Breitbart on Libertarians in 2012

Washington, D.C. - In his speech at CPAC conservative activist and online publisher Andrew Breitbart called liberals the "the least tolerant people you will ever meet in your entire lives." When asked about libertarians in American politics and the fight with the left, Breitbart said that he thinks libertarians need to develop a free speech movement on college campuses. 

"I have no problem with them entering the political fray at the highest possible levels and saying 'We want Ron Paul for the presidency,' but they seem conspicuously absent from the trenches where it really counts, where they really exist right now," he said.

Breitbart, who admits to having libertarian leanings, thinks libertarians should not be discouraged by the media's portrayal of the conservative movement. "[Libertarians] don't want to be in the same room as conservatives because it will hurt their street cred. Conservatives, especially right now, have a hell of a lot more in common with libertarianism than Barack Obama and what the progressive left stand for," he said. 

There is more in the video below. 

More on Breitbart from Reason here. 

Comments

[BlueBook]

Whenever I see Breitbart I think of the Lloyd Bridges character in "Airplane!" having picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

[kate]

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[Jeffersonian]

Can me and my bi lover sniff glue?

[o3]

im looking to date plants like corn & tomatos so provide that link.

[Robert]

So that's his normal look?! Sweaty, touching his head as if to feel whether it was still on, wide eyes with a distant focus (or none at all), scratching, hair looking like he's been thru heck?

I thought there was some back story to what had just happened to him or was about to, and you're disappointing me by telling me he always looks like a fanatic.

[Thomas O.]

If you ask me, Breitbart bears a slight resemblance to John Lithgow.

[Libertarians are conservatives]

...who want to smoke pot. And still be able to initiate aggression against a hippy walking onto the Land they stole and are occupying.

[cynical]

Wow, even you hate the Occupy movement.

[IceTrey]

You profound ignorance is showing. The first principle of libertarianism is the complete rejection of the initiatory use of force.

[Joe]

Such a simple notion, yet considered dangerous by the masses.

[Wargames83]

Except if you touch a libertarian's property, then they consider that somehow to be initiation of force and feel free to use violence.

[UvalDuvalCuckoo]

Only if the hippy is Gambolling. God Damn I had Gambol - I hate gamboling so bad I might vote Santorum if he'd promise a complete Gambol lockdown.

[Richard Wicks]

I have watched the Libertarian party for a few years.

My conclusion is that all they want to do is ensure that they lose every possible race and alienate every single possible person they can.

[Brett L]

Which is why H&R is full of small-l libertarians who won't join the Libertarian party.

[MJ]

Which means the small "l" strategy is not to get into any race and alienate everyone they can.

[Brett L]

We don't try to alienate everyone we can. Some we just other.

[rather]

they only alienate women

[Auto Bahn]

That explains why you keep coming back here.

[Rather]

I am here from the future to save mankind...you sent me

[o3]

are you then preggers w auotbahn's love child?

[Rather]

In the future, we impregnate our men...the mortality rate is tragic but we are working on improving the implantation

[rectal]

Who wants anal?

[Sane Human]

Um, don't confuse "woman" with "shrill marxist feminist"

[Ice Nine]

Which is why H&R is full of small-l libertarians who won't join the Libertarian party.

Who are loathed, castigated and reflexively summarily dismissed by the "pure". Wicks is flirting with the truth and, as is Breitbart, with the essence of the l/Libertarians' marginalization.

[rsi]

Senate candidate blue - literally(Blue-skinned Stan Jones, MT Libertarian who gave Dems the Senate

http://www.freerepublic.com/fo.....6039/posts

[Brandybuck]

I would join a LibertarianLite Party in a heartbeat. I'm hoping Gary Johnson can help create one.

[wef]

I have watched the Republican party for a few years.

My conclusion is that all they want to do is ensure a place at the trough, and to play the cynical moralist and bloody-shirt waver and whine themselves into office and finally betray whatever llimited-government bs promises they made to get elected.

But compared to the Libertarian party, the Republican party knows how to pander.

[West Texas]

Winner!

[Killazontherun]

^this. You don't see libertarians in the trenches, Breitbart? The trenches? Is that the place where the public monies collect and Republican activist shovel it to their constituencies? You're right, libertarians have no interest in doing that, and it shows in the polls.

[Robert]

You've watched the party? Or you've watched its leadership & aspiring leadership? It's one thing to comment on the seekers in any party, it's another to characterize their rank & file.

[Braadwijk]

After deciding a few years ago it's pretty much pointless to try to reason with or dialogue with people who are woefully blinded by their own pride and ignorance, I've given up political activism on my college campus. As a young libertarian who resents the hell out of what the Boomers did to the universities, I take great pleasure in watching from the sidelines as they all implode.

"This university is a giant circle jerk. I could write a program that would eliminate half their jobs and solve 90% of the bureaucracy issues on this campus, and they know it." - Fellow grad student

[Revisionism is Edgy]

what the Boomers did to the universities

"The universities" (all of them?) were just fine before those "boomers" came along?

[wareagle]

no, they were not fine; the boomers were just a steroid injection that made the existing problem spread faster and wider.

[romulus augustus]

Braadwiki - check out Students for Liberty or Young Americans for Liberty.
I always had a lot of fun being in a tiny minority on campus and debating the liberals.

[CatoTheElder]

My libertarian son often berates the Boomers for having wrecked the American experiment in liberty. Even though he's right to some degree, the great wrecking started much, much earlier. FDR, Wilson, McKinley/Roosevelt, Lincoln, Alien & Sedition Acts?

But the blame and the shame for wrecking the American college campus properly rests squarely on the shoulders of the Boomers.

[o3]

so we'd be better if slavery, the depression, & the nazis prevailed?

[libconlib]

Aren't all of those things better than lolcats?

[DK]

Lol. So accepting one of criticizing some of Lincoln's policies means we can't accept any of them? It's either wholesale acceptance or total rejection? This is exactly what's wrong with American political discourse. Thank you, o3, for summing the problem in one little comment.

[Francisco d Anconia]

FDR gets the most credit.

When the children and grandchildren of the Boomers realize the debt they've been saddled with because of the wanton greed of their parents, the Boomers will take their rightful place as the most despised generation in history.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The media portrays the "conservative movement" just fine. They sugarcoat liberal ideology to be sure, but they get conservativism right most of the time. I don't think libertarians are being duped. John Lithgow here just doesn't like that too many libertarians are fed up with quietly choosing between the lesser of two statists.

[Ken Shultz]

The media portrays the "conservative movement" just fine. They sugarcoat liberal ideology to be sure, but they get conservatism right most of the time.

Breitbart, and other conservatives, seem to be suffering from the same delusion I see on the left. They think the problem isn't them--it's that the media isn't portraying them properly?

The left says the same thing--except instead of blaming the politically correct universities and the liberal media like the conservatives, the left blames Fox News and wealthy campaign contributors like the Koch Brothers.

On the left, they think that if it weren't for Fox News and the Koch Brothers, I wouldn't care how much of my future paychecks Barack Obama squandered on bailing out the UAW and Wall Street. 'cause I'm too astupid to think for myself!

On the right, with Breitbart's comments being emblematic, they think people wouldn't care about the conservatives' hostility to our civil rights, etc. if it weren't for the politically correct universities and the liberal bias in the media. 'cause I'm too astupid to think for myself!

It may not be Breitbart's job to send me an engraved invitation, meet me at the door, and walk me into the Republican Party. ...but it isn't my job to shut up and kiss the conservative ring after all the abuse they've heaped on libertarians for the last ten years, either.

