"Downtown Libertarians" vs "Upper Westside Liberals" vs, What, "Murray Hill Moderates"?

Aaron Russell, executive director of The Smith Family Foundation, the outfit holding the sure-to-be-excellent upcoming debate between former GOP drug-war hawk and current LP honcho Bob Barr and the Drug Policy Alliance's Ethan Nadelmann, writes with a partial transcript from a recent Daily Show:

In case you missed it, Bill Kristol was on the Daily Show and he accused John Stewart of being a "upper west side liberal" and he replied that he is a "downtown libertarian."

I am kind of curious as to what happens when a downtown libertarians crosses 14th Street (going in either direction).

More links (including to video) here at The Moderate Voice, which for no other reason than alliteration makes me think of the old Murray Hill neighborhood in Manhattan and wonder how people there describe their politics.

Comments

[Aresen]

Personally, I consider myself a Whitehall, January 30, 1649 libertarian.

[Ruthless]

Are you trying to turn Manhattan into a crazy quilt of warring ethoses a la Baghdad?

[highnumber]

What the hell, Mr Gillespie? We were having the conversation about Stewart's and friends' politics on this thread. You trying to step on your readers' toes?

[Lee Ving]

New York's alright if you:

1. Like saxophones
2. Wanna get pushed in front of the subway
3. Want tuberculosis
4. Like art and jazz
5. Are a homosexual
6. Like drunks in your doorway
7. Wanna freeze to death
8. Wanna get mugged or murdered

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Downtown libertarian? What's that? A hooker?

Actually, I know a few downtown libertarians and, you, Jon, well you're no downtown libertarian.

[Jonathan C. Hohensee]

New York's alright if you:

1. Like saxophones
2. Wanna get pushed in front of the subway
3. Want tuberculosis
4. Like art and jazz
5. Are a homosexual
6. Like drunks in your doorway
7. Wanna freeze to death
8. Wanna get mugged or murdered

9. Have a smug sense of supirority despite all of the above.

Chirst, I hate new york. Or at least hate the Sex and the City/Rescue Me/any movie or TV show that is a "love letter" to the city, and their version of the city.

[John Tabin]

Murray Hill was Ayn Rand's neighborhood.

[Lamar]

I'm a Murray Hillbillie, so I don't know if moderate fits.

Brooklyn Blowhard?

[highnumber]

Mr Ving,

I loved your work in Decline and Fall of Western Civilization (good boot work), The Wild Life, and Clue.

[Colin]

As a downtown libertarian I can tell you that we don't go above 14th st if we can help it. And when we do, it's usually for short trips. Though I always thought it had to do with not liking to leave the village... who knew it was politics keeping me there?

[joe]

You gotta love it when people like Bill Kristol or the National Review crowd think they're making a point by equating their opposition with NYC.

Bill, if you ever set foot outside of New York, you would get your ass kicked and your lunch money stolen.

[RSDavis]

Actually, highnumber, it was merely The Decline of Western Civilization.

- R

[highnumber]

R,

Yeah, I think I tripped while dancing to the Germs, so I added "fall" to the title. Sorry.

[kevrob]

Is the 14th Street designation important because that is where the police set up the barricades to keep the looky-lous out of lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks?

Is a Murray Hillbilly one who needs the couch on his balcony reupholstered by Gimbels?

Call Murray Hill 7-7500! (that's Murray Hill 7-7500!> is burned in my brain from countless TV commercials seen as a kid.

Kevin

(More Bald Hill than Murray Hill)

[Jonathan C. Hohensee]

New York's alright if you:

1. Like saxophones
2. Wanna get pushed in front of the subway
3. Want tuberculosis
4. Like art and jazz
5. Are a homosexual
6. Like drunks in your doorway
7. Wanna freeze to death
8. Wanna get mugged or murdered

9. Have a smug sense of superiority despite all of the above.

10. I have never actually been there

[Alfred E. Neuman]

I was an Upper East Side libertarian. We're everywhere, dude. Except Chelsea, those bastards.

[Joe]

Oh, my God! John Stewart referred to himself as a libertarian! The tide is turning!

[Lamar]

Lee Ving:

Please add:

(10) Are educated.
(11) Good at a profession.
(12) Had enough of small town yokels who use elite as an epithet.

[Russell]

"Are you trying to turn Manhattan into a crazy quilt of warring ethoses a la Baghdad?"

Where was Ruthless during the Knickerbocker Junto,the Draft Riots and the Co-op Wars? Maning a Gatling gun in the old _Times_ newsroom?

You have no idea......

[Timon19]

The real Murray Hill is in Cleveburg.

[RSDavis]

Yeah, I think I tripped while dancing to the Germs, so I added "fall" to the title. Sorry.

Hey, I'm just happy to find another punk-rock libertarian. BTW, I have never seen Decline, but am dying to. Just got the Clash's Rude Boy on DVD. Yay! 🙂

Anyway, click my name if you want to read some punk rawk libertarian writing.

- R

[Ken Silber]

There are Upper West Side libertarians too, but some of them end up writing things like this:

I live in a rent-controlled apartment, but I have also written and agitated for many years against the rent-control system, and urged its repeal. That is not hypocrisy or betrayal, but simply rationality and good sense.--Murray Rothbard

[Brad]

No wonder I quit watching his show. Now Steven Colbert, that's a libertarian!

