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Bitten by a Radioactive Community Volunteer
From the Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages, a thrilling, action-packed feature about self-proclaimed superheroes:
By most observers' reckoning, between 150 and 200 real-life superheroes, or "Reals" as some call themselves, operate in the United States, with another 50 or so donning the cowl internationally. These crusaders range in age from 15 to 50 and patrol cities from Indianapolis to Cambridgeshire, England. They create heroic identities with names like Black Arrow, Green Scorpion, and Mr. Silent, and wear bright Superman spandex or black ninja suits. Almost all share two traits in common: a love of comic books and a desire to improve their communities.
Among the heroes: The Cleanser, who "strolls around picking up trash," and Direction Man, who "helps lost tourists find where they're going." And then there's Master Legend, who relates this tale of crimebusting gone wrong:
One evening when Master Legend was on patrol, he heard a woman scream and ran to investigate. But when he located the damsel in distress, she thought he was attacking her and called the cops. "They wanted to know if I was some kind of insane man, a 41-year-old man running around in a costume," he recounts. "Apparently, they had never heard of me."
Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 11:42AM|#
"Apparently, they had never heard of me."
Awesome. Megalomania in a nice, neat package.
|1.17.08 @ 11:46AM|#
It's things like this that make me glad that I got away from that kind of crowd as a child. This and Star Wars conventions.
|1.17.08 @ 11:53AM|#
Reminds me of Dana Carvey's SNL character Drunk Man. He had no real powers except a sense of invulnerability when drunk.
|1.17.08 @ 11:54AM|#
Compare and contrast: Mystery Men vs. The Specials
Personally I give the nod to Mystery Men for the cast (especially
William H. Macy and Hank Azaria although Pee Wee had his moments)
but Thomas Hayden Church and Paget Brewster were good in The
Specials plus I've always liked Judy Greer.
Best line from Mystery Men:
"God's given me a gift. I shovel well. I shovel very well."
Jesse Walker|1.17.08 @ 11:59AM|#
de stijl: I haven't seen The Specials (love the band, though!) but I was disappointed in Mystery Men. It started out funny, then fell into the trap of taking its "action" plot seriously.
|1.17.08 @ 12:00PM|#
Vishnu, I love this country.
Favorite crime fighting team: The kids from C.A.P.E.R (Civilian
Authority for the Protection of Everybody, Regardless)
The Democratic Republican|1.17.08 @ 12:24PM|#
I'm so surprised to see not one defender of these activities.
It's a great exercise of individual expression, spontaneous order,
etc. Am I all alone on this?
However -- please be advised that, while I respect their actions in
concept, I don't think I would spend any time with them on a
personal level.
|1.17.08 @ 12:26PM|#
The article, scandalously, makes no mention of London's most
famous superhero. I give you...
Angle Grinder Man!
Episiarch|1.17.08 @ 12:29PM|#
The article, scandalously, makes no mention of London's most
famous superhero.
What about Bicycle
Repair Man?
|1.17.08 @ 12:35PM|#
We here in Minneapolis also have Galactic Pizza, who deliver
eco-friendly pizzas in a tiny electric car while wearing superhero
costumes and going by handles such as Luke Pierocker and Captain
Pizza.
http://www.galacticpizza.com/3.html
http://www.galacticpizza.com/6.html
|1.17.08 @ 12:39PM|#
From the article:
Master Legend, a chrome-suited 41-year-old from Winter Park, Florida, patrols the streets looking for crimes in progress, and claims his efforts have paid off. "I've dumped garbage cans over crackheads' heads, I slam their heads against the wall, whatever it takes," the Silver Slugger says with bravado. "They try to hit me first, and then it's time for Steel Toe City."
Was anyone else here a little wary of this? How exactly is beating
up crackheads helping the community? This guy sounds like he should
join the police force instead.
Kolohe|1.17.08 @ 12:44PM|#
I'm so surprised to see not one defender of these
activities.