Memo to Breitbart: If it weren't for libertarians flocking to Ron Paul, and Tea Party people with libertarian impulses, who organized outside of the Republican Party a few years ago? The Republican Party wouldn't have any inertia of its own at all. Apparently Breitbart and other conservatives are in big danger of misinterpreting disgust with Barack Obama as enthusiasm for conservatives--and they're not the same thing.

[shrike]

You keep falsely accusing Obama of TARP. That was Bush. Obama was SCAP - which made those same banks raise private capital - the opposite of TARP.

Private capital = good.
Public TARP = very bad.

[Ken Shultz]

You keep ignoring the facts.

Here, let The Huffington Post explain to you from their headline...

"TARP Vote: Obama Wins, Senate Effectively Approves $350 Billion"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....58292.html

----February 15, 2009

Barack Obama was responsible for exactly one half of TARP. Bush did his half (which Obama did not oppose), and Obama did the other half.

It was the very first thing Obama did when he got into office. He squandered $350 billion out of our future paychecks to bail out the UAW and Wall Street. That's what he did.

That's who he is.

P.S. When the banks paid the TARP funds back to the government, Obama refused to use that money to buy back the 10-year notes the government floated to finance TARP, too. He spent it all instead!

The TARP money that was paid back to the government, Obama squandered on his cronies--that makes him responsible for all of TARP twice as far as I'm concerned.

The principal on those bonds will come due in about seven years--and the money that was paid back by the banks to the government has all been squandered. The money to repay that principal is still yet to come out of our paychecks...

Thanks, Barack Obama, for sticking it to the working stiffs again--you suck ass president!

[shrike]

Besides GM and Chrysler, the bulk of that $350 billion went (sadly) to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which the US was obligated to support after they were placed into conservatorship in late 2008.

Ultimately we would agree on FNM/FRE. They never should have existed and should not now but you can't give them away with their current debt load.

[Ken Shultz]

Go to this website:

http://subsidyscope.org/bailou.....ursements/

Under "Click each tab below for different ways to view the TARP data.", click the "By Date" tab.

Barack Obama took office on January 20, 2009.

Citigroup was given $20 billion on March 30, 2009.

AIG was given $29.8 billion on April 17, 2009.

...and those are just the big guys!

Oh, and when you write "Besides GM and Chrysler" am I supposed to think that the president bailing out his union cronies with our future paychecks was somehow acceptable--because it was just GM and Chrysler?

[shrike]

Its called Debtor-in-Possession financing and it happens in capitalism all the time.

Citi was loaned (not given) $45 billion and repaid $57 billion. The US Treasury became about the 3rd largest PE fund in the world in 2008/09.

TARP had to be administered and could have been a disaster. But I know, its labor that pisses you off and not the other 95% of TARP.

TARP was emblematic of the failures of Bush - just like Iraq, Medicare, his failed scheme to send Social Security to Lehman/Morgan Stanley and everything else he touched.

[Ken Shultz]

Citi was loaned (not given) $45 billion and repaid $57 billion.

Repaid to whom?

Did my check get lost in the mail?

Was there $700 billion in debt retired?

Was there a $700 billion tax cut?

What happened to the money that was "paid back"?

The correct answer is that it was spent, and I'm still on the hook for every penny of TARP--it's all comin' out of our paychecks.

TARP was not "paid back", not by any conventional use of the term.

Not ticked off about being forced to finance Wall Street against my will? Not ticked off about the government squandering the funds that were returned to the government?

Since when? I've been screaming about this around here since the program was first proposed!

[Ken Shultz]

What happened to the money that was "paid back"?

Here's a nice chunk of where the money went that was "paid back".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama_stimulus

It was "paid back"--but somehow we still owe the $700 billion in mostly ten year notes!

LOL

[shrike]

Repaid to Treasury where it stayed by law until a NEW appropriation kicked in.

Blame the new appropriation if those funds are gone.

Most likely it went out to pay higher entitlement (SS/Medi) costs.

[Ken Shultz]

It mostly went to the stimulus.

[Ken Shultz]

You're right in that I blame the politicians who voted for TARP--and what was to be done with the returned funds--more so than I blame Wall Street for TARP.

It is our politicians' job to protect our future paychecks. If our politicians called me up tomorrow and offered to give me billions, I wouldn't turn them down on principle.

...but that's our politicians' job! To protect our money in those situations--not to insist on the banks taking our money whether they wanted it or not. Not to turn around and respend the money as soon as it was returned!

Barack Obama did all of that.

He sucks.

TARP and its aftermath were much worse for the economy than if a few more investment banks had gone the way of Lehman and Bear. The part of our economy that was most prepared to take those losses--were the people who willingly put their money at risk. But noooOOOOooooo!

Wall Street has to be remade in Barack Obama's image. We have to start a new agency to protect American homebuyers from the loans they want. We have to squander $700 billion in what would have been consumer discretionary income. We need to heap tons of regulation and hit Wall Street with tons of burdensome settlements...

And do you know why?

To save a couple of investment banks, give effective control of GM to the UAW and justify a stimulus, that's why!

Barack Obama may be well-intentioned, and maybe not. But even if he is well-intentioned, he's a well-intentioned jackhole at best.

[Trouble Maker]

Ken Shultz: long-winded, or longest-winded?

[Liberte]

Ken Schultz is right on the mark. His posts are well thought out and referenced. Some people, who Twitter too much, can't read posts over 40 characters. This post, by the way, is 194 characters.

[Mark this Date, February 11]

Shultz gave shrike his worst ass kicking ever.

[Sy]

It's been a long time since I've seen that much goalpost shifting from shrike. He's not even trying anymore.

[CatoTheElder]

But, why bother arguing with an idiot?

[Jeffersonian]

Yep, that was a world-class ass-beating.

[Observer]

Posse-formation!
How comically predictable!
Swarm!

[R C Dean]

Blame the new appropriation if those funds are gone.

So, is that, at least, on Obama?

[Jeff]

Obama voted for H.R. 1424, a.k.a. TARP, shriek. Quit your shameless water carrying.

[Tulpa]

Obama voted for TARP in the Senate, so he's responsible too.

[libconlib]

That was Senator Obama, not President Obama.

[Sorry!]

That was Senator Obama, not President Obama.

You're right. Different guy.

[Sanjuro Tsubaki]

The media sugarcoats liberalism and presents cynical stereotypes of conservative and libertarian thought. The MSM presents a very simplistic, filtered view of every political question. The Koch brothers fund organizations that lean libertarian or conservative along with other charities. As for Breitbart, he would be way happier if libertarians got their way, but that isn't going to happen until libertarians figure out how to get real political power instead of one or two gadfly congressmen and presidential candidates.

[Ken Shultz]

As for Breitbart, he would be way happier if libertarians got their way, but that isn't going to happen until libertarians figure out how to get real political power instead of one or two gadfly congressmen and presidential candidates.

The purpose of libertarianism isn't to seize the levers of power and force libertarianism down everyone's throats.

I remember Doherty wrote once about how the purpose of libertarianism is to make more libertarians. I'm on board with that.

Once we get a critical mass of libertarian minded people in this country, it won't matter who the president is. Change doesn't come through the ballot box; it happens in people's heads. The politicians are usually the last ones to get on the bus--and almost never the first.

If you're trying to change things by getting us different politicians, you've got the cart before the horse. But if we change the hearts and minds of a critical mass of the people those politicians are accountable to, we've really got a chance to make a difference.

[Francisco d Anconia]

KS, you are on a roll today!

+10

[rhofulster]

"...isn't going to happen until libertarians figure out how to get real political power instead of ..."

Libertarians aren't going to achieve "real political power" until one of 2 things happen"

1) the economy implodes and (hopefully) the public correctly blames the implosion on the profligate government policies

or 2) the electorate starts reading the constitution and decides the the primary responsibility of a voter in a democracy is to force the government to abide by that constitution. BWAHAHAHAHA

We are so fucked

[Robert]

I think in a democratic republic (Is there any other kind?) the long term tendency will be to settle down to an equilibrium where people are being milked to the maximum possible sustainable extent, and remain that way until the sun goes out.

