Is Bill Maher Right That "Libertarians Have to Stop Ruining Libertarianism"?

On a recent episode of his HBO show, Bill Maher created a "new rule" concerning libertarians:

Libertarians have to stop ruining libertarianism! Or at least do a better job of explaining the difference between today's libertarian and just being a selfish prick. Now, many years ago on a television network far, far away, I expressed support for libertarianism because back then it meant I didn't want big government in my bedroom, in my medicine chest, and especially not in the second drawer of the nightstand on the left side of my bed. And I still believe that. But somewhere along the way, libertarianism morphed into this creepy obsession with free-market capitalism based on an Ayn Rand called Atlas Shrugged, a book that's never been read all the way through by anybody with a girlfriend….

Libertarians also hate Medicare and Social Security and there are problems with those programs but here's the thing: It beats stepping over lepers and watching human skeletons shit in the river and I also like not seeing those things. I'm selfish that way!

Hat tip: Mediaite's Josh Feldman and Garrett Quinn.

Watch the whole bit before weighing in. Sure, Maher's rant is filled with various cliches (Ayn Rand, nerd jokes, conflation of regulation and safety, etc) and elisions. It's also funny - and a pretty interesting and coherent glimpse into the way that libertarians are viewed by left-leaning liberals. Maher stresses that he didn't "leave libertarianism"; rather the movement went "nuts."

You can dismiss everything he says easily, logically, emotionally and bring up all the myriad ways in which he's just WRONG WRONG WRONG and how he's really a COMMIE DOUCHEBAG who hates womenz and all that (that is what unmoderated comments sections are for, right?).

But for anybody interested in growing the influence and impact of liberatarian ideas, it's worth thinking about the ways in which the libertarian identity fails to move a guy who is anti-prohibition, anti-empire (belatedly!), pro free expression, and pro-much more that falls in line with a libertarian perspective. For better or worse, a Venn diagram of Maher and libertarianism is going to show a huge amount of overlap on things. The same is common among right-wingers too, where many people agree with libertarians on anywhere from 50 percent to 90 percent of issues but recoil from any association with the label or the beautiful, clean-smelling, super-smart, and just-swell folks who self-identify as libertarian.

Without betraying core values, are there ways we can reach these simpatico folks on the right or the left, so as to kickstart (perpetuate!) what Matt Welch and I once bravely called "The Libertarian Moment" and wrote a whole book about?

Comments

[kinnath]

Bill, Step One is Shut the Fuck Up!

[Mike M.]

Step two, Bill, is go die in a fire.

[alice846]

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[MikeP]

Nice placement algorithm, WorkAtHomeBot!

Oh, and Nine-hundred-and-eighty-ninth!

[Bruce Majors]

So one can be a bitter, aging, ugly queen without actually being gay! Who knew?

[John Galt]

Astute observation.

[deified]

So now I have to rip off my own unanesthetized, scrotum so that some Hollywood halfwit conspiracy-peddling clown can embrace libertarianism, the fundamental idea of which is that adults should be treated as autonomous decision-makers.

Maher is pervert and a retard who flirted with libertarianism when the Democrats weren't stroking his cocaine-addled, laser-thin, shriveled excuse-for-a-cock on social issues.

He has no tolerance for the idea that people who don't agree with his preferred lifestyle should be able to manage their own affairs.

It's only when his ox was getting gored did he find the concept of liberty and pluralism useful.

Nick, what happened man? You used to be cool. Remember that time when you told MeMe Roth that you had her food regulation right here?

Now you're a faint-hearted wimp. Real men, as well as H&R's two(2) regular female commenters, are embarrassed to be in the same room as you.

If this goes on, we can only conclude that Ann Coulter and her Adam's Apple are right and that libertarians ARE pussies.

Now apologize for your weakness in the face of the enemy and we may--MAY--let you have your jacket back, and possibly return to addressing you as "The free-market Fonz."

Don't let this happen again.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Do you feel the same disgust when that freedom-hating Glenn Beck claims to be a libertarian?

It is amazing how the tiny population of libertarians mirror the same culture wars the two major parties wage.

[Cytotoxic]

It's amazing what a dipshit you are.

[Palin's Buttplug]

You are a Beckerhead conservative. There is little wonder you have no cogent response.

[Cytotoxic]

Do you have a list of meaningless labels you just throw out at random? Spin the wheel and pick whatever the arrow points to?

