by Doctor Science
Speaking as someone with a mental illness, I’m getting really tired of people saying that the Tea Party wing of the GOP is “crazy” (e.g. the current issue of Bloomberg Businessweek). In the same vein, I’m pretty damn irritated by invocation of the Crazification Factor.
Just, no. You don’t get to mock and dismiss the opinions of 27% (or so) of the population on the grounds that they’re mentally ill or non-neurotypical. In the first place, they aren’t all mentally ill. In the second place, those of us who *are* mentally ill[1] or non-neurotypical will start to think, not unreasonably, that you’re prepared to dismiss *us* out of hand, too.
Tea Party Congresspeople aren’t “crazy”, they’re market-driven performers whose job is to act out reactionary conservatism. Their core constituents aren’t “crazy”, either, they’re responding to the information they’ve been given, inside their media hall of mirrors — and that information’s context is “politics is an exciting, existential struggle between Good and Evil”, not “politics is sausage-making and compromise”.
The Crazification Factor posits that, for about 27% of the population:
Half just have worldviews which lead them to disagree with what you consider rationality even though they arrive at their positions through rational means, and the other half are the core of the Crazification — either genuinely crazy; or so woefully misinformed about how the world works, the bases for their decision making is so flawed they may as well be crazy.
The trouble with this formulation is that it assumes a non-crazy “you” who makes decisions largely on a rational basis. But that is not how human psychology works. Indeed, I would say that a person who uses *only* reason to make political decisions is probably not neurotypical — many seem to fall along the Asperger’s-autism spectrum.
Face it, even people who *are* on the spectrum aren’t totally rational.[2] Humans *all* use emotions and values to make our political judgments. In the case of the Barack Obama-Alan Keyes contest from which the CF was deduced, I suspect most of the 27% are people who voted for Keyes on a tribal or party basis. Not just for emotional, my-party-right-or-wrong, reasons. But it’s rational to expect that a Senator’s votes are going to be party-line, so the personal qualities of the candidate matter a lot less than what the party will dictate. The question is whether you’re going to be embarrassed by the person who’s supposed to be representing you, during the times they’re not just doing what the party tells them to do. This is a judgment call, not insanity.
There are really serious problems in US politics today, and calling people “crazy” because you can’t understand what they’re thinking is the opposite of helpful. Leave “crazy” for quilts.
[1.] I have depression the same way I have high blood pressure: I have no *symptoms*, because I am taking appropriate medication. But the illness or disorder is still *there*, it’s still something I can’t ignore or say has been “cured” or gone away.
[2.] That’s a joke, son.
Sorry, they are crazy. At any moment during the day, 25% of the US population demonstrates a recognized mental illness. It’s an ebb and tide not a tattoo on your forehead. However some people, for instance Penis Nose Canadian, Ted Cruz is nuts most of the time. He deserves a tattoo, but for very brief moments in time he is just a mean-spirited teabag. He should not be ‘dismissed’ but mocked and ridiculed for his seditious actions.
Although I would agree in general, esp. on the part of many agitators being perfomers (as opposed to true believers), I would not exclude an element of actual mental illness. I am not a psychologist but to my knowledge extreme cases of paranoia are indeed classified as such (as is lying when it reaches pathological levels). The agitators act like people that put high octane booze in front of dry alcoholics with the clear intent of triggering a relapse. And to their own shock they had to realize that they got joined by guys for which it is not just a shtick and cannot get switched of again. In other words, they preyed on the ignorant but drew in those too that could be classified as indeed clinically mnetally abnormal plus a majority of those that suffer from MCD or related ills. Not all the 27% are crazy (or fake) but imo a majority of those with real mental problems belong to those 27%.
Btw, shouldn’t we then also avoid terms like ‘idiot’*?
*which originally meant ‘person not interested in public politics’, which for an Athenian was equal to either insane or totally irresponsible
Their core constituents aren’t “crazy”, either, they’re responding to the information they’ve been given, inside their media hall of mirrors
I’m not sure the TP folks think the way they do because they’ve been misled. I think they just really do think that way.
I agree that a lot of the information they work from is, basically, wrong – factually incorrect – but I don’t think that presenting better information is going to change minds.
Some “echo chambers” or “halls of mirrors” are chosen.
“but I don’t think that presenting better information is going to change minds.
Some “echo chambers” or “halls of mirrors” are chosen.”
From my own experience with a far right friend, this is correct. This is the one who provided me with the David Horowitz link I supplied in the earlier thread–on the subject of evolution I point to mainstream scientific sources (including evangelical Christians who think evolution is correct) and he comes back with links to the Institute for Creation Research.
This is not a sensible way to approach the world. It’s not crazy, I suppose–he’s picking and choosing what to believe in such a way that everything makes sense to him and fits into the belief system that gives him comfort. If evolution challenges his understanding of Christianity, then find people who say that evolution is wrong. Etc…
Doc,
I’m sorry that people with actual mental illnesses are offended when “crazy” is used to describe … well, crazy people. Depression can make you crazy, I suppose, but you are sane enough to not let it, so you’re obviously not “crazy”. The teabaggers are another story.
No point rehashing all the reasons why the teabaggers are the way they are, so I won’t. I will only point out that there needs to be a word for their condition, and “crazy” has to mean something if it is to continue occupying a place in the dictionary somewhere between “crank” and “cretin”. So, I politely decline to eliminate a perfectly serviceable word from my political vocabulary.
In time, let us hope, “crazy” will come to be defined as the clinical condition arising from wearing tricorner hats and manifesting itself as the belief that America’s problems all come from the rich having too little money and the poor having too much. When that glad day comes, “crazy” will no longer make you twinge — unless you’ve joined the Tea Party in the meanwhile.
–TP
No point rehashing all the reasons why the teabaggers are the way they are
Bogie knows why.
Well I am willing to forego the word “crazy”. From now on I will use “irresponsible”.
I agree wholeheartedly, Doc. My daughter has a similar medical condition. So I’ll watch my p’s and q’s from here on out. Thus, when Tom Friedman informs me the world is flat, I won’t call him ‘crazy’. Same for the teahaddists. I will simply respond with a hearty suck on this.
“No point rehashing all the reasons why the teabaggers are the way they are”
I don’t recall having speculated about “why”, or calling them “crazy”. Stupid, moronic, ignorant (and PROUD OF IT!), yes, certainly.
Rather than call the 27% ‘the crazification factor’, I’ve always prefered the term ‘Bush dead-enders’.
Just ask a Teabagger how many times they voted AGAINST Dubya. They’ll try to change the subject rather quickly.
Hi, long time lurker and have regularly enjoyed the discussions on this blog. I think DocSci’s post is a good one…and I’m left with a question for Tony P re:
“… manifesting itself as the belief that America’s problems all come from the rich having too little money and the poor having too much”
Do you think if you ask a TPer, wearing a tricorner hat and all, if the above is an accurate description of their beliefs, they would agree? I don’t think they would. I may think the policy that the advocate for might lead to the basic result you’re describing, but I don’t think that’s their intention. I’m honestly curious if you feel the average TPer on the street believes that.
Doc Sci –
At the risk of offending, I have to disagree. I do think the TPers are insane, in the clinical sense of the word. They’ve been swept up in a form of religious-political ecstaticism, where one willing suspends one’s rationality in order to experience the euphoria of “pure” belief.
They fervently and ecstatically believe things which are demonstrably untrue.
When people believe in things which are unfalsifiable, that can’t be proven or disproven, that is arational. Most (all?) religions are arational.
But when people believe in things which are untrue, and no amount of evidence can change their minds, that is irrational; and the word for that is delusional.
The fact that TPers eagerly embrace their delusions doesn’t make them less insane.
They’ve been swept up in a form of religious-political ecstaticism, where one willing suspends one’s rationality in order to experience the euphoria of “pure” belief.
So, they’re like Red Sox fans?
Or, are they like people who fall in love?
But when people believe in things which are untrue, and no amount of evidence can change their minds, that is irrational; and the word for that is delusional.
Most people are irrational. And the vast majority of TPers are not delusional by any clinical standard whatsoever.
Interesting OP Doc. Not sure if I disagree or agree with you, I believe that there is a need to make a number of notions held by the folks who claim to be part of the tea party toxic. How one does that without some type of societal dismissal, I’m not really sure. Not sure how one can have an inclusive society and be able to ostracize people.
Related, I think, is this piece about Congressman Blake Farenthold and his argument that
“I feel like my mandate when I was elected was to go reduce the size of government, lower taxes, and increase freedom, and freedom isn’t free, and sometimes you have to make a small sacrifice to move forward with what you’re after,”
Which is standard tea party crap, but if you read the piece, you’ll see that the primary avenue of attacking Farenthold is his weight. I find myself uncomfortable with that, (though I’m not going as far as one of the bloggers at LGM goes about the topic), and I hope I wouldn’t go after someone’s appearance like this, but when you are getting to the point of wanting people to feel the sting of societal disapproval, it is a little hard to pick and choose exactly how it is administered.
I think a sting of social disapproval for out of bounds behavior is necessary, but I think the sting should be directed toward the behavior, nothing else. One of the failures of the corporate media is the tendency to dumbdown discourse by mistaking style for substance. Paul Ryan’s numerically illiterate bullshit gets praised as wonkish, but Howard Dean’s enthusiasm was depicted as out-of-control: thus the corporate media defines the boundaries of sort of politicians should be taken seriously and who should be dismissed: their style, not their content.
That’s part of why the Tea Party got all the way to Congress. The corporate media treated their irresponsible discourse as if it was responsible, provided the speaker had a style that was acceptable.
So strong expressions of disapproval are an essential part of how you keep the conversation on track, but the disapproval needs to be of the behavior: the content of someone’s remarks.
The Tea Party members are typically rude, misinformed, often overtly racist, speak in meaningless platitudes, and frequently claim to be the only real true defenders of the correct vision of America: they are snobs. They also have an established pattern of willful ignorance to the point of it being a waste of time to try to communicate with them.
I have a friend who objected to the term “Teatard” because her daughter has a developmental disability. I see Dr. Science’s object to “crazy” as being similar.
I am very glad to see references to “crazy” in the corporate media and coming from Beltway pundits: it’s about time you stopped enabling, you collaborators! But, as I said, I can see why that’s a slap at people with real mental health issues to equate them with people who are willfully and self-servingly ignorant, intellectually dishonest and snobbish.
So I will go with “irresponsible”. And I think it was brave of Dr. Science to raise this issue.
Personally, I’m depressed in the same way somebody who has high blood pressure, but keeps it in control by being on a low salt diet, has “high blood pressure”. Took me a while to figure it out, but I’ve got to be in a committed, loving relationship to not suffer from depression. (That, or take a lot of SAMe.) But I sure have an intimate understanding of how depressed people think, from the time before I figured this out.
“I believe that there is a need to make a number of notions held by the folks who claim to be part of the tea party toxic.”
The question is, what sort of ‘need’ is that? Seriously, what sort is it?
I think it’s not so much a “need”, as a convenience: Liberals frequently pursue a strategy of trying to win debates by preventing them from taking place in the first place.
For instance, you’ll pick out words or phrases needed to express opinions different from your own, and declare them to be “code words” or “dog whistles”, carrying some evil connotation the people who disagree with you frequently don’t intend. This, to turn the opposing territory into a kind of rhetorical mine field.
I think this is as much a way of immunizing the less devoted members of your own flock against alien ideas, though, as a way of winning debates. You prime them to react with horror if certain phrases are used, so that if they start listening to the opposition, they’ll have the pre-programmed response, and stop listening before they might be persuaded.
I think you need to make these ideas ‘toxic’ because you lack the confidence you can actually defeat them in a real debate. So you want to shut down the debate before it happens.
“Liberals frequently pursue a strategy of trying to win debates by preventing them from taking place in the first place.”
“I think you need to make these ideas ‘toxic’ because you lack the confidence you can actually defeat them in a real debate. ”
In the first place, virtually everyone does this to some extent. Sometimes it’s justified, sometimes it isn’t. The scientific community doesn’t want creationism given equal time in the classroom. I’m not sure their approach is correct, but they don’t do this because they are afraid that creationism is right, but because it would waste time and give the impression of a real debate where none exists. In mainstream circles it is no longer respectable to argue that the Confederates had a good cause, but you can find people who think they did. Do we want to debate that? On the other hand, some ideas do get pushed out of mainstream circles for no good reason–protestors against the Iraq War are all too familiar with how that works.
The fact is that there is no getting away from rightwing ideas–they have a news network, a lot of rich people, and countless pundits willing and eager to push those ideas into the public arena. It’s liberal and left ideas that have difficulty getting a hearing in some cases–Keynesian economics has difficulty getting a hearing when politicians in both parties talk about government spending as though it’s the same as a household budget. Even when a stimulus package is passed, politicians quickly fall back into the familiar trope of how we need to get our fiscal house in order, when the short run problem is arguably insufficient spending, not too much. Krugman wages a one man battle on that front.
Personally, I’m not very interested in whether we use the word “crazy” or some other word, so long as people understand that political fanatics aren’t really suffering from mental illness. The same issue comes up with terrorists–Scott Atran, for example, has written numerous papers and articles pointing out that terrorists generally aren’t crazy in any clinical sense.
to be honest, i don’t think there is even a debate.
people think what they think. quite often the reasons they think what they think don’t have all that much to do with rationality, or the substantive pros or cons of the issues in question.
in that context changing people’s minds about anything requires much more than just presenting information, aka facts. it requires an attitudinal sea change.
a change like that at the level of one person is quite rare. at the level of a substantial chunk of the population, it’s almost unheard of. it normally is driven by really huge social or economic events, and takes generations.
i’ve seen and heard things expressed by folks on both the right and left that were, as far as i could tell, just not true. period.
i find, personally, that in the case of the tea partiers, the ratio of fact to conviction is unusually low, but most of my exposure to tea partiers is via public media, and it’s possible that the camera and microphone are drawn to the most knuckleheaded examples.
i also think, personally, that the level of extremism – specifically, the degree of folks who act and believe without much reflection – is higher on the right these days than formerly. mostly i think that’s because the “extreme left” barely exists in this country these days, and certainly has little or no representation in public life.
bernie sanders is our token extreme leftist. nuff said.
imo what we have to accept and deal with is a nation that comprises people with very different ideas about what they want.
‘federalism’ is the usual prescription offered, but if by that folks mean anything like state sovereignty in the traditional nullification sense, what you’re talking about is a glide path to dissolution in a couple of generations.
the ideal solution would, imo, be mutual acceptance, but that requires folks to not always get their way. as we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks, not everyone is willing to play that way.
tea party-ism is not and is never going to be a majority position in this country. they need to accept that and live with it, or we are going to have a very large problem indeed.
i’m with turb, not rational but that’s nothing unusual, and definitely not delusional. just motivated by things that are not particularly tied to, or dependent on, factual information.
“so, they’re like red sox fans?”
exactly
Again, Brett, problems with that second person pronoun. After my quote, I don’t recognize anything below that as anything I’ve done. I try to be pretty scrupulous about attributing ideas to who said them and giving context and background. And if I fail to give enough, you or anyone else is welcome to point that out. But as far as I can see, the rest of that is a content-free rant about what you think some people (who you refuse to identify) do.
To address this point
The question is, what sort of ‘need’ is that? Seriously, what sort is it?
Given that the shutdown’s estimated hit to the economy was 24 billion dollars, I think that identifying the rhetoric that led to it as toxic would definitely be a ‘need’, especially given that was the damage done in 16 days. If you know of any folks who would like to take the affirmative to the question ‘the shutdown was an example of good governance’, please let me know.
I’d also point out, at the risk of ‘picking’ words out, anyone who calls another commenter ‘delusional’ really has a lot of chutzpah complaining about what others say.
It has come to our attention that one outspoken commenter on these very pages has repeatedly compared the Tea Party to “Zombies”, including references to “face-chewing” and “neck-biting” (our sister organization –with apologies to sisters everywhere — The National Organization of Vampires, hisses its disapproval as well) and going as far as to recommend, in approving tones, the misguided self-defense maneuver of shooting said “Zombies” in the head, a trite novelistic and cinematic trope lacking verisimilitude.
Please cease and desist.
thompson: Do you think if you ask a TPer, wearing a tricorner hat and all, if the above is an accurate description of their beliefs, they would agree?
I bet not. “The rich don’t have enough money and the poor have too much” is not a slogan the teabaggers adopted for themselves; it was obviously coined by someone (Paul Krugman?) trying to confront the teabaggers with the logical implication of their explicit policy preferences.
In a comment here long ago, I recounted a dinner conversation with an old school friend (now a churchgoing Texan Republican NRA member) who was vociferously opposed to Obamacare. The upshot was that, when I asked him to lay out what he wanted health insurance reform to look like, he described, point-for-point, all the elements of the ACA. He was adamantly against the “public option”, however — apparently unaware that it was already a dead letter. That experience convinced me that perfectly functional, intelligent, “clinically” sane people can be … well, crazy.
“Crazy” is a time-honored everyday word for a reason. The shopkeeper who loses money on every sale but believes he’s making a profit on volume is “crazy”. The man who is factually wrong on every particular point but believes he is right “on principle” is “crazy”. And a teabagger who believes that cutting the top marginal income tax rate, abolishing the estate tax, reducing corporate taxes, and increasing the Pentagon budget — while cutting SS, Medicare, Medicaid, LIHEAP, and SNAP — does NOT amount to believing that the rich need more money and the poor less, is, in the vernacular if not in medical parlance, CRAZY.
–TP
I respectfully request that the Tea Party issue apologies to the following organizations AND immediately change its name and behavior to something less prone to giving offense or throwing a bad light on perfectly respectable, groups, individuals, and other creatures and inanimate objects.
The Chai Consumers Commission
The Daughters of the Original Boston Tea Party Revolution (who have yet to issue an apology to the Algonquian Tribe for their ancestors dressing so poorly)
The Buddhist Way of Tea
The Just-To-The-Left-Of Whoopie Party Favors and Costumes Manufacturers Association.
The So Long To Oolong, Hello Chamomile Herbal Tea Working Committee
The Estate of Agatha Christie, which owns the copyrights to any reference to poison slipped into a cup of tea.
The Children’s Fund For Absolute Certainty
The Earl of One Bologna Sandwich Short of a Picnic Defense Fund
The Amalgamated Poker, Whist, and Gin Rummy Players Association Who Play With A Full Deck, Minus The Jokers
The European Council for Church Belfry Pest Removal
The American Custom-made Ferret Sack and Bag Producers Advisory Board (recently merged with the Federation For Ferrets)
The Pecan, Almond and Cashew Nut Growers Cooperative
Fruit Cake/Doorstop Multitasking Missionaries Movement
The Panera’s/Subway Unaffiliated Lunchtime Crowd Marketing Association (we track those who are out-to lunch)
The Nut and Washer Security League For Loose Screws
The Cutlery Council’s Confederation For Knife Sharpening Vigilance
The Charles Dodgson March Hare Madness Support Group
The House of Haberdashery’s Alliance for A Little Touch of Arsenic in a Hatter’s Tool-Kit Is a Best Practice
The newly-merged Psychotic Lovers and Addicts Brain Chemistry Coalition For Not Mistaking Tea Partier’s MRI Brainscans for Romeo and Juliet As Written By William F. Burroughs
The Avian Cartoon Loon, Duck, and Cuckoo Integrity Flock
The Jimmy Piersall, Jackie Jenson, Lenny Green, and Spaceman Bill Lee Boston Red Sox Off-Their-Kazipp Alumni Hotline.
The American Bakery Association’s Lobby for the Half-Baked
Alfred Hitchcock/Manson Family and Affiliates Against Murder by Insufficient Health Insurance
The Thin-As-A-Plank Plank Society
The Xeriscaping Tree of Liberty Planting Cooperative
The Goldie Hawn Actor’s Workshop for the Ditzy
The Bananas For Fanatics Brownshirt Sartorial Set
To expand on what Tony said, it may be extremely unfortunate that “crazy” in common use has two different meanings. One, as Dr. S notes, is as a synonym for clinically non-neurotypical. The second, as most of us have been using it for the Tea Party among others, is approximately “espousing beliefs contrary to objective reality.” Unfortunate, but that is how it is.
Actually, a lot of words have multiple (sometimes even conflicting) definitions. Living languages are like that. And there really isn’t any point in getting excited because one of them includes you or someone you care about, and the other is objectionable.
You can try getting a different word (existing or made up for the purpose) accepted and into general use as a replacement for one or the other of the definitions. But don’t get your hopes up, and don’t expect a fast result even if you succeed.
I confess to being crazy, as some will tell you while circling an index finger next to their temple, and the intermittently clinically-diagnosed depressive in me takes no offense at the self-accusation.
But if I’m asked to believe that a goodly portion of the Tea Party and their elected representatives are sane, rational, reasonable, calm, sensible, responsible people, then obviously I’m sipping from the wrong punch bowl.
Entertainers everywhere are offended by Rush Limbaugh’s reference to himself as an entertainer.
Mussolini had more stage presence and could tap dance in a pinch, but they both ranked at the top of the heap for sincerity.
Never mistake sincerity for sanity. It’s the sincere ones you have to look out for.
In Limbaugh’s case, never mistake his entertaining insincerity for reason. It’s the reasonable-looking sincere ones in his listener-ship you have to look out for.
If you want to see a mostly sane moderate (conservatives apparently take offense to the guy being termed a conservative, 😉 Republican driven to strumming his lips dweeberlipwise and touretting — oh, sorry, parroting — every fool Tea Party slogan, then re-watch Mitt Romney during the last Republican Presidential primary debates as he can’t take his eyes off the pelicans sitting on the assembled heads of Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and Michelle Bachmann as they explained to America why they need the eggs.
Kudos to Jon Huntsman for putting a net over himself early on and retiring to the spa for the stubbornly coherent.
You know, if there is anything I hate (No offense to real haters. It’s more of a crazy-in-love prefrontal lobe chemical imbalance) more than conservatives complaining about my political correctness, it’s liberals complaining about my political incorrectness.
The medical term “spastic colon” is not an offense to spastics, it’s a compliment to irritable bowel syndrome-sufferers for controlling themselves better than Michelle Bachmann et al control their mouths.
Jonathan Winters, fresh from the straight-jacket, the rubber room, and electro-shock treatments, did not take offense when others called Professor Irwin Corey “crazy”.
Corey, on the other hand, asked “Who, me?”
The William Tell Society for the Preservation of William S. Burroughs Marksmanship demands an apology and reparations from William F. Burroughs.
You can try getting a different word (existing or made up for the purpose) accepted and into general use as a replacement for one or the other of the definitions. But don’t get your hopes up, and don’t expect a fast result even if you succeed.
Living language, being a collective and largely unplanned endeavor, is unlikely to cooperate even if you eventually succeed in introducing a new turn of phrase for either aspect of the word. The phenomena explained by the sociolinguistic concept of the Euphemism Treadmill unfortunately suggests that replacing the “common” term will often end up with the neologism being used as an additional word instead of a replacement one – and that replacing the “technical” term is even less fruitful, as far more often than not it’ll soon enough be used more or less identically to the (ambiguous) word it’s hoping to replace.
I think in this case even a ‘spreading santorum’ effort would not suffice. The last (and only partially successful) try was ‘morans’ (after the infamous misspelled protest sign) but no adjective got spawned from that (‘moranic’ doesn ot cut it).
