In fact, the few actual libertarian-leaning Republicans left—Reps. Jeff Flake and Ron Paul and Sen. John Sununu, for example—have led the charge to reform the corrupt earmarking process.
The Storey article next says we shouldn't expect politicians to "risk their self-interest for the sake of the public good, which our economist friends tell us is impossible."
That's exactly right. This is the basis of public choice theory (an area of study dominated by libertarian economists), which tells us that public servants aren't altruistic, all-knowing philosopher kings who govern with wisdom and restraint. Rather, just like people in the private sector, they're more likely to act to further their own interests, not the interests of the public, or the interests of addressing the problem the agency was created to solve.
So yes, the fall of the GOP and all of the corruption, abuse of office and power, and bad governing that went with it is exactly what we would expect. It's what politicians do. Which is exactly why libertarians believe in limited government. Libertarianism acknowledges the trappings of power. Libertarians understand that people are generally selfish, and behave selfishly. The free market harnesses self-interest in ways that are productive and positive for everyone. People looking to further their own self interest in positive, productive ways generally are rewarded. People who go too far are generally punished. Consumers at least have choices, and transactions are voluntary. That isn't the case with government.
It's in the pages of The Weekly Standard that you'll find paeans to "great works" projects, odes to Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, grand schemes to remap and democratize the Middle East, and a general fetishization of politics and public service. The kind of "national greatness" envisioned by Kristol and Brooks requires a faith in the altruism and selflessness of politicians and government agents that's wholly at odds with human nature-or human history.
The moral failures of the Republican Party have nothing to do with libertarianism. They're the inevitable, entirely foreseeable failures of men given too much power and not enough accountability. Neoconservatives like those at the Weekly Standard believe in giving government more of the former and, judging by the magazine's ceaseless defenses of the Bush administration, less of the latter.
At the urging of the neoconservatives, the GOP has drifted further and further away from libertarianism since taking power in 1994. It takes considerable gall for them to now blame libertarianism for the Republicans' failures.
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Paul|2.6.08 @ 3:25PM|#
I'll tell you what I'm tired of. I'm tired of turning on NPR and listening to "guests" bitch about the Repblican conspiracy to shrink government into nothingness.
|2.6.08 @ 3:29PM|#
If that was a caricature of libertarianism, than I've been arguing politics with an awful lot of caricatures of libertarians.
Face it, the neocon rag has a point: for an officeholder NOT to pork up every bill and otherwise act like a pig, he DOES have to believe that something other than self-interest should guide his actions.
Paul|2.6.08 @ 3:30PM|#
Very mild nods. I'm too lazy to go back and read it, but I seem to remember they were in the realm of abstinence training requirements or some such thing.
|2.6.08 @ 3:30PM|#
Republicans have totally abandoned fiscal conservativism. It doesn't sell well to tell voters "We've got to cut spending, so you're on your own." They all dutifully mention cutting spending, but they never mention anything specific.
economist|2.6.08 @ 3:32PM|#
joe,
Rational self-interest allows an individual to look out for his own best interests, while at the same time recognizing that he cannot do certain things that directly harm others. A businessman can be self-interested but choose, simply on moral grounds, not to have thugs (or the government) attack his competitor, so why shouldn't elected officials act in the same manner?
|2.6.08 @ 3:33PM|#
joe,
Good point. Some of us would hope that the nice pay and perks could help these Congressmen remember the oath they take to the Constitution, which theoretically should trump mere self-interest.
|2.6.08 @ 3:35PM|#
I have no idea why that last comment went out under your name, joe.
shecky|2.6.08 @ 3:38PM|#
I'm 41 years old, and have never known a Republican party with any significant libertarian virtues. Goldwater lost, and Reagan was by no stretch of the imagination, a libertarian.
Given this, it's hard to buy the idea that libert(ine)arian ideas are killing the Republican party.
economist|2.6.08 @ 3:39PM|#
"Some of us would hope that..these Congressmen remember the oath they take to the Constitution"
Suddenly joe becomes the constitutionalist. bravo.
Maybe now he'll recognize the right to keep and bear arms, private property rights, and the Constitutional limits of Congressional power to regulate the economy.