I don't think anyone is against the people in the article; like you
they are making fun of them on a personal level.
|1.17.08 @ 12:52PM|#
Kolohe,
I'm not against the idea per se; if grown men want to play dress up
and do neighborhood watch that's fine with me. I was objecting to
the statements that Master Legend made. It sounds like he is
aggravating crackheads for fun. Personally, if I were high on crack
and I saw some guy dressed in a neon unitard approaching me, I'd
probably take a swing at him, too...
|1.17.08 @ 12:53PM|#
Was anyone else here a little wary of this? How exactly is
beating up crackheads helping the community? This guy sounds like
he should join the police force instead.
Don't they have enough of that type already? At least this guy will
get charged with a crime if he assaults someone.
|1.17.08 @ 12:53PM|#
What about me...I am heroically spreading Christianity to people who don't know how lost and in-need they are...not sure how this is different.
|1.17.08 @ 12:56PM|#
Personally, if I were high on crack and I saw some guy
dressed in a neon unitard approaching me, I'd probably take a swing
at him, too...
I guess they don't call you smacky for nothing then, eh?
|1.17.08 @ 1:06PM|#
I too will find any excuse I can to wear underwear on the outside of my clothing.
|1.17.08 @ 1:07PM|#
There is a blurry line between eccentric and insane, odd and whack job nuts. These folks are comfortable living on that line. I've got a stupid grin on my face while typing this and imagining their interactions with "normal" folk.
|1.17.08 @ 1:09PM|#
I like Angle Grinder Man and I wish to subscribe to his
newsletter.
Angle grinder man, bah.
Grinder girl, my heroine!
NoStar|1.17.08 @ 1:13PM|#
J sub D,
I was looking for a picture to link to, but you beat to that.
Click on my name will get you to her web site,
http://grindergirl.com/home.html
R C Dean|1.17.08 @ 1:16PM|#
No, make that "costumed adventurers."
I thought those were the swingers at the local B & D
dungeon.
Someone Who Doesn\'t Want to L|1.17.08 @ 1:19PM|#
All of these tales of real-life derring-do make me feel like the
little smart kid at the end of Magnolia watching the frogs fall
from the sky.
"This happens. This is something that happens."
|1.17.08 @ 1:27PM|#
So, if I decided I want to be King Sized Dick Man With Nimble Fingers, would women finally take me seriously?
Jackson Kuhl|1.17.08 @ 1:28PM|#
But when he located the damsel in distress, she thought he
was attacking her and called the cops.
So the question is, When they arrived did he have to show ID?
|1.17.08 @ 1:46PM|#
I always wanted to be "Comfort of Strangers" Man. My role would be that I would find lost tourists, take them to a strange bar in the middle of the night and tell them a terrible story.
|1.17.08 @ 2:12PM|#
FOOLS! There is only one entity with powers supernatural in
origin, and near total in application:
MIGHTY MYSTICAL MARKET MAN AND HIS FRIEDMANITE RING OF POWER!
MMMM can end discrimination, promote the common good at ALL times,
effectively promote space travel, build and maintain efficient
roads, provide everyone with postal service and police protection
in ways both efficient and fair, make nerds more attractive, right
wrongs in general, and DEFLECT METEOR SHOWERS AND HARMFUL COSMIC
RADIATION!
Free MIGHTY MYSTICAL MARKET MAN now so that he may end the scourge
of COLLECTIVISM and foster ALL GOOD THINGS UNQUALIFIEDLY!
|1.17.08 @ 2:15PM|#
See yonder EVIL POLLUTER? Have no fear, consumer! As we speak MIGHTY MYSTICAL MARKET MAN is channelling his MARKET MECHANISMS power through the mysterious FRIEDMANITE RING OF POWER to end this evil-doer's ways. As the polluter makes a bad name for himself his sales will fall making his profits marginal at best (of course hundreds, perhaps thousands have been made ill by the pollution while waiting for this, but such are trifles!). THUS ENDS ALL TYRANTS EVIL POLLUTER!
Joe Allen|1.17.08 @ 2:19PM|#
Why Reason Magazine turned on Ron Paul:
How does the Ron Paul candidacy threaten the journalists, think
tankers, and academics who live and work along the Orange Line in
Washington, D.C.? The answer is straightforward analysis of
economic incentives, with some common cultural patterns thrown
in.