‘Total-tea-ed’ would likely be too sophisticated to catch on.
Tony:
Thanks for the response. I see your point (as a few others have already mentioned) that the word “crazy” has common usage outside the medical setting. I guess my point regarding the question was just getting to where the disconnect is between left and right or tea-party and not.
I mean, there certainly are fundamental differences in worldview (frex: the role of government or whatnot), but not as many as are frequently characterized. I imagine both “the left” and “the right” (at least the rank-and-file) want, say, a strong middle class and a better life for their children. The difference is in how to achieve that…even if you think their policy suggestions are “crazy” I think it can help persuade people by starting with what you do agree on. At least it helps me, YMMV.
Sorry to pick that comment out…just struck me that sometimes political arguments devolve into pointing out the most extreme case of the opposition and how ludicrous it is. Politics makes for strange bedfellows and there is often a range of opinions that gets lumped into a single group by the nature of the two party system. Regardless, I appreciate the response.
….This, to turn the opposing territory into a kind of rhetorical mine field.
I give you the following examples:
1. If you don’t like your job, pick up and just get another one = freedom!
2. If you don’t like this country, leave.
3. Collective action = destruction of individual incentive.
4. Individual greed = maximizing social welfare.
5. Your freedom = end of my nose.
6. Poverty = individual moral failure.
7. High public debt = burden on future generations.
8. Lower taxes = rising revenues.
9. Federal regulations = socialism!!!
10. Women who dress ‘provocatively’ and take a drink = had it coming.
and last, but not least, Abortion = murder.
“Pre-programmed response” is not confined to the left political sphere by any means. You (you, you, you, you, and yes, you) on the right are well aware of this. Each and every one of you.
So there you are.
Background checks + THAY ARE TRYING TO TKE AWAY YOUR GUN
Also Roves maxim: always accuse the other side of doing what you are doing. It provides cover and feeds the corporate media
s need to say. “Both sides do it”.
Interesting.
I am in full agreement with what Dr. Science has stated, above. However:
I suspect that had Brett said these exact same words, his words would have been greeted with jeers and derision.
Not that I have a lot in common with Brett. Or that I am assured that this guess is correct. Just that I think that it’s a fairly decent assessment that is accepted as good, given where it originated.
Well, if you call someone delusional you kind of take away that option, don’t you? Fortunately or unfortunately, we carry the way we have communicated in the past and all those words place whatever we say into a context. There are a lot of things that some people could say that would be greeted with jeers and derision, but that doesn’t mean that the content is wrong, just that the vessel carrying that content isn’t quite suited for the task.
Thank you, everyone, for your comments. One reader said to me:
She definitely has a point!
I think one of the things that bugs me is that calling the Tea Party “crazy” suggests that their delusions arise from something intrinsic to their nature.
That’s not what is going on. For more than 20 years now, I’ve watched the Right Wing Media get bigger and solider, putting together a hall of mirrors that’s so complete and enveloping that not even the people who built it can find their way out, or even realize they’re inside it, any more.
“I suspect that had Brett said these exact same words, his words would have been greeted with jeers and derision.”
Speaking only for myselves and the dissonant polyphony of their voices inside my head, Brett’s clinical depression has no more to do with the term “crazy” applied to the Tea Party than does Doc Science’s or mine.
Brain chemistry/electrical maladies are at least approachable via pharmacology and talking therapy (YMMV), but short of chloroform or the roar of a thousand baboons during rutting season, the Tea Party’s ventless underground treehouse survival shelter of mirrors is impervious.
Now I will admit that Brett appears oftentimes to be dressed as Napoleon issuing orders to invade Vilna mid-blizzard, which appears endearingly wacky in our humble OBWI setting from my precarious perch, despite the rations I dole out.
But he is a more prepared Napoleon that I.
How do I know this?
Because if I act at all tempted to fall in with him on his forced march to the East, he has to remind me to wear pants.
It’s the perfectly reasonable-sounding Napoleons you have to watch out for.
Just so:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/
This article over at the American Conservative is pertinent, I think – as is the discussion below it.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/christian-not-conservative/
From the comments in the TAC link (thanks Nigel!):
An apt observation. Although ‘family’ as used here is a metaphor, a more accurate or literal choice of words would be ‘community’.
‘Family’ is probably a better choice in some ways, because even for conservatives it carries a sense of mutual obligation and responsibility, which ‘community’ might not.
But whatever noun you prefer, this or something in the neighborhood of this is definitely something most liberals would sign on to.
Not a new idea; from the MA Constitution, one of the models for the national Constitution:
The idea of a political body consisting of a web of mutual covenants between its members is one that would, I think, be foreign to most conservatives. The idea of being personally and individually bound, by covenant, to the common good is one that I certainly think conservatives would find problematic.
Could be wrong about that, it’s just where the evidence seems to lead me.
To this:
This is a problem that so many liberals believe, that a nation is basically a big family, its not.
I would say that a nation neither is, nor is not, inherently a ‘big family’.
It is if we choose it to be. There’s the rub.
a hall of mirrors that’s so complete and enveloping that not even the people who built it can find their way out, or even realize they’re inside it, any more.
I don’t think this is true, and I think it does some disservice to tea partiers (or whoever) to think it is true.
They’re perfectly capable of seeking out and understanding information other than what they get from the standard right wing sources.
They do not choose to do so. And even if they choose to do so, it will not affect their beliefs.
The issue is not a lack of information. The issue is that people’s opinions about anything touching on public life – social issues, economic issues, etc – aren’t primarily formed by information.
They flow from more fundamental attitudes about the relationship of people who participate in a common political body to one another.
In the context of the ACA, for example, demonstrating to somebody that they might actually get a better deal from Obamacare is sort of beside the point. It shouldn’t exist in the first place, because mediating people’s choices in a health insurance market is *not something the government should do*, period.
It shouldn’t do it because it’s not in the nature of governments to be involved in private life that way. It is, plainly and simply, outside the sphere of what government should do.
End of story.
‘Better information’ will not make a dent in that, it’s a fundamental attitude.
There are things that ‘family’ can do, and ‘not-family’ cannot do. If you’re not ‘family’, your help is unwelcome, regardless of how tangibly helpful it might actually be.
We can argue about the details, but what we’re really arguing about is what obligation or responsibility we bear toward each other, as members of a common political entity. I.e., as citizens of the US.
If you see the obligation, the correct action is fairly clear. If you don’t, the correct action is, likewise, fairly clear.
It shouldn’t do it because it’s not in the nature of governments to be involved in private life that way. It is, plainly and simply, outside the sphere of what government should do.
if they feel this way, they are welcome to stop accepting SS and Medicare and all of the other things we as a community give each other in order to maintain a minimum of human dignity and comfort.
as soon as they do that, i’ll accept that their objections are based in principle and not in coached partisan posturing.
Actually some of the Republican opposition to Obamacare is a matter of tactics, not principle. That Democracy Corps study to which Dr. Science provided the link gave evidence of this. The evangelical Republican voters interviewed were quite open abour why they opposed OBamacare: they were afraid that by providing health insurance to people other than themselves, the Democrats would get a voting majority and America, which they conceptualize as being a nation for white people, would become a nation of empowered voting Democratic not-white people. I was startled by this because I thought the opposition to Obamacare was ignorant,selfish and hypocritical, but I had not thought it was a cynical tactic to try to protect the Republican party from hordes of nonwhite voting Democrats.
NOt that “principled” opposition is any better, in my mind. It seems to me that someone who says, “I want to deny you affordable health insurance because of a principle in my head” is being a jerk. Some idea in their head is not more important than real people.
“In the context of the ACA, for example, demonstrating to somebody that they might actually get a better deal from Obamacare is sort of beside the point. It shouldn’t exist in the first place, because mediating people’s choices in a health insurance market is *not something the government should do*, period.
It shouldn’t do it because it’s not in the nature of governments to be involved in private life that way. It is, plainly and simply, outside the sphere of what government should do.
End of story.”
In the context I am assuming that the “somebody” is a hypothetical Tea Party activist.
That attitude lasts exactly as long as it takes the Tea Partier with the attitude to see some benefit for themselves. Then suddenly the program that was outside of the sphere of government gets redefined to be inside it. However the stated attitude remains the same: supposed principled opposition to what the Tea Partier defines as “outside the sphere of government”.
The same pattern exists for Republican elected officials: their rhetoric is incongruent with their expectations of what government should be doing for them and their voters.
if they feel this way, they are welcome to stop accepting SS and Medicare and all of the other things we as a community give each other in order to maintain a minimum of human dignity and comfort.
This is the flip side of the oft heard conservative line that goes, “Well, if you want these government programs, then why don’t YOU pay for them and leave my money alone?”
Neither is compelling.
I would also say that Russell makes a good case above, but misses an essential point. Conservatives surely value community obligations. Ask them. The Randian glibertarian nonsense is a departure from traditional conservative values*, but it does dovetail nicely with what they seem to really value: The preservation of traditional hierarchical and power relationships. cf Laura’s post above.
*Example: WalMart comes to a small town and destroys the intricate web of small businesses in the community. Neat little white picket fenced neighborhoods disappear. Which of these social relationships is “conservative”?
She definitely has a point!
I have to say, my initial thought on the post was that the real problem wasn’t calling the TP crazy, rather it was calling people with mental illness crazy (something I have been guilty of – among many, many other things).
if they feel this way, they are welcome to stop accepting SS and Medicare and all of the other things we as a community give each other in order to maintain a minimum of human dignity and comfort.
They won’t. Especially SS, it is seen as an earned benefit and therefore OK.
That attitude lasts exactly as long as it takes the Tea Partier with the attitude to see some benefit for themselves
I’m not sure this is always so.
Conservatives surely value community obligations.
Not via the government.
If I understand the common argument correctly, the issues there are that (a) participation in the political body is not voluntary (contrary to Adams’ formulation in the MA constitution), and (b) things mediated through the government can be coerced.
Therefore, tyranny. Or, potential or latent tyranny. I’m simplifying, but if I follow it all correctly, that’s the gist. The rub appears to be obligations acquired by consent, as opposed to not by consent.
The counter-argument is that, in a representative polity, the government only does the things that we want it to do, so consent is assumed. That may not play out the way you personally prefer, in which case you take your lumps and try harder next time.
But by and large, conservatives seem to be fine with community and mutual responsibility *to the degree that participation is voluntary*.
I’ll ask conservatives here to correct me if I am misreading this.
What I’ve come to after years of this discussion is that we fundamentally want and value different things.
That being so, the project we face is less coming to agreement, and more figuring out how to share the same civic space.
But the basic underlying stance – what different constituencies want and value – is of long standing, and is seriously well established. Different or better information is not going to make a dent.
None of which is to say that a lot of the information that tea partiers, specifically, traffic in isn’t crap. IMO it is.
It’s just the truth of falsity of particular bits of information are not that relevant to the discussion.
This is the flip side of the oft heard conservative line that goes, “Well, if you want these government programs, then why don’t YOU pay for them and leave my money alone?”
it really isn’t.
if you hold a principle that says government should not have a say in health insurance / health care, then how could you also demand Medicare ? you can’t. Medicare is a government insurance / delivery scheme – and it’s far more “socialistic” than the ACA.
pick one: the govt has no biz being involved in your health insurance / delivery, or it does.
then how could you also demand Medicare ? you can’t.
You can demand it only because you were already forced to pay for it, and because not demanding it won’t make it go away. (Don’t shoot the messenger!)
The philosophy of people who call themselves conservative has, over time, included the concept to which Russel refers: participation in the common good is supposed to be voluntary.
However, the understanding of what people who call themselves conservative consider to be inside the sphere of government responsibility and what is outside has changed over time.
Medicare was once outside. Social Security was once outside. Now those are inside because they are of benefit to people who call themselves conservative.
Bonneville Power and TVA were outside at one time, but now inside.
The whole array of farm supports and subsidies were outside at one time, but now inside.
Tea Partiers will resist signing up for Obamacare because to do so is to betray their allegiance to the rightwing mythos. But, over time, more and more of them will need insurance or their adult children will need it,so I think that gradually Obamacare will move from outside to inside.
There is a split between rank and file people who call themselves conservative and the current Republican party leaders and thinkers. The rank and file folks have no idea that the leaders are essentially robber barons who have their guns aimed at those big government programs which the rank and file accepts. Paul Ryan tried to voucherize Medicare because he is an extremist who still defines Medicare as the conservatives of the Depression era defined it: outside of the sphere. But how many Tea Partiers or rank and file Republican voters see Medicare that way?
You can demand it only because you were already forced to pay for it, and because not demanding it won’t make it go away.
very few people put as much into Medicare as they get out. (the ever-rising cost of healthcare guarantees this)
it’s a handout, pure and simple. it’s the government giving you a giant healthcare subsidy in exchange for a relatively small tax during your working years.
i get that people think they’re just getting back what they paid. but that’s not reality. current recipients are getting what they paid, and what current payers are paying, and what future payers will pay.
i get that people think they’re just getting back what they paid.
That’s all that’s required for the logic to work.
The question is, how many people would give up Medicare in exchange for getting back all the money they paid into (with a reasonable amount of interest), and possibly with that being a universal trade for everyone who has paid into it and the abolition the entire program?
That’s a purely theoretical question, obviously, because it’s never going to happen, which is probably convenient for those who wouldn’t want to have to put their money where their mouths are. But I’d also bet there are some who would gladly take it, even if it were utterly stupid.
Medicare was once outside. Social Security was once outside. Now those are inside because they are of benefit to people who call themselves conservative.
Which, again if I follow the arguments correctly, is precisely why the ACA must not be implemented.
It will just become the next new normal, thus further expanding the sphere of government influence and dependency.
I’ve been speaking a lot for the conservative point of view here, which is shaky ground for me (and probably them). I’ll let it be at this point and leave the floor open for actual conservatives to articulate their perspective.
A while back, Michael Berube (who has a son with Down syndrome, and has written movingly on his experiences raising him) similarly suggested that we stop using mental-ability-based insults like “stupid” entirely. (“Retarded” is now just a slur, and most people know it, but many of our other intelligence-based insults like “idiot”, “imbecile” and “moron” are themselves older, obsolete clinical terms for people with cognitive developmental disorders.)
It’s a difficult thing to do and I can’t say I’ve entirely succeeded. “Fool” and “clown” are pretty good terms, I think, because of the implication of unseriousness: I like comedy as much as the next guy, but it’s a fair put-down to state that the person who just said that couldn’t possibly have meant it seriously, could they?
For statements or actions that seem to be the product of disordered thinking, I think there’s a distinction to be made between mocking the disordered thinking and mocking people with the putative brain illness that produced it, but it’s a distinction fine enough that it may be impossible to maintain clearly in the context of a political put-down. “Absurd” is pretty good word…
“pick one: the govt has no biz being involved in your health insurance / delivery, or it does.”
To use a martial metaphor, just because you lose one battle does not mean you must retire from the war, and just because you do not retire from the war does not mean you are obligated to fight to recapture every inch of territory at every instant. If Democrats don’t have to try to nationalize industry with every appropriations bill, Republicans don’t have to try to repeal Medicare with every appropriations bill.
That attitude lasts exactly as long as it takes the Tea Partier with the attitude to see some benefit for themselves. Then suddenly the program that was outside of the sphere of government gets redefined to be inside it. However the stated attitude remains the same: supposed principled opposition to what the Tea Partier defines as “outside the sphere of government”
Just to be fair, the same sort of behavior is seen on the left. for example, having the government intercept communications in order to help keep guns out of the hands of criminals is fine. Right up until someone notices that the intercepted communications can also be examined for other kinds of speech. Then suddenly such interceptions move “outside the proper sphere of government”. (And yes, I have observed exactly that phenomena first hand.)
That’s all that’s required for the logic to work.
sure.
that’s not going to stop me from pointing out that their principled stance is founded on blinkered ignorance and lies, though. their leaders in Congress know the numbers; their leaders in the media should know the numbers; anyone who has seen the medical bills for a serious illness should suspect they’re be getting more than they put in. but no, they are all happy to take the Medicare money and to tell each other to take the Medicare money, and to scream about the prospect of losing that Medicare money. all the while crying about their principles over the ACA. ‘coached partisan posturing’
I think it’s not so much a “need”, as a convenience: Liberals frequently pursue a strategy of trying to win debates by preventing them from taking place in the first place.
People do that. People also frequently pursue a strategy of lumping everyone they disagree with together, finding something objectionable about individuals in that wildly varied grouping, and then assigning that characteristic to the group as a whole & to each of its members.
Pretty much every objectionable tactic is used by people of all political stripes. Objecting to tactics is fine, but pretending that they are confined to one side is extremely naive.
For instance, you’ll pick out words or phrases needed to express opinions different from your own, and declare them to be “code words” or “dog whistles”, carrying some evil connotation the people who disagree with you frequently don’t intend.
Sure, that does happen. “Federalism”, for example, has become synonymous with a certain set of beliefs that extend beyond the relationship between states and the federal government.
On the other hand, google “Lee Atwater” and “dog whistle”. This is a real phenomenon, and pretending that it exists entirely as a smear is foolish.
Really, you’d be much more credible if you acknowledged this kind of fact & said that it’s not representative of the entire conservative movement- but then, you’d be exposing yourself to the very “lump & criticise” strategy you deployed above, but from the left.
[I wonder if this is, at least in part, responsible for the very wide definition you appear to have for “liberal” versus the remarkable narrow definition you appear to use for “conservative”- limit the liability of lumping by limiting the group itself].
For myself- after taking a hiatus from comments a while back, I figured out that (as russell’s 9:31 observes) for the most part I wasnt here to change my mind. And realistically, I couldnt plan on changing other peoples’ minds either (at least, it’s not fair to engage in a debate when I expect the other person to be moved by my arguments but don’t admit the possibility that I could be moved by theirs). So now Im here to 1)understand the opposing points of view even if I dont agree with them and 2)use that understanding to get a better understanding of my own position. Particularly the parts I have a hard time seeing directly.
[Which is why I was so excited about the whole “liberal echo chamber” series of threads, although I ended up not getting much out of them.]
I think you need to make these ideas ‘toxic’ because you lack the confidence you can actually defeat them in a real debate. So you want to shut down the debate before it happens.
Im sure it’s very comforting for you to think that. Weirdly, you’re on a site with a bunch of liberals who appear to friggin *live* to debate conservatives, and you’re still able to rely on a worldview where “liberals” lack the confidence to debate you? The mind boggles.
I suspect that had Brett said these exact same words, his words would have been greeted with jeers and derision.
Not that I have a lot in common with Brett. Or that I am assured that this guess is correct. Just that I think that it’s a fairly decent assessment that is accepted as good, given where it originated.
I suspect that different people would’ve reacted to Brett’s hypothetical statement differently.
In my experience there are quite a few people here who are capable of reasonably evaluating a statement mostly on its own merits.
Finally, Im a fan of a good mocking, and I won’t stand idly by and watch the concept be mocked so.
A while back, Michael Berube (who has a son with Down syndrome, and has written movingly on his experiences raising him) similarly suggested that we stop using mental-ability-based insults like “stupid” entirely.
I’ve done some thinking on this, myself, along the lines of “When is someone being stupid such that it’s okay to say so (if ever), versus when does someone lack the cognitive capacity to be at fault?”
Anectdota: I tend to think of my sister-in-law’s former long-term boyfriend, who is a loud-mouthed, know-it-all jackass with silly legal notions that cause him to threaten people absurdly with law suits and potential arrest, as well as an exaggerated sense of his business savvy that causes him to throw money at obviously-losing propositions (e.g. he blew 5 figures, not all of which was his own, on what was clearly a scammy time share). He may well be my personal poster boy for “stupid.” He confidently and aggressively does and says stupid things regularly.
I don’t bring him up to suggest that it’s okay to call him stupid, so long as you don’t call someone with, say, a developmental congitive disability. He’s just the best example of someone who makes me reflexively reach for that word.
I suppose I could switch entirely from calling him or anyone like him a stupid m0therfncker to calling him a fncking clown.
/digression
Liberals frequently pursue a strategy of trying to win debates by preventing them from taking place in the first place.
Whereas Boehners only OCCASIONALLY pursue a strategy of trying to win debates by preventing VOTES from taking place in the first place, eh?
And what’s a filibuster? A tactic to PREVENT DEBATE on a bill you know will pass if you allow it to be debated and voted on. Senate Republicans must be flaming liberals!
–TP
Reflecting, I don’t think I refer to people who are mentally ill as “crazy” anymore- I usually say “mentally ill” or refer to a specific condition. I think of “crazy” as something like ‘exhibiting normal human irrationality to excess’.
hsh- you are gonna piss off the clowns and you do not want to go down that road.
Senate Republicans must be flaming liberals!
Ironically, that’s actually a talking point on the right just about now. Which would segue into talking about how TP [exhibition of normal human irrationality to excess] cannot be out-E.O.N.H.I.T.E.ed, under normal circumstances.
I’ve always thought of stupidity in the sense of hairshirthedonist’s acquaintance as a kind of will to ignorance, which of course has nothing to do with organic cognitive deficits. Usually it’s something you get trained into.
If I understand the common argument correctly, the issues there are that (a) participation in the political body is not voluntary (contrary to Adams’ formulation in the MA constitution), and (b) things mediated through the government can be coerced.
On cue, Ganesh D’Souza breaks it down for us all, brought to my attention by a family member via social media.
With a generous dollop of makers and takers to top it off in the second half.
I’ve always thought of stupidity in the sense of hairshirthedonist’s acquaintance as a kind of will to ignorance
The Italian is ‘ostinato’ – obstinate, mulish, incorrigably dense. Persistent in the pursuit of folly, thoroughly unencumbered by reflection or self-awareness, heedless of simple good sense and reasonable self-interest.
Not a cognitive impairment, but one of character.
How did you know he was Italian, russell? (I kid, of course, thought he actually is. Being part Italian myself, and only because that gives me special privilege, I may have once – but only once! – referred to him as a stupid dego. I know, I know – look at the “liberal” using an ethnic slur….)
brought to my attention by a family member via social media
And, said family member is contemplating early retirement, and is wondering how the exorbitant monthly COBRA fee can be met on a fixed income.
But, the ACA is Obama riding up on a horse and demanding at gunpoint that one party surrender their sandwich to another party.
Free markets, or what passes for them hereabouts, are of course never ever ever coercive in any way.
Political debate in the US right now is an argument about mythologies. And I don’t use that term disparagingly, because I don’t consider myths to be falsehoods.
What they are, are narratives which embody and confer meaning. Mere facts are beside the point.
To change minds in a context like that, it’s necessary not merely to demonstrate that one side’s facts are wrong. You must convince folks to abandon their mythology – the narrative that informs their fundamental stance toward the world.
Good luck with that.
The ACA, you see, is not an attempt to sort out the conflicting interests and requirements of the eleventy-seven different stakeholders in American health care. It’s not a program (however successful, now or ever) of sticks and carrots to somehow bring health insurance in reach of the 15% of Americans who can’t currently obtain it.
It’s Obama, riding up on a horse with gun, telling you to give your sandwich to that other guy.
You know, the malingerer who spends his days riding in the cart that you, the poor unappreciated hard-working salt of the earth, have been pulling, without a word of thanks, all your life.
That’s why the ACA is bad and must be stopped.
It will just become the next new normal, thus further expanding the sphere of government influence and dependency.