[John Galt]

You only understand the word cogent because your psychiatrist feeds you Cogentin to help with the side effects of your snowing Haldol treatments.

By the way, nice pick of nicks "buttplug." You certainly are.

[Hopfiend]

I tend to stay away from ad hominem but you are a tremendously simple person.

[fish_remote]

Do you feel the same disgust when that freedom-hating Glenn Beck claims to be a libertarian?

Yes! God yes! Almost as much as when I have to suffer through your pretending to understand business finance and Tony claiming to understand how to cogently craft government policy.

We all suffer here shreeky!

[Rights-Minimalist Autocrat]

Do you feel the same disgust when that freedom-hating Glenn Beck claims to be a libertarian?

Yes. Do you feel that way about Maher?

[Plato 18]

I actually have a tear in my eye with pride and laughter at the above comments. Maher is a disgusting misogynist dandy boy pig. The thought that Nick would even entertain some kind of outreach to him is utterly ridiculous and frankly incredibly disappointing.Why does everyone seem to lose their balls when they go on his show??? Liberals are the fucking enemy - Period end of story and filth like Maher do deserve a moment of time or thought!

[Palin's Buttplug]

Conservatives are the fucking enemy - be they the Middle Eastern Islamo-Fascist type or the Christo-Fascists here in the USA.

[Cytotoxic]

Shut up retard.

[Irish]

How much power do the Christo-Fascists have, shrieking idiot?

They're a left-wing boogey man, but leftists are a constant threat to individual freedom, whereas the religious right is so irrelevant that during the 2012 Republican primary, Santorum won 11 states by popular vote and Romney won 42. Romney tripled Santorum's vote count. That's in the Republican primary, where only the most hardcore conservatives come out.

So if the religious right is so powerful, why is it that they got blasted by a total RINO in an election that self selects for the most right wing voters?

[Palin's Buttplug]

Enough to elect a born-again idiot in 2000 that sought to remake the Middle East on our $6 trillion.

[darius404]

Really? Yet Dear Leader's practically his eviler twin, despite not being religious at all. Try again, cockpuppet.

[fish_remote]

Shreeky.....

No CHRISTFAG? You're slipping!

[Blueman]

Shut the fuck up, Donnie.

[Duke]

"The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good."

[Brutus]

The brass ring for the Left is complete economic hegemony. They will jettison any and all to gain that power. Nothing else matters. That's why guys like Maher are lost causes.

[Jerryskids]

First of all, don't believe Maher necessarily believes half the crap he says. He is first and foremost an entertainer, he says what he thinks will get the biggest reaction.

I think he wrote a book about religious nuts and stuck specifically to a certain type of religious nut - namely the ones who write nasty letters when you offend them and very pointedly not the ones who issue fatwahs and suicide-bomb your place of business when you offend them. That ought to tell you how seriously and deeply-held Mahers convictions are.

That being said, I agree that libertarians should reach out to non-libertarians in whatever way they can, attempting to educate or persuade them rather than alienating them or simply writing them off as a lost cause, but you can't ignore the fact that some people really are lost causes. I would no more waste my time attempting to argue with Bill Maher that free markets do a better job of addressing human desires than unfree markets do than I would Eleanor Roosevelt.

[Cyto]

Maher's convictions are solid and solidly founded. Despite any specific policy leanings he might have toward freedom, he lives in Hollywood. The tribal instinct is incredibly strong. Five or ten years of social pressure were enough to make sure he didn't stray from the herd and returned to team blue.

When I was a kid "libertarians are crazy druggies" was the meme from the right to keep their adherents in line. Now the left has to use all of their tools to keep their minions in line. Libertarians must be labeled as crazy, otherwise the two tribes don't get to practice their corporatism unfettered by principles.

That's why anyone who starts having any traction with libertarian ideas is instantly labeled a kook. They did it to Ron Paul. Look at how much they are throwing at Rand Paul. The left will instantly label any successful Republican "evil", and both tribes will instantly label any libertarian who can get in front of a microphone "crazy".

[Rights-Minimalist Autocrat]

You should watch Religulous. He does talk about the fatwah nuts.

[YoureWrong]

That's not a very libertarian sentiment.

[jesse.in.mb]

Good look with that Pantsfan. The fun conversation is way down low now and people need to know about Irish's love of ladyboys.

(see how I circumnavigated your line, Pantsfan!?)