[Robert]

#2 can happen, but so what? In the long run they'll amend any constitution to reflect the will of the people, or if it's not possible to amend it, overthrow it and write a new one.

[O'Bama]

Just ignore that damned old constitution thingy. It's not relevant anymore.

[Ezra Klein]

Fer real. That thing's like over 100 years old.

[Thomas O.]

Okay, that means we can ignore the First Amendment. Here is a list of words you are forbidden to say or else face incarceration at Guantanamo. ;P

[+]

"they seem conspicuously absent from the trenches where it really counts"

Chat rooms are not trenches?

[Dog Warden election]

The only place libertarians are honest is among themselves; otherwise, they obfuscate their true intentions in public meetings.

Nobody is fooled by the deception but libertarians.

Libertarians secretly worried that ultimately someone will figure out the whole of their political philosophy boils down to "Get Off My Property." News flash: This is not really a big secret to the rest of us.

I Hate Your Politics
March 22, 2002 by John Scalzi
http://whatever.scalzi.com/200.....-politics/

[+]

Incoming!

[Ken Shultz]

You're almost there!

Now if you just add that my civil rights are also my property--now "Get off my property!", you'll fit right in.

You've seen the light, now Welcome to libertarianism. Be sure to send in for your badge and decoder ring.

[John]

Don't feed it Ken.

[Ken Shultz]

He's almost got us right!

He's like half an inch away from becoming a libertarian, and he doesn't even know it.

[John]

At some point he will inherit his mom's house and move out of the basement. And then suddenly "get off my property" will mean something entirely different to him.

[Ken Shultz]

Could be.

These threads attract a lot of people who know nothing about libertarianism other than what they've seen on TV or heard on the radio or something. I mean look at that guy up there with the "libertarians are conservatives who want to smoke pot" deal.

Personally? I think stoners are mostly slackers.

Anyway, we were all persuaded at one point because somebody took the time to talk to us about it. In these threads, we should try to treat these people as nice as we can.

It's like when you're a waiter, and a finicky customer comes in. The reason staff busts their ass on the marketing side, getting customers into the door. If we treat 'em halfway decent, maybe they'll come back.

That's how we spread the gospel.

[ryan]

Anyway, we were all persuaded at one point because somebody took the time to talk to us about it.

Noope, figured it out myself.

[Sevo]

Ken Shultz|2.11.12 @ 11:10AM|#
"....he doesn't even know it."

Ken, this is what matters. You might as argue with a wet-mop; it'll "know" what you mean far earlier than vermin shit.

[Joshua Corning]

To be honest i don't mind people on my property so much.

i just know if people had more control over their own property less people would be poor and everyone would be more prosperous...and things like education and health care would be far less expensive and our prisons would not be so over crowded.

Also in all honesty i do not pay income taxes...i do not earn enough money (though I will probably pay some this year still not really all that hard on me to do so.)

Scalzi has always been a liar when it comes to politics. no idea how anyone ever thought he was the successor to Robert Heinlein...

[flacid tuna]

He means the trenches of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran, all adventures that he enthusiastically supports (though he could never find the time to join the military himself). Why do libertarians hate America and not love it like Breitbart?

[John]

Because maybe there are more issues than just the war?

[Bill]

More like sewers.

[robc]

Conservatives, especially right now, have a hell of a lot more in common with libertarianism than Barack Obama and what the progressive left stand for

Does he want to name these conservatives? Because it sure isnt any of the ones running for president.

[Romney. He's rich.]

Like you want to be, sucker.

The myth of "Upward Mobility"
by Christina Shockley and Zoe Clark
http://michiganradio.org/post/myth-upward-mobility

[Kocksucking is productive]

you damn parasite

[John Kerry]

Thanks to my wife, I'm rich too.

[Jeffersonian]

Correction: wives

[JW]

Conservatives, especially right now, have a hell of a lot more in common with libertarianism than Barack Obama and what the progressive left stand for," he said.

Baby, c'mon now, you know I only do those awful things to you because I love you.

[Is Civilization "Progress?"]

Or not?

[It's not progress...]

...when the poor don't suffer.

[White Idiot]

Hey I want to [GAMBOL] my twinkie weight away too! Why can't I?

Hey look YooHoo.

[Professional Griefers]

Libertarians are:

? professional political griefers, and
? professional political grievance collectors.

Guess what? It works. Nobody buys your shitty ideology! Free-market-of-ideas win!

[Chat Tor]

Your second link makes no sense, which is not surprising, but your first link was informative. I did not know that the term "griefer" originated in the gaming community. I should have guessed. All the clues were there. Say, would you mind listing some of the other slang that has its origins in the violence-fantasy games that lonely, antisocial boys play? Thanks.

[Ska]

You calling other people griefers? How cute.

[Joshua Corning]

griefers are hated cuz they invade and vandalize personal virtual property. most notably in the game Minecraft where people build structures. They are also player killers.

the irony here is thick.

[Trouble Maker]

Sure is.

[MNG]

As a source of information, Breitbart has all the integrity and reliability of Al Sharpton. That anyone would get information or opinions from either of those two clowns amazes me.

[I]

I am surprised that anyone would comment.

No I'm not.

[Joshua Corning]

Al Sharpton had his use 30 or 40 years ago.

Also Brietbart is pretty spot on in his description of the left.

He is not very good at self description of conservatives nor of more neutral peoples or movements like libertarians.

he is black and white...the grey libertarians represent send him into the land of fail.

[Jeffersonian]

I think you're seething with the two-minutes hate image of Breitbart that your fellow southpaws have constructed of him. He's right.

[MNG]

Speaking of less than 100% reliable sources, read this article by Rachel Maddow in the Post today. As you might imagine there's parts in it that are quite a stretch and/or incomplete presentation of facts; but I did find these parts to be pretty interesting:

"After Mississippi rejected "personhood" and its threat to contraception, after Colorado rejected it twice, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul attended (Paul by satellite) a Personhood USA candidates forum in South Carolina. All signed a pledge to pursue "personhood" at the federal level. Mitt Romney did not attend the event, but when asked on Fox News before the Mississippi vote last year whether he would have supported such a measure as Massachusetts governor, he replied, "Absolutely.""

"It's also this year's mainstream Republican embrace of an antiabortion movement that no longer just marches on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade to criminalize abortion; it now marches on the anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, holding signs that say "The Pill Kills.""

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....ml?hpid=z2

[JW]

read this article by Rachel Maddow

Not even if you fucking shoved bamboo under my fingernails.

[MNG]

Meant "read" in the past, "I read" this article tense. Took the hit for ya.

[John]

The post right after railing about Breitbart being a biased unreliable source, MNG gives an article by Rachel Maddow.

At first I thought it was a spoof. I thought "damn that is funny. You shouldn't spoof, but that is funny". But no it wasn't a spoof.

MNG has lost what little self awareness he ever had. It goes to show what defending the indefensible does to your mind.

[MNG]

Yes, and I had an entire paragraph about how you have to take MAddow with a grain of salt.

But the two things I pointed to from it are readily substantiated.

[JW]

Grain? How about a salt dome? Every word out her mouth, including "and" and "the."

Partisan hack would be a step up for her.

[Apatheist]

Fuck John MNG even said she wasn't reliable.

[Joshua Corning]

Bush did the same thing MNG and he had the house and the senate full of republicans.

Why do we worry about republicans where they fail but not about their success with things like the patriot act or America perpetually at war with the rest of the world.