Alternatively it could be viewed in terms of empowering individuals to effectively participate in and direct their own healthcare regardless of their social and economic status.
A big, if not the biggest issue of this divide, is deciding on basic hierarchical and power relationships and who gets what and how. An employer’s (state sanctioned) ability to fire at will is power; white peoples’ (state sanctioned) ability to dominate black people is power; a man’s right to abuse/rape his wife within the sanctity of a state enforced contract is power.
Conservatives seek to maintain and/or enhance certain observed power relationships. Liberals/radicals seek to overturn them. Both sides use words like ‘freedom’, ‘liberty’, ‘morals’, ‘fairness’, ‘justice’, etc., and they use them passionately and in a heartfelt manner. But sometimes this is window dressing, for it comes down to this: Whose side are you on?
To use a martial metaphor, just because you lose one battle does not mean you must retire from the war..
Precisely. Conservatives once had to accede publically and often privately to the victory of the New Deal state. They no longer do. Hence efforts to privatize Social Security and turn Medicare into means tested charity. This is how they see this….as a war, not a simple disagreement on how to best solve social problems.
I am of the opinion that we should give it to them and soundly thrash them.
Nobody uses the word “crazy” in this context as denoting some sort of specific diagnostic sense of actual mental illness. It is used in the slang sense of outside what can be understood as rational thought.
Saying someone is crazy because their thinking is well outside the bounds of rational thought, without regard to why they think that way, is fair game. Whining about the use in this sense is groundless, as it does not specifically connote an actual mental condition.
We use all sorts of similes and metaphors to describe a shortcoming when the word also has a connotation suggesting a medical or clinical condition. Someone in a frenzied rage is “rabid.” Someone who sticks to an outdated philosophy is said to be “crippled” in understanding current conditions. To say this type of word usage is out of bounds is a little overly sensitive. Sure, there are some instances when it can be in bad taste, but “crazy” is not one of them.
“The ACA, you see, is not an attempt to sort out the conflicting interests and requirements of the eleventy-seven different stakeholders in American health care. …
It’s Obama, riding up on a horse with gun, telling you to give your sandwich to that other guy.”
Why can’t it be both? Why can’t it be that Obama, and your, ideal of “sorting out conflicting interests”, is to just ride in on a horse with gun, and order people to do what you want?
And you figure it’s empowering to be fined if you decide not to buy something you think you can’t afford.
I figure that’s it, actually: You don’t think you’re doing evil, you think you know best, and that knowing best entitles you to override other people’s choices. And what, after all, could be more empowering than being freed from that false consciousness of thinking you want something else, and being compelled to do what you’d clearly want to do, if you weren’t so irrational as to have your own preferences instead of the preferences Obama and company think you should have?
Empowering to be fined if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do. Of course, what could ever be more empowering?
You don’t think you’re doing evil, you think you know best, and that knowing best entitles you to override other people’s choices.
welcome to democracy.
if the prospect of not getting your way 100% of the time is an affront to your principles, perhaps democracy is not for you.
Why can’t it be both?
First and foremost, because in the context of the analogy at hand, there is no “other guy” who is getting a sandwich.
D’Souza’s analogy was wrong-headed and inapt. It was just a stock argument he pulled from his Felix-the-cat’s big bag of all-purpose stock arguments about Why Liberalism Is Bad.
The ACA isn’t Taking Your Stuff And Giving It To That Guy Over There. The coercive part of the ACA is the individual mandate, which isn’t a transfer payment at all. Or, at least, if it is, it’s a transfer payment to an insurance company, not some guy riding in the back of a wagon.
The mandate was put in place not to satisfy my jones to force people to do what I want them to, but to get the insurance companies to go along with the requirement to insure folks with prior conditions, and to drop recission.
Far from seeing it as some kind of wonderful “let me tell you how to live your life” feature, I personally (since your comment makes liberal use of the second person, I assume you’re talking to me, says Travis Bickle) see it as, at best, a sort of crappy compromise.
If I had my druthers the insurance companies wouldn’t get a seat at the table. At all.
Why? Because our representatives represent we, the people, and the insurance and pharma businesses ARE NOT PEOPLE.
There’s a nice rabbit hole for you to jump down if you like.
In any case I’m well too far to the left to get my way about these things. It’s a reality, I’ve learned to deal. It doesn’t keep me up at nights.
What *is* empowering to the folks to whom it applies is the ability to get health insurance at all, or for less than low five figures, or that doesn’t have deductibles that still exposes them to financial hardship.
For those folks, it’s a solid win. There are a lot of those folks.
In any case, you’ve made your point about the mandate, I’ve made mine, and we should probably leave it there. We will not agree either on the facts of the matter or on their value.
The only point I was making upthread is that, to people like my family member, the facts are more or less irrelevant, because the ACA is anathema from the get-go.
Because a narrative has been woven about it that conflicts with their personal mythos.
The facts are irrelevant.
“The evangelical Republican voters interviewed were quite open abour why they opposed OBamacare: they were afraid that by providing health insurance to people other than themselves, the Democrats would get a voting majority and America, which they conceptualize as being a nation for white people, would become a nation of empowered voting Democratic not-white people. I was startled by this because I thought the opposition to Obamacare was ignorant,selfish and hypocritical, but I had not thought it was a cynical tactic to try to protect the Republican party from hordes of nonwhite voting Democrats.”
My far right friend endorsed their views. As he sees it, it’s not that he’s a bigot, because he’d gladly be governed by black conservatives such as Allen West, Herman Cain, or Ben Carson. He thinks that American culture is a product of Anglo-European values (his words) and immigrants to this country need to be socialized into those values in order to fit in. He thinks those values aren’t being transmitted to illegal immigrants and single black fathers in the ghetto. Obamacare and other social welfare programs will give them an incentive to remain in the “taker” class and not be assimilated into the “maker” class. This is all a pretty close paraphrase.
Anyway, the above isn’t cynical, exactly. It’s sincere. I’d call it “stupid” and “crazy”, which lands me in the middle of the discussion of what sorts of words we should use for people who hold views that seem really foolish. Like others here, I don’t usually refer to mentally ill people as “crazy”– “crazy” is more a derogatory term used about people who do or say stupid things.
And I agree with Russell. People choose to think this way, and they take in or ignore facts depending on whether those facts support their firmly held beliefs about how the world should be run. We can all fall into this to some degree, but I don’t think most on the left fall into this habit of ignoring evidence to the same extent that we see currently on the right. I could find some lefties who do (9/11 Truthers are depressingly common in the comment sections of far left blogs), but they don’t wield much power.
your, ideal of “sorting out conflicting interests”, is to just ride in on a horse with gun, and order people to do what you want?
And just to follow on cleek’s comment, if you had but world enough and time, I might favor you with my long, long, long list of crappy nonsense that is *imposed on me* because of the ill-formed and -informed opinions, paranoid fantasies, greed, lust for power, and general festering collective id of people whose values I DO NOT SHARE, but who happen to also be US citizens.
But frankly you don’t have anything like enough world and time. I’ll leave it to your imagination, which seems more than fertile and active enough for the task.
Everybody eats a crap sandwich in this great country of ours, Brett. It’s how we get along.
I’m happy to put up with it right up until the point that somebody points a gun at me. When and if that happens, all bets are off.
Enjoy your day.
“The coercive part of the ACA is the individual mandate, which isn’t a transfer payment at all. Or, at least, if it is, it’s a transfer payment to an insurance company, not some guy riding in the back of a wagon.”
No, it’s a transfer payment through an insurance company. You force the young and healthy to buy insurance they don’t want, at actuarially excessive prices, so that the insurance company doesn’t go broke from being forced to sell insurance to other folks at actuarially too low prices. The insurance company is just a conduit.
I figure that’s it, actually: You don’t think you’re doing evil, you think you know best, and that knowing best entitles you to override other people’s choices.
You really don’t seem to be making any attempt to understand the other side of the argument; the closest you get here is a caricature of how we probly feel good telling other people what they ought to want to do.
If you can’t make a reasonable summary of the other side’s position as if it came from one of them, can you really be said to understand it?
That’s an interesting reading of the facts.
And, one that is completely congruent with, and supportive of, everything you already believe to be true.
sorry – in case it’s not clear, my 4:56 is a response to Brett’s 4:47.
Russell: Political debate in the US right now is an argument about mythologies.
Mythologies are to politics what paradigms are to science. Science did not abandon the geocentric paradigm, or the phlogiston paradigm, or the bleeding-the-sick paradigm until a better paradigm came along.
“Better”, in science, means “able to account for more phenomena and able to make more accurate predictions”. What does “better” mean, in politics?
The superficial answer is obvious: “more popular”. In a democracy, the more-widely-held paradigm (or mythology, if you prefer) will ultimately prevail.
But that just raises the question: what makes a mythology more popular? What makes a majority of people adopt myths like “Cadillac-driving welfare queens” or “Galt-like job creators”? Is it a passing resemblance to real things they see in their everyday lives? Or is it propaganda they are subject to in their everyday lives?
I know, I know: it’s both, and it varies from person to person, etc. But I say propaganda plays the bigger role, and I say that for the same reason that I accept the atomic paradigm: experts tell me that the world is made of atoms, and I believe their propaganda because it seems self-consistent, not because I have personally ever seen an atom.
Brett’s political paradigm is discernible in this: And you figure it’s empowering to be fined if you decide not to buy something you think you can’t afford. This paradigm is based on a strict separation of “powers”. Your “power” to buy health insurance even if you have a pre-existing condition is completely unrelated to your obligation to buy health insurance before you get sick. Even if the government tries to structure health insurance so that you CAN afford it (whether you “think” you can or not), its attempt to empower you in one way is no excuse for it to dis-empower you in another way.
To me, this is akin to arguing that astrophysics can be kept separate from evolution: the universe can be 14 billion years old AND humans lived together with dinosaurs. It takes a very careful separation of scientific paradigms to make both propositions believable to the same person. Just like it takes a very-carefully-constructed mythology on Brett’s part for him to avoid seeing connections between things when he doesn’t want to.
–TP
I’d like to back up Brett. Sort of. I do know a number of young individuals that have been uninsured for extended periods of time, and when they get insurance, they will probably be subsidizing an older population. It’s the nature of insurance and pooled risk combined with people starting out healthier and progressively needing more and more medical care. Or, more simply, some people will need more medical coverage than others, so money will flow from the healthy to the sick.
“You don’t think you’re doing evil, you think you know best, and that knowing best entitles you to override other people’s choices.”
On this, this, though, I’d disagree. Let’s assume there is a population of young and healthy individuals who are being unfairly put upon by the ACA mandate…whose premiums are helping balance the insurance companies books. I, personally, wouldn’t contest that.
Have you ever heard someone describe the ACA as good for them? I’ve had conversations with “liberals” who said this was necessary for the system to work…you need healthy people to buy insurance and not consume a lot of medical help in return to balance out the people who consume more medical attention then they pay for in premiums. I’ve never heard someone describe it as ‘we know best for this group on nominally healthy individuals and they need insurance’. It’s always been ‘Well, we need a risk pool not constructed entirely of sick people…and we need to prevent people from gaming the system and buying insurance only when they are struck ill…and the mandate is a good way of creating that’.
That doesn’t mean the ACA mandate is 100% good. Or 1% good. But I’ve only ever heard it described by proponents as a necessary component of making the system work…not as a boon being forced upon them by a benevolent government. I guess I’m just curious if that’s how you view the proponents of the ACA…or if that’s not a fair depiction of your views…how you do view the proponents of the ACA?
“This paradigm is based on a strict separation of “powers”. Your “power” to buy health insurance even if you have a pre-existing condition is completely unrelated to your obligation to buy health insurance before you get sick.”
I’d say this comment by Tony P. gets to the heart of the debate on the ACA individual mandate. I would say that at least in conversations I’ve had with conservative friends…they frequently view both as a problem. No company should be “forced” to sell insurance to a sick person and no healthy person should be forced to buy insurance.
Those are philosophical judgements, and say nothing about what happens to people who choose not to buy insurance and develop cancer, or get crippled…death? Destitution? Relying on the kindness of strangers? Having a functional system always requires compromising one or more ideals. It’s deciding which ideals to compromise and to what degree that’s hard.
My major exposure to unfiltered Tea Party thinking is via people I knew in the Service on Facebook. The most vocal is someone I knew in BCT who was discharged following a(n off-duty) motorcycle accident. She had a three-year contract, but extended that 4-6 months to complete a medical separation board rather than letting her term expire. I don’t know what her board found her disability rating to be, but she (who now rails against “Obamacare” and declares that it alone should be enough to justify impeachment) felt she was entitled to a minimum of severance pay (or possibly a lifetime pension; all this quite aside from VA disability benefits) because she happened to have a serious accident while on Active Duty. Despite the fact that she was planning to separate after her 36-month contract expired. She’ll also get lifetime medical care for that and any other injury while she was in, and this is perfect justice because she earned it* – but the ACA is a socialist abomination of greed, tyranny, and entitlement.
It’s not like I’d even think of calling her stupid – or crazy, for that matter** – she has a couple of degrees and can carry on an intelligent, calm, reasonable conversation. She’s just willfully, blissfully ignorant on certain (albeit broad) topics, with a great deal of pride about how self-reliant she is coupled with laser-focused empathy that allows her to avoid questioning how the lives of others play out vis à vis her own.
(The above is added not out of a conviction that it’ll greatly advance the conversation – just that it’s what keeps jumping into my mind when the subject of Tea Party adherent personal double standards comes up. Kinda like hsh’s discussion of stupidity above.)
*Generally, I don’t have a problem with this statement. I’m quite willing to err on the side of caution. In her specific instance, though, it doesn’t gel well with the rest of her attitude towards the government.
**She has posted one or two things which suggested that she might have some birther sympathies; if she does, I’d be more open towards using this term to describe her beliefs, but she herself still seems disturbing rational… just extremely, willfully wrong about some pretty basic matters.
Have you ever heard someone describe the ACA as good for them?
Yes, of course. I have seen people on TV and on the web explain how Obamacare helped them personally. But maybe they were misinformed like the guests that lying liar Sean Hannity trotted out.
And to answer your question seriously: I think the ACA is good for ME because I know the difference between insurance and gambling. I have been self-employed for 20 years. I have been buying my own health insurance the whole time. Blue Cross has made a BIG profit on me, so far. Until Romneycare came along, Blue Cross was free to drop me as a customer from one year to the next. They were “empowered” to close the roulette table while they were ahead. Romneycare allows me to keep playing, even if I start to win. Obamacare “empowers” me to do that even if I choose to or need to move out of Massachusetts. Got it?
–TP
The young people (as opposed to older, immature, but healthy, self-insured — it’s a little funkier than that, but later — folks like myself) who remain irresponsibly uninsured by choice and who — without malice — find themselves suffering from some deadly, chronic, expensive disease, or prized from the twisted metal of the automobile they wrapped around a concrete abutment and bleed all over the gurney I was headed for in the emergency room, or who sign up to be fragged and delimbed multiple times in foreign wars, or who miss that suicide shot to the head by just enough to require a sippy cup and a poopy bag for life are forcing/coercing me to let them suck titty on my hospital and emergency room costs, my insurance premiums, my rehab center costs, and my pharmaceutical costs.
If I’m their parent or grandparents, they are forcing me to empty my retirement funds, rape my home equity (or lose the farm), and just plain feel like a broke, worried, sack of crap the rest of MY life, as I change their diapers, inject their pain killers, haul them around in a van with a lift, and listen to them tell me the Constitution guaranteed that they were not be to be forced to purchase insurance to subsidize my trick knee.
I’m thinking of all of those inappropriate nouns and adjectives that should be reserved for the deserving that I would call them (from our discussion here) as their bowels let go before I can wheel them into the loo and they chime in with appeals to their freedom of choice because Thomas Jefferson didn’t foresee chemotherapy, stents, dialysis, and advanced prosthetics.
(He designed a cool writing desk, I’ll give him that.)
But I won’t.
Yes, I will.
You (my uninsured, diapered cripple here) and Thomas Jefferson are a couple of stupid, retarded, whining, uninsured crazy mental cases and its making me depressed and even crazier.
They’ll get it all back and more at the other end of life unless Pete Peterson and Paul Ryan force them to believe otherwise.
Unless we want to turn the uninsured-by-choice genuises away from medical care once they’ve run through the jar of quarters on their dressers as a kind of sadistic libertarian social experiment.
Have you ever heard someone describe the ACA as good for [young, healthy people]? I’ve had conversations with “liberals” who said this was necessary for the system to work…you need healthy people to buy insurance and not consume a lot of medical help in return to balance out the people who consume more medical attention then they pay for in premiums.
Well, it’s a pretty good deal with the subsidies if you’re a low-income healthy young person- subsidies funded in part by cutting medicaid payments on the thinking that hospitals will see a much lower rate of uninsured, low-income patients who cannot cover their medical bills.
For those low-income consumers, they may have chosen to avoid unsubsidized insurance, but subsidized insurance may look like a very good deal regardless of the mandate.
There are some non-zero-sum aspects of the ACA; for example, being able to substitute inexpensive medications and preventative care for expensive ER visits. Cutting down the economic losses associated with medical bankruptcies. Increased flexibility in the workforce leading to higher economic growth.
So any analysis of ‘is this a good deal for healthy young people’ should take those into account as well. That is, the ACA is an entire package, and while being forced into insurance might not be their preference, it goes part and parcel with the rest & that rest should yield some benefits for them in terms of an improved economy.
If you are young and healthy and wealthy and planning on remaining in that state for the foreseeable & therefore didn’t want to purchase insurance, then it’s probably not a good deal for you personally, I agree on that point.
I’d like to back up Brett.
Let’s not. The glibertarians posit that private market contractual relationships will most efficiently deal with health care costs. This assertion is beyond false and ignores the insurmountable market failures associated with health care….i.e., we never know when we will need it, and the inevitability that we’ll all need it at some point prior to death.
Given these facts, there is no “free market solution” to health care absent the invocation of the freedom of both rich and poor to sleep under bridges is invoked, and that’s just another way of saying that the poor shall be coerced to go without care.
I do know a number of young individuals that have been uninsured for extended periods of time, and when they get insurance, they will probably be subsidizing an older population.
That’s one way to look at it.
Another way, as the count notes, is to see young people who don’t buy insurance, and gamble that their health will hold, as free riders on the public health system. So, their desire to not buy insurance is a transfer of money from my pocket to theirs, using any and every hospital in the country that accepts Medicare money – i.e., virtually every hospital in the country – as the intermediary.
That statement would certainly be as true as Brett’s, and would have the additional advantage of actually being the historical motivation for the individual mandate.
Maybe we should consider every case where the law benefits one person, but costs another something, to be a case of the state taking one person’s sandwich and giving it to another.
Is there any law or public regulation that anyone can think of that doesn’t, in some way shape or form, benefit some people and cost other folks something?
All “transfer payments”? All Obama riding up on a horse with gun, taking my sandwich, and giving it to That Other Guy?
Or maybe laws just have differential effects, and we accept that and move on.
Or maybe we minimize, to the greatest degree possible, the role of government in public life.
That is basically Brett’s ideal, if I understand his comments here correctly, and the apparent ideal of many self-proclaimed tea party types.
I suspect Brett has an understanding of what he is asking for when he says that, but I’m far less clear that the other folks do.
In any case, the rest of us – the overwhelming majority of us – do not want that. So that’s not what is going to happen.
Time to accept the best available thing and move on.
Another way, as the count notes…
and Carleton
Well, there is a solution to the free rider problem without robbing people of their liberty (instead increasing it for some) and it has been proposed from the Right and got rousing applause from the audience during the presidential debates (while the opponents got booed): Allow all medical practitioners, esp. emergency rooms, to refuse to treat patients that cannot prove on the spot their ability to pay. Where does it say in the constitution (or the Bible for that matter) that medical practitioners can be coerced to treat anyone, maybe even without pay? ‘He who does not work*, he shall not eat either.’ It’s only logical that this is equal to ‘he who does not pay shall not receive service.’
Let’s raise a cup of (untaxed) tea to that.
I would recommend removing all lanterns from streets ahead of time though , before people learn that Ça ira is not an exotic dancer or a country in Africa.
*Opposed to what some people claim, there is no explicit exception made in the text for those unable to work
There are some non-zero-sum aspects of the ACA;
No. Everything is zero sum. EVERYTHING!
Could somebody stop calling John Boehner names?
Hunh?
http://clotureclub.com/tea-party-insult-generator/
These are the mouths Tea Partiers eat with.
They go home and kiss their kids with these mouths, and it’s a shame they don’t have medical/dental insurance with the befouled gingivitis they carry.
I should talk, and I do, because I know and mimic these misbegotten trash talkers.
I think David Vitter’s sex worker disallowed him kisses, which was wise because she probably was not insured for unexplained itching acquired from a highly placed but pre-existing source.
These people are vandals and they just don’t appreciate how many of them John Boehner saved from being punished for vandalism in the manner of an armed conservative preventing the vandalism of his property.
Ok, maybe I need to clarify a little. Didn’t mean to derail the conversation, although I did enjoy the Count’s imagery. Vivid. My post…I am just trying to understand Brett’s position, that’s all. One of the problems I have, and I think is endemic in politics, is that policy and philosophy (or mythos, to steal from russell upthread) get convolved. And it is hard for to understand someone when you don’t see how their policy position (and the facts they bring) is informed and grows from their philosophy.
First, Tony P, I gotta say, I try to avoid Hannity at all costs. Second, not saying ACA isn’t good for you, for me, or in general. I was trying to understand what Brett thinks proponents of the ACA thinks…is the ACA (and the mandate specifically) a ‘manifestation of the all-good all-knowing government taking away choice because people will make the wrong one’ or is it a ‘series of policy compromises (which he doesn’t agree with) to attempt to fix the delivery of healthcare’?
I raised the “young/healthy” group because that is something he alluded to upthread and its a group which you could argue probably, as a group, contributes more in premiums then they consume (at least at their current age). There are other factors, sure. Some subset of this group will become catastrophically injured or ill and will directly benefit from the insurance. I pay for insurance even though I’m nominally healthy and rarely go to the doctor. If someone asked me if insurance was a good idea overall, I’d say yes. I’ve just never heard someone advocate for the mandate in the sense that “The uninsured (that can afford it but choose not to) benefit because the government is removing this choice that they are making poorly”. That is what I interpreted Brett as saying, have never heard someone say that, and was wondering if that was a view held by “conservatives” or if he could point to “liberals” that actually hold that view.
Count and bobbyp raise the point that the uninsured aren’t really uninsured, they are indirectly insured by everybody with insurance, the government, etc. Yeah, agreed. What I’m trying to understand is why Brett objects to the ACA…is the choice to be uninsured so important that dysfunctional healthcare is a worthwhile price to pay? Or does he think there is a better way to fix the system? Or does he think it will make the system worse?
me: “I’d like to back up Brett.”
boppyp: “Let’s not.”
Sorry, but I’m trying to meet someone halfway to help understand their position. Maybe it’s hopeless, but I’m a hopeful person.
thompson, I’m light reading, so have at it, and welcome to OBWI.
Sorry, but I’m trying to meet someone halfway to help understand their position.
Good on ya. It’s a worthy goal. Please carry on.
I will be curious to read the responses you get.
Ugh, too far behind. russell, I agree. Even my nose apparently restricts how far people can swing their fist, let alone government and all their noses.