Familiarize yourself with the main economic plank of Paul's
platform: eliminating the income tax with no replacement. If it
succeeded, most of the friends, fellow partiers, sources, and sex
partners of the Orange Line journalists and think tankers would be
out of work. Even partial success (for example influencing other
candidates into advocating deeper tax cuts to win Paul supporters,
or motivating more Congressional candidates to run on an anti-tax
and anti-war platform and thus creating a libertarian base in
Congress) would harm economic interests in their social circles.
Furthermore, there would be far fewer spoils for the lobbyists to
lobby over, and fewer important articles for the journalists to
write about D.C. politics, so they'd suffer personally as well as
socially.
There are also "economic preferences" in politics not reflected in
money - desires for power, desires to "change the world", etc.
(These two motivations are easily interchangeable near the Orange
Line). D.C. attracts people from all over the country with strong
preferences along these lines. These, too, would be hurt by a
growing success of anti-tax libertarianism. To the extent Ron Paul
succeeded, they would be less able to shut down the madrassas and
save Muslim women from the dastardly Muslim male. They'd have less
control over oil. They couldn't provide all Americans with health
insurance. And (keeping in mind this is only one of many
motivations) they couldn't provide as much protection for Israel.
Generally speaking, practically everybody who came D.C. did so to
get the federal government to solve various problems they are
passionate about. They feel very strongly about these: much more
strongly on average than people who do not live near the Orange
Line. Success by Ron Paul or his acolytes would start stripping
away from them the power they believe they need to solve these
problems.
Remember, Paul ranks right up there with McCain, Huckabee and
Romney for the 18-29 year old vote. Paul has come very close to
winning a plurality of that vote in Iowa, New Hampshire, and
Michigan, ranking far ahead of Thompson and Giuliani for the young
vote in all three. Paul ranks ahead of _all_ the other Republican
candidates in Internet searches and search results. Contrary to
myth this represents not "spam" but just the high concentration of
Paul supporters on the Internet, comparable to the high
concentration of Democrats in the mainstream media (MSM). Both the
Internet and MSM are unrepresentative slices of American political
opinion.
But the Internet is growing at the expense of the MSM and Paul
represents a large chunk of the future of Republican politics. The
MSM, including its political bureaus along the Orange Line, finds
the Internet threatening. Orange Line bureaucrats think of
"radical" libertarians (i.e. those who would eliminate the income
tax with no replacement) as maniacs out to destroy their jobs. Ron
Paul brings these two fears together.
Moving beyond economic incentives and to human cultural patterns,
the Orange Line crowd are a tribe, a monoculture defending itself
from an alien tribe that is hostile to them, namely libertarians
who don't like how the federal tribe makes it's living (via
skimming off their paychecks). It's tribal warfare.
All in all, it would be extremely surprising if the Orange Line did
_not_ try to attack Paul. The only surprising thing for me has been
to observe how much Orange Line "libertarians" are culturally
aligned with the Orange Line rather than with anti-government
libertarians.
This analysis has been a straightforward matter of economic
incentives with some common human cultural patterns thrown into the
mix. This economic analysis gets obscured because, on the one hand,
those not privy to the workings of D.C. can only describe it
metaphorically in terms of conspiracy theories. The Orange Liners
laugh them off the stage. But the economic analyses in their rough
form sound a bit like the conspiracy theories, so they too are
shouted down by the bullhorns of the Oranger Liners and those who
parrot their authoritative opinions. They are laughed off as
"conspiracy theory" before the analysis can even start to begin.
Most of the MSM when it comes to political issues, and even much of
the "alternative media" like Reason Magazine and the Orange Line
bloggers, are part of the Orange Line culture. Using these Orange
Line bullhorns to make fun of or smear independent thought and
independent sources of political power is one of the main levers of
federal power.
Here is an anatomy of the spread of the smear campaign against Ron
Paul just prior to and on the crucial "king-making" New Hampshire
primary day, January 8th (all times are EDT; the polls closed at 8
pm EDT):
January 7th, 7:33 pm - Matt Welch (Reason Magazine) discusses the
plan to smear Ron Paul on New Hampshire primary day. In a later
edit, Welch strikes out the actual TNR/Reason plan (to post the
piece at midnight, the exact time the New Hampshire polls opened,
and not post the actual newsletters until the afternoon of the
primary) and substitutes "tommorrow afternoon". But he failed to
strike out Reason's part in the plan: "More to come from here after
the gong strikes midnight."