[cynical]

Hell, even I'm tempted to go full-on antiabortion. Not because of fetuses or anything -- just so I can see the people who piss all over all the freedoms I care about lose the single solitary one that they cherish. So they know how it feels.

Just tempted, for now.

[MNG]

The great libertarian thinker Charles Murray writes in today's WaPo*:

Five myths about white people

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....ml?hpid=z6

* The WaPo has become a great regular site for some of the best conservative thinkers today, just one more hole in the simplistic "liberal MSM" meme of the right

[EpiQuotes?]

"Impartial professional journalists are mendacious partisan shits who haven't a shred of integrity."

[George Will and Ghost of Novak]

We agree. TeaBaggers embarrass us.

[Joshua Corning]

The great libertarian thinker Charles Murray

is he the same great libertarian that Reason and Cato recently published reviews that openly mocked his new book?

[Jeffersonian]

Shhh...it doesn't work if you don't accept the premise.

[o3]

"...just one more hole in the simplistic "liberal MSM" meme of the right"
_

the simple luvs em sum simple MNG.

[Cytotoxic]

Which brings us up to about 2 holes, including Fox.

[mad libertarian guy]

[Libertarians] don't want to be in the same room as conservatives because it will hurt their street cred. Conservatives, especially right now, have a hell of a lot more in common with libertarianism than Barack Obama and what the progressive left stand for . . .

That I don't want to be in the same room with conservatives has nothing to do with wanting to preserve my alleged "street cred", but with my inability to sit and listen to people preach the virtues of small government from one side of their mouth, them tell me how necessary it is that we ramp up military spending, insist that homosexuality is an instance of government wastefulness, insist that without our foreign interventionism we're doomed, doctor hop on the government's dime, and that they're "entitled to get back what they put in" to SS.

Fuck conservatives. They want/need my vote and are willing to a sing small government song and dance, yet balk when it's time to put up.

[EpiQuotes?]

They want/need my vote

"Voting is merely participating in a rigged, bullshit game where you have no statistical effect but when you participate you give it legitimacy. Fuck that."

[MNG]

I think conservatives really want smaller government in some areas. They would like to see a federal government that impinges less on businesses and churches. But yes, they don't mind using government on a lot of issues (I'm thinking tough enforcement of obscenity laws, banning euthanasia, and of course more military more of the time). Liberals do a similar thing. Look at the ACLU: no one has worked harder to limit the power of government in many ways as they have, but the same group has sued to protect government mandate affirmative action and to protect government benefits as a "property interest" of the recipient.

[I]

I wonder which side of the "free* contraception for everybody" debate the ACLU is on?

 

*meaning insurance companies are forced to pay for it

[MNG]

Oh, they are definitely on the Obama side, they were quoted in the NPR article I posted yesterday to that effect.

[I]

Doesn't surprise me. Evidently the "Civil Liberties" part of the ACLU forgives government coercion when it suits their flawed political philosophy.

[MNG]

Liberals think government can be the bad guy or the good guy in promoting liberty. For example, they think a law enforced by the government banning employers from requiring their employees to be drug tested would be a net gain in liberty because more workers would feel "free-er" to choose to engage in drug use. I know most people here don't buy that, but that's what they think.

On the other hand I don't think conservatives even have liberty as a goal. If you read a lot of classic conservative thinkers they go on at length about how liberty leads to license and we need "ordered liberty" and proper authority for the good life to flourish.

[CatoTheElder]

Rudolf Giuliani: "Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

No libertarian would agree with Giuliani's concept of freedom. I'm not sure what fraction of conservatives would agree. But anybody who supports ObamaCare should be fine with it.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Was he quoting a line from 1984?

[Mr. FIFY]

Add ", nor liberals" to your last paragraph, MNG, and you'll be spot-on.

[MNG]

"Now millions more women and families are going to have access to essential health care coverage at a cost that they can afford," says Sarah Lipton-Lubet, policy counsel with the ACLU."

[I]

Note the giveaway: "Essential health care coverage." Who could possibly be opposed to health? Left unsaid, as always--as if "coverage" is a fact of nature--is who will pay for it. The Obama Administration yesterday switched tactics and shifted the burden to the insurance companies. Catholics are off the hook! Somebody else* will pay for the essential and not-to-be-contested health care coverage! Inconvenient ethical quagmire avoided!

  
*Ultimately the taxpayers, some of whom are--you guessed it--Catholics. But relax. Nobody else has noticed.

[MNG]

Yes I agree. THE fundamental problem with liberalism today imo is this not even thinking about how things will be paid for and that it usually involves coercion.

Remember, my stance on the contaception thing from the beginning was the wrong was not refusing to exempt Catholics but in making anyone provide coverage in the first place.

[I]

Here's the gold-plated rule when encountering any new government idea, plan, proposal or regulation:

At whose expense?

[Tulpa]

Yes I agree. THE fundamental problem with liberalism today imo is this not even thinking about how things will be paid for and that it usually involves coercion.

Yes, they basically have a teenager's understanding of economics.

When you've had three meals magically appear in front of you every day for 18 years, the question of where wealth comes from doesn't seem important; all that matters is how it's distributed.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Yes, they basically have a teenager's understanding of economics.

Not just liberals...everybody. The average American doesn't have even a rudimentary grasp of economics/business. I got an engineering degree out of college and then an MBA much later. I was amazed at how little I actually knew compared to what I thought I knew.

I was your typical non-business major guy making bad decisions by voting for economic plans I had no understanding of and relying on politicians to explain it to me (they wouldn't lie). I had no grasp of political policy's effect on an economy.

There needs to be some emphasis placed on economics at the high school level or people will continue to fall victim to nefarious politicos who prey on their ignorance. I never got ANY Econ until college and my assumption is it is still that way.

[Jeffersonian]

Contraception =/= health care.

[Inequalities]

Not only that.

Health Insurance =/= Health Care
Health Care =/= Health
Rights =/= Free Stuff

[John]

There is an old saying "consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". I wouldn't call the ACLU hypocrites for defending affirmative action. I would call them wrong. But I wouldn't call them hypocrites. No one ever claimed the ACLU is for small government.

It is the same with conservatives. Just because someone believes that it is a bad idea for government to run healthcare doesn't mean that they should be prohibited from thinking maybe it is a good idea for the government to regulate strip clubs. You can have a consistent and sincere ideology that advocates government actions in some areas but not in others. There are ideologies besides anarchist and totalitarian.

You are constantly obsessed with who is making the argument rather than the argument itself. And constantly worried about enforcing some kind of daft absolute theology on your opponents. And it is these things that generally push you off the rails.

[I]

"consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"

Cited most often by inconsistent, contradictory, befuddled mediocrities. Personally, I want my doctor to be consistent. Likewise my grocer, my tailor and my candlestick maker.

Anyway, the spirit of that often misquoted quote is its critical assessment of individuals who never learn, never admit their errors and cling tenaciously to an inconsistent or false ideology. Is the author "consistent" in saying it? Why would anyone trust him if he were not? After all, he cannot have it both ways. The law of identity sees to that.

[MNG]

One thing we can all agree on is John does not suffer from consistency. He's had to walk back from even the most basic full-throated pronouncements of his at times.

[I]

I would tend to agree, tho' I do not wish to take sides in this eternal soap opera. I have enjoyed our little chat. Good day.

[MNG]

"tho' I do not wish to take sides in this eternal soap opera"

Don't blame you there.

John is actually more consistent than he appears. His consistent ideology is that he hates liberals. He appears to change his views because they are pegged to condemning liberals, and when they shift he has to as well.

John is like most movement conservatives. He HATES liberals, and when one shows up, like I do, he has to try use the number one movement conservative tactic: shout them down. I mean look at John. They guy constitutionally cannot allow the last word. He can't. He has to shout louder, more, all day (does the fucker work?). I tend to not want to let movement conservatives get away with that shit so I argue back, but perhaps I should let him play with himself...

