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Slate Goes Libertarian. A Little.
I'm the average American: Take 30 percent of my paycheck and I'll shrug. Nationalize the car companies and I'll change the channel to cartoons. Add 10 cents to the cost of my Cherry Coke and, so help me God, I will start a revolution.
It doesn't make a lick of sense, but that's the way people are. Tea parties notwithstanding, trans fat regulations, smoking rules, parental advisory stickers, and light bulb bans have long been some of the best recruitment tools libertarians have.
For a handy case study, take a look at what happened to the
folks over at Slate. The 2008 staff voting record
went like this: Obama-55, McCain-1, Bob Barr-1, Not McCain-1. But
suddenly, editor Daniel David Plotz finds
that his beloved Fresca is being nonsensically threatened by the
nanny state, and everyone starts feeling awfully...libertarian:
For a long time, the only discernible libertarian around here was Jack Shafer, a man unable to wean himself from speech, guns, and other annoying constitutional amendments. But lately, other folks seem to be getting a bit Ayn Randy. On Saturday, Jacob Weisberg blew the whistle on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for trying to ban outdoor smoking in public parks ("First They Came for the Marlboros"). Yesterday, Daniel Engber went after the hypocrisy and overreaching of soda-tax advocates. And I've become such a knee-jerk defender of burgers and fries that I'm tempted to seek funding from the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
These shifting sands make William Saletan nervous. He writes:
What's going on here? Most of us used to be good liberals. Are we getting conservative in our old age?
I'd say it's the opposite. We're what we were five or 10 years ago: skeptics and fact-mongers with a bias for personal freedom. It's the left that's turning conservative. Well, not conservative, but pushy.
Read the whole thing, a tidy summation of why of the use of phrases like "market failure," "distributed costs," and "time-inconsistent preferences" should—and do—make liberty-lovers nervous.
A couple of soda tax rants do not a full-fledged libertarian make, of course. But we'll take allies where we can.
|9.22.09 @ 4:19PM|#
The Mississippi Acorn office is located on Hooker Street!
http://acorn.org/?9796
@|9.22.09 @ 4:21PM|#
But lately, other folks seem to be getting a bit Ayn
Randy.
If only. The philosophical distance between Ayn Rand and most of
her alleged fellow-travelers may be measured in light-years.
|9.22.09 @ 4:22PM|#
We're what we were five or 10 years ago: skeptics and
fact-mongers with a bias for personal freedom.
No skeptic or fact-monger, never mind one with a bias for personal
freedom, could have voted for Barack Obama. His campaign was
flagrantly fact-free, where it wasn't outright fact-challenged, his
career to date should have set off every alarm bell in a skeptic's
arsenal. Way too many funny associations, dodged issues,
mysteriously submarined political opponents, and just all-around
things that make you go "WTF?"
|9.22.09 @ 4:26PM|#
If any of you are the guy who wrote the last letter
to the editor in today's Merc, turn in your decoder ring.
Ferd Kretz (Letters, Sept. 19) worries that soda taxes will lead to a "nanny" government that searches our cupboards and decides what's good for us. As a libertarian, I encourage government to tax activities or products that impose costs on the public. The consumption of high fructose laden soft drinks is inextricably linked to obesity and, more importantly to me, increased dental rates in children. When indigent children must have the state pay for repairing teeth that soda decays, then the soda consumers should pay for that cost. This is equivalent to using tobacco taxes to help pay for the medical treatment of smokers. It is only fair to levy a small fee to relieve the state of this burden.
John M Pisacane
Willow Glen Dentistry
San Jose
If any of you are not him, write the paper a letter.
|9.22.09 @ 4:28PM|#
I'll go KMW a step further and point out that "market failure"
is now being used to describe any instance in which the speaker
does not get exactly what he wants for exactly the price he wants
to pay. Years between Michael Moore films? Market failure. Lettuce
20 cents more expensive this week than last? Market failure.
Distinct lack of hovercars running on sunlight? Oh, you better
believe that's a market failure.
May I propose
market failure:left::socialism:right?
|9.22.09 @ 4:31PM|#
No name @ 4:19 - and on the very front page they claim to
"Members of MS ACORN unite to fight for: ... Predatory
Lending."
Loan sharks or just plain illiterates?
|9.22.09 @ 4:32PM|#
It's the left that's turning conservative. Well, not
conservative, but pushy.
The Left has always been pushy. It's more that silly empty headed
college kids who were pushed into identifying themselves as
left-wing by the culture at large has no idea what a gang of
authoritarian control freaks they had hitched up with.
tekende|9.22.09 @ 4:41PM|#
But we'll take allies where we can.