And to everybody, I am not contesting the dire situation that is US healthcare.
Any law is going to limit someone, somewhere and benefit someone, somewhere. And in a country as diverse as this, we have are going to disagree what the optimal law is…and that’s going to stem from philosophical differences, actual policy differences, and good old fashioned partisanship.
I think that those three things are so convolved in any political discussion, and the ACA is a good example, it’s really difficult to see where one ends and the others begin. It’s blurred for me in my own stances and it’s even harder to see them in someone else’s.
Brett is someone I don’t agree with on a lot of things (I’ve lurked for awhile), and is similar in view to some friends/coworkers who I don’t consider evil, or stupid, or even crazy. I’d like to understand his position.
And thanks, for the welcome, both stated and just in responding…sorry if I disrupted the conversation, you guys always have great ones!
“clotureclub.com/tea-party-insult-generator/”
LOL.
do you really want to hurt me?
i love love loved the captain america / thomas jefferson tag-team cosplay.
Sorry, but I’m trying to meet someone halfway to help understand their position.
You don’t have to meet a chicken half-way across the road to understand its position on chicken soup.
Brett has made clear that he values the freedom to remain uninsured if he wants to. He has not made clear whether he values the freedom to be able to afford health insurance if he ever loses his tenured faculty position. I am curious to know THAT.
–TP
No one has to provide health insurance to anyone. If you don’t want to sell insurance, you can paint houses, build mp3 players, breed horses, do people’s taxes, wash windows, babysit, mow lawns, play the violin, pull teeth or whatever.
I’d prefer not to make people buy insurance or make insurance companies provide it to people they don’t want to provide it to, assuming the former can afford it and the latter want to be in that business at all, absent some compelling reason(s) to do so.
But there are compelling reasons, short of single-payer (or maybe at least a public option). There is a market failure that results in lots of people dying or going completely broke. But some people think abstract ideas about what government should or shouldn’t do are more important to some people than those things.
You’d think Obama was ordering people to the gulags the way some people talk about this stuff. It’s weird.
“Brett has made clear that he values the freedom to remain uninsured if he wants to. He has not made clear whether he values the freedom to be able to afford health insurance if he ever loses his tenured faculty position. I am curious to know THAT.”
I’m curious too.
“But there are compelling reasons, short of single-payer (or maybe at least a public option). There is a market failure that results in lots of people dying or going completely broke. But some people think abstract ideas about what government should or shouldn’t do are more important to some people than those things.”
There certainly are compelling reasons. But abstract ideas are important too. Freedom of speech is an abstract notion, and limits on it (at least in the US) require very compelling reasons. Again, not trying to say the reasons aren’t compelling enough. I’m just saying I can understand how a reasonable person can reach a conclusion that a particular abstract concept might be more important to them than a particular compelling reason. Of course, I’d be interested in how people weigh those two concerns.
“You’d think Obama was ordering people to the gulags the way some people talk about this stuff. It’s weird.”
Yeah, I agree. At some point (generally an early point), political fights become self-serving…you need to win because you need to win, or make the other side lose. Add in that in you need to constantly say something more extreme to capture the next news cycle…you have a conversation that gets out of hand really fast. That’s why I’m trying to cut through the bull, get down to what people actually believe, not just what they say quickly to make a point. Maybe I’m not cynical enough…but I don’t think people are that different at the core.
“No one has to provide health insurance to anyone. If you don’t want to sell insurance, you can paint houses, build mp3 players, breed horses, do people’s taxes, wash windows, babysit, mow lawns, play the violin, pull teeth or whatever.”
Generalize this reasoning far enough, and you’re giving people a choice of either doing what you want, or doing nothing at all. I’d rather reject that particular style of reasoning at the start, rather than the finish.
If you want to live by your religion, move to a monastery. If you want to arrange flowers, get a license. If you want to be a doctor, perform abortions. If you want to be a pharmacist, sell plan B.
If you want to do anything but huddle in the corner, do as I say. That’s the new Democratic mantra, and it is nothing but an excuse to implement a totalitarian state by inches.
Try this on for size: If there’s no fraud or coercion involved, it’s none of your goddamn business if somebody sells somebody else an insurance policy you don’t like the terms of. It’s none of your business if a 20 year old opts for nothing but catastrophic coverage. It’s none of your business if a policy for a 60 year old cancer patient costs more than 3 times as much as a policy for a 25 year old athlete.
ALMOST EVERYTHING IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
So get out of everybody’s faces, and get over the idea that you’re entitled to arrange everybody else’s lives to your satisfaction.
ALMOST EVERYTHING IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
Take your pick:
This is a problem that so many liberals believe, that a nation is basically a big family, its not.
Or:
it is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good.
The rest, as the great Hillel said, is commentary.
One thing I will say is that you mistake most folks’ motivation. I don’t particularly “want” anybody to sell insurance or not, or buy insurance or not. I get no particular satisfaction out of it either way.
To be totally honest, I’m actually not that nice of a guy, and I don’t even really care that much either way what people do, as far as their own personal decisions.
Want to skate through your 20’s with no insurance? Want to smoke, or drink a bottle of Jack a day, or live on McDonalds and Twinkies?
How long of a list would you like?
Whatever. We all have our lives to lead. All other things being equal, do whatever the hell you like. Not my problem.
But all other things *are not* equal. Would that they were, but they are not. What people do *affects me*. Because what any of us do affects all of the rest of us, to degrees ranging from infinitesimal to quite large.
What other folks do affects me, and vice versa. That is not kumbaya around the campfire, it’s the reality.
So, I find myself obliged to deal with it. I’m involved, like it or not.
Maybe I could avoid it if I wanted to live like some weird survivalist prepper, but I don’t want to live that way. And, oddly enough, most folks don’t. Very very few people do.
Humans are social, what any of us do affects the rest of us. That’s the reality. Believe me when I say there are many many days that I wish it were otherwise, but it’s not.
So yeah, I want that young healthy dude to buy some insurance, because otherwise it will end up coming out of my hide. And it doesn’t bug me if that happens via the law, because the law is what lets us all get along without killing each other.
It ain’t perfect, but it beats the alternative. You might disagree about that, but sadly for you your view is, by far, in the minority.
If it really bugs you, go find a few acres out in the boonies, buy some goats and chickens and a bunch of guns and ammo, and live the dream. Nobody will stop you, and if you do it right by and large you’ll be left alone.
and it is nothing but an excuse to implement a totalitarian state by inches.
such idiocy.
such idiocy.
in the etymologically truest sense.
and it is nothing but an excuse to implement a totalitarian state by inches.
The suffocating embrace of the liberal nanny state has been on the march since the start of the industrial revolution. See here for example. It cannot be stopped. It is relentless. Resistance is futile.
Regards,
The Illuminati
Generalize this reasoning far enough, and you’re giving people a choice of either doing what you want, or doing nothing at all.
Sure, but I’m not generalizing it that far. Anything the government does can be abstracted and generalized far enough to the point that it becomes absolutely totalitarian. But we can’t just throw our hands up and let avoidable bad sh1t happen as it may just because you can abstractly generalize an idea to a point where it becomes just as bad or worse than the problem you’re trying to solve. That would be crazy and stupid. (Aw, crap…)
thompson: “That’s why I’m trying to cut through the bull, get down to what people actually believe …”
Brett: “It’s none of your business ….”
Welp, once the bull has been thoroughly cut and the brass tacks have been gotten down to, is there anything left to talk about at OBWI?
I say (not that it’s any of my business) that we fold the OBWI tent and convert the site into a place where we can exchange pictures of our kids and maybe the occasional photo of the cake we baked last night which we plan take down to the bakery to let it talk to the other cakes, if they happen to be in the mood.
I hold this image in my mind of a lengthy walk I took about 35 years ago along a path adjacent to the River Ganges as it flows through Varanasi.
I headed downstream.
I do crummy accents to keep myself entertained, so I’ll ask all of you to read this bit to yourselves in the clipped, head-wagging English of a native of India. It’ll be more fun, although Brett may protest what business of mine it is what his inner reading voice sounds like …
I’m sure some things have changed somewhat since, but I remember watching folks live by their religion as they carried innumerable bodies to the ghats along the holy river, and after bathing them in the waters, burning ensued and then the remains were set afloat on their rafts of flowers, vultures would creak and throp their wings from their perches and wheel overhead, and swoop down and stand on the rafts and tug whatever morsels of viscera they might find from the remains.
You could detect disturbances in the black water alongside the rafts too as whatever aquatic creatures still extant in the river squirmed for their share of the bounty.
As I walked, I would cross culverts, too numerous to count, from which oozed and fizzed human effluent and would come upon individuals or groups of individuals (this was very early morning) squatting next to the water accomplishing their toilets with a certain amount of primness and meditative calm, minus a volume of Moby Dick or the Baseball Encyclopedia we might have lugged down to the riverside, but I didn’t notice anyone opened to page 7452 of the Mahabharata either.
Some of the pipes/ditches originated from unidentified factory/manufacturing facilities and the odiferous effluent/sludge from these outlets expressed themselves in a riot of iridescent turquoises, lime greens and other gay (in the original sense of the word) sherbet colors, along with scuzzy browns and tar-blacks, not unlike the costumes worn by Big Brother and The Holding Company in Haight-Ashbury’s heyday, which if I remember correctly was actually only a single Thursday sometime even before the Summer Of Love.
So after this festival, this rich spectacle of humanity minding its own business (massive libertarian leave-me-alone lives going about their business in a largely socialist, bureaucratic state) I noticed farther downstream folks hauling the same waters via buckets (one on each each end of a pole across the shoulders) OUT of the River and heading off to their homes or their businesses (perhaps a restaurant) or pounding their laundry with a paddle on a rock next to the river.
All of it, the walking and the sight-seeing, made me thirsty, but that’s no one’s business but mine.
Indian beer is pretty good.
P.S. Despite this narrative, the Indian people are very hygienic and well-scrubbed and observe vigilantly the roles either hand play in daily life, I would tell myself after eating in a decent restaurant as the Commentary flora and the Dissenting fauna in my cramped gut merged to produce Dysentery, which accepted no letters to the editor.
“If it really bugs you, go find a few acres out in the boonies, buy some goats and chickens and a bunch of guns and ammo, and live the dream. Nobody will stop you, and if you do it right by and large you’ll be left alone.”
I’m acquainted with two families that live that way, both vote Republican and are active in the Tea Party.
One family’s economic base is their mother’s Social Security, Medicare and Food Stamps, without which they’d have no land to garden on and nowhere to keep their chickens. Their daughter is eligible for SCHIP. The husband receives disability although he is able-bodied enough to care for their extensive garden and modest animal husbandry.
The other family’s considerable wealth came from smart real estate deals back when money could be made that way. The husband was a self-employed contractor and did all kinds of home repair and remodeling.
Now he can’t find work and his properties are sitting on the market unsold. He’s a gun hoarder that once held a 911 medical emergency response crew at gun point when they came to his address by mistake.
It isn’t so much living a dream as living in a fantasy world that equates freedom with “I want for me me, me, and I don’t want to have to give a shit about anyone else.” Independence doesn’t mean a lack of dependency on the rest of us; it means a lack of a conscience about their refusal to reciprocate.
BTW both families claim to be Christians, although different kinds of mutually hostile Christians since both versions are the REAL TRUE ONE.
This would all be sort of funny to me except that they are reliable voters who strive to put people in office who are just as narrow, selfish, and hypocritical (when it comes to public affairs) as they are and thus seek to impose their fantasies about the freedom to be seriously lacking in self-awareness or a sense of basic human decency in civic participation on the rest of us.
“If it really bugs you, go find a few acres out in the boonies, buy some goats and chickens and a bunch of guns and ammo, and live the dream.”
Why the boonies when Detroit is available?
convert the site into a place where we can exchange pictures of our kids and maybe the occasional photo of the cake we baked last night
Add in some cat videos, and it’s Facebook!
It isn’t so much living a dream as living in a fantasy world that equates freedom with “I want for me me, me, and I don’t want to have to give a shit about anyone else.”
That’s not an either / or.
I feel churlish after thompson’s kind words about the discourse here, but there is a reason why Brett’s current rhetorical ploy is labeled reductio ad absurdum
“So yeah, I want that young healthy dude to buy some insurance, because otherwise it will end up coming out of my hide.”
The funny thing is, 20-30 years ago, people like me were objecting to laws mandating that people who couldn’t pay would have to be treated anyway, on exactly the basis that the next step would be to take away people’s freedom to not have insurance, or do things that impacted their health. It’s a two step process, you see: Make people into “free riders”, and then use their being free riders as an excuse to take away their liberty.
“And it doesn’t bug me if that happens via the law, because the law is what lets us all get along without killing each other.”
Except, of course, when it gets intrusive enough that it becomes what makes it impossible for us to get along without killing each other.
“Nobody will stop you, and if you do it right by and large you’ll be left alone.”
Utter BS. Of course somebody will come and stop me. Because you’ll make the place I’m living a national park, or object to my filling a wetland, or killing an endangered species… You can’t escape busy bodies by retreating, because busy bodies follow you. It’s their very nature that they can’t leave people alone, and if you run away, they’ll chase you down.
And, why SHOULD I have to retreat, to keep you from messing with my life, even assuming it would work? This demand I retreat assumes that you’re entitled to screw with me in the first place.
This isn’t insanity, it’s a different conception of what’s public, and what’s private.
Try this on for size: If there’s no fraud or coercion involved, it’s none of your goddamn business …
I’d rather reject that particular style of reasoning at the start, rather than the finish, myself.
If Brett were the King of Freedomstan, he could decide all by his lonesome what “fraud” means or what constitutes “coercion”. But he’s not, so the rest of us get a say in the matter.
For one thing, how exactly would we go about preventing or punishing fraud, in Freedomstan? Would we simply let the defrauded arm themselves and coerce the defrauders into making them whole? Or would we perhaps create a body of laws (every one of which would restrict somebody’s right to do something, or cost somebody somewhere money) by democratic means?
Once we start in making laws, we could easily end up making too many laws. There must be a way to avoid that, and we all know what it is: we get our ancestors to write a Constitution for us. The trouble with ancestors is that they’re usually dead, so when cases or controversies arise over Constitutional questions we have to rely on their Vicars on Earth, to decide what is or is not our “goddam business”.
If only the Kenyan Muslim socialist usurper had had the foresight to appoint Brett Bellmore to the Supreme Court, we could have avoided all this brouhaha. That he did not do so is clear evidence of his fecklessness and lack of leadership, no doubt.
Alternatively, of course, Brett is just nuts.
–TP
hairshirtorthodonist:
“You’d think Obama was ordering people to the gulags the way some people talk about this stuff.”
Brett:
“That’s the new Democratic mantra, and it is nothing but an excuse to implement a totalitarian state by inches.”
It must have been the word “mantra” that triggered my memories of Varanasi.
I often forget my mantra, and the Maharishi charges double for a new one. Which seems like fraud to me.
Anyway, as Basil Fawlty declared after one too complaints about sugar in the salt shakers and vice versa, “This is exactly how Nazi Germany got started!”
Solzhenitsyn, after observing Americans’ shallow complaints about their Dairy Queen double-dip cones melting too soon: “Let this be a warning: one day it’s ice cream melting and the next you’ll be frostbitten from the knees down in the Gulag!”
At which point, he turned heel to be nearer the residual, principled of the camps, where slippery slopes froze over to allow folks to slide more quickly into authentic suffering.
This isn’t insanity, it’s a different conception of what’s public, and what’s private.
Yes, I think this is exactly correct.
I’ll add that I see the appeal and the logical coherence of the libertarian position. I just don’t think that it’s workable, as a practical matter.
For libertarianism to work in the real world, humans would have to possess levels of intelligence, maturity, responsibility, self-awareness, and forethought that are simply not in evidence.
We’re not that smart. We have big brains, but we’re greedy short-sighted irascible buggers, and it blunts our judgement.
I have at least 10,000 years of human experience to back me up on that.
Regrettable, perhaps, but true.
Utter BS. Of course somebody will come and stop me.
I know folks that have done, and do, exactly what I’ve described. It’s doable, it just might not be a life you care to lead.
If you live around other people, interact with them in any way, they have a say in what you do. And, vice versa.
So, if you want to live in a way that nobody has any say about what you do, you need to go live by yourself.
As a purely practical matter, that is the reality.
And for the record, I’m not demanding anything of you. I’m just pointing out that the conditions you seem to desire and prefer are only available if you separate yourself from human society.
What you do with that information – including reject or ignore it – is your choice.
If you want to do anything but huddle in the corner, do as I say. That’s the new Democratic mantra, and it is nothing but an excuse to implement a totalitarian state by inches.
Yet, we both know that this hyperbole doesn’t begin to describe most of the commenters here. The more I think on it, the less I understand what you’re trying to accomplish by being here at all. Not that Im encouraging you to leave, I just don’t understand your motives. Over time you seem less inclined to try to understand others’ positions and more to immediate retreats into dogma and accusations of totalitarianism.
The funny thing is, 20-30 years ago, people like me were objecting to laws mandating that people who couldn’t pay would have to be treated anyway, on exactly the basis that the next step would be to take away people’s freedom to not have insurance, or do things that impacted their health. It’s a two step process, you see: Make people into “free riders”, and then use their being free riders as an excuse to take away their liberty.
The alternative is pretty messy as well; carry your insurance card or ‘treatment bond’ documentation everywhere you go. Maybe get it tattoed on you in case you’re eg mugged. Or have a foolproof(!) national database(!) for looking up insured or wealthy patients- and who’s going to run that, hospitals? Unless you pass specific laws, they’re liability is probably limited to making a reasonable effort to determine whether you’re insured.
Of course, we all know how this would work in practice- nice hospitals in nice neighborhoods, nice white people will be assumed to have insurance. Poor hospital, bad neighborhood, “urban” patients will not be assumed to have insurance, and some will die in the parking lot even though they have the ability to pay because they cannot explain this to the ER staff while in a coma.
Presumably if the nice white people thought that *their* 10-year-old kid might be allowed to bleed out in the hopsital parking lot after being hit by a car, because said 10-year-old didn’t carry their insurance papers, they would be singing a different tune.
ALMOST EVERYTHING IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
Ah, the argument from morality. Which at least has the virtue of being irrefutable, although it does tend to end the discussion. Id find it more convincing from an anarchist though, than from someone who argues that the government has a moral right to do what he wants it to do, and has no moral right to do what he doesn’t want it to do.
That is “EVERYTHING IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS” is coherent, “EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE STUFF I WANT GOVERNMENT TO DO IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS” looks kinda silly in strident all-caps.
One more try: “EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE STUFF I WANT GOVERNMENT TO DO IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS” is everyone’s mantra, we’ve just moved the disagreement to what ‘STUFF I WANT GOVERNMENT TO DO’ ought to be. Which we apparently disagree about, but all-caps or no I don’t see you claiming any particularly high ground on that point.
To some extent Im being disingenuous; even if there weren’t huge practical obstacles to no-insurance/no-money then no-treatment, Id still be opposed to it.
But they’re still worth raising I think, anyone who advocates for such a system ought to be able to handle them somehow. Im not even sure how a pure free market handles the ambulance to get you to the hospital when you have a heart attack on the sidewalk- do you have to rely on a friendly bypasser to do the wallet biopsy before the hospital dispatches an ambulance?
“Hello 911? There’s been a car accident out here on highway 5.”
“Ok- can you check the occupants for insurance cards?”
“Huh? No, Im in a hurry. Besides, the car might blow up or something.”
“Alright, alright- can you at least describe the vehicles to me?”
“Yeah, we’ve got a late-model BMW looks to have run a stop sign and t-boned a 1987 Civic”
“Gotcha, one ambulance on the way. Thanks for calling it in sir”
Carleton Wu @ 11:36 AM. Precisely. Well put.
libertarianism is a fun concept, yep. it’s also something (one of the many things) that people in the relatively safe and stable US can dabble in, without having to deal with the consequences of a full-blown libertarian state. they can wail about the nasty regulations without having to worry about poisoned drinking water and contaminated food.
“For libertarianism to work in the real world, humans would have to possess levels of intelligence, maturity, responsibility, self-awareness, and forethought that are simply not in evidence.”
I tend to think non-libertarianism would require, in the real world, levels of intelligence, maturity, responsiblity, self-wawarness, and forethought which are simply not in evidence. As support for my view, I present the history of genocide and warfare in non-libertarian states.
Really working out well, isn’t it?
Im not even sure how a pure free market handles the ambulance to get you to the hospital
A ‘pure’ free market is characterized by:
1. perfect information. everybody knows everything relevant about price and quality of all goods and services.
2. rational actors. all buyers and sellers make optimal, rational decisions.
3. low barrier to entry. new sellers may freely enter the market with minimal impediment from cost of entry, required skills, etc
4. many sellers, all selling products of equivalent quality
5. no single firm can affect the market price
those are the necessary conditions for a ‘pure’ free market is. you can go look it up.
if those conditions don’t exist, it’s not a ‘pure’ free market, and the thousand flowers we are told will bloom wherever the free market shines its happy sun and brings its gentle rain are not going to bloom.
apply as you wish to the case of someone calling for an ambulance while having a heart attack.
apply to anything at all, for that matter. by all means, apply to anything whatsoever having to do with healthcare.
there’s a reason smith used pins as his example.
Was the CSA libertarian enough for you, Brett?
–TP
As support for my view, I present the history of genocide and warfare in non-libertarian states.
Which are the libertarian states?
“thompson: “That’s why I’m trying to cut through the bull, get down to what people actually believe …”
Brett: “It’s none of your business ….”
Welp, once the bull has been thoroughly cut and the brass tacks have been gotten down to, is there anything left to talk about at OBWI?”
Glad I could help, Count. I look forward to the funny videos of kittens.
On a more practical note:
“I tend to think non-libertarianism would require, in the real world, levels of intelligence, maturity, responsiblity, self-wawarness, and forethought which are simply not in evidence. As support for my view, I present the history of genocide and warfare in non-libertarian states.
Really working out well, isn’t it?”
I think people could talk for hours and hours about “libertarian states” and “totalitarian states” that nobody (I think nobody, anyway) is actually proposing. There’s a spectrum with a lot of room in the middle. I guess my serious question to you, Brett, does your worldview allow for someone who values liberty and also values healthcare delivery saying: “This is a tough call but we need to make this compromise. *This* compromise, not the hundred further compromises that would lead us to a totalitarian dystopia. *This* compromise, weighing both liberty and function, is worth making.”
Not saying its something you have to agree with. Or even think it isn’t a terrible compromise. I’m just wondering if you can conceive of someone making that compromise in good faith, of drawing the line at a different point in the spectrum, even if you think they are wrong?
No, that’s an idealized free market. You know, kind of like the way idealized democracy is characterized by informed voters, and politicians who aren’t criminals? And can be dismissed as utterly unworkable because neither of those conditions obtain?
As support for my view, I present the history of genocide and warfare in non-libertarian states.
Which are the libertarian states?
No, that’s an idealized free market.
The free market *is* an ideal.
That’s the point.
“I feel churlish after thompson’s kind words about the discourse here, but there is a reason why Brett’s current rhetorical ploy is labeled reductio ad absurdum”
Yeah, but a ploy is a ploy, and I know at least I’m guilty of ploys from time to time so I try not to hold it against anybody. I’m curious what’s left after the ploy. Maybe I’ll never find out…but these questions are what keep me up at night. Maybe I’m just an odd guy.