January 8th, 12:01 AM - Jamie Kirchick's anti-Paul hit piece, many
weeks in preparation at the request of his boss Marty Peretz at The
New Republic, and featuring featuring many out-of-context quotes
from Paul's old newsletter (which have long been public knowledge
and which Paul long ago denied writing) and descriptions of Paul
and his associates as "bigoted", "racist", "homophobic", and
"anti-Semitic", etc. is posted at The New Republic.
featuring featuring many out-of-context quotes from Paul's old
newsletter (which have long been public knowledge and which Paul
long ago denied writing) and descriptions of Paul and his
associates as "bigoted", "racist", "homophobic", and
"anti-Semitic", etc. is posted at The New Republic.
11:03 AM - Daniel Koffler (Pajamas Media, formerly at Reason)
"A damning New Republic expose on Ron Paul shows the "libertarian"
Republican candidate to be a racist, a homophobe and an
anti-Semite. Will his diehard supporters continue to defend a man
who called Martin Luther King a gay pedophile? Daniel Koffler, a
former Paul sympathizer, has a compendium of the Texas
congressman's creepiest hits, pulled straight from his decades-old
newsletter."
3:30 pm - Andrew Sullivan (The Atlantic, formerly editor of The New
Republic) - "They are a repellent series of tracts, full of truly
appalling bigotry."
3:46 pm - David Wiegel (Reason) Wiegel praises Kirchick's piece as
"explosive" and after a brief converstation with a harried Paul,
grossly mischaracterizes Ron Paul's position as "Paul's position is
basically that he wrote the newsletters he stands by and someone
else wrote the stuff he has disowned."
3:48 pm - Nick Gillespie (Reason) "I've got to say that The New
Republic article detailing tons of racist and homophobic comments
from Paul newsletters is really stunning. As former reason intern
Dan Koffler documents here, there is no shortage of truly odious
material that is simply jaw-dropping."
4:43 pm - David Bernstein (Volokh Conspiracy/George Mason
University) "..it's disturbing in and of itself that the kind of
people who write such things would want to associate themselves
with Paul's name, and the kind of people who enjoy reading such
things would subscribe to these newsletters because they admire
Paul." Here's David's web page at GMU.
(before 5 pm) - Arnold Kling (Econglog/George Mason University) -
Repeats the worst quotes out of context and without
explanation.
5:17 pm - Dale Carpenter (Volokh Conspiracy/University of
Minnesota) - "A damning indictment of Ron Paul."
Oddly enough, all these people with the exception of the tardiest,
Dale Carpenter, live or work near the Orange Line subway (Metro)
west of the capitol building in Washington, D.C. On the Orange
Line, with occasional short side trips on some other lines, you can
get to The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, Reason Magazine,
George Mason University, The Federal Triangle, Cato Institute,
Foggy Bottom, Dupont Circle (Red Line), and a number of other homes
and work sites of beltway media, politicians, bureaucrats, and
"libertarians." I don't know how many of these people actually ride
the D.C. Metro, but for fun and convenience let's call this group
of smear artists the "Orange Line Mafia". This group of media
pundits and bloggers has developed a large following among actual
libertarians because they are an integral part of D.C. social
circles and darlings of the mainstream media, who often "link" to
the blogs of these "libertarians" from their various media formats.
Libertarians who watch or read MSM thus often first discover
"libertarianism" on the net in the writings of The Atlantic,
Reason, Cato, Volokh Conspiracy, and other Orange Line Mafia
outlets, and think that they are representative of people who
actually value liberty.
If a person cared about liberty, why would they be eager to
mindlessly repeat smears about the most popular libertarian
candidate in decades on the very day of the most crucial
"king-making" primary in the United States? Yet that is exactly
what a number of popular "libertarian" bloggers did that day. The
Ron Paul Newsletters are voluminous and even a small fraction of
them could not possibly be read in the very few hours that passed
between the posting of the actual newsletters (the afternoon of the
8th) and the smear campaigners' posts (also the afternoon of the
8th). All of these "hit and run" blog posts, except Kirchick's
original, must then be based on Kirchik's piece rather than on
actual reading and analysis of the newsletters. Clearly the purpose
of these posts was not to initiate a thoughtful discussion of the
newsletters, it was to spin libertarian voters on the most crucial
election day short of the November general elections.