Really? That's an odd thing to say considering how quick Reason was
to throw Ron Paul under the bus a couple years ago.
|9.22.09 @ 4:55PM|#
Locker Room Towel-Fight: The Blinding of Larry
Driscoll
Anyway, the soda tax is a natural extension of the liberal habit of
refusing to believe that people making their own decisions serves a
higher good than having decisions made for them, even if those
imposed decisions are objectively more beneficial.
Craig|9.22.09 @ 5:00PM|#
Perhaps an educational opportunity for liberals.... If the collectivists collectivize health care, it's only natural for them to want to regulate any individual behavior that might push up the collective costs, including lifestyle and dietary choices individuals were previously free to make.
@|9.22.09 @ 5:04PM|#
tekende | September 22, 2009, 4:41pm | #
"But we'll take allies where we can."
Really? That's an odd thing to say
And it's self-defeating. Inconsistent, contradictory concepts
result in hodge-podge political "movements." Have you ever wondered
why Libertarianism is still wallowing in the trenches?
|9.22.09 @ 5:21PM|#
Add 10 cents to the cost of my Cherry Coke and, so help me God, I will start a revolution.
Oh, so help me God, I wish that were so. Sugar tariffs add 10 cents
to the cost of your Cherry Coke and make it have HFCS instead of
sugar. I'm waiting for the revolution. Instead, Americans voted for
the guy who sent
"strong
signals of support" for the sugar support, not the guy who
upset
sugar growers by calling the supports wasteful.
|9.22.09 @ 5:24PM|#
And it's self-defeating. Inconsistent, contradictory concepts result in hodge-podge political "movements." Have you ever wondered why Libertarianism is still wallowing in the trenches?
My God, it's not because of inconsistent, contradictory concepts.
It's because of being too pure, arguably. Or really, it's because
most people just aren't libertarians. They're all like that letter
writer, "I'm a libertarian, but..." They're only libertarian on
something they enjoy or do, and on their own taxes. Everybody else?
Screw 'em and regulate 'em.
|9.22.09 @ 5:25PM|#
I mean, if "It's for the farmers" works to increase the price of soda, surely "It's for the children" will.
|9.22.09 @ 5:36PM|#
I live in a part of New England that continues to embrace that
bucolic anachronism of democracy called the "Town Meeting". In
twenty years the Town Meeting ballot item that caused the most
discussion among the populace, and attracted the highest Town
Meeting turnout EVAH, was a proposed canine leash law.
Seriously.
You guys have it right, the Left today are egalitarian and
socialist and will stop at nothing to achieve their evil goals.
They must regulate and control you and me to make sure we all are
getting our "fair" share. They demand that we all must have
healthcare (there's that "fair" thing again) and then seek to
regulate any behaviors that they deem to increase our collective
cost.
I just want them to leave me alone dammit!
|9.22.09 @ 5:41PM|#
Um, pardon the nit-picking, but isn't it *David* Plotz? He's not totally clueless either, I might add. Not exactly what I'd describe as libertarian it's true, but there are recognizable flashes of cognition :-) "Good Book" is highly recommended.
Ward S. Denker|9.22.09 @ 5:57PM|#
>What's going on here? Most of us used to be good liberals.
Are we getting conservative in our old age?
If only this fellow could grasp the concept that freedom
is not a "liberal" or "conservative" concept. If, for but
one brief glimmer of a moment, he could find a way to see the world
like that, much of his ideology would likely unravel and he'd have
to admit that we libertarians really have got something.
Why it is that the cause of freedom doesn't have the advocates it
once did in the "land of the free" is the question I routinely ask
myself. What became of us?
Sean W. Malone|9.22.09 @ 6:06PM|#
"No skeptic or fact-monger, never mind one with a bias for
personal freedom, could have voted for Barack Obama."
He said "5 or 10 years ago"... Meaning, they were skeptical when
Bush was in office, but when they had a chance to elect a new jefe,
they dropped the skepticism. As if that weren't clear enough just
by reading any of these fools.
Sean W. Malone|9.22.09 @ 6:28PM|#
Well yes, Mo... I'm aware... Yet I'm still not sure what that has to do with my point.
Mike M.|9.22.09 @ 6:53PM|#
As far as I'm concerned, everyone at Slate can go fuck themselves. Bend over and enjoy taking it up the ass like all the rest of us, douchebags.
|9.22.09 @ 6:57PM|#
Have you ever wondered why Libertarianism is still wallowing
in the trenches?