Hey, it's a start.
|2.6.08 @ 3:42PM|#
Nice pay congressmen get? It's decent, but considering that most of them are lawyers by trade, it's below the pay commensurate to a talented attorney, to say nothing of a quality businessman. No wonder why they seem to be able to sell out so cheap (although, in the case of Duke Cunningham, he was able to, for a corrupt politico, bilk his backers for a heck of a lot more than the usual).
Again, though, as Reagan said, the best minds aren't in government, and if any were, business would surely hire them away.
|2.6.08 @ 3:44PM|#
Madmike-
Reagan's quote applies very well to libertarians. Since this is an anti-government, pro-private sector ideology, the brightest libertarian people are naturally going to go into business rather than run for Congress.
|2.6.08 @ 3:45PM|#
economist,
There is nothing "rational" in avoiding harm to others, if you do not expect your efforts to avoid that harm to be a net benefit to you.
Those "simple moral grounds" you mention are NOT self-interest, but the "something else" I brought up. That was my point, and Kristol's point as well.
Yech. Arguing Bill Kristol's point. Don't ever say I put partisanship above principle in these threads.
|2.6.08 @ 3:47PM|#
economist,
Why would a person acting purely out of self-interest care, while holding office, about restraining his pursuit of power in order to respect the Constitution?
|2.6.08 @ 3:48PM|#
Joe, a lot of libertarians also realize that the money they are spending in Congress is, at the end of the day, taken by force. Thats why they would see it as immoral to spend it on some worthless pork barrell project.
lunchstealer|2.6.08 @ 3:48PM|#
economist - that was some sort of typo. joe didn't make that post. John-David made that post.
|2.6.08 @ 3:49PM|#
Does anyone see any resemblance to today's GOP in the following:
"I have little interest in streamlining government or making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permitted. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituent's 'interests,' I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can."
Sen Barry Goldwater,
The Conscience of a Conservative.
And I still back Barry.
|2.6.08 @ 3:49PM|#
Cesar,
Why would somebody acting purely from reason and self-interest care if the tax dollars they are spending were taken by force?
|2.6.08 @ 3:51PM|#
Cesar - I agree, which is why anybody assuming that the government is going to magically solve their problems has another thing coming. In reality, it's a bunch of Type A personalities that couldn't hack it in their business classes and end up either inept at best or insidious at worst. Explains a lot, and would lead to either two possible positive outcomes, either a technocracy or a significant limit on what the government is able to do.
Fortunately, the American people distrust the notion of technocracy in favor of democratic self-determination... unfortunately, they're also too trusting to accept limits on government power.
|2.6.08 @ 3:51PM|#
Joe, because libertarians don't believe people should act in their own self-interest in all areas of life.
In the private sector, sure we believe it. But acting purely in your own self-interest in ones family life, for example, wouldn't be so good.
Same thing for the public sector.
|2.6.08 @ 3:51PM|#
Good old Barry.
I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom.
At least the man was honest about there being tradeoffs.
Did you know that racial justice, the elimination of environmental problems, an end to poverty, and universal pony distribution only require the elimination of government?
|2.6.08 @ 3:53PM|#
That's my point, Cesar. And Kristol's point as well: there needs to something else.
|2.6.08 @ 3:54PM|#
joe,
When did the government end poverty exactly?
|2.6.08 @ 3:54PM|#
The War on Poverty was about as successful as the War on Drugs.
|2.6.08 @ 3:55PM|#
I think the overall rejection of libertarian ideas is what led to where we are today. The people elected were elected at a time when saying "I'll kick government in the ass" equated to libertarianism. Obviously it wasn't, but the sort of pandering that got guys like these elected was because they appealed to libertarian ideals. The coalition republicans formed with libertarians led to the worst kind of people being elected because that was the fashion at the time. So in a way, libertarianism contributed to the moral corruption of the republican party, in that it was ostensibly in fashion to claim agreement with at the time these bozos got into office. But of course Kristol gets it wrong because the relationship is not due to the principles of libertarianism, but the fault in the coalition for not properly vetting those it selected to rule.
|2.6.08 @ 3:56PM|#
Well, that's kind of the point of limited government. Oftentimes, office holders are going to want to resort to demagoguery to get re-elected. That's why you limit their power to do so.