“Brett, does your worldview allow for someone who values liberty and also values healthcare delivery saying: “This is a tough call but we need to make this compromise.”
A fair question.
No, not really, because from a libertarian perspective, you understand that, just exactly BECAUSE you aren’t entitled to make other people’s choices for them, you aren’t entitled to compromise on their behalf, either. Once you abandon that principle, it’s not just one compromise. Each compromise sets the stage for the next.
You don’t have to hit the bottom to realize you’re on a slippery slope, drive petons, and start the long, hard climb up. You may lose some of the fights, you certainly will, but that doesn’t mean you have to take a dive on them.
A ‘pure’ free market is characterized by:
Sorry, I didn’t mean that in the economic jargon sense- I meant, where the state was not only not mandating emergency treatment, but was not involved in eg transport of the injured to hospitals, setting up a national registry of insured/bonded individuals, etc.
I wouldn’t want the ‘free market’ of the hospital doing wallet biopsies in the ER being tainted by state-funded or -mandated ambulances carrying all of the injured and a state registry of ‘treatable’ patients.
I can imagine some future technology where this could be worked out, but I don’t see a way with today’s technology to actually provide effective emergency care- even to those who can afford it- without some state activity. Or assumed benevolence from hospitals, I guess, but that has it’s own problems (as I noted above vis a vis bad neighborhoods).
No, that’s an idealized free market. You know, kind of like the way idealized democracy is characterized by informed voters, and politicians who aren’t criminals
First, I have no idea why you apparently believe you’ve been appointed Keeper Of the Jargon. Other than this parallels your tendency to elevate your opinions into rules for others to follow (which I admit I do find deliciously ironic).
Second, I don’t see what your new definition plus analogy to elections was supposed to demonstrate. That ‘just because academic descriptions of free markets can’t be applied to the real world is no reason not to strive towards them as an ideal’? That’s my best guess, anyway. But it isn’t really responsive to what russell was saying, so maybe Im wrong.
Once you abandon that principle, it’s not just one compromise.
See, in my opinion Libertarianism is already on the slope. You’re an anarchist, or you think the state should do some things. And then we’re arguing about what the state should do, and I find it ludicrous to then stop and say ‘This is where I would prefer to draw the line, and coincidentally going beyond this point is also immoral and also it is a slippery slope from here’.
No, not really, because from a libertarian perspective, you understand that, just exactly BECAUSE you aren’t entitled to make other people’s choices for them, you aren’t entitled to compromise on their behalf, either.
I guess I’m curious what, from a libertarian perspective, I am entitled to require of my fellow citizens.
Can I require them to follow building codes when building their homes?
Can I require them to keep their automobiles in sufficiently good repair that they don’t present a hazard to me on the road?
Can I require them to not raise hogs next door to me?
Can I require them to not pour their waste motor oil down the storm drain?
Or, for that matter, just dump it out in a remote corner of their yard?
Can I require them to not dispose of their kitchen trash by tossing it in the back yard?
I could make this a very, very long list indeed, but I’ll stop there.
Which of those things am I allowed to demand of my neighbors, according to the libertarian perspective?
And, if any, why?
“No, that’s an idealized free market.”
Ok, and there is nothing ideal in the real world. The difference between engineering and science. So how do we start with an ideal (which is unachievable) and end up at a working free market-ish system? In your mind, how do we get there?
“A fair question.”
Thanks.
“No, not really, because from a libertarian perspective, you understand that, just exactly BECAUSE you aren’t entitled to make other people’s choices for them, you aren’t entitled to compromise on their behalf, either.”
This is where I get lost, and maybe you can help me understand. The government has powers…in the US, granted to it by the people, sure. But it has powers. For example:
“To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common defence and general Welfare”
Now, people can have reasonable disagreements about the level and source of taxation. But we, the people, have granted congress that power. And any exercise of that power almost by definition compromises the choices I can make with regards to money I earn.
But in your mind is the power to tax (not current taxes, I can guess where you stand on that) already a bridge too far? Something we never should have given Congress the power to do? In my mind, this is a compromise on individual liberty. Every power granted to the government in the US is a compromise on individual liberty. I don’t see how you can have a union without compromises. But you see differently, and I’m enjoying learning why.
“You don’t have to hit the bottom to realize you’re on a slippery slope”
I don’t think I would ever say I’m not on a slippery slope. Reality is a slippery slope. The problem, in my mind, is navigating that slope successfully. I think that involves some compromises…the trick is only making the right ones.
You force the young and healthy to buy insurance they don’t want
Brett, just so I’m clear in my understanding, do you equally feel that it is wrong to force people to have auto insurance as a condition of driving? (Bearing in mind that, in much of the country, life without being able to drive is chancy at best.) Because a driver who has a couple of decades experience might well decide that he doesn’t need insurance, even if a teenager does.
And, just to take things way over the top, do you feel that it is unfair coercion for a pacifist to be taxed to support a military that he is convinced (rightly or wrongly) is utterly unnecessary? Or anyone, for that matter, to be taxed for anything, since he might believe that it is not a service/good that he, personally, needs?
I’m fine if you want to take the total libertarian/anarchist position here. But if you are not, I would be interested in some objective criteria for deciding what taxes are acceptable and what are not. At the moment, we mostly work on a majority of the elected representatives of the population, subject to the restrictions of the Constitutionm basis. But since you don’t like the results of that (at least in the case of the ACA), what basis to you propose as an alternative?
“I tend to think non-libertarianism would require, in the real world, levels of intelligence, maturity, responsiblity, self-wawarness, and forethought which are simply not in evidence. As support for my view, I present the history of genocide and warfare in non-libertarian states.”
True that.
It’s everyone who believes they have the right and obligation to interfere in other people’s lives who need the best of human virtues to, hopefully, to keep them from going too far over the line.
I think wj@1:19 said it better than me. That’s basically what I’m getting at.
As a general rule, you are never justified in overriding somebody else’s decisions for their own good, only to prevent harm to others. And if the harm to another you seek to prevent is the result of an earlier act of your own, you must bear the cost of averting it yourself. If you have presumed to take on the cost of another’s decisions, you are foreclosed from using that cost as a basis for taking the right to make that decision away from them.
If, for instance, you decide you’re going to force hospitals to provide free medical care to the indigent, this does not entitle you to dictate to the indigent in any area where their decisions effect the cost of that care. YOU are the one imposing that cost, not them.
The difficult area is where activities have genuine third party effects. But as a general rule, you should attempt to arrange things so as to avoid third party effects, rather than using them as an excuse to deprive people of liberty. And third party effects that are imposed by some outside arrangement, rather than being inherent to the act, are the responsiblity of whoever imposed them.
We should not deliberately entangle people, just to have an excuse for ordering them about in the name of minimizing free rider and spillover effects.
Does this completely solve all issues? Of course not. Show me the moral or political philosphy which does.
It’s everyone who believes they have the right and obligation to interfere in other people’s lives
I have no interest whatsoever in what other people think, do, or say, right up until the point that it’s likely to affect me.
Then, I do.
I suspect you do also, as I suspect Brett does also.
And I’m still waiting to hear about the libertarian states in which warfare and other forms of mayhem are unknown.
Take a swing at the list in my 1:07 too, if you like.
“Don’t tread on me” is a cute slogan. In real life it’s impractical to the point of being meaningless.
Well, Charles, there is one little problem. Just about everybody ‘believes’ at some time or another that they have this right and/or obligation. I mean, for crying out loud, we raise children, don’t we? This is making the perfect the enemy of just about everything, relegating the very idea of the concept to the realm of the non-meaningful. But kudos to you for inserting “too far” into the sentence and try and retain some sort of attachment to what is commonly called ‘reality’. Those two little words are carrying a lot of weight.
Libertarianism: A self-refuting intellectual cul-de-sac lacking any objective basis in reality. Anarchism and/or pure communism make more sense.
“I mean, for crying out loud, we raise children, don’t we?”
I thought we were discussing the limits of government, not the internal dynamics of social groupings.
As a general rule, you are never justified in overriding somebody else’s decisions for their own good, only to prevent harm to others.
Never? Really, never?
Why not?
If somebody gets legless drunk and decides they’re going to drive home, I’m not justified in taking their keys away?
Even if I, personally, am not going to be on the road at that particular moment?
Because I’m interfering with that guy’s expression of his personal liberty in getting legless and operating a motor vehicle?
And don’t the “others” get a vote in this?
While I’m respecting some irresponsible knucklehead’s liberty, don’t I also need to respect those folks’ interest in not being killed by a drunken idiot?
How many examples like this would you like me to come up with?
How many hours do you have to read my reply?
The libertarian stuff is nice on paper but it DOES NOT FUNCTION in a real human society.
That “only to prevent harm to others” wasn’t just a throw away line, Russell. Don’t delete it from what I said, and then respond to your distortion of what I said.
As a general rule, you are never justified in overriding somebody else’s decisions for their own good, only to prevent harm to others.
And the general welfare? Can we not eg tax people to provide for defense? This is the truck driving through your argument I think, because despite your insistence to the contrary, the vast majority of liberal policies you object to aren’t driven by your restatement of the liberal credo as you think you know best, and that knowing best entitles you to override other people’s choices. They’re driven by attempts to provide for the general welfare.
Which is why Id much rather have a discussion about whether policy X is practically good for the general welfare or not, versus a ‘discussion’ about how you feel policy X is a reasonable violation of the “general rule” but policy Y is not (and is therefore immoral and a slippery slope to tyranny).
The difficult area is where activities have genuine third party effects. But as a general rule, you should attempt to arrange things so as to avoid third party effects
That is, when people live near each other in a complex society, full of interdependent relationships.
I believe that russell already provided a prescription for solving that problem for you. Mostly, anyway, you’ll still have to refrain from shooting bald eagles.
So if a person wants to sell themself into slavery, w/o limit and in perpetuity, good on them? Don’t wanna restrict their ability to sell property or enter into labor contracts of their own choosing, am I right? And if new parents want to abandon their newborns on hillsides, as long as the hillsides aren’t someone else’s property, no harm no foul? Can’t force people’s decisions to be overridden just to “prevent harm” to others, know what I mean?
Well, duh. Libertarianism is all about “Absolutely no limits! Except for all these totally arbitrary ones here, which by strange coincidence all happen to set things up strongly to the benefit of this totally random set of people who, through virtue of their hard work, ingenuity, rational self-interest, and overall moral fiber, had the common sense and basic human decency to propose them.”
That “only to prevent harm to others” wasn’t just a throw away line, Russell. Don’t delete it from what I said, and then respond to your distortion of what I said.
Ah. Sweet, sweet ambiguity. You may have said this, but in context, it could be interpreted as “simply to prevent harm to others” just as easily as “except in cases where harm to others would be prevented”. I suppose it says something about my intellectual charity that I took the former interpretation over the latter.
The libertarian stuff is nice on paper but it DOES NOT FUNCTION in a real human society.
i’m tempted to draw a parallel between libertarianism’s inability to function in a real human society and the personalities of the actual libertarians i know.
Carleton, as a judge once remarked, the Constitution does not enact Spencer’s “Social Statistics”. Neither, it should be remembered, does it enact Rawls “Theory of Justice”. It does not embody either of our ideals.
Government is not the solution to Man’s fallen state, it is evidence of it. We may not be able to get rid of it today, but that should be something we aspire to.
Does this completely solve all issues? Of course not. Show me the moral or political philosphy which does.
There is a big gap in between ‘solves all issues’ and ‘is applied in a consistent way’. What you describe is not the system that Ive heard you advocate for at other times (eg you favor taxation for defense spending)- presumably this is what you mean by ‘not completely solving’ all issues?
So it’s all well and good to say you believe in no coercion, but we know better- when it comes down to brass tacks you are *fine* with coercion to meet some ends, but not others. Bellmore-approved general welfare goals are acceptable violations of the general rule, and coincidentally are neither slippery slopes nor mortal sins.
Libertarianism approaches anarchy as it approaches internal consistency, but it does approach that internal consistency. *You* do not- don’t project your internal flaws onto the philosophy.
That “only to prevent harm to others” wasn’t just a throw away line, Russell.
My bad, your meaning wasn’t completely clear and I misread.
To be very brief, I don’t really disagree that interfering in other people’s lives ‘for their own good’, when whatever they are going presents no harm to anyone but themselves, is not really desirable.
I also agree that we should try to avoid third party effects if we can.
Sometimes we can’t.
And, I’d say that it’s impossible, basically due to human nature, to require hospitals to make care available regardless of ability to pay, without incurring a free rider issue.
I.e., a third party effect.
I would even say that, absent any other issue, just living with the free rider situation would be perfectly fine. It’s a trade off.
Unfortunately, there were other issues to address, so the free riders have been required to pony up.
It is, in fact, an entanglement, but if the alternative was doing nothing, I don’t see how that would have been better.
Leaving hospital ERs as the sole means of care for the surprisingly large swath uninsured folks entangles quite a lot of folks also.
Brett- I don’t know how your 2:56 is responsive to anything Ive said. I will note that, contra We may not be able to get rid of it today, but that should be something we aspire to– I was under the impression that a libertarian would not insist that I share his aspirations?
If you mean that, as technology evolves, maybe we can hope to disentangle some of these issues from personal choice- Id partially agree, at least that it’d be nice to not be forced into ‘general welfare’ solutions by our technological state. But I do think that a societal commitment to the general welfare isn’t just an unfortunate artifact of our technological state, that it is a valuable thing in and of itself- part of what makes the society a society.
And of course, we’re at the technological state that we’re at. I don’t see how we handle emergency care without 1)government coercion or 2)some serious, fatal market failures.
here’s what Ron Paul thinks about emergency care:
time to learn how Ron Paul isn’t a real “conservative”/libertarian/whatever, i suppose.
oops, wrong link. here’s where i got that quote:
http://www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/health-care/
It would kinda boggle my mind if people were admitted to hospitals at the same rate now as before Medicare/Medicaid, because medical practice and technology have changed a lot since then. Of course, no cites… (of course, can’t quite imagine where you’d get a cite for some of this. The annual “The Belief of Every Physician In America” circa 1963?)
Upon reading the whole thing, it’s literally the closest Ive seen a politician come to using “and a pony” as part of a policy platform. It’s one thing to say “let the poor die in the gutters if they cannot afford healthcare- better this than encumber the liberty of free people”, it seems to be actually more morally reprehensible to suggest that those poor who receive care today might actually receive better care from magical unicorn physicians if not for those meddling liberals. Freedom means being free from having to take responsibility for my moral choices!
cite
Well, Ron’s claim about altruistic docs seems to be called into question by the proverb ‘pay the doctor while you are healthy (so he has an incentive to keep you healthy)’ that arose independently in numerous cultures at different times.
I tend to think non-libertarianism would require, in the real world, levels of intelligence, maturity, responsiblity, self-wawarness, and forethought which are simply not in evidence. As support for my view, I present the history of genocide and warfare in non-libertarian states.
Did I miss the post where Brett provided a list (or even an example) of a libertarian state (as russell asked) ?
It would be instructive.
“magical unicorn physicians”
Trying to imagine that was fairly amusing…but I’m not Count, and I don’t think I could paint the picture that phrase deserves.
The obvious disadvantage of unicorn physicians would be that they could only treat virgins.
arose independently in numerous cultures
Obviously not in libertarian cultures…
“every physician understood that he or she had a responsibility towards the less fortunate and free medical care was the norm.”
I would say that this is similar to what a ENT acquaintance (brother of friend, paid me to setup a server for his practice) of mine told me once about Medicare/MediCal patients. He lost money on most procedures but felt it was his duty as a physician to take them anyway and make up the money elsewhere.
Disclaimer: He mentioned this to me and we didn’t get into the details as to was it specific to him, practices in his area, so I won’t say it’s representative. I also didn’t personally verify his books so I don’t know how true it was. But it didn’t strike me as bull or whining…he brought it up pretty matter-of-factly. He also was doing pretty well for himself, definitely not struggling to make ends meet.
I would say, in my view, I don’t think utter lack of altruism is required for libertarians. I think the opposite. Basically a society with fewer rules almost requires a belief that people in general aren’t complete jerks. Then again, this is pretty much my belief and I like to describe myself as libertarian (but if LINO was a thing, I’m sure that’s how I’d be described).
This definitely isn’t held by all libertarians, by my interpretation (and I haven’t read Rand since high school) Rand and those that follow her seem to think altruism equals weakness. But I’m probably being uncharitable and not quite seeing the nuance of their beliefs. Which is what I’d like to change.
Rand and her ilk actually took the next logical step and deemed altruism to be not a sign of weakness, but an outright evil.
Before those programs came into existence, every physician understood that he or she had a responsibility towards the less fortunate and free medical care was the norm.
I’m sure providing care pro bono to folks who can’t pay happened quite a lot before the advent of Medicare and Medicaid, and I’m sure it happens quite a lot now.
Clearly, if pro bono healthcare services were reliably available, everywhere, in sufficient amounts, we wouldn’t need to look for other ways to make healthcare available to folks who weren’t able to procure them for themselves.
Hell, we could do the same with food, shelter, and basic utilities like heat, water, and electricity.
Let’s just do that. Problem solved.
better yet, let’s distribute the wealth our economy creates broadly enough that everyone can just buy what they need.
even better!
Time and again, I have found that the basic evil behind today’s ugliest phenomena is altruism.
I’m sorry Rand is gone, because I’d like to throw her in the pond to see if she floats.
What a hideous freak of a human being.
“But I’m probably being uncharitable and not quite seeing the nuance of their beliefs.”
A bit. Not that I’m a Randroid, but most attacks on her views are actually attacks on caricatures having little resemblance to what she actually believed. (Except for the tobacco stuff, that was just stupid. What can you say, she was a smoker, and had to be irrational about it to pretend she wasn’t doing something stupid.)
To give you an example, I work hard, and almost all my money goes to support my wife and child. Is this consistent with Randian ethics? Yes, because I love them, their good IS my good. Supporting my beloved family IS selfish, as Rand meant it, because I value their welfare, so by spending my money to advance it, I am spending it selfishly.
Perhaps she was just being stubborn in using the term “selfishness” to describe enlightened self-interest.
“Enlightened self interest” is one of those phrases that can be stretched to encompass altruism, or contracted to mean only caring about one’s friends and family.
I read a lot of Rand (including Atlas Shrugged, but also many of her essays) and thought she was largely incoherent and mean-spirited. It was always funny to me that her favorite novelist was Victor Hugo.
She used the same term to describe her cuckolding of her husband Frank O’Connor with former acolyte Nathaniel Branden, the latter of whom she broke with philosophically and personally after their affair ended and he saw fit to have the hots for younger actresses.
He apologized to Objectivist sychophants for Ayn Rand …. “contributing to that dreadful atmosphere of intellectual repressiveness that pervades the Objectivist movement.”
Many of her other brothers and sisters in arms broke with her as well because she was an insufferable tyrant, much like her role models, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.
Economist Ludwig von Mises called her “the most courageous man in America”, praise by which she was hugely flattered by and fell back on every time she reached below to cup her testicles in her hand to mansplain to the rest of us in stultifying, and mind-numbingly and laughably sloganeering prose (not unlike Soviet propaganda) the hysterical morality (which most of us practice, albeit imperfectly, without her guidance) of “I love my family because their good is my good” and other yeastless bromides.
If you want to witness Rand’s conception of human interaction, watch and listen to the cadence of the lines she wrote for Raymond Massey’s interpretation of tycoon Gail Wynand in the film version of “The Fountainhead”.
There are no such people. Human beings don’t talk like that.
Rand was born a caricature and went from there. She populated her fictional worlds with preposterous caricatures and then quoted (at length, natch) THE FICTIONAL CARICATURES (see The Virtues of Selfishness) in her essays to expound her bushwah.
She signed up for Medicare under her husband’s account, free-riding her already advanced pre-existing conditions, which I find admirable because it shows a little human practicality on this planet, not the solar system the humping groupie Dagny Taggart lived in.
Good for her.
And I have no problem with humping groupies, but spare me Aristotle’s theory of humping.
I read the novels when I was twelve, and stopped when I was twelve and a half.
I started masturbating about the same time.
I read Atlas in my early 20’s, but in my defense, because a friend thought it was great and in those days I thought it was my duty to read things that other people recommended. I read a lot of boring sh** back then. Even apart from the philosophy it was one of the worst-written things I’ve ever laid eyes on–Dan Brown seems like, well, Victor Hugo next to her. (Hugo does have Rand’s propensity for long lectures in a novel, but I don’t mind those, so long as they aren’t morally repugnant and boring beyond belief. Hugo’s aren’t and Rand’s are.)
I read the essays out of sick fascination.
No need to apologize, Donald. 😉
For awhile I kept “The Virtues of Selfishness” as a kind of guilty pleasure, like reading the Marquis de Sade, who at least had a fascinatingly sick imagination.
I finally “purged” the book, by giving it to a book charity, an act which Rand might have found fascinatingly and sickly altruistic.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/22/denmark-happiest-country_n_4070761.html
Contrast that with life in Alabama.
Nombrilisme Vide, thanks for the Rand quote. I really can’t manage to get through her writing anymore.
Brett:
Thanks for the response re: Rand and enlightened self interest. So my followup question…if you’re willing to provide for your family, do you see the value in also helping friends? In charity? In random acts of kindness to strangers you will never see again? If you are, are these included in “enlightened self interest?” Or do you not really buy into that, as you said you weren’t really a Randian?
As a side note, is anyone familiar with any of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita’s work as well as Rand’s? He’s an ?economist? with a focus on game theory. He has some very interesting work but he was the first to introduce me to the game theory concept of “rational individuals.” Basically, people always do what they believe to be in their best interest. Not in a cold, selfish, way, but just that if someone is altruistic they have reasons for being so, whether it be to impress people, gain divine favor, or it just makes them feel good. It definitely stretches the definition of “rational” to the point of they can have any reason at all, but they always have a reason. I’d be curious how it compares to Rand’s “enlightened self interest” if both can be stretched to include pretty much any behavior.
If anybody wants an easy to read intro on game theory, The Predictioneer’s Game was a really easy and enjoyable read.
Donald:
“Hugo does have Rand’s propensity for long lectures in a novel, but I don’t mind those”
When I was 12, I dragged myself through Les Mis (unabridged!) because, well, I don’t know. My family liked musicals and I was pretty well entertained by the music. Also, I wasn’t the type of kid that walked away from a challenge. I guess. I still look back on that as staggeringly wasted hours. I don’t see why it’s considered one of the greatest books of the 19th century.
I’ve been told since that I probably missed a lot, being only 12. It’s probably true, but I can’t make myself reread it…I still have nightmares about wasted pages learning about some random bishops vestments that end up being largely irrelevant to the story.
Tastes vary. I wouldn’t blame someone for not like Les Mis and I haven’t gone back to reread the whole thing, but I like certain passages, such as when the bishop meets with the dying (noble) revolutionary (it made me wonder if there were any Jacobins who actually were noble like that–Robespierre obviously wasn’t) and I also enjoyed his rendition of the battle of Waterloo and even the silly metaphysics “explaining” why Napolean had to lose. The bishop/dying revolutionary scene is terribly melodramatic, but I suppose I have a weakness for that sort of thing.