[Archduke Pantsfan]

DO NOT READ BELOW THIS LINE
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[Best Of All Possible Tyrannies]

Heeey!

[Best Of All Possible Tyrannies]

Atlas Shrugged, a book that's never been read all the way through by anybody with a girlfriend....

He's right about this. I read it the first time in 1981, and I didn't have a girlfriend. I had three, and they were roommates.

[Jerry on the boat]

Oh, so you were just starting a cult!

[Best Of All Possible Tyrannies]

Maybe if had been able to keep the situation going for more than for that summer!

[prolefeed]

But somewhere along the way, libertarianism morphed into this creepy obsession with free-market capitalism based on an Ayn Rand called Atlas Shrugged, a book that's never been read all the way through by anybody with a girlfriend...

That could be technically true for me, since I had a wife at the time I read Atlas Shrugged, and I got the GF afterwards.

I think Maher is using a lot of words to say, "I'm a liberal who is good at what liberals are supposed to be good at, and liked libertarians for that, and didn't understand that libertarians are about freedom on economic matters too, which I'm not for."

[Suthenboy]

I think you nailed it prolefeed. However, you can be sure it is not just economic freedom he hates. He would be just as heavy handed as any socon with respect to enforcing his vision of acceptable social behavior given the chance.

And fuck you Bill Maher. I read it Atlas cover to cover and had a girlfriend. We fucked like rabbits every day and I kept her very happy in every way, and yet managed to slog through the entire novel.

Bill, you hate Atlas for the same reason my liberal acquaintances do; you start reading it and you recognize yourself in some of the characters and it makes you very uncomfortable to see what a despicable shit you are. Atlas Shrugged is to liberals what a cross is to a vampire.

[ThatSkepticGuy]

Like most Liberals, I doubt Bill Maher has so much as even ever held a copy of Atlas Shrugged, much less even knows who Ayn Rand is.

He just knows his job is to drool and bark when he hears the bell.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

The reason that most people are not libertarian (or don't identify as such) is very simple: most people don't care about politics, and the few who do tend to be invested in their pet issues or in politics as a team phenomena. Libertarians tend to be very intense about their politics, which repels people in the "don't care" group, and tend to be exclusionary, which repels the pet issue people and those who are sympathetic.

Libertarianism as a political philosophy will never win big in this country for the same reasons that doctrinaire socialism or any other systemizing ideology will not win big. Liberty friendly movements, OTOH, can do very well.

[VG Zaytsev]

I think that we overrate the number of hard core team partisans that are out there. Most people don't give a shit and think all politicians are scum.

I think the reason that libertarians have trouble reaching people is that they've internalized a religious respect for government as a result of 12-20 years of indoctrination in the school system.

Telling them that government is the problem is like telling a true believer that god never existed.

[Sevo]

"Telling them that government is the problem is like telling a true believer that god never existed."

Yep:
"FDR ended the great depression!"
"Social Security means old people don't starve!"
"Robber barons!"
None of those or similar concepts were questioned through 12th grade.

[JW]

The main problem is that people, by and large, are venal and self-centered, who, in turn, vote for even more venal and self-centered people as their masters. Repeatedly. They vote for corrupted and mendacious individuals who don't promise them greater liberty, but more free shit. More something for nothing, and they like that. More of something they don't have to lift a finger or move their fat ass to accomplish, all the while getting to proclaim their empathy and compassion. Win-win.

To embrace an idea such as libertarianism or minarchy or anarchy requires the self to admit and understand that sometimes bad things will happen that have no answer, no real solution. It requires an admission that you have to cede control over your neighbor and neighborhood and people, quite simply, aren't willing to do that. Their neighbor could do something they don't like and the idea that they have no say in it is unthinkable. Just look at Maher's comments, or for that matter, any comments of any mainstream newspaper (actually don't--it's like looking the Medusa).

I applaud Nick and Matt for maintaining a positive and optimistic outlook on the potential of a libertarian nation, or even one that's partially libertarian, but I just don't see that happening. Ever.

(cont)

[JW]

...What is the most pressing need of our nation at the moment? Stopping the wars and killing overseas? Stopping the incarceration of hundreds of thousands of people for crimes that have no victim? Improving our economy? Simplifying the tax code? No, that gays get to marry and that we go through the Kabuki theater of keeping guns away from scary people while accomplishing nothing. Oh, and whatever we do, make sure we fuck the rich and nail them to ground.