As an aside, in his article Radley says, "Libertarians understand that people are generally selfish, and behave selfishly." I'd say that libertarians understand that people are often selfish, and can be counted on to behave selfishly. In other words, libertarianism relies on a worst case scenario. If you set up a system that works if people behave at their worst, then the system is more robust than one that only works (or only works well) when people behave at their best. Capitalism is a classic example of this. There's plenty of room for people behaving un-selfishly; it just makes sure that people behaving selfishly don't break the system.
Same thing with limited government. When the people in power are good and wise, they can do more good with more power. However, no system ever invented can make sure that the people in power are good and wise. Some can't even make sure that the people in power can clean themselves adequately (witness Charles II of Spain). The best that you can do is make sure that when the idiots get into power (as they most assuredly will) they can't do much damage.
To me, big-government types are like programmers who haven't really tested their algorithm well. When it has a thousand items to work on, it goes quickly (even quicker than that other algorithm they decided not to use), and they think that they have a good program. Then the requirements change, and the program has to deal with a million items. Or even more. Suddenly, their program is slow, and they can't figure out why. The algorithm they dismissed as "too slow" before is now ideal, and if they'd taken the (slight) performance hit before, they wouldn't have to deal with the (gargantuan) performance hit now.
|2.6.08 @ 3:56PM|#
joe,
Indeed, one could argue that some of what the government did probably exacerbated poverty and probably heightened racial injustice.
|2.6.08 @ 3:58PM|#
Yes there needs to be something else. Like not advancing your own self-interest if it involves force or fraud. Which is what libertarians say, anyway.
|2.6.08 @ 4:01PM|#
grylliade,
In other words, libertarianism relies on a worst case scenario.
This seems to rely on the lowest common denominator and many people find that problematic. It certainly runs headlong into the classical notions of how arete is supposed to be exercised in the political realm. Indeed, to in part agree with joe, libertarians also depend on a certain of "excellence" in those they wish to put into office.
|2.6.08 @ 4:04PM|#
At least the War on Drugs has just been an expensive stalemate... the War on Poverty seems to be an expensive subsidization of what the market seeks to avoid.
|2.6.08 @ 4:06PM|#
"""Radley Balko warns The Weekly Standard against blaming Republican failures on libertarianism.""""
Radley, they are not going to blame themselves. I hear some trying to blame the dem controlled congress for problems of the last seven years, pretending that the republicans didn't control two of three branches of government for six of those seven years.
|2.6.08 @ 4:08PM|#
Yes, there is. If you expect to ever deal with other people, rational self-interest dictates that you try to avoid harming them. If you get a reputation for harming others, you won't be able to engage in the sort of mutually beneficial agreements that will benefit you the most. A person who only and ever acted in their short-term best interest would soon be an outcast (or in jail, or dead). Look up evolutionary psychology sometime. (Or maybe you already know this, and are ignoring it to make a point.)
Paul|2.6.08 @ 4:12PM|#
I can risk my self-interest for the public good, but it should be my choice. If I'm forced at the point of a gun to risk my self-interest for the public good , we have an entirely different name for that philosophy.
|2.6.08 @ 4:13PM|#
grylliade,
That's a nice treatise on limited government, but regardless of how much you limit a government, it will still be a government, and it will still be populated by people.
If your political philosophy can't give those people a reason why they should do good, however defined, rather than just pursuing their self-interest, then they will have no reason not to be self-serving politicians, or to limit their own power.
You mention capitalism working to channel people's selfish motives into harmless pursuits. Consider that this is not done through limiting it. There is another underlying ethic, that of providing or paying for something of value through mutual exchange.
There has to be an underlying ethic for government, too, and it's different from that of the capitalist world. If government officials are guided by the pursuit of their rational self-interest, that's a big problem, unlike in the private sector. That's why it's called "public service" - because they are supposed to be working for the public's good, taking care of the public's business.
If a President of the United States pursued his rational self-interest the way a corporate bigwig did, he'd be a monster.
Paul|2.6.08 @ 4:14PM|#
for an officeholder NOT to pork up every bill and otherwise act like a pig, he DOES have to believe that something other than self-interest should guide his actions.
joe,
you are absolutely, 100% correct. The caricature of libertarianism is that libertarians only persue their own interests at the *cost* of others.
Paul|2.6.08 @ 4:15PM|#
Apologies for the typo's today:
ahem, pursue their own interests.