Beltway libertarians use Congressman's old newsletters as excuse
for dumping on him. Some perspective.
by Phil Manger
(Libertarian)
I guess we should have expected it.
The Beltway libertarians, those polished public intellectuals at
Cato and Reason, have been falling all over themselves the past few
days in an effort to distance themselves from Ron Paul following
the "outing" of his old newsletters last week by The New Republic.
Not that they were ever that close to begin with. The Cato gang
never liked Dr. Paul, and the folks at Reason only warmed up to him
after his campaign began to catch fire on the internet. Now, their
blogs are full of I-told-you-sos, denunciations, and warnings of
dire consequences for libertarianism.
Typical of these was David Boaz, Cato's executive vice-president,
who told the world that "...over the past few months a lot of
people have been asking why writers at the Cato Institute seemed to
display a lack of interest in or enthusiasm for the Paul campaign.
Well, now you know." Even Radley Balko, a Reason editor and former
Cato policy analyst whose research on police misconduct made him
one of the few shining lights among the Beltway libertarians in
recent years, has joined the lynch mob. You can find links to
dozens of other similar comments here.
Interestingly, all of them say they don't believe Dr. Paul is
really a racist, and most of them say they believe him when he says
he didn't write the articles in question. In fact, their real
target seems to be something they call paleolibertarianism, a
branch of libertarianism that has its center of gravity at the
Ludwig von Mises Institute. And the man they really seem to loathe
is the institute's president, Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. Ron Paul is
merely collateral damage.
I should point out at this point that I really have no firsthand
knowledge of any of the details of the mutual animosity that exists
between the Beltway libertarians and the paleos. I only know that
it exists and that it runs deep. I was a libertarian activist from
the mid-'60s until the early '80s. I then decided to get a life
and, except for an occasional blog post or attendance at a meeting,
I was pretty much out of it for the next quarter century. It was my
son who urged me to support Ron Paul in his run for President. (I
didn't deliberately raise him to be a libertarian. Do you suppose
it's genetic?) I did a lot of Googling of Ron Paul's name,
and...well, here I am.
So, what about those newsletters? According to The New Republic
article, the newsletters reveal "decades worth of obsession with
conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and
deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays". Actually,
that's a gross overstatement. It's more like a careless phrase or
choice of words here and there - sometimes very careless, and
sometimes even mean.
What the newsletters remind me of is the "gold bug" marketing in
the early '70s. The "gold bugs" - those who believed that the
dollar was destined to continue to lose value - were a mixed bag:
conspiracists, libertarians, John Birchers, survivalists (of both
the Left and the Right), racialists, and some who just wanted to
turn a quick profit. Following the dollar's devaluation in 1971 a
number of businesses and newsletters appeared on the market to
capitalize on the uncertainty of the times. They sold their wares,
whether precious metals or newsletter subscriptions, by instilling
fear and serving up red meat to the gold bugs. I remember attending
one precious metals "seminar" in 1974. A black couple was sitting
near me. When the speaker got to the part about riots in the cities
and a breakdown of civil authority, I could see that the couple
were extremely uncomfortable. They left before the end of the
presentation.
For whatever reason, Ron Paul has a very bankable name in that
market. The International Harry Schultz Letter, the granddaddy of
all the gold bug newsletters, prominently features a plug from Dr.
Paul on its webpage. So it would make sense that a newsletter
bearing Paul's name, aimed at gold bugs or their like, would be
profitable.
So, did Ron Paul write that awful stuff posted on TNR's website?
I'm a former writer and editor and also a former college professor
who got to be pretty good at sniffing out plagiarism in student
papers, and I have to say I very much doubt it. It isn't at all
like Ron Paul's style of writing (you can go to the Mises Institute
website, where there is an extensive archive of Dr. Paul's
writings, if you don't believe me), and there's nothing in his
voting record over 10 terms in Congress to suggest those are his
views. I don't find it at all implausible that someone would use
his name to sell subscriptions to a newsletter written and edited
by others.