😉

[Jonesy]

Bill Kristol is not a libertarian, he's a social conservative - thats about as far from being a libertarian as a socialist is. I dont know why he'd say that except that people like him have destroyed the word conservative in the same way leftists destroyed liberal.

He's as much a libertarian as Kos of Dailykos is a libertarian, NOT AT ALL.

[Lamar]

Damn those Upper West Side liberals and all their, you know, success and stuff. Kristol just found another Coulterian way of saying "elite." I mean, what can America possibly do with all these successful people? Let's start an elite gulag where all the intellectuals can be placed so that they don't ruin it for all the middle America wage earners who get a higher paycheck because places like Goldman Sachs exist. Damn elites and all their stupid innovation and ability.

[Lee Ving]

Lamar,

I don't care about you...

[jeremy in NYC]

Lee, ya probably would have gotten a bigger rise by quoting "Fuck Christmas."

[mobius]

i swear, when i saw that, i thought kristol was about to call stewart a self-hating jew.

[Lamar]

Lee Ving:

You and 99.6% of the world. Congrats, you've really distinguished yourself there.

[Lamar]

Oops, that should have been 99.999%

[highnumber]

Hey, I'm just happy to find another punk-rock libertarian.

I'm more of a wannabe mod. An American can't be a real mod.
Decline is must-see.
I would love to see Rude Boy again. It's been a long time.

[Rhywun]

We're everywhere, dude. Except Chelsea, those bastards.

Speak for yourself.

Is the 14th Street designation important because that is where the police set up the barricades to keep the looky-lous out of lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks?

No, because it's the northern border of the East/West Villages. In other words, where the supposedly bohemian turns into the more pedestrian rest of Manhattan.

[Lamar]

Rhywun,

You are exactly right, except that the non NYCers should know that bohemian New York moved away a long time ago. Hence, the use of "supposedly."

Murray Hill is like a farmer's fields, if that farmer grew Burberry scarves.

[Ruthless]

"Where was Ruthless during the Knickerbocker Junto,the Draft Riots and the Co-op Wars? Maning a Gatling gun in the old _Times_ newsroom?"

Russell,
Thanks for helping to carry on and embellish my legend.

[Russell]

What legend?: "Where was Ruthless during the Knickerbocker Junto,the Draft Riots and the Co-op Wars? Maning a Gatling gun in the old _Times_ newsroom?...Thanks for helping to carry on and embellish my legend."

In the days before it foreswore the 2nd Amendment The New York Times famously _did_ deploy a Gatling Gun to defend itself from rioting readers , some of them literate.

[Ruthless]

Russell, what do you mean what legend? My personal legend! Don't let me down now after going to this much trouble.
Yes, I manned that Gatling gun!

Seriously, the Little Woman and I live in the 'hood, and I'm secretly disappointed there hasn't been a riot on my doorstep considering some of the things I've written in Sinincincinnati blogs, etc. But you are correct in noting most rioters would be illiterate.
Come to think of it, some of the most vitriolic reactions to something I had written was by Christians.
(In response to a Walter Williams column claiming that libertarians have true Christian values, I had a letter in the paper saying atheists could be good libertarians too.)

[dagny]

The last time I was in New York, I decided that if I ever miraculously became fabulously rich I would totally live there. Spending time in an actual moderate New York apartment convinced me that it's really not worth it though.

[Russell]

Rutheless: "Yes, I manned that Gatling gun!

Seriously, the Little Woman and I live in the 'hood "

My compliments to Miss Alcott- I see you are both keeping well, though the Times has been in decline since the new mamgement retired the Gatling after President Arthur's election.

[Ironchef]

Add Kristol to the many other self identified "libertarians" who have no business whatsoever inside our tent:

Noam Chomsky
Bill Maher
Neil Boortz
Kos
. . .

[bob]

Poor writing on Aaron Russell's part seems to be creating confusion. Kristol accused Stewart of being an "upper west side liberal." Stewart, in denial of the accusation, claimed to be a "downtown libertarian."

Bill Kristol did not refer to himself as a libertarian.

[Lamar]

bob, it is poor writing, but I took the downtown libertarian line to be Stewart's defense, not Kristol's neverending bullcrap.

[biologist]

Lamar, you are correct, Stewart called himself a downtown libertarian when Kristol accused Stewart of being a liberal. Stewart also reminded Kristol that neoconservatives are just old liberals.

[Eric Dondero]

News note:

Comedian Tim Wilson just two weeks ago described himself as a "Lynard Skynard Baptist" on religion and a "Libertarian" on politics. Wilson is from Georgia, and has toured with some of the greats.

Growing list of Libertarian comedians:

Drew Carey
Dennis Miller
South Park guys
Jon Stewart
Tim Wilson
Mancow

[joshua corning]

Great so while Kos and now this lunatic barr is corrupting and stealing the libertarian name and all we can do is sit here idly trying to co-opt Stewart...

hey i am perfectly happy if the left keeps him.

[joshua corning]

Bill, if you ever set foot outside of New York, you would get your ass kicked and your lunch money stolen.

yeah Joe because as a resident of middle America it has been my experience that we small towners love to beat up big city boys...

Joe what the fuck are you talking about?!?!

Are you imagining some weird episode of sopranos meets deliverance or does anything you said havening anything to do with reality?

[joshua corning]

Anyway to those who might not get it that there is more then one downtown in the united states then the one in new york....

To be a downtown liberal one does not need to reside in new york....they only need to reside in the downtown of any village, town, city, etc