Most people do not find libertarian ideas very appealing.
|9.22.09 @ 7:07PM|#
Tekende makes a good point.
Perhaps KMW is sincere. If the Southern Poverty Law Center
supported the abolition of the income tax, am I supposed to welcome
their support on THAT issue or do I tell them to go fornicate
themselves?
|9.22.09 @ 7:09PM|#
Matthew-
Actually, they do. Ask anybody who is best able to make decisions
for themselves-them or a bureaucrat or a cop or some other
sub-human feeding at the public trough?
Reason goes libertarian. A li|9.22.09 @ 7:45PM|#
Meanwhile, the 2008 "libertarian" Reason staff
voting record went like this...
Obama: 11
Barr: 9
McCain: 3
NOTA/Not voting: 8
Uh......
oaktownadam|9.22.09 @ 8:26PM|#
I actually tried making this argument to a bunch of knee-jerk
liberals about a year ago...check out the replies I got:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/21/664944/-An-Argument-Against-Government-Run-Healthcare
jtuf|9.22.09 @ 8:26PM|#
I'm the average American: Take 30 percent of my paycheck and I'll shrug. Nationalize the car companies and I'll change the channel to cartoons. Add 10 cents to the cost of my Cherry Coke and, so help me God, I will start a revolution.
It doesn't make a lick of sense, but that's the way people are. Tea parties notwithstanding, trans fat regulations, smoking rules, parental advisory stickers, and light bulb bans have long been some of the best recruitment tools libertarians have.
It's human nature to pay more attention to the daily little things
than to abstract larger events.
Eric Dondero|9.22.09 @ 8:38PM|#
Actually, it's Conservatives who are turning Libertarian.
A REPUBLICAN state rep. in South Dakota just introduced a bill to
lower the drinking age back down to 18. Democrats are opposing
him.
Liberals are the New Fascists; Conservatives are the new
Libertarian Lites.
|9.22.09 @ 8:41PM|#
It's human nature to pay more attention to the daily little
things than to abstract larger events.
It's human nature to ignore everything that impacts other people,
until it starts impacting their personal daily life.
I'd be willing to bet at least 50% of those anti-soda-tax people
are content to let other people's "cadillac plans" and carbon
emissions be taxed. Or their own foreign imports, so long as the
cost is sufficiently hidden from them.
|9.22.09 @ 8:57PM|#
The first paragraph is sadly true. Unfortunately, it is not any
indication whatsoever of a libertarian streak, especially among the
dipshits at Slate, but simply a product of the realization that
occasionally the populist machine turns on you.
They don't actually see anything inherently wrong with the
persecution of the smokers, drinkers, stockbrokers, druggists, drug
users, constitutionalists, pornographers, capitalists, prostitutes,
video gamers, racists, or whatever class is in vogue to hate. It's
just that the current populist trend happens to directly affects a
few of those populist shills in a position to voice their
displeasure.
Fuck them. Calling them an ally is naive.
MJ|9.22.09 @ 9:02PM|#
"We're what we were five or 10 years ago: skeptics and
fact-mongers with a bias for personal freedom. It's the left that's
turning conservative. Well, not conservative, but pushy."
The Left has always been pushy and sanctimonious busybodies, but
five or 10 years ago they were relatively constrained from
implementing their patronizing policies on the federal level by the
GOP controlling the Congress and/or the Presidency. Now they
theoretically have the ability to dictate whatever they want so
they are getting insufferable.
Of course, most of these slate writers are probably all for putting
the rest of us further in hack to leftist control over our lives
with Obama's health care reform. They're love of personal freedom
has to be taken with a grain of salt.
|9.22.09 @ 9:11PM|#
Have you ever wondered why Libertarianism is still wallowing
in the trenches?
Most people do not find libertarian ideas very appealing.
Matthew-
Actually, they do. Ask anybody who is best able to make decisions
for themselves-them or a bureaucrat or a cop or some other
sub-human feeding at the public trough?
No, actually they don't. The part about sub-humans feeding at
the public trough expresses just about everything most people
need to hear about libertarians.
I think a lot of people agree with some of what libertarians have
to say. The asshole posturing turns most people off real fast,
though.
mark|9.22.09 @ 9:14PM|#
Great point (unfortunately), Pug. Apparently liberals don't want you to explode their value system, they just want to hear a utilitarian argument, preferably with a sports analogy, and they will be happy to go along, if only to get along.
|9.22.09 @ 9:25PM|#
I'm not the first to mention this, but Fresca is sugar-free. All of it, there's no Frescan and Diet Fresca. So I have to wonder whether Plotz really likes it or if he just doesn't understand the proposals.
hotsauce|9.22.09 @ 9:51PM|#
STFU, Dondero.