My teaching certificate is in the mail, apparently.
Episiarch|2.6.08 @ 4:15PM|#
To me, big-government types are like programmers who haven't really tested their algorithm well.
I would put it slightly differently. It's like a programmer who hasn't tested their UI well, yet keeps expanding the interface to include more and more items.
When people click on the things they're supposed to click on, everything works. But users aren't like that, and some of them--many of them--click on or do things you'd never expect; things they aren't supposed to do. And the more UI there is, the more fucked up things can happen.
The programmer added the items to widen the interface, and make it more helpful, but what he's ended up doing is creating more ways to break it, and in ways one would never expect.
|2.6.08 @ 4:17PM|#
Would all of you idiots saying that "taxes are taken by force" simply please piss off and move to Somalia? If not paying taxes is the end-all and be-all of your lives, then please goddamn fuckin' act on that and MOVE TO A LOCATION THAT DOESN'T HAVE TAXES!
You anti-tax whiners remind me of the US auto industry whining and complaining about having to pay pensions and medical insurance costs for their workers. It was a part of the original contracts you signed with your people and it's a standard part of running a company. If you haven't figured that out in 30 years, no wonder you continue to lose market share.
Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society. It's either that or paying protection money to the local warlords. Your pick!
Episiarch|2.6.08 @ 4:17PM|#
joe just wants a big government because he's afraid our heads are filled with the same depravity and violence that his is, and he needs the government to restrain his impulses.
Paul|2.6.08 @ 4:18PM|#
and Reagan was by no stretch of the imagination, a libertarian.
Shecky,
Reagan ran libertarian circles around the current crop.
Episiarch|2.6.08 @ 4:19PM|#
By the way, that was a joke, joe. However, I wanted to post my disclaimer in a separate post so that you'd have a second or two of rage. It's all in good fun.
Paul|2.6.08 @ 4:19PM|#
I would put it slightly differently. It's like a programmer who hasn't tested their UI well, yet keeps expanding the interface to include more and more items.
Episiarch, there's a 'best practices' clause in the constitution which is (was) specifically designed to eliminate this feature creep.
|2.6.08 @ 4:19PM|#
I say big government types are like the doctor who prescribes you a drug with bad side effects. But instead of taking you off the drug, he just prescribes a drug to treat the side effects of the first drug. When the third drug has bad side effects, he gives you a drug to treat the side effects of the second drug. And so on.
Fluffy|2.6.08 @ 4:20PM|#
Why would a person acting purely out of self-interest care, while holding office, about restraining his pursuit of power in order to respect the Constitution?
I know you probably don't want to haggle over definitions of self-interest, Joe, but I have to say this:
Let's say your implicit idea of self-interest in this post is valid: that it is, in fact, in the self-interest of each officeholder to act in the most corrupt, self-seeking, power-mongering mode possible.
The reason to not do that would be pretty simple: in a situation where officeholders behaved with TRUE absence of restraint, only one man can win. The others get to be the guys in the famous video where Saddam Hussein is reading off names of the people present who are to be taken out and shot. That is the endgame of a TRUE pursuit of power with no restraint.
So unless you want to have a 99.99% chance of being either the guy who just heard his name get read, or the guy who is thinking his name might be next, it is better for you to behave with some restraint.
How much restraint? That would be the area of considerable disagreement.
|2.6.08 @ 4:23PM|#
Of course a person's 'self-interest' might include wishing to enforce a limited scheme of government so as to ensure what they saw as necessary for the liberty of themselves, their loved ones, etc. "Self-interest" can be framed in a number of ways in other words.
|2.6.08 @ 4:24PM|#
All of this high-minded rhetoric on the topic of greed and rational self-interest is irrelevant. Nobody goes into politics based on an intense desire to allow people to do as they please. The individual politician may have an indiosyncratic notion of what is good for you, but you may rest assured that he has a carefully formed opinion, and a willingness to impose his vision on you.
A man who merely wishes to enrich himself, and leave the rest of humanity to their own devices, can do better elsewhere.
Fluffy|2.6.08 @ 4:26PM|#
If your political philosophy can't give those people a reason why they should do good, however defined, rather than just pursuing their self-interest
Joe, for clarification's sake, it might help if I said this:
There is a subset of libertarians [the Randists] who believe that you should always act in your own self-interest - but who also believe that they know what your self-interest is and you may or may not.