We are, in short order, quite fucked. And it's only going to get worse.

[SQRLSY One]

Hi JW, Sad to say, I suspect you're right, it's only gonna get worse. You hit a bunch of stuff right on the nail's head. You did NOT mention SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS, which I beleive is why SO many people can NOT come around to see the pro-freedom viewpoint. To me, it is WAY simple: Treat others the way I like to be treated. I do NOT like to be treated like a baby who is too immature to own myself, my body, my freedom... My moral superiors must "take care of me", my charity choices, and on and on. SO many people can see the pro-freedom viewpoint... Except for THEIR favorite pet issue where they want to be self-righteous moralistic busy-bodies, and THAT is why they will never really endorse simple FREEDOM. The Bible-bangers miss a simple thing: The ONE thing Jesus condemned most often and most harshly, was self-righteousness, and in my old-geezer days, I now see why...

[Nooge.]

Libertarians are the only political type who, ostensibly, want to give themselves less power, should they ever get in power. People's heads invariably explode when I try to explain this to them.

There's also the small point that I do not believe people need to be ruled. Lead, yes. Taught, perhaps. But not ruled. That is way too scary a concept for, probably, most of the human race.

Also, the personality types that seem to be drawn to libertarianism (big or small "L") do not, generally, seem to be the types of people who enjoy being on teams. I don't want to overgeneralize, of course, but people who prefer individual initiative and effort over group activities are going to a priori have a more difficult time organizing themselves into coherent bits of easily digested policy talking points. Which, again, is what most people seem to need, as THAT helps with TEAM identification.

[Episiarch]

Without betraying core values, are there ways we can reach these simpatico folks on the right or the left

The problem, Nick, is that they are not simpatico. People like Maher can roughly be described as "as long as it doesn't affect or annoy me" liberals. They have zero capacity to logically extend their tolerance for certain things they like to certain things they don't like. Sure, Maher wants you out of his bedroom. But does he want you to be able to allow or disallow smoking on your property as you see fit? Sure, he wants to be able to smoke weed when he wants to. But does he want you to be able to take experimental medicines without the FDA's approval?

The problem with this approach is that people who cannot extend the concept of liberty past their own habits are not going to be compatible with actual, honest-to-goodness proponents of liberty. Because they just don't actually get it. If you can't realize that liberty is for everyone and everything that doesn't harm someone else, you will eventually go statist. And that means you are the problem, not the solution.

[RBS]

I'm getting pretty tired of Nick asking us to give up some principles just to make people like Maher like libertarians a little more when clearly they have zero interest in liberty outside of their pet causes.

[Episiarch]

I understand what he's trying to do, I just think he's engaging in wishful thinking. It is a rare person who can truly conceive of and approve of actual liberty for everyone. Anyone who is capable of this will arrive there pretty soon. If someone like, say, Bill Maher, hasn't arrived there yet, he never will. It sucks, but it's true, and he needs to stop wasting his time.

[RBS]

I get it too, I just think it's retarded.

[Cytotoxic]

It is getting very very tiresome. We tried Nick, they don't want to play.

[AReasonableMan]

How does "Without betraying core values" become "Nick asking us to give up some principles"?

I thought he was talking about different ways of presenting ideas to be more persuasive. I tend to agree with Episiarch that it's just not true that Maher and people like him (ideologically) are really close to libertarian. They have psychological obstacles to extending liberty that no rhetorical flourishes will overcome.

[RBS]

Maher thinks dedication to free markets is somehow "creepy." To appeal to people who feel this way you would have to make some concessions, like free markets for somethings but government can control other things.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Maher is anti Free Market Capitalism, see his quote. From his flamboyant political donation history, he has no problem with Crony Capitalism.

Somehow this "free market" nuance of libertarianism came as a surprise to him.

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

"How does "Without betraying core values" become "Nick asking us to give up some principles"?"

That's the easiest question EVER posed on this site. Answer: because our core values don't just include, but depend upon, our embracing of free market economics. Without capitalism, a "libertarian" is just a douchbag who wants to smoke pot and watch porn. And if he doesn't have any good porn, watching videos of the State taking other people's property or shrinking their liberty will get him off.

How can our fault be that we are obsessed with the very thing that makes us prosperous and free? What the fuck????

Maher is not a libertarian. He's a statist dickhead who likes to pretend he's pro-freedom.