“Tastes vary. I wouldn’t blame someone for not like Les Mis”
Well, since I’m thoroughly threadjacking, how do you feel about “All quiet on the western front”? Not 19th century, but one of my favorites. I found it more tolerable than Les Mis, mostly because Remarque stayed a little more on topic.
Sure, Thompson, I do all of those things. Again, I’m not a Randroid, but Rand would have said that it wasn’t altruistic of me so long as I got a good feeling from doing it, and don’t practice charity to the point of hurting myself.
You might guess that she had a rather narrow view of what constituted “altruism“, in addition to using a somewhat eccentric definition of “selfishness“.
A bit of a nutcase, really, but at least her theories would not, rigorously applied, destroy a civilization in short order. Which is more than you can say of utilitarianism, to give one example, which would be the death of any civilization which actually practiced it. (Honestly, now: How many of you live in a refrigerator crate, and dine on instant ramen, so that you can send all your earnings to the least well off in the world? If you don’t, you’re not actually applying utilitarianism.)
I read Hugo’s Toilers of the Sea several times and finally even got my hand on an unabridged German edition. I read the Hunchback onece and I still don’t know whether that was an abridged edition or not. Never read the third in the trilogy (Miserables) and as a kid belived it to be a drama not a novel and did not connect the German title (Die Elenden) with that musical (I did not listen to either). Not the easiest read but I liked it. Btw, is there any Hunchback film adaptation that ‘get’s it’, i.e. that it is not a dime novel with a ridiculous plot but an excercise in subtle irony that deliberately goes for goth?
her theories would not, rigorously applied, destroy a civilization in short order.
perhaps not, but they would destroy the people in it. says me.
also: anyone identifying as libertarian want to take a stab at my 1:07?
i’m just curious to know what is in bounds and what isn’t, to the libertarian mind.
How many of you live in a refrigerator crate, and dine on instant ramen, so that you can send all your earnings to the least well off in the world?
A question I would ask of the Forbes 400, myself.
–TP
I just realized (I’m pretty slow) that Brett is an engineer. isn’t that a field where there are lots of arbitrary standards that have to be applied in order for people to work on things? How does that fit in with the libertarian mindset?
isn’t that a field where there are lots of arbitrary standards that have to be applied in order for people to work on things?
So this was the fault of libertarians, then ?
🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter
…communication with the spacecraft was lost as the spacecraft went into orbital insertion, due to ground-based computer software which produced output in non-SI units of pound-seconds (lbf×s) instead of the metric units of newton-seconds (N×s) specified in the contract between NASA and Lockheed…
(Probably not, as a presumably freely entered into contract was involved.)
A much more interesting question would be what a libertarian like Brett would make of an effort like this:
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/364/3489337/NISTs-cyber-framework-moves-toward-implementation-stage-
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/opinion/the-cry-of-the-true-republican.html?_r=0&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1382538514-o8bowhPLUEkeADk83okk5w
The article is entitled “The Cry of the True Republican”. The author
is a descendant of Howard Taft. His thesis is that the Republican party used to stand for stewardship, respectability, responsibility. I would argue that the party’s policies have not been in line with that since Teddy Roosevelt, but that’s beside the point. The point is that on an emotional level, or as the author puts it a genetic level, many people are Republicans out of a sense that it is the party that stands for respectability, stability, responsibility etc. Not like those Democrats who protest wars, support civil rights demonstrations and otherwise upset the established order.
And I think that’s true, especially with older Republicans. I think there is a substantial subset of Republican voters who are moved by a sense that they are voting for stability, safety, respectability, rather than voting for policies.
This does relate to the tendency of Republican voters to see the federal government as being responsible for their wellbeing, since they are the respectable voters, but not responsible for all those other people. But it is also a mythos that supports politicians who had a genuine commitment to stewardship like like Mark Hatfield or Gov. Spellman, both of who are dead and wouldn’t make it through a primary if they were alive any way.
The Republican party has a new agenda and it isn’t responsibility and it sure as hell isn’t stewardship. The reason the Republican leaders are so upset with he Tea Party isn’t a difference in ideology; it’s a difference in tactics. The shut down exposed the Republican party as NOT responsible or respectable or interested in stewardship. Republican policies over the last thirty years should have made that obvious, but didn’t. Now Tea Party tactics have given the game away
I keep thinking about this “Have you no sense of decency?” theme brought up by the author of the linked article.
I’ve had decency issues with the Republican party dating back to the Nixon regime. Remember when Nixon said something about not wanting to be the President that lost a war? I remember the desire to win as being a big deal with Republicans. Winning. NOt what we were fighting for. Of course, by 1969 it was pretty clear that what we were fighting for was a mistake. But the Republican view seemed to be that we should keep on killing civilians for the vanity of winning. That crossed a big decency line in my mind.
But I didn’t write off the whole party over it. As I said during the eighties and nineties I voted for Republicans mostly at the state level. I voted for a Republican Secretary of State last election.
But to me, that decency line has been crossed way too many times. It was crossed when the leaders of the Republicans party decided to use sanitized racism to broaden their base. It was crossed with the global warming denialism. It was crossed with using prejudice against gay people to win elections. It was crossed with the construction of a system of hatemongers and fear mongers to lie to their base. It was crossed when inflated, often violent and frequently overtly dishonest rhetoric became the norm from Republican politicians who claimed to be respectable, responsible people. They crossed a decency line with the national effort to state by state disenfranchise people with voter suppression laws. But what really burnt the bridges for me was when they decided to go after disabled people, children and the elderly. As far as I am concerned there is no such thing as a good Republican politician. Have they no decency? Evidently not, or they would be objecting loudly to their party’s policies.
The author of the linked article apparently didn’t see a line of decency being crossed until the party exposed it’s extremism with the shut down. Well, I’m glad he finally got a clue, but he should have seen it long ago. Like back when the Republican party was using magic math to justify cutting taxes during two wars and then blamed the results of their math on poor people.
The Republican party has lots of wannabe opinion leaders now denouncing the Tea Party. But they are only denouncing the Tea Party, not the whole rotten structure that is in line with the Tea party when it comes to issues and policies.
And if that’s all they do, denounce the lack of decency in one tactic, then their party will remain as morally corrupt as ever.
Perhaps she was just being stubborn in using the term “selfishness” to describe enlightened self-interest.
I thought of it as a way of implicitly devaluing altruism etc by shifting the definitions around. Mother Teresa wanted to help people, so she helped people. Jeff Dahlmer wanted to eat people, so he ate people. They both (selfishly) did what made them happy, so we can’t (according to Rand) say one self is morally superior to the other.
I dont think it really works, bc regardless of how you slice up the minds of those two, there’s something in the one that’s more admirable than the other IMO. Reclassfying the various parts, calling one part the self and the other part the moral code etc that determines “what makes one happy” doesn’t change my estimation of the whole.
But then, Im pretty clearly outside the field of ideas, whatever that means.
Which is more than you can say of utilitarianism, to give one example, which would be the death of any civilization which actually practiced it.
But it has an ironclad defense:
Does this completely solve all issues? Of course not. Show me the moral or political philosphy which does.
“You might guess that she had a rather narrow view of what constituted “altruism””
It seems to be so narrow that it is fundamentally useless. I don’t think I’ve ever met an altruistic person according to that definition. Regardless.
Alright, so you yourself are a kind person, if not altruistic in the Randian sense. You clearly don’t want to be coerced into helping others via government means. Do you view altruism (in the conventional sense, where a person does something for another without getting something tangible directly back) as a key part of a libertarian society? Like good old fashioned barn raising or the more current habitat for humanity? Or is brutal self-interest (again, not in the Rand sense) what’s required?
Not that you would dictate what people would do. I’m just asking, in your ideal libertarian society…are people altruistic and do you see the society working without that? I’d have practical questions, too, I’m just trying to understand your ideal/philosophical framework.
“Do you view altruism (in the conventional sense, where a person does something for another without getting something tangible directly back) as a key part of a libertarian society?”
Well, of course. We’re talking here about the difference between what people shouldn’t do, and what they can legitimately be prevented from doing, between what people should do, and they can legitimately be compelled to do. We’re talking about the space where liberty exists. Who wants to live in the “Everything that’s not manditory is prohibited” dystopia?
This is a common mistake about libertarianism: Libertarianism isn’t a theory which tries to dictate what you should do under all circumstances. It merely sets some boundaries, and leaves you to make your own choices within them.
It merely sets some boundaries, and leaves you to make your own choices within them.
Do the boundaries exclude coercion of any kind?
Can most of us agree that all of us must do certain things?
What can I, as a member of a polity that includes some libertarians, require of my neighbors?
Can I require them to follow building codes when building their homes?
Can I require them to keep their automobiles in sufficiently good repair that they don’t present a hazard to me on the road?
Can I require them to not raise hogs next door to me?
Can I require them to not pour their waste motor oil down the storm drain?
Can I require them to not dispose of their kitchen trash by tossing it in their back yard?
I’d like to make the discussion of ‘libertarianism’ a little more concrete, and a little less airy-fairy.
libertarianism demands laws to regulate voting in order to eliminate problems with voting that do not exist. because of freedom.
Who wants to live in the “Everything that’s not manditory is prohibited” dystopia?
I would think almost no one, not even most liberals.
It merely sets some boundaries, and leaves you to make your own choices within them.
So we’re arguing about where those boundaries should be, rather than that there should be boundaries.
Here’s the thing: You can be compelled to do or be prohibited from doing things by a number of various actors/agents. What it seems libertarians generally get upset about is when those actors/agents are somehow part of the government. It doesn’t seem to matter that, without the government telling people to do or not to do this or that, someone or something else will, possibly someone/something else far worse.
In extreme cases where you have a lack of government, you have competing factions run by warlords doing all sorts of nasty things in a somewhat random fashion. (In less extreme cases, it can be corporations run by CEOs.)
Should you through our government demand I build my house to be capable of maintaining an indoor temperature 78 degree 24/7 on a specified amount of fuel when I am content with relying on the sun god for warmth and when she is being uncooperative I put on my long johns? Just asking because that is a law here in California. Actually my business is benefiting by that regulation.
We’re talking about the space where liberty exists.
It’s worth noting that Brett’s usage here relies on ‘liberty’ having a particular meaning. The proper definition of ‘liberty’ has been a matter of debate, more or less forever, so his statement here is somewhat circular.
Brett is talking about the space where *his understanding of liberty* exists, in the way he wants it to.
russell, I’ll bite. I’m self-described libertarian, although, like I said, I’m probably not going to be invited to any libertarian parties. I’m going to grab one thing off your list. I could describe my position on that and more, but I think it would probably get repetitive. If you’re not satisfied, let me know.
For all this, to me, laws should be minimal and necessary to prevent substantial problems to society. You probably agree (correct me if I’m wrong!). I doubt you want laws that do nothing except infringe on personal freedom. Where we likely differ is what is “necessary.”
“Can I require them to not raise hogs next door to me?”
Ok, first, I think laws should be enacted at the lowest level of government possible. I think this should be enacted at the city/county level, if at all. Practical reason for that: it minimizes impact on someone who disagrees with the law. For example, without leaving my job or really changing my commute too much, I can live in a number of different municipalities who have very different laws on keeping livestock in residential areas. Also, it’s far more practical for me, the restricted hog farmer, to advocate for change at the city level than at the state or federal level.
Second, is the law necessary? Are there problems with hogs in the neighborhood? Is it widespread? Are we passing the law prophylacticaly, just in case someone decides to buy hogs and it sounds like it would be a problem? As a general rule, I’m against laws that don’t address an actual, current, problem. The practical justification for this is twofold. Laws are harder to repeal than pass, and its difficult to be a law abiding citizen if there are to many laws on the books. Second, laws tend to have unintentional collateral. A perfectly reasonable, minimal law preventing me from shoving 30 hogs into a postage stamp backyard (or into my apartment!), might accidentally stop me from having a pet pig, even though that wasn’t anybody’s intent.
Finally, is the problem substantial? What’s the objection to me raising hogs? Is it the noise, the smell? Is this something you find annoying (not to pick on you, for these purposes your my fictitious neighbor with a problem) or am I backing up sewer lines? Is this a mild annoyance that sometimes you wake up too early and occasionally have to keep your windows closed? Or is your house uninhabitable? As a general rule, if my neighbor does something I don’t like, tough, I deal with it. I don’t get to approve what everybody does with their property. I give them latitude and I expect latitude in return.
So to answer your question simply: I would be ok with that law. As long as it was enacted by the local government to address a substantial problem of residential hog farming. To a lesser extent, I’m ok with a municipality deciding to ban the presence of ANY hogs, even if it is only a mild annoyance. And that’s because not everybody agrees with me about what is a mild annoyance and what is inhibiting a reasonable quality of life and if that law was a problem, I could reasonably advocate to change it at a local level or reasonably could move one town over without uprooting my life.
jeff,
Let’s ask the question the other way: should you be free to build your house so that it needs 100 gal of oil a day to keep warm or 1MWhr a day to keep cool?
Maybe you should be — if you personally bear ALL the costs involved.
For instance, the cost to everyone else of the exhaust from your chimney is not zero. One way to deal with that would be an emissions tax. I’d go for that.
–TP
Should you through our government demand I build my house to be capable of maintaining an indoor temperature 78 degree 24/7 on a specified amount of fuel when I am content with relying on the sun god for warmth and when she is being uncooperative I put on my long johns? Just asking because that is a law here in California.
I can see two sides.
Since I don’t live in CA, my opinion on the topic is moot.
russell, I’ll bite.
Thanks for the reply.
My point in asking the question was to establish whether, in the mind of libertarians, coercion at all is legitimate.
Based on your reply, it sounds like your answer is maybe, but it depends on the particulars.
That’s the same answer you will get from almost anybody on this board, regardless of political persuasion.
In which case, what we’re arguing about are the particulars.
If I were to take up thompson on particulars, I would note that the concentration of swine and proximity to humans increases the possibility of novel flu strains that can be transmitted human to human. This is why the CDC has these materials and one of the posters has this
Anyone at high risk of serious flu complications planning to attend a fair where pigs will be present should avoid pigs and swine barns at the fair.
This includes pig exhibitors and family members with high risk factors.
This may mean that exhibitors with one or more high risk factors do not show their pig(s) this year.
I’d be pretty mad if I had pigs next door and I or one of my family was high risk.
If a pandemic strikes, the government is then forced to carry out VERY coercive measures. When the 1918 flu pandemic struck, various localities followed measures of varying severity. While some of this was due to now outdated medical knowledge, the key to stopping a pandemic like this is to prevent human to human transmission. By putting these kinds of regulations at the lowest level of government, you increase the risk.
Tony, good flip. I’m green. I would prefer a rule that I am rationed a limited amount of fossil fuel per season but can see the unpopularity of that solution.
This is a common mistake about libertarianism: Libertarianism isn’t a theory which tries to dictate what you should do under all circumstances.
Is it a common mistake? In all of my conversations about libertarianism I have never heard it made before. Including now, actually, since that’s not at all what thompson asked.
I think the important word in his question is “key” ie do you think altruism necessary for a libertarian society to function?
also, pig farms bring risks of things like overflowing waste ‘lagoons’, especially in states, like NC, which frequently get hurricanes.
and, they smell like holy hell.
Maybe you should be — if you personally bear ALL the costs involved.
The penny drops. Note my bolds.
The claim being made is that it’s not legitimate for the ACA to require an individual mandate, because it’s coercive.
When it’s pointed out that the purpose of the mandate is to address the free rider problem presented by the requirement for hospitals to provide care regardless of ability to pay, then *that* is cited as an undesirable coercion.
The fact is that it harms me, and all of us, for large numbers of people to not be able to go to the doctor. Not refuse to go to the doctor, not don’t feel like going, not forgot their appointment — not be ABLE to go, because they can’t afford to.
It’s not good for me, or any of us, if people are walking around with undiagnosed and/or untreated diseases. It’s not good for me, or any of us, if conditions that can be addressed quickly and inexpensively are allowed to progress to the point where they are very expensive indeed to deal with.
It’s not good for me, or any of us, for the health insurance marketplace to be sliced and diced into a complicated matrix of niche markets, where your personal premium is dialed in based on the statistical likelihood that you, personally, are going to very expensive to insure.
You’re not going to be a robust 23 year old forever. You might not be one at all, ever.
We are *all harmed* by stuff like this. Not in some fluffy let’s-all-be-brothers-and-sisters hippie sense, but tangibly and materially.
There is a real thing, known as public health, and all of this stuff comes into it. And there is, for that matter, a marketplace where goods and service related to health care are bought and sold, and all of this stuff comes into that, as well.
You can imagine that you are living in some private little island, where none of this affects you because you have your personal little set of ducks in a row, and that the rest of us should therefore LEAVE YOU ALONE because IT’S NONE OF OUR BUSINESS.
But that would, in fact, be an artifact of your imagination.
If what you do affects me, I have a say about it. If that violates your sense of personal liberty, that’s unfortunate and perhaps regrettable, but so be it.
Maybe folks just need to grow a thicker skin, liberty-wise. There are other people on the planet, as it turns out.
Are we passing the law prophylacticaly, just in case someone decides to buy hogs and it sounds like it would be a problem? As a general rule, I’m against laws that don’t address an actual, current, problem.
otoh, there are problems with waiting until someone buys property with the intent of raising hogs, builds all of their infrastructure, builds or customizes their home, etc, and *then* outlawing the raising of hogs in that neighborhood. There’s something to be said for setting ground rules and expectations ahead of time.
(Thus, we see stuff like electrical codes get bulk copypasted from one jurisdiction to another- why wait for mistake #647 to occur in your district before putting in safeguards against it? Otoh, that does lead to regulatory bulk & that is its own problem).
I lived in a college town with a lot of college rentals. Enough homeowners decided that this was irritating in general, and passed a set of laws. Some of these laws made some sense (eg after a certain threshold of noise complaints, the *owner* started getting fines- thus applying pressure to noisy renters) others of which were purely arbitrary & seemed to me quite unfair (eg no more than 2 unrelated groups of people per address).
So Im not entirely a fan of reactive lawmaking; it seems likely to produce irrational rules or discriminate against less-popular or -powerful groups. Plus, one person’s massive loss of enjoyment (eg raising a bee-allergic child next to a bee-raising neighbor) might be as or more significant than mass annoyance, but the latter seems much more likely to produce legal action.
As a general rule, if my neighbor does something I don’t like, tough, I deal with it. I don’t get to approve what everybody does with their property.
This is one of the breakdown points for me & libertarianism. It’s my property & Im supposed to be able to do with it exactly as I please. Any (and I mean *any*) public taking of my property needs to involve compensation to me for the taking.
But my neighbor wants to have a rooster zoo. Or emit a bunch of smells (ie molecules coming onto mah property!). Or start a slaughterhouse business in their garage. etc. Where is my *perfect* right to control my private property from contamination? Why does this seem to only extend to collective actions and not individual actions?
In a true libertarianism, rather than having emissions limits or cap-and-trade, pollution emitters should have to get or buy permission from each individual affected by their pollutant (or, each piece of property anyway). No compelled collective bargaining where the pollutant is taxed or limited etc- if the power plant upwind wants to burn coal and put particulates onto my property, I ought to be able to demand 1)a payment of my choosing ahead of time 2)compensation after the fact at a level where I can *completely* mitigate any trace of their pollutant from my land/bloodstream/etc.
Practically, most of the libertarianism Ive seen just walks past these issues as ‘taking the principle too far’. But taking the principle too far appears to me to be the entire point of the movement, and to see it ‘taken too far’ against collective action while failing to invoke it against individual action seems to privilege the latter in a weird way.
[If it seems extreme to demand that others not vibrate my property (ie sound waves), it seems that way to me too. But then so does the rest of libertarianism)]
pollution emitters should have to get or buy permission from each individual affected by their pollutant
That would work for me. And, it gets back to Tony P’s “bearing all the costs involved”.
And, maybe regrettably, I don’t see how it’s practical beyond the simplest of situations.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/10/21/was-obamacare-guinea-pig/
That’s from Faux: their commentator likes Obamacare and is getting a better plan.
Returning to my Victor Hugo vs Ayn Rand tangent (which perhaps only interests me), what I found really ironic about her admiration of him as a novelist is not just that Hugo clearly stands on the side of altruism and heroic self-sacrifice, but that Hugo tries to portray characters whose political ideals are different from his in as heroic a light as possible. His characters are demigods and you might think they’re wrong, as does Hugo in some cases, but they’re not contemptible. Rand picks up on that aspect of his writing and creates her own demigods in Atlas Shrugged (very unlikable ones), but unlike Hugo, she can’t write sympathetically about characters whose views are different from hers, unless they are struggling their way towards her version of enlightenment. So there’s not a heroic liberal in the whole book. They’re all contemptible weasels with names like Wesley Mouch–the closest thing to an admirable villain is a corrupt thuggish but tough labor leader with no illusions about what he is, someone who admires strength, but nothing else. Not good enough for Rand’s heroes, but at least he’s not true liberal.
Going off on a tangent to the Hugo tangent, this is what I hated about what Peter Jackson did to Denethor in the third LOTR movie. Jackson’s Denethor is not just wrong, but contemptible–nothing like the character in the book. That’s what Rand does to all her characters with liberal views.
right.
government exists to collectively handle things that would be too onerous to handle at the individual level. and it does that with laws and regulations that people have built up from experience.
libertarianism skips the whole ‘entirety of human existence’ bit and says “oh no, we’re smarter than all that. we’ll just trust that people will do the right thing.”
“Libertarianism isn’t a theory which tries to dictate what you should do under all circumstances. It merely sets some boundaries, and leaves you to make your own choices within them.”
My problem with many (not all) libertarians in practice is that it turns into a sort of Randian contempt for poor people and liberal do-gooders. What starts out as a theory about liberty turns into rants about makers and takers. In theory there’s no reason why you couldn’t have compassionate libertarianism and in practice I don’t doubt it exists. These would be people who don’t think government can or should help the poor, not because the poor don’t need help, but on the grounds that government programs always fail or make things worse. The poor can only be helped by market forces along with private assistance which isn’t hobbled by regulations and bureaucrats and so forth and besides, it should all be voluntary (I’m giving the libertarian view, not mine). Someone could sincerely believe such a thing and want to help the poor and be willing to give as much or more money to charitable causes as they would pay in taxes, or even more. Conservative Christians sometimes claim to believe something like this and some may even act on it. Back in 1999 when I first heard of “compassionate conservatism” I actually thought we’d have an interesting debate about the best ways to help the poor. That little delusion didn’t last too long.
“Based on your reply, it sounds like your answer is maybe, but it depends on the particulars.
That’s the same answer you will get from almost anybody on this board, regardless of political persuasion.
In which case, what we’re arguing about are the particulars.”
Yeah, I assumed as much. And that was pretty much my objective in responding. Use the hog farming as an example of how I, as a self-identified libertarian, frame the issue around the particulars. Of course, now I’m in the position of apparently advocating for farming in high density housing. Wee.
People have raised some good points in those contexts, and I’ll try to answer them, but I’m not a suburban meat packer and I can’t say I have the knowledge or inclination to really defend the time-honored libertarian practice of hog farming in apartment buildings. Just as Rand intended.
“If I were to take up thompson on particulars, I would note that the concentration of swine and proximity to humans increases the possibility of novel flu strains that can be transmitted human to human.” and “also, pig farms bring risks of things like overflowing waste ‘lagoons’, especially in states, like NC, which frequently get hurricanes.”