But I agree with Alex Wallenwein and Bill Westmiller that we need
to know who did write that objectionable material so that we can
move on. Otherwise, this stuff will come up again and again.
However, I am not so naive as to think that this will mollify the
Beltway libertarians. In their writings on this controversy, I've
detected a barely suppressed undercurrent of glee, as if they're
trying to keep from shouting "Aha! Gotcha now!" They say they are
concerned about what all this is doing to the reputation of
libertarianism - although, it seems to me they're more concerned
about what it's doing to their own standing in Georgetown - but I
think they doth protest too much.
If the Beltway libertarians are really concerned about the
reputation of libertarianism, let them take a look at what they're
saying about Ron Paul over on the Left. Although they like his
antiwar, pro-freedom message, a lot of the bloggers over there
don't care for the fact that he's a libertarian. You see, they
equate libertarianism with the Cato Institute. And to them, Cato is
just another D. C. think tank laboring in the service of the
corporate elites.
Topic: Political Correctness
Playing the racism card
It all depends on whose ox is being gored.
by Phil Manger
(Libertarian)
Try, for just a minute, to imagine the following scenario. The New
Republic, or some other stronghold of neocondom, has just
discovered the website of the church Ron Paul has been attending
for the last 20 years. At the very top of the site's home page is
the following statement:
We are a congregation which is Unashamedly White and
Unapologetically Christian...Our roots in the White religious
experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are a
European people, and remain "true to our native land", the mother
continent, the cradle of civilization...We constantly affirm our
trust in God through cultural expression of a White worship service
and ministries which address the White Community.
It doesn't take a lot of imagination to guess what would follow.
The story would be on all the evening newscasts, the neocon and
Beltway libertarian talking heads would be all over the cable news
channels expressing their disgust, and even the paleolibertarians
would jump ship. No explanation he could offer would be acceptable.
Ron Paul's campaign would be dead.
But if you just change "White" to "Black" and "European" to
"African" you'll have the exact words that appear at the top of the
home page of the website of the Trinity United Church of Christ,
the Chicago church that Barack Obama has been attending faithfully
for the past 20 years. Yet, so far the media - with the exception
of a few conservative columnists - have given Obama a pass on his
connection with this church.
The terms "racism" and "racist" are thrown around so much these
days that they have effectively lost all meaning. Well, not all
meaning. In fact it's very simple if you just remember that racism
is what lies at the root of one's opponents' thoughts and actions,
while one's own thoughts and actions arise from only the purest of
motives.
The charge of "racism" is most often made by the Left against the
Right. However, increasingly - and distressingly - conservatives
are hurling the "racist" epithet at their opponents on the Left.
There are so many examples of this, it is not necessary to provide
links to them. Just Google "Alberto Gonzales" and "racist" to find
some examples. Or go look up what some neocons have said about Ron
Paul.
When Wolf Blitzer was questioning him about his old newsletters on
CNN last week, Dr. Paul said "Libertarians are incapable of being
racists, because racism is a collectivist idea". I don't know that
I agree with the first part of that statement, but Dr. Paul should
be forgiven because he was being ambushed with a question and had
only a few minutes to answer it. (A much better exposition of his
views on racism can be found on his campaign website.)
I think a libertarian can be a racist because I think anybody can
be a racist. I don't mean a hooded, cross-burning, night-riding
racist; just someone for whom race is a factor, however minor, in
his or her personal decision calculus. Most people naturally prefer
the company of people who are like themselves in most ways. They
might not require the exclusive company of others like themselves,
but they also don't want to associate exclusively with people who
are very different.
Thomas Schelling, a Nobel laureate in economics, once proposed a
game. Get a roll of pennies, a roll of dimes and a large sheet of
paper divided into one-inch squares. Distribute the coins one per
square on the sheet of paper, leaving about a third of the spaces
empty. Adopt a rule: assume each coin wants at least some
proportion - say, a third - of its neighbors to be of the same
kind. Now find a coin for which the rule is not satisfied - i.e.
less than a third of its neighbors are of the same kind - and move
it to a square where it is. Repeat this step until all coins are on
squares that satisfy the rule. When you get to this point, you'll
find that the pennies have tended to cluster with other pennies,
while the dimes are clustered with other dimes.