[John Galt]

*applause* Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Chris Mallory]

Gay marriage, abortion, food trucks, and Cosmotarian invites to the trendy cocktail parties are all that people who love freedom should be concerned about!

[SIV]

You left out "taxed and regulated marijuana", government funded fetal stem cell research and of course, "freedom from religion".

[Austrian Anarchy]

Not just gay marriage, licensed gay marriage. You don't get those 1138 federal marriage perks without the magic ticket! Unrelated pairs of two, and only two, may apply.

[Muzzle of Bees]

I don't believe Nick is asking us to give up our principles. I think instead that he recognizes a strategic advantage in responding to comments like Maher's with some amount of grace and a measured tone rather than with emotionalism and profanity, as deserved as that might be.

Take it from someone who discovered libertarianism but two summers ago. I was raised right-wing and had been steadily moving hard leftward during and after college. As much as liberals like Maher are snarky, self-congratulatory douchehammers, they don't respond well to conceitedness or vitriol from the other side. It's why Rush Limbaugh isn't going to convert many liberals (not that he's a libertarian, but it's late and I'm having trouble thinking of a better example). Milton Friedman, on the other hand, had and continues to have success in that regard, due in large part I believe to always keeping his cool and appearing more thoughtful than passionate (though both, of course, have their place). That's what drew me to watching 30-year-old videos on YouTube.

People, liberals even, are coming around to the libertarian philosophy. I and probably several others on here are evidence of that. It may not be happening at a rate that is of much significance, but I think we should be ever mindful of our presentation.

That being said, Nick's gotta know the crowd that actually reads Reason. He could throw us a bone; everyone knows that Maher's mouthwords are less meaningful than a protracted flatulence.

[Cyto]

Well, that and the fact that most every college student rebels against his parent and moves leftward. That old saw about under 30 heart, over 30 brain exists for a reason, you know.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Exactly, and how anybody, especially Nick, bought into his libertarian act is astonishing.

It is as impossible to get Maher into libertarianism as it is to get a "marriage equality" organizer to support marriage equality. They advocate statist licensing, but not for everybody.

As for Nick's analysis, how do you get from a quote like this, "But somewhere along the way, libertarianism morphed into this creepy obsession with free-market capitalism" to a belief that Maher knew any more about libertarianism than how to say the word? How do you accept Maher's formulation that libertarians are all Objectivists?

It makes no more sense than these:

"Years ago I was a Christian, but then something weird happened. All these Jesus freaks showed up and started preaching on Wednesdays and Sundays. I didn't leave the church, it left me!" - So how do we reach out to a guy like this who is pro-religious freedom ...

"I was a vegan, many years ago in a McDonald's far, far away. Then something weird happened. Some asshole ruined it by putting meat on the menu!" - So how do reach out to a guy like this who obviously appreciates food ...

"I was a Muslim a while back, but when they began that praying five times per day business, I just couldn't take it anymore." - So, brothers and sisters, how can we reach out to someone who has so much on common with us yet he recoils from the label?

(I didn't read all 900+ comments, so if others noticed the obvious my apologies)

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Yep. And let's be honest here -- this problem is particularly the case for moderates, liberals, and the branches of conservatism that emerged as power-brokers in the 00s. In general, people have no motivation to support freedom, and rarely see extending freedom as a priority even if they think it's a good thing as a secondary or tertiary value.

[JW]

In general, people have no motivation to support freedom, and rarely see extending freedom as a priority even if they think it's a good thing as a secondary or tertiary value.

It's not even on the radar any longer. Freedom is just another word for having to try harder. And less free shit for me.

I know supposedly smart people who have apoplexy over the idea that someone has more, or makes more, money than them. That simply can't stand.

[tarran]

Yes, but you aren't going to ever fight human nature. Most people are always going to believe they should be free and the other guy should be stopped from doing immoral/annoying things.

A free society must somehow deal with the existence of such people and to block their tyrannical impulses from becoming reality.

[Episiarch]

I agree. That's why I propose dismantling all structures which technically give certain people power over others. If you want to have power over others, then you had better be prepared to overtly, obviously try and take it, with no bullshit about monopolies on force and "the law".

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

I'll settle for dismantling the narrative that supports them, but yeah, this.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Given your (pessimistic but plausible) belief that only a tiny minority of people are currently open to the full implications of liberty, how do you plan to accomplish this dismantling of power structures?