Granted. And that would be an example of potentially substantial reason why pigs should be banned in certain areas. However, there are some caveats to that. Are we talking about a stockyard in a neighborhood with dozens/hundreds of pigs that are regularly bought/sold/trader with other yards, which would lead to all sorts of problems with waste management and allow for a potential zoonosis? Or are we talking about a guy with a pig?
The reason I ask that (and this gets to particulars) is I think it would be a terrible idea to have a pig farm in the typical residential area. For pretty much those reasons. And I’d be ok with a law putting a stop to it, if I was aware of people actually doing this. And maybe I’m just misinformed about the swelling suburban meat packing industry. (Seriously, I’m curious, is this a thing? I live in a mixed rural/suburban area with fairly lax laws regarding livestock. Goats are popular, haven’t seen many pigs).
But if it’s not a problem, I’m not ok with a law because someone might, someday, be really stupid. Mostly because humans are incredibly inventive in stupidity, and I think it would be hard to cover every possibility through laws, without excessive infringement of individual rights.
And I take the point that someone might decide that since there is no law, they might invest heavily in it only to be disappointed be a reactive law. Yeah, that would sort of suck. But no system is perfect and I’m betting this would be a fringe case, and the cost associated with that a fair trade for the reduced legislative burden.
But I’m guessing that’s not what you (russell, LJ, and cleek) are talking about. Or if it is, and want to convince me on this hog farm issue, I would just want some evidence that hog farms in suburbs are a problem. Not that they could be (I agree!), but that they ARE. And I would say, yes, bring on the law!
Where it gets hard, is the one pig or any number of pigs that don’t quite reach industrial scale. And one pig can cause problems. It can be noisy. It might even smell a little. And while it’s pretty unlikely that an isolated individual (as opposed to the large and kinetic populations you see in factory farms) is going to be infected with a potential zoonosis, I suppose the risk is non zero. But I’d be unwilling to ban pigs from city limits if a few people had a pig in there backyards. Because I consider those infringements on other people’s lives minimal.
And that will reduce some people’s quality of life. I had neighbors that would throw loud parties. It was annoying sometimes, but I view it as a price for living in a nominally free society. Like hearing hate speech. I don’t like it, but I’d rather allow it than allow for a framework where speech is restricted.
thompson,
This may seem off the wall, but I have to ask you as a self-identified libertarian:
Do you oppose, support, or not care about, laws that forbid you to walk down the street naked?
If you oppose them, I honor you as a true libertarian.
If you support them, I wonder whether streaking is a real or incipient menace in your neighborhood.
If you are indifferent to them, I’d like to know the libertarian distinction between laws that forbid you to walk down the street naked, and laws that forbid you walk down the street armed.
See, I’m groping for understanding too 🙂
–TP
I think a “true Libertarian” (havent we been down this path recently? 🙂 ) would say that there shouldn’t be public streets- so whether the streets are clothing-optional would be up to the property owner (plus any contracts the owner had with others).
In theory there’s no reason why you couldn’t have compassionate libertarianism and in practice I don’t doubt it exists.
Dirty secret- a long time ago, someone who looks like me self-identified as a Libertarian. Until he tried to reconcile the Party’s views with environmental/pollution issues, failed on his own, tried to find a good Libertarian solution somewhere else, failed even harder, and finally decided there were serious societal problems not well suited to that philosophy. It wasn’t until later that he started encountering “typical” American Libertarianism and became *quite* disenchanted with the whole idea.
And, contra my frequent criticisms of Brett et al, I still maintain a lot of those sympathies. I much prefer market solutions and limiting intrusions on individual choice when possible; but Ive got a much longer list of ‘permissible sins’ than Brett does, and “prefer” is not quite “demand”. I find myself mostly thinking along pragmatic lines now, rather than grand philosophical positions.
Or are we talking about a guy with a pig?
I was talking about a farm, not a pet pig. So, many pigs.
I think it would be a terrible idea to have a pig farm in the typical residential area.
For most meanings of “typical”, you are more than correct.
And I’d be ok with a law putting a stop to it, if I was aware of people actually doing this. (…) But if it’s not a problem, I’m not ok with a law because someone might, someday, be really stupid.
The thing is, it’s pretty much not a problem. And the reason it’s not a problem is that in most primarily residential areas, you can’t raise hogs.
For all of the reasons given in this thread. Noise, smell, waste disposal, general logistics of wrangling large volumes of hogs in residential neighborhoods, disease, etc etc etc.
We don’t have to wait until somebody decides to start a hog farm in a residential neighborhood to figure this out. We can sort of know in advance, based on the centuries of experience that cleek refers to.
So in most residential areas, there *already are laws* that restrict the kind and number of livestock you can keep (if any).
That, in fact, is why many if not most places implement zoning laws, so that uses of property that don’t blend well together aren’t allowed in the same areas.
If you want to raise hogs, you are free to do so, *in a place where it won’t bug everybody within a half mile of you*.
There is no meaningful infringement on your liberty, unless by “your liberty” you mean a near-absolute lack of any constraint on your behavior at all.
That is a “reasonable” definition of liberty, in the sense that it parses as an intelligible and coherent thought, but in any real life context it’s absurd.
We all, each and every one of us, lives within the constraints that we collectively impose on each other. Sometimes they’re annoying, sometimes we don’t get to do some things we might like to do.
The alternative is freaking bedlam.
If it’s too much to live with, you can always go live far away from other people, and you will likely be left pretty much alone.
Not completely, but pretty much. People do it, today, in all kinds of places, for the exact reasons that seem to be of interest to folks who espouse libertarianism.
So, it’s an option.
Building out a hog farm in a typical residential neighborhood is not a good idea, and we sort of already know that, and so in most residential areas you can’t do it.
You are right. They are not mentally ill, nor are they very bright. Most American were upset with our near default and the government shut down but don’t really understand how it happened. I wrote a summary of the problem starting with how the Tea party was born in the white hot crucible of the over the top right wing lies about the Affordable Care Act. See it at http://brianebaxter.com/
Tony:
Fair questions. I’ll try to answer as best I can. But I wouldn’t consider myself a “true” anything. Because I think, like scotsmen, that’s there’s no such thing.
“Do you oppose, support, or not care about, laws that forbid you to walk down the street naked?”
I’m strongly against streaking being treated as a sex offense. I’m more ok with a citation level offense. I don’t think it’s an issue, but I understand that different people have different tolerances for such things and that we all have to get along in society. As most people normally wear clothes and there are nudist colonies, I don’t view it as enough of an infringement to get worked up about. If I had to vote, I’d say no law. If there were problems, I’d revisit it.
This also goes into the hog discussion. I’m ok living with people that draw the line in different places. I’m not going to burn down city hall every time a law gets passed I don’t like. I think (and I could be wrong) enough people would suffer enough of a decrease in quality of life that I understand the basis for the law.
“If you support them, I wonder whether streaking is a real or incipient menace in your neighborhood.”
I live in a college town with little entertainment other that drinking. You figure out if its a menace. 🙂
Also, I think I was non-responsive to some other people. I apologize. I feel I’ve already spoken too much. Walls of thompson text can’t be too fun. If you feel it wasn’t covered and have a burning need to know, ask again.
actually, as it turns out, I have a bit of second hand anecdotal experience in the question of pig farms. The family on my father’s side raises pigs in Hawai’i, and they are only able to do so because older pig farms have been grandfathered in, and you are not able to start a pig farm. But, as the libertarians might point out, one essential ingredient in a luau is a pig, baked underground and the he market could probably (though I am not positive) support a lot more pig farms in Hawai’i. How can this coercive environment stand?!?
However that would both run into problems with the idea of being a tourist destination, and, I believe, that the state is a lot more conscious about the effect that the possibility of pandemic illnesses can have on that industry. I’ve heard the phrase ‘when Japan sneezes, Hawaii catches a cold’ and that indicates the hand in glove relationship that the tourist economy has with people coming from Japan. And Hawai’i isn’t a place where you think of as having all that a high density of housing.
Hawaii could designate via lottery one tourist per plane load to be baked underground and served at the hotel luaus, thus freeing up the Hawaiian vistas for the more profitable surviving tourist industry.
“That’s Charlie from Omaha. Met him on the plane. Yeah, two mimosas here and keep ’em coming.”
Meanwhile I see no reason why mainland pigs and hogs shouldn’t be free without impediment by law or social outrage to run naked through suburban streets.
I think wild swine shot in the rear quarters by feral humans like Ted Nugent should be required to wear hospital gowns and carry their own first aid kits to discourage further usage of hospital emergency rooms by livestock, and this includes those humans deemed livestock and denied expanded Medicaid coverage by Republican governors.
Now, flying pigs may require some city codes and inspections in the area of diapering, etc.
Ponies. Naked. With health insurance and mated with unicorns.
russell:
“Or are we talking about a guy with a pig?
I was talking about a farm, not a pet pig. So, many pigs.”
My mistake, you said “hogs” in your first post. I wasn’t sure if you meant 1-2 as pets/hobby or a commercial enterprise. I probably should have assumed, it makes more sense that way.
To be clear, this isn’t a hill I’m willing to die on, I just thought it was a reasonable way to explain my psuedo-libertarian thought process. I’m really not trying to convince you that livestocks regs are evil and a sign of the coming muslim-commie apocalypse.
I think we agree. In general. Maybe not on the specifics.
I don’t think hog farming in residential areas is a good idea (agree?).
I’m not diametrically opposed to a law against it, but I prefer it to be acted out at a low level of government (agree?).
The one caveat I would add is that I don’t think it’s required in most cases. I’ve never had a conversation with someone who wanted 40 pigs in there backyard but was stopped by the law. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. And maybe if the patchwork of laws in all the different cities was gone, tomorrow we’d have enough suburban pig farmers to be a problem. I doubt it, but if that was the case, I think it’s a pretty reasonable set of laws. I’ll happily concede that point.
So where do we differ? I think pretty much on this point (I could be wrong, I’m not trying to speak for you). I view laws, in general, as dangerous. I think they can have unintended consequence. I think laws can be selectively applied (DWB, stop and frisk, etc). I think law-making is often corrupted by money and power, leading to laws that favor one group over another. I think an excess of laws leads to laws that can be gamed by companies that can afford lawyers and accounts.
Does this mean I think there should be no laws? Of course not. But, in my view, if the law isn’t required to stop a substantial problem, I’m against having it. Even laws that I look at and say, that would probably be a net win for society. It has to be a substantial win for society, to outweigh my concerns over more laws. I’m guessing you probably don’t feel those concerns as heavily. That’s fine. We draw the line differently.
Similarly, we probably balance individual and collective rights a little differently. We can certainly both agree the extremes are bad (You can do anything without regard to the effects on others/you can only do what society has deemed appropriate). But there’s a lot of room in the middle. And everywhere in the middle some people will infringe on others and some will have their actions infringed upon. It comes down to the particulars, as you said. I agree.
Let’s say we wake up one morning and either a piece of our private property or a bit of the public commons within our view has been paid a visit by Banksy?
http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/23/4947682/banksy-cancels-wednesday-art-piece-over-police-activity
What to do, you rule of law lawbreakers?
Libertarianism isn’t a theory which tries to dictate what you should do under all circumstances. It merely sets some boundaries, and leaves you to make your own choices within them.
This is pure balony. There are many varieties of libertarianism.”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism>libertarianism. What else would you expect from folks who rage against ‘coercion’? I am pretty sure Brett is appalled by the anarchist manifestos of Pierre Proudhon (“property is theft”) or the fabulously witty broadsides of current social critics such as IOZ.”>http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/>IOZ. In fact, the first to call themselves “libertarians” were variants of left wing communal anarchists.
The current American version of “libertarianism” is a cramped version of free market triumphalism and social Darwinism wedded to retrograde neo-Confederate nullification theory (i.e., traitors). In this version, the goal is to afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable. Indeed, it is an amazing sight to behold as its proponents encourage public policies that put the heel of economic oppression (yes, coercion) firmly on the neck of those who they seek fervently to convince of their righteous cries for “Liberty”.
Other than (possibly) legalizing (some) drugs, name one public policy (that would be a goverment action for those of you not paying attention) promoted by these so-called freedom fighters that will increase the general welfare.
I’m not diametrically opposed to a law against it, but I prefer it to be acted out at a low level of government (agree?).
Agreed, and in fact land use and zoning laws and regulations tend to be local.
I view laws, in general, as dangerous. I think they can have unintended consequence. I think laws can be selectively applied (DWB, stop and frisk, etc). I think law-making is often corrupted by money and power, leading to laws that favor one group over another.
I agree with every one of these statements. And, I note that the same problems exist in the absence of laws.
Any and all human behavior is potentially dangerous, will have unintended consequences, can be selectively or differentially applied, and is subject to corruption.
Law-making is no different.
And, lest we forget the dreaded power of coercion that the mighty state wields, I note that, in the absence of laws and a functioning government, we clever humans still find novel and entertaining ways in which to coerce each other.
Humans, it appears, are irascible greedy contentious clannish fallible dudes. Our laws and governments are not immune.
We do our best.
We do our best.
Yep. And it’s pretty darned exasperating just about always.
…and in fact land use and zoning laws and regulations tend to be local.
There is no tyranny that can match a contentious land use ruling. Ask anybody whose ox has been gored by one.
And, I note that the same problems exist in the absence of laws.
And I would add that the invocation of an all-encompassing ‘principle’ (i.e., laws are dangerous)in this instance is simply a request for those who may disagree with you to accept your underlying assumptions. A tactic that is guaranteed to fail as far as winning friends and influencing people goes. The devil is in the details.
“The current American version of “libertarianism” is a cramped version of free market triumphalism and social Darwinism wedded to retrograde neo-Confederate nullification theory (i.e., traitors). In this version, the goal is to afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable. Indeed, it is an amazing sight to behold as its proponents encourage public policies that put the heel of economic oppression (yes, coercion) firmly on the neck of those who they seek fervently to convince of their righteous cries for “Liberty”.”
I wish I’d written that.
thompson: But, in my view, if the law isn’t required to stop a substantial problem, I’m against having it.
Can we put you down against “voter ID” laws, then?
Oh, and maybe you can have a libertarian-to-libertarian talk with Brett about them.
–TP
I wish I’d written that. I am deeply honored, but I can’t top this written by pumpkin patch kid Whittaker Chambers in his devastating review of Rand’s Atlas Strugged:
“Out of a lifetime of reading I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal. In addition, the mind which finds this tone natural to it shares other characteristics of its type. 1) It consistently mistakes raw force for strength, and the rawer the force, the more reverent the posture of the mind before it. 2) It supposes itself to be the bringer of a final revelation.”
And he was a conservative. Go figure.
Yours is still better, bobbyp.
In Texas, cities can expand their city limits by annexing surrounding areas against property owners will. Some small communities might have boundaries that might be ten miles from the center of the community.
This has lead to some fights when a city annexes rural, semi-rural areas and then tries to enforce their zoning ordinances against having livestock within the city limits.
“I agree with every one of these statements. And, I note that the same problems exist in the absence of laws.”
Yeah, pretty much. Not every problem can be solved with government. Not every problem can be solved without. I find I err in general on the side of government not solving problems, but somethings require it.
“We do our best.”
Can’t be said better.
“And I would add that the invocation of an all-encompassing ‘principle’ (i.e., laws are dangerous)in this instance is simply a request for those who may disagree with you to accept your underlying assumptions.”
It’s really not. It’s a statement of my personal view and something I consider when, say, voting. I think I said, but perhaps should have said more clearly, that I thought people can and are free to disagree. I have principles. You have principles. I wasn’t trying to diminish yours by explaining mine. But I find people often misunderstand each other if they aren’t familiar with everybody’s starting principles.
“A tactic that is guaranteed to fail as far as winning friends and influencing people goes.”
Apparently, judging by the response. But, a fella’s gotta try, amirite? 🙂
“Can we put you down against “voter ID” laws, then?”
I have yet to see any evidence of widespread fraud that is sufficient to influence elections (which would be a problem). Therefore, I view the requirement to buy an ID card from the government, or other methods of voter checking, to be an infringement on personal liberty. Like the liberty to not by an ID card. Or to carry one. And yeah, I’m pretty serious about that. Am I libertarian enough for you yet, Tony?
“Oh, and maybe you can have a libertarian-to-libertarian talk with Brett about them.”
I’d love to. As much as I like hearing my own views, I’m pretty much hear to learn those of others.
“Whittaker Chambers in his devastating review of Rand’s Atlas Strugged:”
I always preferred:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves Orcs.”
Although I don’t know who said it originally.
Charles:
That’s the kind of thing I would vote against, were I in those municipalities.
I’ll join the choir. That truly was a beautiful turn of phrase, bobbyp.
thompson: I’ve always heard it attributed to John Rogers.
Thanks, I’ve heard a few different names and am always fearful of failing to properly attribute.
“Other than (possibly) legalizing (some) drugs, name one public policy (that would be a goverment action for those of you not paying attention) promoted by these so-called freedom fighters that will increase the general welfare.”
I dunno, not assassinating americans without trial would be a start…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki#Death
And I don’t know if he is libertarian enough for you, but Rand Paul’s filibuster is probably relevant…http://www.npr.org/2013/03/10/173864536/when-rand-paul-ended-filibuster-he-left-drones-on-national-stage
Of course, I don’t agree with everything Paul believes. But you asked for one. I gave you one. Unless you want to contend Paul’s libertarian creds, I think that answers it?
I dunno, not assassinating americans without trial would be a start…
To which you could also add assassinating foreigners without trial; invading sovereign nations; mass surveillance of domestic and foreign populations by various ‘security’ services…
As you imply, there are a significant number of issues on which libertarians and liberals share common ground – and indeed there is a strain of libertarianism which is basically liberal.
I suspect US libertarianism is less restrained than elsewhere as historically Americans have been subject to few resource limitations in what was and to a certain extent still is a rich, relatively underpopulated nation.
In the context of a world where human population places increasingly severe constraints on available resources, ‘strong’ libertarianism of the US variety makes less sense.
“and indeed there is a strain of libertarianism which is basically liberal”
I often self identify as a liberal/libertarian who wants to conserve.
It is a hard balancing act.
More fundamentally I am a pragmatist who wants to build and these are the qualities I see in Obama that calms my nerves. The politician I identified with or rather respected the most was Senator Jim Webb. Where did his kind go?
Where did his kind go?
Well, there’s still Ron Wyden.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/ron-wyden-the-lonely-hero-of-the-battle-against-the-surveillance-state/280782/
thompson,
in re Rand Paul’s little stunt, please read this article.
best regards,
I don’t think Rand Paul is any more of a libertarian than his dad and his dad was libertarian only in theory, not in his votes. (I agree with you about the assassinations and drones.)
I don’t know what happened to libertarianism in the US, not that I’ve followed its development that much. I just have a vague idea that it used to be a movement more focused on individual choice–such as drug use, sexuality, other private matters. Then it seemed to manifest itself mostly as an excuse for being selfish and irresponsible, perhaps in parallel with the Republican party’s attempt to co-opt religious extremists and integrate voodoo economics into the party message. Did you all notice that Tony Perkins has announced that Christianity does not support governmental efforts to establish a social contract? The poor are always with us so let them die.
Seems like in the witches brew of Republican ideas fundamentalist Christianity and libertarianism are melding in a way that is toxic for both.
In any case, it seems logical to me that a philosophy that supposedly values freedom and personal choice would have much common ground with liberalism. But that idea that that “choice” means that working people who can’t afford insurance should be deprived of the opportunity to purchase it because a government program that provides it is some how an attack on the freedom of other tax payers seems really bizarre to me.
Dickens wrote several books about a society based on the assumption that the decision to give a shit about anyone else was a personal choice, and that charity freely given would take care of problems. That kind of libertarianism seems more like Social Darwinism than anything else to me. Its an easy thing to believe if one is in the position to benefit from the established order and protected by the established order from a need for a social contract with others.
It’s an armchair philosophy, in my view. Nice for abstract discussions in a living room or bar with people who, whether they want to acknowledge it or not, are beneficiaries of the social contract and don’t really want to feel the consequences of the application of their philosophy on themselves or people they care about.
I suspect US libertarianism is less restrained than elsewhere as historically Americans have been subject to few resource limitations in what was and to a certain extent still is a rich, relatively underpopulated nation.
IMO this is right on.
The corollary, which I would endorse, is that as our population grows and/or various critical resources come under pressure, the American variety will make less and less sense.
It’s not a philosophy that plays all that well with others.
Here’s an other angle on it. I don’t know if historically libertarians have been supporters of the labor movement. Does any one know?
This is my train of thought. Walmart, your classic supposed “maker” pays its employees as little as possible, so that for many of them the only way to stay alive is to get on Food Stamps. Thus the rest of us pay through our tax dollars the difference between Walmart’s pay and a living wage.
Fast food employees are in the same position.
The view from the top of those organizations is that they CAN’T POSIBLY PAY MORE!!! IT WOULD BE UNFAIR TO THEIR STOCKHOLDERS!! Etc. The view from the top also seems to be that they are the 2% of makers and their employees are the takers and the takers are a drain on the makers and all that Ayn Rand crap Romney referenced.
But the truth is they could pay more, a lot more, with out damaging their ability to make substantial profits or their ability to sickeningly over pay their CEOs.
So Walmart employees and fast food employees are trying to unionize for a living wage. Which means they would no longer need to have charity extracted out of other tax payers to stay alive.
So where do libertarians come down on a situation like this? Does anyone know?
Laura asked:
“Did you all notice that Tony Perkins has announced that Christianity does not support governmental efforts to establish a social contract?”
I preferred Perkins’ work as Norman Bates in Hitchcock’s “Psycho”, though he was impressive too as mentally fragile Boston Red Sox outfielder Jimmy Piersall in “Fear Strikes Out”.
He was typecast after “Psycho” of course, forever after offered roles as sociopaths of one kind or another.
This latest method acting is no surprise.
that.
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=BY03H27
I meant that one. Perhaps the same guy? They share some attitudes.
😉
Not crazy; maybe just genetically challenged…
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/can-your-genes-predict-whether-youll-be-a-conservative-or-a-liberal/280677/
Though I am a little skeptical about this, having self identified as conservative when younger. I would certainly not do so now – and not because the definition of conservative has shifted somewhat.
“Well, there’s still Ron Wyden”
I like Ron Wyden.
“re Rand Paul’s little stunt, please read this article.”
Bobbyp, the article you link basically argues it was a political stunt. Yeah, it was a filibuster. It also says Paul’s concern over this is overblown because the situations Holder would allow it are “would be authorized and legal to be highly unlikely and illustrates the hypothetical with situations that are quite out of the ordinary.”
Which is great, except this was in the context of an ongoing public debate with an executive which has been very unwilling to share what their legal justifications have been and will be for targeted killings. After extensive pressure, the white house has just released their memo on targeted killings. Which the ACLU described as “profoundly disturbing”. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/02/20132517311796860.html This concerns me, and I don’t think it’s just because I’m in libertarian la-la land.
Don’t misunderstand, I’m not constantly checking the sky for an incoming hellfire. I’m not petrified that Obama is out to get me. I am concerned about loss of due process, from the drones strikes on Anwar and his son, to the loss of due process that happens in everyday police action, which you mentioned.
I get maybe you don’t care about that as much as I do. But I think due process is an “common welfare” question. I think that’s fair. Do you disagree?