[No Projection Here]

He never lets me be right ever!!

[John]

Gee MNG, you are such a pleasant person what with you accusing everyone who disagrees with you of being stupid and having ill motives and calling me a war monger every sentence, how could I possibly ever dislike liberals after knowing you. You set such a great example of gentility and civility.

[MNG]

"John|2.11.12 @ 10:45AM|#
Gee MNG, you are such a pleasant person what with you accusing everyone who disagrees with you of being stupid and having ill motives"

A sampling of John, the policeman of gentility and civility, from only this thread:

John|2.11.12 @ 10:17AM|#
And really your most funny and pathetic.

Whatever MNG. You never admit you are wrong about anything, ever. It is just not in your DNA.

Has ever occurred to you that you are perhaps the most perfect human being in history? You haven't admitted you were wrong since, what junior high?

John|2.11.12 @ 10:40AM|#
You are nothing if not generally mendacious prick. I will give you that.

reply to this
John|2.11.12 @ 10:41AM|#
But you make up for it being smug and humorless.

It's not just that John has no awareness of what others he disagrees with are saying, the man is not even self-aware...Conservatism seems to rot the brain...

[John]

Where did I say I was pleasant MNG? I am a total prick on here. But that fact doesn't make you any less of one.

Nice ad hominem attack though. Don't consider the question of whether you are in fact nasty and personal. Attack the person who said it as being the same way.

It is just how you roll.

[MNG]

" I am a total prick on here."

On that we agree!

[Tulpa]

The law of identity sees to that.

Randroid alert!

[I]

A is A whether you like it or not. And it was Aristotle, not Rand, who first identified the axiom. Not that calling someone a "Randroid" is not clever and original.

[Tulpa]

I don't know the context of that quote, but I always thought the point was that if you insist on every action you take every moment of every day being consistent with some overarching philosophy, you're never going to accomplish anything in the real world, because the real world requires compromise.

eg, the Libertarian Party and the Objectivist movement.

[John]

It is actually from Emmerson and the full quote is a "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". And he wasn't really talking about politics so much. He was talking about radical individualists doing things solely because it is against what the majority is doing. He was actually raging against hipsterism a good century and a half before such a thing existed.

[MNG]

"No one ever claimed the ACLU is for small government."

Well, they do claim to be for "liberty", but yes they don't see liberty and small government to be the same thing.

However, a great deal of their activity is suing governments and, if they win, limiting the government's power.

"You are constantly obsessed with who is making the argument rather than the argument itself."

Says the man who, at various times, has condemned Epi, fluffy, the Reason staff and the Independent Institute as Team Blue shills. You're a fount of projection John.

But here's whats interesting folks, did you know John is supporting Obama for President?

[John]

The ALCU is for liberty. And they sometimes think the government is the vehicle for achieving such liberty. I think they are wrong. But from their perspective it makes perfect sense.

The point is that you can judge the positions they take on what you feel are the merits. The other positions they take really don't matter. You obsesses about them because that is the only way you know how to think and argue; by ad hominem attack.

[MNG]

Where did I ad hominen attack the ACLU here o fevered one?

[John]

Liberals do a similar thing. Look at the ACLU: no one has worked harder to limit the power of government in many ways as they have, but the same group has sued to protect government mandate affirmative action and to protect government benefits as a "property interest" of the recipient.

As if their not always holding a small government position is relevant or somehow detracts from their other arguments.

[MNG]

I was just noting that the ACLU, which ostensibly works to promote "liberty" at times works to promote things that would strike someone as the opposite at times. I actually made a defense of their worldview @ 9:58.

It's interesting that you can't produce this ad hominen o fevered one. I imagine you're not quite sure what that is to be honest. Hint: it's not when you attack someone because you think their stance inconsistent.

[John]

See Breitbart above. See your obsession with knowing the identity of everyone who ever gives to a political cause. See pretty much any argument you have with me, especially anything involving foreign policy, where your first and last tactic is always to claim I just love war, as if you know jack shit about me or war.

I don't think I have ever had an argument with you where you didn't almost immediately resort to some personal attack as if that had any relevance to the subject of the conversation.

[MNG]

My obsession was one that at the time was shared by many posters here with much more reliable libertarian cred than you John. The idea was that transparency in who gave to what speech would help in judging it. As is often the case you rape logic, confusing the ad hominen fallacy within dedcutive logic with the usefuleness of knowing who's funding what push in political inductive reasoning.

"I don't think I have ever had an argument with you where you didn't almost immediately resort to some personal attack"

The projection is strong in this one!

[John]

MNG|2.11.12 @ 10:08AM|#

There's only one acknowledged shill here John, and it is you.

No MNG never. Shall I go back and find the 800+ posts where you call me a war monger and accuse me of wanting war because I love war. Shall I go back and find the endless posts where you accuse me of every bad motive known to man kind?

It is not that I care. I don't. But, I know who you are and what you do. I of all people on here know that.

[John]

MNG|2.11.12 @ 9:16AM|#

As a source of information, Breitbart has all the integrity and reliability of Al Sharpton. That anyone would get information or opinions from either of those two clowns amazes me.

No ad homonim attack there. Come on MNG, go yell Shirley Sherrod. It is your favorite move. And really your most funny and pathetic. I have never seen you engage in an argument in which you didn't immediately question the motives of the other side.

You are only so defensive about it because it is true. I wish you were not like that. You are not stupid. You don't have to be.

[MNG]

That's not an ad hominen John, I'm not arguing Breitbart and Sharpton are wrong about things because of who they are, just arguing they have a track record of being wrong about things. You've been duped by at least one of them and had to do some fascinating contortions as a result.

But you brought this up about the ACLU, and, predictably, you can't find an ad hominen. Upthread you seemed in your fevered flailing to conflate a charge of inconsistency with an ad homimen, but hey, you're John. We expect that.

[John]

Yes it is. You are telling us not to believe what Breitbart is saying here because you think he is a bad guy. It says nothing about the substance of this post.

[MNG]

"You are telling us not to believe what Breitbart is saying here because you think he is a bad guy."

Look, you're just palpably dishonest. Here's what I said: "I'm not arguing Breitbart and Sharpton are wrong about things because of who they are, just arguing they have a track record of being wrong about things."

That's not saying he's unreliable because he's a bad guy, that's saying he's unreliable because he has a history of being unreliable.

You're amazingly dishonest. Is it these new polls with Romney behind that has you so much more deranged than lately?

[John]

"I'm not arguing Breitbart and Sharpton are wrong about things because of who they are, just arguing they have a track record of being wrong about things."

Ad meet homenim. Whatever MNG. You never admit you are wrong about anything, ever. It is just not in your DNA.

Has ever occurred to you that you are perhaps the most perfect human being in history? You haven't admitted you were wrong since, what junior high?

[MNG]

Are you saying that stating that someone is unreliable because of a past of being unreliable is an ad hominen John?

You're nothing if not remarkable, I give you that!

[John]

You are nothing if not generally mendacious prick. I will give you that.

[John]

But you make up for it being smug and humorless.

[Maxxx]

Are you saying that stating that someone is unreliable because of a past of being unreliable is an ad hominen John?

Yes that is an ad hominen.

You are asserting without proving that:

1) Breitbart has "a past of being unreliable" which is acutally a meaningless statement, but leads the reader to conclude that you think he is always or almost always inaccurate.

2) Because of previous consistent inaccuracy, Breitbart's current piece is also inaccurate.

You could just as well have substituted "asshole" for "past of being unreliable".

At no point did you say what was inaccurate about his current article.

Therefor it is an ad hominen attack. Skillfully done, with enough weasel wording to allow you to claim otherwise.