So that would be an example of a libertarian philosophy that tells you to act in your own self-interest, but also purports to be able to identify that self-interest in an objective way that is not subject to your expressions of preference [which is in philosophical terms not really distinguishable from telling you to "do good, however defined"].
|2.6.08 @ 4:28PM|#
"Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society."
Only, we pay too much because of our warfare/welfare state.
|2.6.08 @ 4:31PM|#
The problem with Republicanism is Republicans. As far as I can see, libertarian philosophy has about as much sway over the modern GOP as phrenology.
frothing realist|2.6.08 @ 4:32PM|#
PAY YOUR FUCKING TAXES AND STOP YOUR FUCKING WHINING!!! MOVE TO SOMALIA IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT!!! YOU'RE ALL A BUNCH OF STUPID IDIOTS!! STUPID!!! STOOOOOOPID!!!
robc|2.6.08 @ 4:32PM|#
joe
Why would somebody acting purely from reason and self-interest care if the tax dollars they are spending were taken by force?
Thats an easy one. Because it is in my best interest to not allow force taking. Eventually, if force taking is allowed, I lose out. I cannot steal as much as will be stolen from me (especially including indirect effects, such as the affect on the economy if such force takings are allowed).
I would even argue that the Americans slaughtered charging the beaches at Normandy were acting in their own self-interest. It may seem unlikely, considering the chance of death, but if they valued freedom more than life, than giving up your life to secure freedom was in your best interest. It comes down to what you value.
|2.6.08 @ 4:33PM|#
*Reminded of Nero and the Great Fire*
It's not about what's accurate. It's about how to heard the sheep. Heard them away from the Libertarian Viewpoint. Don't publish that we spend 1 billion to keep terrorists out of the country while spending 1 trillion in Iraq...
|2.6.08 @ 4:34PM|#
Oh, I know. In many cases, an argument like the one I made will be answered with, "And if you rely on people to act badly, then they'll act badly." As if people need any incentive to act badly. To me, minarchism is a pragmatic philosophy. Limited government as a concept was come up with by people who had dealt with absolute monarchs, and monarchs who just wanted to be absolute. The problem, of course, is that monarchs aren't the only ones who want absolute power. Democratically elected leaders can be just as bad (witness the last seventy years of American history). Whether or not it sounds repugnant, limited government just works better. Now we just have to get people to believe it.
Which is, after all, the big problem: most people nowadays who believe in limited government don't know how to sell it, and even find the concept repulsive oftentimes. We libertarians tend to look at the substance and discount the style. Well, the substance is vital, but so is the style. We're getting there, but it's a slow road.
Yeah, but it didn't work out too well for them, did it? Witness ancient Rome. When the virtuous were in power, the Republican government worked well. When those who were only self-interested got into power, the government went to shit, and Caesar (for all his flaws) swept away what was by then a corrupt and evil government. Same thing with Athens. And in both cases, the governments that were supposed to protect the people (or at least the electorate) ended up exploiting them for the benefit of those in power.
Of course, even something like the Constitution can't prevent the powerful from abusing their power. It only works when people pay attention to it. But it's certainly acted as a brake on the ambitions of those in power, and given a large enough popular movement back towards limited government the damage can be contained (and even in some cases reversed). So let the ancients have their arete. I'll take limited government over virtuous leaders any day of the week.
I'd say that it's more that libertarians (and libertarian types) who want to go into government are better people. If you go into office expecting to enrich yourself, you're going to make a bad leader. If you go into it expecting to "make a difference," to do good for others, it's too easy for that attitude to be perverted into autocracy. As Lewis said, there's no tyrant worse than the one who will rule you for your own good, because he's exercising power with the approval of his own conscience (loosely paraphrasing). Libertarian types tend to go into office because, well, someone needs to do it. If you don't expect to have much power when you get into office, and you don't expect many opportunities to enrich yourself or your buddies . . . well, then you're doing it out of altruism, mainly. Office holders in libertopia would tend to be better simply because elected offices would tend to attract better types. More altruistic. Paradoxical, I know, but I think that's partly why so many of the Founding Fathers were great men. They did what they did out of duty, and didn't expect much gain for themselves out of it.