Under the rule adopted, these coins are very open minded - each is
willing to live where up to two-thirds of its neighbors are of
another "race". Nevertheless, the end result of this "invisible
hand" process is that most end up living where all of their
neighbors are the same.
The point of the game is to demonstrate how a pattern of racial
segregation can result from the individual decisions of people whom
hardly anyone would accuse of being racist. Which is one of the
reasons the charge of "racism" is one that is almost impossible to
defend against.
A person accused of being a racist can usually clear his or her
name with the accuser only by agreeing with the accuser. Last week
on The Huffington Post Earl Ofari Hutchinson demanded that Ron Paul
issue "a clear and direct public statement...that says I fully
support all civil rights laws, will work hard against racial and
gender profiling, and will push government economic support
initiatives to boost minorities and the poor" as the price for
being absolved of the charge of racism.
In other words, the only way the libertarian Dr. Paul can prove
he's not a racist is to abandon libertarianism and adopt
Hutchinson's statist policy prescriptions. That's like telling a
Christian televangelist whose assistant had swindled viewers that
repentance and restitution are not enough - he has to renounce
Christianity if he wants to be forgiven.
The significant point about libertarians and racism is not that a
libertarian can't be a racist; it's that, in a true libertarian
society, racism is irrelevant. A libertarian government would not
have the authority to enact legislation that favors one racial or
ethnic group at the expense of another because it would not have
the authority to enact legislation that favors anybody at the
expense of another.
Nor would the government have the authority to enact legislation to
correct the results of "invisible hand" processes like Schelling's
game. In fact, the mere attempt to do so would be not only racist,
but futile as well.
An example of the futility and racism inherent in using the police
power of the state to correct racial discrimination - intended or
otherwise - resulting from individual decisions are laws
prohibiting racial discrimination in employment. Since the hiring
decision is multidimensional, a racist manager could claim any
number of reasons for rejecting an applicant of the "wrong" race.
Hence the need for affirmative action if the law is to achieve its
desired effect. But, since affirmative action requires basing the
hiring decision on race, it is itself racist (and most probably in
violation of the law it is meant to enforce).
One of the silliest things a politician or pundit can say is that
she/he opposes affirmative action, but supports laws prohibiting
racial discrimination in employment. You can't have one without the
other. If you don't believe it, consider this: age discrimination
is against the law, too, yet it's rampant in the workforce. Just
ask any computer programmer over 40. The difference is, there's no
affirmative action based on age. Ron Paul is probably the only
Presidential candidate in either party who understands this.
There are, of course, people whose attitudes about race go far
beyond just feeling more comfortable around people who are like
themselves. But is that necessarily something to get alarmed about?
As long as they're not harming or threatening anyone else, why
should we care? If they choose to act out their hatred by harming
people of another race, then the government can act. Otherwise the
government is trying to read minds.
Racism and racist are words that, through overuse, have lost their
sting. They are what you say when you have nothing else to say.
Probably the best thing for all of us would be to banish them from
the language. Certainly, they add nothing constructive to political
discourse.
|1.17.08 @ 2:22PM|#
What? Does our the long-time opponent of GOOD and RIGHT, the
dread DEVIOUS DISCRIMINATOR engage in discriminatory hiring or
selling of services?
Witness as the MAGICAL MYSTICAL MARKET MAN uses this SMITHIAN
INVISIBLE HAND to end such nefarious no-gooding! In discriminating
against the less powerful DEVIOUS DISCRIMINATOR'S harmful
discrimination is REFLECTED back at him! Watch as he loses a worker
who would have increased his productivity by .05%! Applaud as his
profits spiral by .03% in turning down the dollar of the victimized
minority! Hear the growing rustling of OTHER ENTREPENUERS being
generated by the FRIEDMANITE RING OF POWER to come via SELF
INTEREST to provide quality goods and efficient services to our
hapless victim of discrimination, all the while making IN-ROADS on
DEVIOUS DISCRIMINATOR'S market power (of course, in the relevant
market such discrimination may be rewarded by the majority
populaces agreement with it, but still think of the JUSTICE which
has been worked here). WHAM! POW! Another SOCIAL EVIL dispatched by
non-agression!