Although you're more right than wrong, at least from my experience.
I have several friends in politics, all of them at the state rep /
city council level. The Dems are overwhelmingly statist blowhards.
The Republicans have a libertarian streak in them. One is even damn
near anarchistic. He only keeps the "R" next to his name so people
will vote for him. Take that for what it's worth.
Eric Dondero|9.22.09 @ 10:08PM|#
Hotsauce is that Tom Alcieri in New Hampshire?
He's an elected State Representative, and as far as I know,
America's only self-proclaimed "Anarchist Republican" state
legislator. The guy's so insane that even the NH Libertarian Party
won't have anything to do with him; so the GOP has to take him.
JB|9.22.09 @ 10:13PM|#
The Left is nothing but a bunch of scum who want to control the
lives of other people at gunpoint.
That's all it has ever been.
Fuck every single one of the fetuses.
anonymous|9.22.09 @ 10:17PM|#
"Perhaps KMW is sincere. If the Southern Poverty Law Center
supported the abolition of the income tax, am I supposed to welcome
their support on THAT issue or do I tell them to go fornicate
themselves?"
While it might make you feel better, what does insulting a person,
even a particularly contemptible person, actually achieve; besides
making you look like a vituperative ass in the eyes of those who
aren't familiar with the reasons for your contempt?
"I'm not the first to mention this, but Fresca is sugar-free. All
of it, there's no Frescan and Diet Fresca. So I have to wonder
whether Plotz really likes it or if he just doesn't understand the
proposals."
The author is Saletan, and he does explain this in the article --
at the end of a long section about the slippery slope and the
paternalistic left, he quotes a study that say "there are concerns
that diet beverages may increase calorie consumption by justifying
consumption of other caloric foods or by promoting a preference for
sweet tastes". The upshot being that consuming diet beverages will
make you just as fat as consuming mountain dew.
Personally, I'd like to fund a study that indicates that scientific
progressive paternalism and support for same gives you cancer. It
might be necessary to dose several CSPI types with radioactive
isotopes to get the correct results, but science is never easy.
anonymous|9.22.09 @ 10:21PM|#
"Liberals members of the dominant political faction
are the New Fascists; Conservatives members of the
weak political faction are the new Libertarian Lites.
FTFY
Tim|9.22.09 @ 11:57PM|#
Great job Oaktownadam! I've had that argument with liberals before and you did particularly well. I particularly like "if smoking isn't my right abortion isn't yours". That will get their panties in a knot.
|9.23.09 @ 1:12AM|#
Meanwhile, the 2008 "libertarian" Reason staff voting record went like this...
To be fair, that included a lot of contributors who aren't staff.
Craig Newmark of craigslist is a pretty serious Obama-fanboy,
though.
oaktownadamm|9.23.09 @ 1:16AM|#
Tim:
Yeah, I had fun at that site for a few months before they banned
me.
It's a shame, because you can't even see half of the threads from
that diary, because they used the community moderation to censor
them.
Art-P.O.G.|9.23.09 @ 2:27AM|#
And there you have it. anonymous is actually :::SPOILER ALERT::: Ozymandias.
|9.23.09 @ 4:47AM|#
The asshole posturing turns most people off real fast,
though.
Speaking of progressives ....
There's that whole thinking your totally fucking right about
everything and everyone else is an insane evil moron thing.
Art-P.O.G.|9.23.09 @ 6:05AM|#
You have a point, Hazel, but isn't that also true of many of Dondero's fellow travellers?
Stormy Dragon|9.23.09 @ 9:55AM|#
Actually, it's Conservatives who are turning Libertarian.
I can tell people I'm the king of France. That doesn't make it
so.
Stormy Dragon|9.23.09 @ 9:57AM|#
I'm not the first to mention this, but Fresca is sugar-free. All of it, there's no Frescan and Diet Fresca. So I have to wonder whether Plotz really likes it or if he just doesn't understand the proposals.
If you bothered to RTFA, you'd notice he points out proposals to
tax diet soda as well, under the theory that even if it doesn't
calories, it conditions your brain to crave sweets.
JB|9.23.09 @ 11:43AM|#
You have a point, Hazel, but isn't that also true of many of
Dondero's fellow travellers?
More so of the Leftists. Very few conservatives are intolerant of
my libertarianism whereas very few liberals are tolerant of it.
That's the general trend of the few hundred of each I know.
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