Not to paint too rosy a picture of libertopia. But I think that would be a key advantage, often overlooked.
Huh. There's an essay on this I need to write, I think.
|2.6.08 @ 4:36PM|#
herd too
|2.6.08 @ 4:38PM|#
This seems to rely on the lowest common denominator and many people find that problematic.
It doesn't "rely" on the lowest common denominator, it attempts to deal with it at all levels of the system.
Big Government types always work at some level on the assumption that the folks at the top are good and decent and agree with them on what government should be doing. That is an assumption that is falsified on a regular basis, but they make it anyway.
Libertarians work on the assumption that state power tends to attract people who are no better than anyone else, and want a system that deals with that by limiting state power.
|2.6.08 @ 4:38PM|#
I think the real line for libertarians* should be Excess taxes are theft. This shifts the debate from fatuous "warlord" comments and forces "realists," grumpy or not, to defend the waste, fraud, abuse, and absurdity of modern federal, state, and city governments.
I wouldn't mind paying reasonable taxes to a government not concerned with growing itself, and social engineering projects.
Also: Taxes are not charity and paying them without complaint does not make you a "good" person.
*I am leaving out the anarcho-capitalists on purpose.
|2.6.08 @ 4:40PM|#
As for self interest, the are a range of human motivation that qualify... from simple material desire to altruism. People may work for less in wages because of nonmaterial rewards. One may choose to teach in a private school where there is greater freedom to teach but lesser monetary compensation. What we hope is that self interest is enlightened. We hope that most people understand the long term benefits of fair dealings. We also trust that the unfettered marketplace is the most efficient and effective way of teaching people about long term interest. If we want people to learn, society must allow people to suffer the consequences of failure. What a kind-hearted fellow like Joe might think cruel, I think is far more merciful in the long run.
Gilbert Martin|2.6.08 @ 4:42PM|#
"Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society"
No, what taxes are supposed to be is a user fee to pay for the government services that we use - such as military protection, etc.
The problem is that "prgoressive" taxes, coupled with so-called "entitlement" programs
have become merely a means to redistribute wealth for political purposes.
As for "civilized society" - our society today is not one bit more civilized that it was before the federal income tax and those entitlement programs were enacted.
|2.6.08 @ 4:43PM|#
Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society. It's either that or paying protection money to the local warlords. Your pick!
You say tomato, I say tomahto . . .
Lets not pretend there is much of a functional difference between the two.
We have discovered, over millenia of experimentation, that paying a tithe to a relatively stable group of "protectors" who are somewhat integrated into and accountable to the community produces better long-term results than paying off whatever group of criminal thugs happens to be on top of the local heap today. Leaving aside from that utilitarian conclusion, there is no moral virtue to paying taxes.
|2.6.08 @ 4:44PM|#
No, taxes are the price we pay for living in an uncivilized society. If it was completely civil, people would voluntarily pay for their needs and wants and not expect others to pay for them.
robc|2.6.08 @ 4:46PM|#
creech,
Nice. Straight out of common sense. Sort of.
|2.6.08 @ 4:51PM|#
grylliade,
Whether or not it sounds repugnant, limited government just works better.
That may or may not be the case; however, whether it is or isn't is I think a strikingly different issue from what motives people should govern from and how a citizenry should be expected to act in a properly functioning polity.
And in both cases, the governments that were supposed to protect the people (or at least the electorate) ended up exploiting them for the benefit of those in power.
For sake of argument I will grant you the above narrative; however, from a particular perspective it appears to buttress the need for virtue in a polity's leaders and its citizenry.
So I both agree and disagree with you.
|2.6.08 @ 4:51PM|#
Face it, the neocon rag has a point: for an officeholder NOT to pork up every bill and otherwise act like a pig, he DOES have to believe that something other than self-interest should guide his actions.
Only problem is that the party is imploding and got kicked out of congress for not doing what they said they would...I fail to see how that served thier self interest.
The rag does not have a point...the repubs went the direction that Standard said they should and are getting their ass kicked cuz of it.
Or what joe do you really think the repubs are unpopular cuz of tax cuts? I don't think so.
Gilbert Martin|2.6.08 @ 4:54PM|#
"No, taxes are the price we pay for living in an uncivilized society. If it was completely civil, people would voluntarily pay for their needs and wants and not expect others to pay for them."
