have what he wants, and fuck everyone else.
…whacked him upside the head with a dead mackerel.
I would watch a TV show predicated on whacking Willard Romney with dead animals.
I’d watch it on pay-per-view, even.
As long as the season finale involves him getting whacked with a blowfish or some poison dart frogs. I’m sure we can find someone equally loathsome for the second season.
This. Romney will treat ideology like a business leader treats branding. You change whatever you need to, however you need to in order to guarantee success. In the same sense a lawyer doesn’t care which one of several dichotomous argument a Court adopts, Mitt doesn’t care what happens, as long as 51% of the people like him.
Mitt is Frank Luntz’s id
This may come as a shock to you: the President has a staff. Mitt’s staff would be composed entirely of partisan Republicans. His court nominees would (with perhaps a few lower-level exceptions for camouflage) be approved by the extreme right.
Even if Mitt were to turn out to secretly be the moderate he occasionally and very temporarily pretends to be, just long enough to win an election, the structural dynamics mean that the sanest Republican would have an administration chock full of the Crazy and acting to suit their desires.
I’m sure that once he realized that his staff was all Republican partisans, he would request binders full of moderates.
Believing Mitt is secretly a moderate= well, whatever floats your boat.
Believing Mitt’s hypothetical moderation would cause him to expend effort and political capital as president to fight against his own parties’ crazypants ideas= Dangerous moronity.
I don’t think anyone has noted Gillespie’s hat tip to Instapundit.
It’s really amusing how many rich white dude glibertarians have decided that the federal government’s retaining the power to regulate interstate commerce is the crushing yoke of tyranny, while forced pregnancy laws are… a matter of good-faith disagreement? This piece, by that most reliable of hacks, David Bernstein, is an outstanding example of the genre.
God, Bernstein is almost as worthless as Ilya Somin or Barnett himself
He is more worthless than both of them, in my opinion, although Barnett causes much more harm.
See also Volokh himself.
I would much rather not if you don’t mind. It would put me off my lunch.
Yesterday, Eugene was rhapsodizing on how the law ain’t gonna tell an employer he can’t threaten his employees by telling them how to vote. It would violate their free speech, unless they actually fired people who voted a certain way.
(Left unsaid, as always, is the employees’ right of free speech to tell their employer to f**k off and that that exercise of free speech would result in a firing, whereas the owner can do threaten all he/she likes without any penalty for exercising free speech)
One of the commenters noted how an employer who did that sort of stuff was a jerk. I will stand on my same answer to that commenter:
I guess that’s why death threats, blackmail, and assault without battery are all perfectly legal.
To hop on board the Volokh train, I’d like to remind everyone, because it bears repeating, that Eugene Volokh is pro-torture.
Not even euphemistically so. He thinks it should be a formal part of our judicial system and that we should torture the convicted because vengeance is a legitimate function of government.
Further evidence of my point about libertarians upthread.
Because they suck.
I’m curious if Romney’s back-pedaling on conservative social issues has had any effect on Republican enthusiasm.
All the people in the tea-party realize they’re voting for a big-government, huge-deficit, apparently-suddenly-pro-gay-and-pro-choice candidate, right?
I’m curious to see the reaction to this one, since I think as far as the right is concerned everything you just listed is negotiable except being pro-choice. This might be the flip that flops.
True. I would be naive if I thought Republicans cared a tiny ounce abut their candidate being for big-government. They also have no real thoughts about the deficit.
I guess you’re right, abortion is about the only big social issue Mitt has “flipped” on, although he’s done it in a very delicate manner. He went from “I’ll repeal Roe vs Wade” to his surrogates saying he won’t.
Mitt Romney is pro-life. He believes it speaks well of the country that almost all Americans recognize that abortion is a problem. And in the quiet of conscience, people of both political parties know that more than a million abortions a year cannot be squared with the good heart of America.
Mitt believes that life begins at conception and wishes that the laws of our nation reflected that view. But while the nation remains so divided, he believes that the right next step is for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade – a case of blatant judicial activism that took a decision that should be left to the people and placed it in the hands of unelected judges. With Roe overturned, states will be empowered through the democratic process to determine their own abortion laws and not have them dictated by judicial mandate.
Hey man, don’t you know that quoting Republicans’ own words back to them is the height of incivility?
Yes, but that guy just told some Jews in Ohio that Mitt Romney doesn’t want to overturn Roe Vs Wade.
Weren’t you following!?
I always love it when they tell us that “in the quiet of conscience” we really support their positions, even though we’re too stubbornly evil to say so in public.
Silent Majority FTW!
It’s kind of like the political version of The Lurkers Support Me In Email.
Every time I see the term “pro-life,” it’s all I can do not to go into conniptions.
Better conniptions than contractions. Is forced-birther a better term?
Nope. At this point, Mittster can promise gay weddings on the White House lawn and an abortion clinic on every corner, as long as he gets the fuckin’ ni-clang out of the White House.
I think they’re pretty het up against Obama at this point. I don’t think it’ll matter.
A lot of people used to say they didn’t think the Christian Right would turn out for an LDS candidate, but there’s been no hint of that so far. And the Republican base don’t seem to me like they’d let that get in the way of a good Obama hating.