So what disqualifies this answer?
That Rand used an issue to score political points? I hate to paint with a broad brush, but that’s pretty much something politicians do. I don’t like it, but if I’m restricted to libertarians that have never tried to score political points…it’s going to be people you never heard of.
Is it that, according to your link, Paul disrupted the conversation about drones by using a poor hypothetical? I think that’s a matter of opinion. I saw more discussion of drones in the days following his stunt than I did before. I thought that was a good thing. The article disagrees.
Or is it, you just don’t think drone strikes are a common welfare thing?
So, seriously, why was it? And while you’re thinking about that, I’ll give you number two for free. Of course, Gary Johnson PROBABLY asked for money at some point using an exaggerated hypothetical. Does that mean he’s out?
http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/issues/civil-liberties
And yeah, before you say it. You probably don’t agree with his stance on stem cell research, neither do I.
Also, I think I was non-responsive to some other people. I apologize. I feel I’ve already spoken too much. Walls of thompson text can’t be too fun.
Walls of text are de rigueur here. Welcome aboard.
So what disqualifies this answer?
That Rand used an issue to score political points? ….
Is it that, according to your link, Paul disrupted the conversation about drones by using a poor hypothetical?
IMO, he didn’t address the actual problems (targeted killing of Americans abroad, process of classification of ‘enemy combatants’ although that’s more of a Congress thing). Worrying about somebody catching a drone missile while sitting in a coffee shop doesn’t make sense– there are likely easier and less stupid ways of getting to that person (to kill them or Gitmo them or just arrest them).
In that sense, I think Paul damaged the conversation rather than helping it, by pushing it towards black helicopter conspiracy theories rather than a realistic discussion of national security.
And I think that was intentional, because while he wanted to make points off of black helicopter talk and opposing the Democratic Executive, he doesn’t actually want to take up a position opposing the targeted assassination of Americans abroad, ‘enemy combatant’ status, etc. He’s on the record as approving of those things, and they’re pretty popular on the Right (when carried out by Republican Presidents, anyway- remember when the CIC clause meant the President had unlimited power to act as long as he thought it was in the best interests of the USA?)
[See eg here for some examples of Paul giving the thumbs up to assassinating American citizens via drone while abroad).
Holder gave him a straightforward answer- yes, there are extreme hypothetical situations where the President might use lethal force against Americans in America (eg 9/11) and that could even happen (*gasp*) via drone. Paul IMO turned that into a political football rather than advancing the conversation.
Now, RON Paul has been much more consistent on this issue- but then, his runs for the WH were entirely quixotic. Randall thinks he smells the real thing…
“Worrying about somebody catching a drone missile while sitting in a coffee shop doesn’t make sense-…”
Other weapons beside missiles, like rifles, could be mounted on drones. Could be really hard to spot a sniper at 5,000 feet instead of the highrise across the street.
A small town @55 miles east of me in Colorado wants to authorize bounty hunters to shoot down surveillance and other drones invading their citizens’ air spaces.
As much as I’m against the use of guns, I find this proposal to be compelling in a cracked sort of cinematic way.
I play with the notion (thinking out years hence when miniature surveillance drones are as thick as horseflies) of every residence and automobile being outfitted with tiny anti-aircraft weaponry or tiny surface-to-air missile defense systems, and maybe even designing my own tiny drones to engage unmarked enemy drones in aerial dogfights.
One can imagine divorce attorneys and their private investigators, just to mention one area ripe for abuse, siccing surveillance drones on the opposite party’s movements.
Other weapons beside missiles, like rifles, could be mounted on drones. Could be really hard to spot a sniper at 5,000 feet instead of the highrise across the street.
Point is, if they’re sitting in a coffee shop you can just arrest them. Or walk in and shoot them. Or shoot them as they leave. Or throw a grenade into the place.
If they’re just sitting in a coffee shop, then how the force is delivered is almost entirely irrelevant to what force is justified/permitted- because if they’re just sitting in a coffee shop in a normal US city, then there are basically no scenario restrictions on what we do.
So “drone” seems very much like a red herring, if the conversation is about the proper limits of police power, military power, or the line between the two. There are some interesting conversations to be had about that, or about targeted killing outside of the US, or even about the use of drones to gather info inside and outside of the US.
“Point is, if they’re sitting in a coffee shop you can just arrest them. Or walk in and shoot them. Or shoot them as they leave.”
Depends on how anonymous you want to be in taking someone out. For maximum anonymity with zero witness and evidence on the ground…
Depends on how anonymous you want to be in taking someone out. For maximum anonymity with zero witness and evidence on the ground…
That seems like the exact opposite of correct to me. Shoot him in the alley it could’ve been a mugger. Hit and run. Burglary gone wrong. Weird strain of drug-resistant e coli in his breakfast? Grab him off of the street and inject something to stop his heart, we might not even know it was a murder.
Snipe him from a rooftop, it’s a much smaller group of possible suspects (eg organized crime, etc). Blow the entire coffee shop up with a &$^#ing hellfire, we know who did it.
The problem in this scenario is a government that feels it’s Ok to execute someone (and hide it), not the particular method. The fact that the method in question is actually remarkably inefficient for the purpose is just bonus.
Carlton:
I appreciate the Rand Paul linky and I definitely have more reading to do. I’m not really a follower of his so I don’t have a catalog of everything he’s said in the past.
I will say, I don’t think the justification in that link was entirely fair. For example, it links an interview as him being “He supported the use of a drone in the killing of American-born enemy combatant Anwar Al-Awlaki,”
The link to the interview has Rand saying this: “Overseas, if you’re an American, there should be a process. With [Anwar al-Awlaki], I think there is evidence he was a traitor. I didn’t have a lot of sympathy for him being killed. However, I would have had a federal trial. If he didn’t come home, I would have allowed him to have representation, or I would have appointed representation. He could have been tried whether he was here or not. If the evidence is secret, go into closed session even in a federal court with a jury, convict him of treason, and the penalty for treason can be death.”
Which is a more nuanced position than I think DB gives him credit for. Of course, the article has pics of Rand with the text Derp/Derp…so you know, I wasn’t really expecting a charitable depiction.
“In that sense, I think Paul damaged the conversation rather than helping it, by pushing it towards black helicopter conspiracy theories rather than a realistic discussion of national security.”
I think politician’s, of all strips, use hyperbole. I don’t like it, but I’m not going to get to worked up about it. Especially in a filibuster. And yeah, filibusters are showmanship. I get that.
I think he brought the conversation into the public view, which I think is good. Maybe overly dramatic, but again, I’m not worked over it.
“So “drone” seems very much like a red herring, if the conversation is about the proper limits of police power, military power, or the line between the two. There are some interesting conversations to be had about that, or about targeted killing outside of the US, or even about the use of drones to gather info inside and outside of the US.”
These are the conversations I want to have. I don’t think drones are entirely a red herring because they bring a capability to the field with minimal risk. Ordering a drone strike, I fear (perhaps unreasonably, and I’d appreciate your perspective on it), is far easier for a commander-in-chief than risking soldiers on the ground. I worry that could lead to deployment of drones without proper due process because a drone strike hitting the wrong car in Yemen would have basically zero political consequence (sadly). The collateral in those situations has basically zero political consequence (how many afghan/pakistani civilians have been in the wrong place at the wrong time?). Anwar’s son 2 weeks later had basically zero political consequence.
And I have really no idea if the evidence was good. We’ve invaded foreign countries on with intel on WMDs that we could never find, with large political backlash. What quality of intel is required for a drone strike?
Since we seem to be heading down a bit of a war-nerd rabbit hole….
It seems to me that shooting people with a rifle, from a drone, at distances of thousands of feet, is not really a layup.
In other words, it’d be really freaking hard.
That’s basically sniper range, which puts it in the realm of very advanced expert skill sets. For a human being, who can factor in all of the various things that might affect accuracy. And who can find a stable place to set up, and brace the firearm, as opposed to a platform aloft, subject to wind and its own mechanical vibration etc.
My guess is that if we could be picking off targets with drone-mounted rifles, we would not be bothering with hellfires.
And if we were going to be killing people in this country – which thankfully does not seem to be in the cards, Rand Paul’s imagination to the side – there are about 1,000 easier ways than a drone.
We use drones where we can’t, or don’t want to, have a presence on the ground. A presence on the ground in the US is not an issue.
All of which is an aside, because the reasons why assassinating people is problematic, in this country or out of it, go well beyond the means used.
“Blow the entire coffee shop up with a &$^#ing hellfire, we know who did it.”
Yeah. We know who did it. But if it was a coffee shop in one of those countries with a funny sounding name…would anyone care? Or would the debate shift to, well, it’s never going to happen in an *American* coffee shop.
“That’s basically sniper range, which puts it in the realm of very advanced expert skill sets. For a human being, who can factor in all of the various things that might affect accuracy.”
A company in Texas sells computer controlled sniper rifles:
Now you’re a sharpshooter: The smart rifle arrives: Hit a target at 1,000 yards? No problem. Tracking Point’s computer-enabled rifles let novices shoot moving targets at extreme distances with near 100 percent accuracy. The new era of firearms is upon us.
These are the conversations I want to have. I don’t think drones are entirely a red herring because they bring a capability to the field with minimal risk. Ordering a drone strike, I fear (perhaps unreasonably, and I’d appreciate your perspective on it), is far easier for a commander-in-chief than risking soldiers on the ground.
That maybe changes the cost-benefit analysis for the Executive, but whether a targeted killing takes place via sniper or piloted aircraft or unpiloted aircraft doesn’t do much to change the legal issues IMO. At least, I havent heard anyone argue otherwise (ie that method matters in a legal/constitutional analysis- not directly, anyway, there are discussions about legality and eg colateral damage, which have implications for method).
Yeah. We know who did it. But if it was a coffee shop in one of those countries with a funny sounding name…would anyone care?
That’s true, but Paul/Charles were talking about specifically American coffee shops. Im sure there could be times when a drone strike on a coffee shop makes operational sense in Yemen (nb not an endorsement).
Anyway- did Paul advance the conversation? I don’t think he did, apparently we disagree on that point. Like I said, I found a lot of objectionable things with Ron Paul, but I do admire his consistency on some point. Rand does not appear to have inherited that characteristic, and strikes me as a bad compromise between mainstream conservativsm and Libertarianism.
I wouldn’t paint with as broad a brush as bobbyp, there are good ideas in Libertarianism and reasonable people who self-identify as Libertarians. But I would agree that what passes for popular Libertarianism these days IMO usually emphasizes the wrong things for the wrong reasons, and ignores or condones some of the larger insults to liberty happening under their noses.
As for the matter at hand- Im very much against any sort of ‘enemy combatant’ or other quasi-military process being invoked for people that we can lay our hands on and process via the justice system. For people outside of the US, in countries where the government is uncooperative or where civil order has broken down to the extent that they are beyond local government’s ability to produce them, I understand that we need a process for handling those sorts of situations, and it can’t always be one with zero casualties. Id like as much open legal process around that method as feasible, erring on the side of “open” if necessary.
That’s pretty remarkable. And maybe a little disturbing, for a variety of reasons.
No need for a drone, you can just find a comfortable rooftop a half mile away and have at it.
And it’s not military ordnance, if you have the dough you can have the gun.
Yikes.
Thanks for the link, Charles.
if you have the dough you can have the gun.
as the authors of the second amendment intended, i’m sure.
I was gonna go warnerd and say the exact same thing. It’s not for nothing that we’re using explosives; we can get an awful lot of precision from UAVs, but we’re talking “5m radius” precision, not “5cm radius”.
Since you pre-empted my warnerding, I shall find another outlet. If I were worrying about random domestic drone strikes (which I’m not, even a little), I’d be worried about Switchblades, not Hellfire-armed Predators.
Popular attitudes in the US about drones are weird. Really, really weird. I never understood why Bush 42’s invocation of menacing Iraqi drones (from Iraq!) actually was menacing to anyone. Drones aren’t some magical new technology, nor an amazing hitherto-unseen military capability. They’re a hodge-podge of old technologies combined in novel and efficient ways to make things that were previously prohibitively expensive and resource-intensive achievable as a matter of course (loiter is king). As you say, they’re situational. They’re for when we can’t go sit somewhere with a camera or sniper rifle for 12h (or 24h, or 72h) waiting for something to happen. They’re also quite pointedly for when we don’t care if we’re seen to be watching (or shooting). They’re not a magical, anonymous, stealthy assassin; they’re a flying RC lawnmower with a camera and possibly some explosives. And yet, popular opinion talks about them as though they’re some incomprehensible force multiplier, which allows nations possessing them to do things they’d previously only dreamed of…
“That maybe changes the cost-benefit analysis for the Executive, …doesn’t do much to change the legal issues IMO. At least, I havent heard anyone argue otherwise”
No, I agree. No change in legal issues. Sadly, I think politics is often as important as legalities.
“Anyway- did Paul advance the conversation? I don’t think he did, apparently we disagree on that point.”
Yeah, I think we do. And I find your position reasonable. I would agree that it didn’t *inform* the debate at all. Absolutely. For me, it did *raise the profile* of something I felt was under-discussed. And I think that was a good thing. I don’t think there is a factual disagreement here, I think maybe we just value those two components differently.
“I wouldn’t paint with as broad a brush as bobbyp, there are good ideas in Libertarianism and reasonable people who self-identify as Libertarians.”
I appreciate that. I probably goaded him into it a little, so I certainly don’t hold it against him.
“But I would agree that what passes for popular Libertarianism…larger insults to liberty happening under their noses.”
Yeah, I would largely agree although I my bicker on some points. And you have no idea how sad that makes me, or how willing I am to argue against that.
“As for the matter at hand- Im very much against any sort of ‘enemy combatant’ or other quasi-military process being invoked for people that we can lay our hands on and process via the justice system… erring on the side of “open” if necessary.”
Agreed! Could not say better.
A company in Texas sells computer controlled sniper rifles:
Yes, but. This doesn’t address the fundamental problems with shooting from a UAV. You’ll still have increased vibration and unpredictable shifts from being aloft, and at 5000m, it doesn’t take much of a shift to shoot wide of the mark. Auto-Tuning your targeting will help, but only so much. I’m not saying it’s not possible, but I am saying it’s not something I’d trust to be at all reliable. Additionally, there’s the matter of lag. You may only have a tiny bit of lag, and while you could do your best to line up shots to largely mitigate this, that limits your targeting opportunities, and still can’t eliminate these problems against even a stationary target.
[/warnerd]
The do a lot of things in Texas:
http://www.texasmonthly.com/daily-post/heres-how-saturdays-open-carry-demonstration-alamo-turned-out
Why would personal armed drones, accompanying me overhead as an extension of my open carry self-defense rights everywhere I walked and drove in Texas, NOT be legal.
Say, one of the geniuses at the rally — Captain Mac, for example, was spotted by my drone behind me on a public sidewalk behaving in what I might consider a menacing manner, which is to say, being himself … why couldn’t my drone be programmed to convert Captain Mac into a grease spot without any particular notice from Texans, who seem to tolerate all sorts of crapola if it’s, you know, insane.
The problem with this pragmatism is that, as the last decade has painfully shown, in practice it’s a slippery slope. Or an “every problem looks like a nail” situation, albeit one where it’s not that we don’t have anything but a hammer, it’s just that all our other tools are all the way out in the garage.
Once we allowed ourselves this sort of capability in lieu of the frustrating route of limiting ourselves to unequivocally legal remedies, we very quickly began finding that the situations where we had to use these measures were a lot more common than they’d previously seemed. If we have a choice between a costly and risky operation that would at a minimum afford a suspect an opportunity to surrender in the face of naked force and face due process for their alleged crimes, or a relatively cheap, fast, and safe extrajudicial execution, we’re going to tend towards the latter. Force protection, and budget protection. You see the same sort of thing in civilian law enforcement; cost (and especially risk) is offloaded from the acting agency to the alleged criminal, and the barrier for escalation of force is lowered at the expense of rule of law.
The other problem with this is that it’s American Exceptionalism at its finest. If Cuba decided to launch extrajudicial strikes against alleged terrorists in Miami that we’re refusing to extradite – especially if it so happened that there were more than zero civilian casualties – we’d be up in arms, but the balance of power is the only real difference between the two situations…
Once we allowed ourselves this sort of capability in lieu of the frustrating route of limiting ourselves to unequivocally legal remedies, we very quickly began finding that the situations where we had to use these measures were a lot more common than they’d previously seemed.
True. My hope is that being as open as possible about process could be used to counterbalance that, but I dont think that’s a very popular opinion. So we’re more likely to end up with all or nothing, and the executive being what it is & the American public being what it is, we’re going to end up with President-as-executioner. 😐
But if we’re imagineering, Im gonna imagineer also that the slope Im proposing we stand on not be slippery.
The other problem with this is that it’s American Exceptionalism at its finest. If Cuba decided to launch extrajudicial strikes against alleged terrorists in Miami that we’re refusing to extradite…
Well yeah, there is that whole can of worms too. I admit Im kinda off in my own little world here, designing a program that would never be implemented by anyone likely to sit in the White House in the next couple of decades. In that imaginary world, I forgive past excesses, make amends for wrongs, and try to do better in the future- including my new open policy of Tolerant Assassination via Drone Assistance (T.A.D.A. – “Let’s Keep Assassination Safe, Legal, and Rare!”)
thompson,
So what disqualifies this answer?
It appears we did not read the same article. The objections to Paul’s filibuster are several:
Paul’s filibuster obscured the real debate. Akimoto quotes the following from Jack Goldsmith in the article:
In general Senator Paul and others falsely maintained that the Obama administration has implied that it has authority to use a drone to kill a U.S. citizen inside the United States who is not engaged in combat and does not present an imminent threat and who is simply (a hypo they keep using) “sitting quietly in a café peaceably enjoying breakfast.” Senator Paul also claims that the administration’s position on homeland use of force has no legal limits and amounts to martial law. Along the way, Senator Paul is painting a misleadingly very unattractive picture of the circumstances in which the United States uses drones abroad in words that will now be played around the world as credible statements of U.S. policy.
In essence, Paul is turning a contentious foreign policy issue* into a non-serious domestic spat that is speaking to his partisan audience. Now being a lefty loon, I bow to no one in my revulsion at our drone policy and targeted assassinations, Americans or others. The criticism of the administration from the left has been strident (Greenwald, etc.). A great deal of bloody ink has been spilt on blogs such as Lawyers, Guns & Money in argument about how “seriously” to take Paul’s high profile utterances on targeted killings (I notice it’s been a lot more quiet lately, Senator Paul. What’s up?)I tend to agree with LGM that there is no reason to take Rand Paul seriously on this issue.
Further, as Akimoto points out, where is Rand Paul on closing Gitmo, repealing the AMUF, civilian trials for terrorist suspect held at Gitmo, etc.? These are politically unpopular matters, and Rand Paul (and yes, the House and Senate both) are missing in action.
But more importantly, where has the American right been on the steady erosion of our 4th Amendment rights? Nowhere to be found. Akimoto concludes:
There are plenty of Americans who are killed without due process.
They don’t die in outlandish hypothetical cases where a drone blows them up sitting at a cafe. They die from overreaches of law enforcement or abuses in state and local authorities. There are reasonable questions to ask about lethal force being used without due-process. But crazy hypotheticals are not a particularly useful staging ground, and worse help obscure the source of most of these abuses.
The right has been on a 40+ year binge pressing to throw more of “them” in jail, keep them there longer, and increase mightily the amount of resources provided to local law enforcement. We now jail more people than anybody. It is shameful.
I shall now sheath my broad brush and return to my hobby: miniature paintings in bottles of very old bourbon.
*Now I am partial to conservatives such as Andrew Bacevitch. I assume you’ve read his books?
Regards,
bobbyp, I guess I took your query a little more simply. I think the use of drones, both home and abroad (abroad is more relevant), as a common welfare issue. I think you do too. Rand raised it. Now, you have two major criticisms (I think). He did it unproductively. And he did it insincerely.
Unproductive seems a little irrelevant in the context of is he fighting for something. For example, I’d be surprised if you wanted to argue the tea party wasn’t fighting for the repeal of the ACA, even though they went about it the most ass-backward way possible. Not saying you’re arguing that, just saying Rand fought for something you consider general welfare, even if it was poorly executed.
Insincerity? I’d buy it, I guess. I don’t know what drives the man…you got me there?
Bacevitch I’m not familiar with. Most reading I do is technical these days, sadly. Is there something you can recommend?
And how did you feel about Johnson? Also ineffective and insincere?
bobbyp, also, really not trying to be intractable. if I come up as a little brusque, I apologize…just trying to keep it short.
“The New American Militarism:
How Americans Are Seduced by War”
May be dated now.
Found it a easy read from my perspective of someone who has never served.
Passed it on to a couple of friends who had served careers in the military who both praised it as an excellent book.
thanks, Jeff. Will attempt to fit it in!
And how did you feel about Johnson? Also ineffective and insincere?
Andrew? Probably yes on the first. Don’t know on the second.
Gary Johnson?
There’s a certain truth to this, but I think that it oversimplifies.
If you look at most of all military systems technology, it’s relying on subsystem technology that is a couple of decades old, at least. Getting it all to play together takes a certain amount of time, and then of course you’ve got to make some money off of things, so you keep making them and selling them for another decade or more.
The real thing that drones do for you is that they give you eyes (and possibly weapons) in the sky, in places where you already have a foothold. Drones are not going to conquer any appreciable amount of territory.
Some people worry about machines getting too autonomous; some don’t. I think I belong to the latter group: maybe something to worry about someday, but not in any near future. What we’re currently building is, as was suggested, really more of a remote-control toaster than a sleek, invincible android killer.
Shooting stuff from an airborne platform; shooting them with bullets, just isn’t a job for drones. If you want to lay down gunfire, this and this are really your huckleberry, and I have some doubts as to either of them becoming remote-control (or autonomous) death machines in any near time-frame. Hitting something with a single ballistic shot from a stable perch is practically magic; hitting something with a single ballistic shot, reliably, from an airborne platform that is being tossed about by random air currents is, in my opinion, much less likely to succeed.
The oversimplification part is that drones used as deliverers of airstrikes can be highly effective if used properly. We just don’t know whether they’re ever being used properly. IMO the proper use of drones is HIGHLY limited. You’ve got to know your target, and know its surroundings. Using them as magic, invisible dealers of death is at present just getting quite a few bystanders killed.
It’s very hard to tell whether that is by design or accident.
Slarti, I disagree with almost nothing you say except the last paragraph. When I was in Afghanistan last year, I – who is generally very wary of drones and not a big fan of the use of aircraft/indirect fire in COIN ops – would have had a very hard time so much as raising a question about whether most of the drone strikes carried out in my unit’s warspace were instances of them being “used properly”. When weaponized UAVs are basically used in the same role as Close Air Support/artillery, we can know if they’re being used properly. Admittedly, that’s not using them as magic, invisible dealers of death. Which to be honest pretty much sums up my own problems with our current drone policy perfectly.
I agree with Slartibartfast at 07:30 AM above. So take that.
It’s very hard to tell whether that is by design or accident.
Yes, it’s hard to tell. NV makes a good point, but I am in no position to judge the veracity thereof…could be the classic “collateral damage” claim coupled with technological limitations.
Overall: The extension of poor policy abetted by the comforting blindfold of technological virtuosity?