By that measure, it's getting more uncivilized all the time since the percentage of the population who pay little or no income taxes (or actually get tax "refunds" of taxes they never paid in the first place) keeps getting larger all the time.
Sam Grove|2.6.08 @ 4:57PM|#
joe
If a President of the United States pursued his rational self-interest the way a corporate bigwig did, he'd be a monster.
Are you saying he's not?
shecky|2.6.08 @ 5:07PM|#
Paul,
Reagan ran libertarian circles around the current crop.
Reagan ran libertarian crop circles. Better way of putting it.
|2.6.08 @ 5:09PM|#
you are absolutely, 100% correct. The caricature of libertarianism is that libertarians only persue their own interests at the *cost* of others.
No you got joe's definition wrong...
He thinks any pursuit of self interest is always at the cost of others.
|2.6.08 @ 5:12PM|#
If a President of the United States pursued his rational self-interest the way a corporate bigwig did, he'd be a monster.
Wait one second there....then why are not corporate bigwigs monsters?
Could it have something to do with free markets producing moral outcomes?
I think it just might.
|2.6.08 @ 5:12PM|#
Last year, because of some big deductions, charitable donations and child tax credit, the federal government paid me.
Yes, I paid net negative federal taxes.
Considering my income and assets, that's just insane. But hell, yes, I kept it. (They must be socially engineering me just right.)
Michael|2.6.08 @ 5:15PM|#
Maybe I missed something, but since when was it agreed that money the singular driving force of self-interest? Political altruists are nothing if not self-interested and driven by greed; only their reward takes on a different form.
|2.6.08 @ 5:15PM|#
Well, as I said in my last post (and hadn't thought of until then) it's very possible that limited government itself creates the conditions where those who are less self-serving seek office more often. Big government draws the altruistic types, true, but it also draws the self-serving types.
For me, at least, the altruists are worse than the greedy ones. The altruists seldom bother to ask whether I want or need their help. It's pretty annoying to be told that someone is acting in my best interest when they're acting contrary to my expressed wishes.
And yes, this can (and does) apply to libertarianism as well. "You'll have liberty whether you want it or not!" Which is why it's better to sell libertarianism, though enforcing it is at least slightly less repugnant than many other philosophies.
Productive pursuits, actually, but that doesn't invalidate your point.
|2.6.08 @ 5:25PM|#
Anyway, my final thought for today on the subject is this: a libertarian or even a quais-libertarian society would seem to require a great deal of virtue (as libertarians define the term) from all those involved in that society.
ChrisO|2.6.08 @ 5:25PM|#
IIRC, the Weekly Standard was created by a few folks who thought National Review wasn't Washington insider-ish enough. This was supposed to be the go-to journal of the new Republican-dominated D.C. Well, I guess it did turn out to be that, for whatever it's worth...
It's unrealistic to ever expect the GOP to go 100% (or probably even 50%) libertarian, but it's also clear to me that the 'soul' of American conservatism is skepticism about government power. It's our country's founding principle. I'm pretty sure that the GOP is going to be wiped out in November and thereafter until it rediscovers this 'soul'.
The idiots at the WS have effectively attached their lips to the federal teat every bit as much as all of the defense contractors striding the hallways of the office buildings near the Pentagon. They are not American conservatism.
Paul|2.6.08 @ 5:34PM|#
It's pretty annoying to be told that someone is acting in my best interest when they're acting contrary to my expressed wishes.
That's why I created The Center for Good Things that People Want.
With all the groups that had "public interest" in their titles, I figured I'd cut right to the chase and created my own public interest lobby.
We're working for you. Trust me. And what we're working on, you want it, and it's good.
Gilbert Martin|2.6.08 @ 5:37PM|#
"Big government draws the altruistic types, true"
Not really - at least not when they're acting in their government function capacity (as opposed to their private life).
Government is force and there is nothing altruistic about forcing anyone else to do anything for any reason. It isn't altruistic for a Congressman to propose legislation that gives some particular group of people a handout because he won't be the one paying for it. He is going to force other people to pay for it.
|2.6.08 @ 5:41PM|#
We're working for you. Trust me. And what we're working on, you want it, and it's good.
Where do I send the check?
|2.6.08 @ 5:46PM|#
Government has become a reply to this