Also, the average Teahadi is more politically sophisticated than independents or Camilia Paglia and seems to grasp this whole two party system thing.
I wouldn’t expect anyone to stop “supporting Romney”, but I would expect a lower vote turnout.
Surely they have a little trouble getting out of bed to vote for someone they hate, when they could just stay at home and he’ll win anyways (since Fox News has an unbiased poll showing Romney getting 100% of the vote, or something).
Everything is relative. They’ve all been issued Conservatron Hate-O-Meters(tm). Mittster’s score hovers between six and nine, but the ni-clang’s is ZOMG ELEVENTY ON A SCALE OF TEN!!1!1!1!11!!!
No contest!
It’s difficult for me to believe this will not engender some response/disavowal/rephrasing from the Romney campaign. And if they don’t, it must have consequences. I completely agree that the right will do anything to remove the Black Prince of Kenya from office, but abortion is a bright line in American politics. For tens of millions of people on the right, this is their only issue, the one thing they care about, from the time they wake up to the time they go to sleep and while they’re dreaming too. They believe Roe legalized infanticide and there is no gray area where a candidate can hide.
A supposed holocaust of 50 million American babies is a damned convenient excuse for supporting every regressive social and economic policy out there. It’s a great reason not to bother even listening to the other side.
It will, a little bit, the day Obama wakes up white….until then, they’re on a mission from God.
I’ve always suspected that the best guide to somebody’s true feelings is not what they advocate or oppose, but what gets them really, really angry. And most libertarians get veryveryvery angry at the Dems and the left. Oh, they love to talk about how above it all they are, but their instinct is, in 99 out of a 100 cases, to punch left instead of right.
A commenter at theagitator.com (an effing AMAZING site on justice and police issues, btw) amusingly called them out on it recently. He noted how they might kvetch about the GOP here and there but for the most part if it’s anything Dem it’s “Satan-On-A-Rocketship”. (I haven’t posted there in years. I gave up and walked away after a day when Balko threatened to ban anybody who called him a Democrat, but left in somebody who told me “fuck you in the face and fuck your mother” because I advocated single payer health care. So, read the journalism but ignore the comments section.)
Really? Just this morning I described libertarians as “Republicans who think they’re too clever to be Republicans.” Glad to see it’s not just my impression.
It’s not. I think that captures them really well.
That is indeed a very good line.
that’s a good description. I’ve found they tend to think the Bible-thumpers are silly for basing all their beliefs on one book, and then they start quoting “Atlas Shrugged.”
Reminds me of the best answer to the question “What’s the difference between them and Republicans again?”:
“Conservatives are authoritarian followers. Libertarians are authoritarian followers who think they are authoritarian leaders.”
This is entirely in line with my experience arguing with someone who says he can’t vote for Obama because of the drones but takes constant potshots at environmentalists and generally anyone with actual left-of-center views.
Drones are the zygotes of the left: a bright-line issue one can paint as wholly unacceptable in order to excuse any other unjustifiable preferences one might have.
In the seven and a half years I was a regular at Reason’s blog, they never ran a single piece – not one – denouncing the regulatory state that produced suburban sprawl, while they consistently and ferociously attacked any criticism of sprawl and sprawl regulations, even those that called primarily for deregulation, branding it “central planning.”
“instead of the policy they actually favor of “abortion on demand.””
First we’ll have to figure out “conception on demand” so that there’s something in there to abort.
Talk to either Akin or Mourdock. Don’t wear a skirt that’s too short.
Doesn’t the government have more to do with the supply side of the equation than the demand side?
Man, it’s long-hard-look-in-the-mirror time when you find yourself writing that clause.
FTW
Nice work, Joe
Nick takes off the leather jacket, pulls on the crocheted cardigan Parker made for him, lets out a sigh, puts on his game face, and starts fucking the chicken.
s/chicken/walrus/g
I just want to call attention to the last part of Lemieux’s post. This is, fundamentally, the evidence of public opinion that pro-lifers just totally ignore. They can cite polls that say various things (because there are, after all, a hundred ways to ask about abortion), but if running on a platform to overturn Roe was really such a great idea in a national race, the Republicans would be open about the issue and the Democrats would be the ones who had the Norm Colemans out there reassuring people that they really don’t mean what they say.
Every well-informed political PROFESSIONAL– INCLUDING those who work for conservatives– knows that the country generally favors Roe v. Wade and abortion rights. The Ross Douthats and David Nieporents of the world engage in a ton of wishful thinking and deliberate ignorance to convince themselves that this issue is 50-50 or favors their side.
I just saw an ad here in VA featuring about 8 clips strung together of Mitt Romney saying “I think Roe should be overturned” in various different ways. It was not a Romney ad, it was an Obama ad.
Running in Virginia, not Washington State or Minnesota or New York.
Indeed, this is central to David Nieporent’s point.
Actually, I feel like I owe David NIeporent a debt of gratitude.
His asshatty libertarianism helped my recognize just what an asshat I was being with my libertarianism.
It’s actually made a profound, positive difference in my life. So, thanks bro!
David Nieporent! Resister of neoconfederate pro-slavery commenters on libertarian lawyer websites AND inspiration for those who thought they had bottomed out on their libertarianism!
My opinion ascends!
Behold!
[...] Conservertarianism Again Obliterated By Reality [...]