|1.17.08 @ 2:27PM|#
Matt J
Considering the length of his post, I'd say he was the Fidel Castro
of threadjackers.
|1.17.08 @ 2:35PM|#
Here is how the JACKING JOE ALLEN will be dealt with! As we speak, MAGICAL MYSTICAL MARKET MAN is using his HAYEKIAN CLOAK OF SPONTANEOUS ORDER and people, throu no central command, are realizing Joe Allen us a spamming, threadjacking jackass and vowing to ignore him, his site and his dumbass posts.
Jesse Walker|1.17.08 @ 2:48PM|#
Joe Allen: It's one thing to post your silly conspiracy theories about Reason's purported plot against Ron Paul in the threads about Ron Paul (as you already have, again and again and again). But please don't gum up these other conversations. Thanks.
MattXIV|1.17.08 @ 3:02PM|#
MNG,
Flamebait works a lot better if you don't include random caps,
which intarnets for "Don't pay attention to me because I'm crazy."
Not that people should pay attention to you, but just FYI.
|1.17.08 @ 3:17PM|#
Joe Allen: It's one thing to post your silly conspiracy
theories about Reason's purported plot against Ron Paul in the
threads about Ron Paul (as you already have, again and again and
again). But please don't gum up these other conversations.
Thanks.
Help us, Lengthy-Spam Deletion Man! Help us!
Someone Who Doesn\'t Want to L|1.17.08 @ 3:41PM|#
Stevo Darkly:
Help us, Lengthy-Spam Deletion Man! Help us!
You're really Greg Proops aren't
you?
Someone Who Doesn\'t Want to L|1.17.08 @ 3:44PM|#
I'm just on Cloud 9 today...I've made comics related posts in
three different threads.
Windy: I didn't in reference to this thread but I was recently
thumbing through it again.
|1.17.08 @ 4:37PM|#
Why do some people think the comments section is their personal
forum for posting whole articles?
Get your own freakin' website.
Ayatollah Usoe|1.17.08 @ 4:42PM|#
Well, I have a superhero alter-ego persona, only a mis-understood one. People think my persona does evil, rather than making the world better for mankind. I need to hide behind my mask.
T|1.17.08 @ 5:17PM|#
My superpower is turning beer into urine.
Man, that joke is older than dirt but it still cracks me up. I have
no idea what the costume or pseudonym would be, though.
|1.17.08 @ 5:27PM|#
Here are some real superheroes:
http://www.newsbreakers.org/
See, especially,
Invisible Suit (link opens vid).
R C Dean|1.17.08 @ 5:32PM|#
I have no idea what the costume or pseudonym would be,
though.
Frat Boy?
Someone Who Doesn\'t Want to L|1.17.08 @ 6:01PM|#
My superpower is turning beer into urine.
My superpower is turning
coffee into
theorems.
Also an old joke but only funny to a small subset of the
population.
Paul|1.17.08 @ 6:17PM|#
and Direction Man, who "helps lost tourists find where they're going."
He's just trying to meet women...men never ask for directions.
|1.17.08 @ 6:42PM|#
Here's a list of real people with incredible (and for the most
part useless) powers:
http://www.oddee.com/item_91848.aspx
And lest we forget:
"It's Really Deep Man! He's really deep, man."
Iron Man|1.17.08 @ 7:42PM|#
What I want to know is why haven't these costumed vigilantes registered with the government.
bob mologna|1.17.08 @ 8:58PM|#
What? no one mentions Gatsoman? He's my favourite.
http://www.snooperuk.com/news/get_gatsoman/index.html
Robert|1.18.08 @ 12:46AM|#
Heard of Captain Tolerance, Andy Breckman's not-so-secret identity? He says he'll spit on the intolerant, and run away.
|1.18.08 @ 12:32PM|#
Y'know, MMMM sounds like a rip-off of
The Invisible Hand!
Also, The Flaming Carrot was a member of The
Mysterymen, though he wasn't in the movie.
Kevin
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