[MNG]

No, saying a person is unreliable and therefore not to be relied upon is not an ad hominen. A person's past unreliability is not irrelevant to establishing how reliable they are...

[John]

It can be relevent if there is some reason not to believe what the person is saying. At heart is what the person is saying, not who is saying it.

Maxx pegged you dead to right. Ad hominem is what you do. That is why you are always screaming "hack" to me. You don't like what I have to say but can't really refute most things on the merits. So you attack me.

There is a direct correlation between the validity of the substantive case you have and the amount of times you call me names and such. When you have a decent point, you rarely attack me personally. When it is something you don't like and can't really explain away you go for the ad hominem.

[John]

You are a team blue shill MNG. You change your position to fit whatever you think will benefit team blue. Most of the positions you take are nothing but theater in support of whatever partisan talking point you are trying to get out.

That said, however, that doesn't mean you can't be right about some things. The fact that you are a total shill makes you dull. It doesn't make you always wrong.

[MNG]

There's only one acknowledged shill here John, and it is you. While I have time and again pointed to areas where Team Red is better than Team Blue you are on record saying your team is better on every issue.

[John]

I am a shill MNG. That is why I just can't wait for Romney to win the election. Yup, he is a Republican, I so want him to win. That is why I totally turned against the war in Afghanistan and Iraq once Obama was running it as opposed to defending his actions.

I think what I think. And I really couldn't give a shit less what you or anyone else thinks about them. I am a lot of things, but dishonest is not one of them. And you know it. And that is why you constantly harp about it. It is called being defensive.

[MNG]

John, look, you yourself said it: you said your team was better on EVERY issue. Every one. I said the opposite. Do you want me to post it again?

You're a shill dude.

[John]

Then convince me. Tell me what things the Democrats are better on? I used to think they were better on police and civil liberties. But the last three years have put lie to that.

Liberals should care about the poor. And they should be a political conscience. But they seem to have given up that role in exchange for union money and political jobs. It is sad but true.

If I am missing something, tell me. I can name things over the course of my lifetime the Democrats were better on. But that is going back a ways. And this is no longer your father's Democratic Party.

[MNG]

You have to love John. I say "hey, YOU'RE the shill because you've admitted your GOP is better on every issue." And John tries to argue against this by saying "well yes I think the GOP is better, because they are!"

Dude, thanks for making my argument for me!

What's more fascinating is that in the weeks following me catching him saying that and reposting it several times John engaged in his usual "Great Walk Back" saying things like "well, I guess you could say gay rights" or "I guess when a GOP President is in office you could say civil liberties." But now he's going to forget all that walking back and walk back the other way. And if I went back and tracked all that down and presented it, it would not slow him down a beat. He's a shameless partisan critter.

[John]

Again MNG, this is your big chance. Tell me where liberals and Democrats are right.

I will give you gay rights. That is one issue. So there. I don't think the Republicans are better on everything. Democrats are better on gay rights.

So since I admit that, can please shut up now?

[MNG]

Zoom! There goes that point!

[John]

So which is it MNG? I thought I was a shill. But I just admitted that yeah, you are right, I guess Democrats are better on gay rights. So am I no longer a shill? Maybe you were (gasp) wrong about something. Maybe. Maybe everyone who disagrees with you doesn't have bad motives? Maybe there are reasonable people who just disagree with you? Maybe life isn't a moral crusade against he evil others?

Think about it.

[MNG]

Now that John has had his two-hour hate of liberals for the day (likely moved on to another site for more) let me respond to the substance of his concern.

Where are Dems better? Well, better is a relative word. I don't pretend to be a libertarian so there are areas where I find the Dems to be "better" where a libertarian might not, for example I find them better on environmental protections and "worker rights."

Ironically there are areas where I think the GOP is better where libertarians would disagree with me to. I think if you look at polling data, the positions of recent Presidents and Presidential candidates and the votes of state and federal legislators for example it is clear that the GOP is more likely to favor immigration restrictions. I agree with that, though most libertarians would not.

Then there are areas where I think I and libertarians have to agree the GOP is better: a balanced budget amendment, not raising taxes, opposition to affirmative action and gun rights spring to mind.

But yes, I think there are areas where the Dems are better and many libertarians can agree. Roe v. Wade is more likely to be defended by the Dems and things like SSM or repeal of DADT. As Sullum noted here the other day Obama and Clinton targeted obscenity much less than did the Bush administration. And the past Dem administrations have been much less likely to engage in large scale wars or occupations.

[MNG]

"Maybe everyone who disagrees with you doesn't have bad motives? Maybe there are reasonable people who just disagree with you? Maybe life isn't a moral crusade against he evil others?"

This is an amazing statement coming from John.

In the same thread where I stated the GOP and conservatives were better imo than Dems/Liberals on many issues and he could not name one area vice versa I also named five GOPers that I admire and he could name no Dems. Even on this very site I praised Charles Murray, I admire lots of conservative thinkers, a ton in fact.

I just don't think much of your thinking John...YOU'RE the one who comes on here every day and pours the worst virtoil imaginable on all things liberal.

[John]

I just don't think much of your thinking John...

Tear

YOU'RE the one who comes on here every day and pours the worst virtoil imaginable on all things liberal.

Oh you poor baby.

[MNG]

I come here and pour virtiol on all things liberal?

You really are deranged in your hate John, deranged. I know you're butthurt over me calling out your warmongering, but spades r spades dude.

[Bradley]

Great thread, guys.

[John]

The Culpepper shooting gets more interesting.

CULPEPER, Va. - Virginia State Police say the Culpeper police officer who shot a middle-aged women, Thursday, did so because he was being dragged by the woman's car. 54-year-old Patricia Cook was killed by multiple shots fired by the officer.

Late Thursday morning, an unfamiliar vehicle driven by a woman appeared in the parking lot of the middle school building of Epiphany Catholic School in Culpeper. Police were called, and a town officer arrived to investigate.

Virginia State Police, who are conducting the investigation, say the responding town officer was conversing with Pat Cook, and, "while attempting to retrieve her identification, the woman suddenly closed her driver's side window, trapping the officer's arm and started driving away dragging the officer alongside. The officer repeatedly commanded the woman [to] stop the moving vehicle. She refused and shots were fired."

Cook's Jeep Wrangler wound up crashing into a utility pole about a block away. She was apparently dead at the scene.

Pat Cook's husband, Gary, is baffled by the explanation. Gary Cook said his wife's car had no power windows. "Crank [windows]," Cook explained, "old fashioned crank [windows]."

Culpeper Police have not identified the officer involved in the shooting, other than saying he is a five year veteran of the force. Witnesses have told reporters that the policeman fired his weapon multiple times. That's another puzzling issue to Gary Cook. "Why he would shoot a 54-year-old unarmed woman five or six times? I don't know. I can see shooting once for wounding. You know, to make her stop. But, five or six times?"

Pat Cook sometimes attended the Culpeper United Methodist Church, volunteering as an assistant in the children's religious education classes, according to Pastor Randy Orndorff.

Culpeper Town Police say the unidentified officer involved in the shooting sustained a "minor" injury in the incident. He is on administrative leave while Virginia State Police continue their investigation.

http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/new.....per-021012

[Ice Nine]

the woman suddenly closed her driver's side window, trapping the officer's arm and started driving away dragging the officer alongside. The officer repeatedly commanded the woman [to] stop the moving vehicle. She refused and shots were fired."
Cook's Jeep Wrangler wound up crashing into a utility pole about a block away.

The truth should lie in the condition of that cop's arm. If all of that story is true, that arm should be really screwed up now.

[John]

http://wusa9.com/news/article/.....e-Shooting

There is an eye witness who says that didn't happen. The Cop is lying.

And just what the hell is the matter with the school? Why did they call the cops because of a vehicle? They can't walk out and ask the woman what she is doing there? My God we have turned people into helpless government drones.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Manual crank windows and the cop's arm was trapped? I don't think so. It's quite frankly implausible even with automatic windows.

[Libertarians]

Yeah. If automatic windows were capable of trapping someone's arm, I would think there would have been a few lawsuits about that.

This case gets worse and worse. The women had no criminal record. She was unarmed. She lived in the area. I don't see a single justification for shooting her. This is flat out murder.

[o3]

cause civilans can freak when confronted by a cop. she WAS most likely ordered out but brain-locked so the cop reached-in to unlock & open the door. she freaked & drove-off

[JW]

1) The cop is lying and 2) You'd think the window would have shattered on the first shot, freeing his arm.

Any shot after that is plain, old, fucking murder.

[John]

Shooting out the window, even if you believe this cockamamie story, is depraved indifference. You can't just pull your arm out? Yeah, car windows are eating people's arms all of the time. Those things are killers I tell you.

[JW]

I was giving him the merest benefit of the doubt. A big, fucking IF.

[John]

I just don't understand why he would be so quick to shoot. Firing a weapon in anger is a big deal. There are tons of people in combat who can't do it. I can see if someone is breaking into your house or coming at you where you feel your life is threatened. But to do it just because they are driving off? You really are a danger to society if you will shoot someone so casually.

[JW]

To be honest, yeah, I can see that if a cop is reaching into the car for whatever reason, the window is only open enough to get his arm in and it's then closed, pinning it and then the driver takes off. I'd shoot too if I couldn't extract my arm. I have no desire to be road rash.

Of course, you have to ask why the fuck a cop is reaching into a car with a middle-aged woman to begin with. Order the occupant out and then reach in.

This all assumes that the cop isn't a lying liar.

[Tulpa]

Power windows have come under some scrutiny after several fatal accidents in which children's necks have become trapped, leading to suffocation. Some designs place the switch in a location on a hand rest where it can be accidentally triggered by a child climbing to place his or her head out of the window. To prevent this, many vehicles feature a driver-controlled lockout switch, preventing rear-seat passengers (usually smaller children) from accidentally triggering the switches. This also prevents children from using them as toys and pets riding with their heads out windows from activating the power window switch.

Starting with the 2008 model year, U.S. government regulations required automakers to install power window controls that are less likely to be accidentally activated by children.[10] However, the rules do not prevent all potential injuries to a hand, finger, or even a child's head, if someone deliberately holds the switch when the window is closing. In 2009, the U.S. auto safety administration tentatively decided against requiring all cars to have automatic reversing power windows if they sense an obstruction while closing.[11] Proposed requirements concern "one-touch" up window systems, but most vehicles with this feature already have automatic-reversing.[12] The federal government made a written contract that all automakers should make the lever switches (as opposed to the rocker and toggle switches) standard on all new vehicles by 1 October 2010.[13]

[John]

Interesting Tulpa. But at least according the women's husband, the car had hand cranked not power windows.

[Tulpa]

Nice that you cite a disinterested party.

[John]

Why would he lie? And it is not like the media and the police can't check.

[cynical]

It's not exactly a difficult claim to verify.

[Fist of Etiquette]

State police say Cook rolled up the window, catching the officer's arm inside, and then dragged him.

Buchele says it didn't happen that way. He describes an encounter which looked and sounded like the officer shooting a person a point blank range, not because he feared for his life, but because the woman did not obey his order to stop rolling up the window.

Kris Buchele will be recanting his story of events in the near future. Either that, or we're going to hear about him being charged in an unrelated incident.

[John]

I don't think they will be able to cover this one up. This is flat out murder. Sadly, that means the cop will get involuntary manslaughter and get two years. But his career will be ruined. Woo Hoo.

[?]

How do you know?

[John]

I don't. But considering the past track record of holding cops responsible for shootings, I am not optimistic.

[robc]

What did the ATL cops get for murdering Kathryn Johnston and then lying about it?

Thats how we know.

Hopefully this will be different, but I doubt it.

[John]

A few years in prison. And I think they got that more for making up a fake warrant than for killing Johnson.

I was thinking more of the BART cop that shot the guy allegedly mistaking his pistol for his tazer. He got what? Two years? Or what did the other California cop who killed the guy walking down the street whittling get? Not much as I remember. Given those cases, I would be shocked if this guy spends more than a year or two in prison for this.

[robc]

A few years in prison.

It was a rhetorical question. I know what they got, that was my point. I was agreeing with you because they didnt get murder convictions.

[John]

I know you were agreeing rob. I was just thinking about the BART cop as another good example of this. I would not be shocked if he walked out of this a free man.

[JSebastian]

Yah but if there is actually justice then someone who remembers his crimes will be waiting for him when he is released so he can pay fully for his crimes. That's right...people tend to remember shit like their family or friend getting murdered.

[JN - Sec HS]

If you see something, say something.?

? New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority

[Maxxx]

"while attempting to retrieve her identification, the woman suddenly closed her driver's side window, trapping the officer's arm and started driving away dragging the officer alongside.

Wouldn't it be easy to break the window and free his arm if that were true?

[John]

Or move your arm out of the way before it traps you? And her husband said the car had hand rolled windows. So how does the women roll up the window so fast that he traps the cop's arm?

[Tulpa]

No. Auto glass is quite tough to break, hence those little window-breaker contraptions they sell as part of travel safety kits.

[Maxxx]

It's hard to break from the outside and easy from the inside. When I was a kid, I shattered a car window while making out with a girlfriend, with my elbow, it didn't even hurt.

Anyway the cop could have used his free hand to grab and jerk the partially rolled up window and it would have shattered enough for him to free himself, which would exactly be the instinctual thing to do. That actually would take less time than drawing his gun and firing.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Yes, but he'd have to drop the gun, and then what would he use to shoot the disobedient little old lady?

BTW, how is 54 middle aged? Do many people live to 109?

[squarooticus]

Fuck slavers and warmongers: I have nothing of substance in common with you. That is all.

[John]

It is just shocking no one ever votes Libertarian with winning slogans like that.

[flacid tuna]

^^^ might be a moocher

[Libertarians]

If only those idiotic, lazy ass, statist voters would ever like us. Don't those dumb fucking hillbillies know what is good for them? Which is generally shut the fuck up and vote how we tell them to.

[Ska]

Yes, I hear this sort of sentiment from libertarians all the time.

*facepalm*

[John]

Do you read hit and run much?

[Ska]

Yeah, I do. Do you see a lot of libertarians telling people how to vote? I generally see people saying they won't vote, or that they'll vote for the libertarian candidate, or that they'll vote for X because he's the least evil of the turd sandwich/giant douche coalition, or that they'll hold their nose and vote candidate X, or that they'll vote Y to punish X. But I don't really see "STFU and vote Z!!"

[Tony]

Not as much as libertarians want to tell people how to live, against their will.

[Tony]

...but it's okay when WE do that, of course.

[Killazontherun]

Unbending ideologues or unprincipled hypocrites, you just can't decide what you hate about us the most can you, Tony?

[Sevo]

Tony|2.11.12 @ 1:18PM|#
"Not as much as libertarians want to tell people how to live, against their will."

Says shithead with the gun.

[The Pointer-Outer]

You just described liberals, Libertarians. They use terms like "hillbillies" all the time.

[Blue Statist]

We usually call them Christ-fags, Tea Baggers, and NASCAR fans.

[Mr. FIFY]

...while decrying "hate speech" out of the other side of their mouths...

[squarooticus]

H&R is a safe place for me to tell people what I really think. "Fuck you, slaver" almost never comes up in conversations elsewhere. Almost.

[robc]

Its "fuck off, slaver", get it right. Not that your version doesnt work too.

I dont know why it wouldnt be a winning electoral slogan, who supports slavery other than slavers?

[robc]

"Fuck off, slaver" is the slogan that allowed the GOP to bury the Whigs.

Of course, when the slavers tried to fuck off, Lincoln got all pissed.

[Bill]

I agree with John. We need a new slogan. How about: "Screw you, statist!" ??

[John]

LOL. At some point you have to convince people. You can't do that by calling them assholes. It may make you feel better. But it doesn't help your cause much.

[Killazontherun]

How 'bout, 'hey, you get to keep your property!'

[CatoTheElder]

"Get off my lawn."

[A Suggestion]

How about leaving out the sarcasm and ad hominem and posse formation and all the other logical fallacies that are the hallmark of chat rooms and instead focus on what you believe to be libertarianism's merits? Then maybe more people would take you seriously. Or are you not interested in what serious people think? Serious people do not parrot, "Fuck off, slaver!" as if it were an axiom.

[Ice Nine]

How about taking a laxative and join in some of the fun?

[John]

That wasn't me. Honest.

[Killazontherun]

You relish being a scold and have fun with it, that dude treats it like it is his solemn duty. Like a guppy in a fish take frowning as he lets out oxygen.

[John]

What? I can't have fun?

[Killazontherun]

The mildly trollish guy who comes in here with different names and jabs at libertarians like A Suggestion|2.11.12 @ 11:08AM|# he sounds like he needs to get laid.

[Killazontherun]

Take for tank? That's a slant that would even embarrass a hack like WBY.

[John]

I am not the Suggestion guy. I generally do not use fake names.

[The Pointer-Outer]

While "fuck off, slaver" may not sound all frilly and sweet, it _does_ cut the bullshit out of the argument.

[shamalamadingdong]

First you need to get a clear, publicly shared understanding of what a "statist" is.

[Joshua Corning]

Perhaps the republican party should stop being the pro war party.

[Francisco d Anconia]

I caught that too. Inconceivable there are those who would argue war should be waged as anything other than an absolute last resort.

[Thomas O.]

I'd be happy if they'd just stop being the anti-gay party. I'm sure GOProud & the Log Cabiners would agree with me.

[Tulpa]

"I have no problem with them entering the political fray at the highest possible levels and saying 'We want Ron Paul for the presidency,' but they seem conspicuously absent from the trenches where it really counts, where they really exist right now," he said.

Dear Andrew Breitbart,

FUCK YOU.

College campus speech? Those are "the trenches"? How about the drug war, eminent domain abuse, and an insane foreign policy?

[John]

I don't get that either. Fuck college campuses. Everyone knows they are a liberal propaganda factories and discounts them appropriately. And the higher education bubble is about to burst anyway.

He needs to get over settling scores from college.

[Joshua Corning]

They are not even successful propaganda factories.

people with bachelors degrees are disproportionately conservative.

liberals with masters degrees or higher drank the koolaid before they ever started college.

[o3]

a no-true-scotsman masters degree eh?

[cynical]

Pretty much. Might as well go to church to argue with conservatives.

[John]

Depends. Some churches are pretty liberal. I think Breitbart's thing is that he thinks liberals control all of the institutions in society, like Hollywood and especially education. So he thinks of the front lines being the fight for the civic institutions liberals have perverted for political ends.

He has a point to a degree. The problem is that those institutions are too far gone to be worth fighting for. Better to avoid them all together and create alternatives that beat them in the marketplace letting the old institutions die from neglect.

[robc]

And like with churches, there are more conservative-leaning schools too.

Like, for example, major engineering schools that arent a part of a school with wide-ranging majors.

Just speaking from personal experience here.

[John]

These things have a way or working themselves out. Higher Ed only hurts itself by being so mindlessly liberal. New more open institutions will eventually replace it if it doesn't change. Better to build those. Does Breitbart really think he is going to make a place like Harvard conservative? Talk about tilting at windmills.

[o3]

evidently you graduated a loong time ago.

[Joshua Corning]

This is the best on-topic observation of the thread by the way.

Not that there is anything wrong with being off topic.

[Cytotoxic]

Got to agree with Tulpa here. It's almost like he wants to dump us somewhere out of the way.

[Realist]

Aaahhh the Saturday morning pissing matches.

[Name withheld]

Stop talking to it.
Morons.

[Rather]

Yes, less discussion is always an intelligent course

[o3]

w/in the conservative know-nothing movement, banal invectives & absurd pronouncments are favored over discussion.

>example from a recent bar conversation:

self-pronounced conservative: global warming is a conspiracy promoted by radicals who want to control our lives.

me: the geologic record shows 6 iceages & 6 meltoffs w the most recent melt just 12,000 yrs ago. do you deny geologic science & the historical record of climate change? are u saying that cannot happen ever again?

him: you're a leftist.

end of discussion

[The Pointer-Outer]

"Hope and Change"
"tax the rich"
"hillbillies"

[o3]

campaign slogineering, meant to fundraise on the left n right, are antithetical to discussion.

[The Pointer-Outer]

I think they are *crucial*, not antithetical.

[Mike E]

The only time I ever see John and MNG is when they are bitching at each other. I never notice them apart.

[John]

That is because we are both the same person. MNG lives in my head. Ten years of therapy, electro shock therapy, and every med known to mankind, hasn't been able to kill him.

In all seriousness. People say Tony doesn't exist. MNG doesn't exist. It is probably time to admit I created him to troll you guys. If MNG didn't exist, and he doesn't, he had to be created.

😉

[Rather]

MNG lives in your dick?
-that explains libertarianism

[cynical]

Twist ending: This is a lie. MNG is actually the dominant personality, and created John to troll us.

[John]

LOL. It is a constant battle. Some days each is dominant. No one is really sure who created whom.

[Rather]

Hmm MNG is an acronym for Mister Nice Guy; how would that fit?

[John]

He is my liberal conscience that went horrible bad somewhere along the line.

[Rather]

I knew you were a spoof right off; John is so emotional
-he's be fun watching a chick flick

[Rather]

BTW, why are you torturing him? He's a puppy

[John]

I should be nicer. You are right.

[Rather]

I do have a list of pricks who do need a reaping lesson..too bad I don't know you; you'd so enjoy why they have a baby boy vendetta

[Circling Roadside Buzzard]

Shut up, bitch!

[Rather]

Are you suggesting that their argument is a foreplay?

[Rather]

Can you have foreplay with oneself? Or, is it just masturbation? Is a hot bath foreplay?

[Robert]

It can be, with my bubble mixture! Or even a cool one when it's hot. See link.

[Rather]

I have and you need a female to do your marketing

[Tony]

"The purpose of libertarianism isn't to seize the levers of power and force libertarianism down everyone's throats."

I just have to laugh at this.

[Old Mexican]

Re: Tiny,

I just have to laugh at this.

You laugh at everything. You should take your risperidone.

[Tommy Jones]

Dude know he is totally rocking it. Wow.

http://www.anon-stuff.tk

[AD-RtR/OS!]

Painting with a very broad brush:
Most Libertarians IMO don't give a rat's ass what the Fed Gov't in particular, or gov't generally, is doing as long as they are not being busted for their dope use.
Not a very high standard of political awareness or involvement.

[Circling Roadside Buzzard]

Gee, GOP. In search of some new friends all of a sudden? The stench of flop sweat is in heavy in the air. I still remember George W. Bush and his promises for smaller government and a humble foreign policy. Ha Ha. Enjoy four more years of European Socialism. This is what you have sown, GOP.

P.S. Breitbart is a conniving monkey from southern California. My instincts tell me he's figured out that being a mouthpiece for the Limbaugh party is better than being a janitor in Oxnard.