[califernian]

It's not going to happen. Ever. But it's what SHOULD happen.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

The very fact that he thinks he didn't "leave" but that we went "nuts" means he never really got liberty. Liberty is nuts--by which I mean genuinely radical. If you start from the right first principles, you end up nuts with us. Period.

[RBS]

If Maher's being honest with himself he "left" libertarianism when his progtard friends found the Great Libertarian Boogeyman. Either way he obviously never really got liberty so why would we want him as an ally?

[CatoTheElder]

Agree completely: Maher never was a libertarian.

He's a snarky statist who likes the libertarian distinction between crime and vice, especially as it applies to vices that he approves of.

[Blueman]

"Agree completely: Maher never was a libertarian."

This.

[Austrian Anarchy]

He "left" libertarianism when someone pointed out the WikiPedia entry to him.

[tarran]

I agree. Bill Maher doesn't understand liberty. He just hated Bush, and wanted to look edgy, so he claimed to be have this weird fringe political philosophy.

And the more he got exposed to it, the more unhappy he became with it.

Basically, his relationship with libertarianism is following the same arc as that of Eric Dondero.

[Zeb]

He actually claimed to be libertarian, or at least sympathetic, before Bush, when he had Politically Incorrect. He seemed a bit more open to the economic freedom stuff back then too, I thought. THough it may be that that was at the beginning of my change from just being sort of culturally liberal to firmly libertarian.

[Michael S. Langston]

I agree that he used to be much more open to freedom in general...

And then he got fired. I think due to massive support towards him and endless "you're the smartest guy on tv and they fire you?" crap, he went full retard.

He started to believe he was great and knew much better than others how things should be (he believed before this he was smarter than most others, but didn't initially have the arrogance to believe his ideas should be actual policy for everyone else).

& simply stated: this kind of arrogance is antithetical to liberty.

[Episiarch]

Exactly. To be truly in support of liberty is a radical idea, since it unfortunately deviates so much from what we would consider "standard" human behavior. If you are capable of that radical thinking, you will inevitably go there sooner than later. If you're Maher's age and not there? You will never arrive.

[prolefeed]

If you are capable of that radical thinking, you will inevitably go there sooner than later.

Not so sure about that. My brother used to be pretty libertarian, but then he became a firefighter and got comfortable with the notion of his paycheck coming from looting others.

[Stormy Dragon]

Socialism doesn't work for power any better than it does for money. There are always going to be people who have more power than the other people around them.

[Jerryskids]

Look at where libertarianism started with the split between Rockefeller and Goldwater Republicans and look at where government was then compared to now. Can anyone seriously believe that the distance between libertarianism and the status quo has grown so much larger because it is the libertarians who have moved?

[Austrian Anarchy]

Maher indicated in the quote that this "free market capitalism" was a new introduction. Unless he was into it during the John Locke days and just got thawed from a glacier, he is nothing but a flaming lying clown.

[John]

Exactly. People like Maher love small government as long as it is in areas he likes and considers important. And also notice too, the areas Maher wants to get the government out of, also allow him to fuck with people he doesn't like.

I trust anyone who says they believe in liberty until they want to support liberty for someone they don't like doing something they object to. Until I see that, their commitment is usually just an excuse to get what they want and fuck with people they don't like.

[The Heresiarch]

I found it particularly interesting that he praises the libertarianism he likes (government out of the bedroom, out of the decision to smoke weed) yet seems to think that opposition to seat-belt laws is wacky, without noticing that the underlying reasoning of both bans is the same. A series of ad hominem attacks does not an argument make, and heaven forbid he should investigate first principles.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

and heaven forbid he should investigate first principles

This

[IceTrey]

You have to realize that the liberty of a liberal is not our liberty. We believe in negative liberty, i.e. freedom from interference. Maher and his ilk believe in positive liberty, i.e. the government should allow everyone the tools to reach their potential. It's basically another word for egalitarianism. This is the basic argument that has to be decided, negative liberty or egalitarianism. It will go on until we can figure out how to make them understand that any system other than negative liberty, capitalism, libertarianism leads eventually to societal collapse.

[Spiney Njorel]

I think you hit the nail on the head with this. I used to like Maher on politically incorrect back in the 90's. He has simply become a leftist that wants big government to protect his perceived right to smoke pot. Guys like Maher are only for government when it subsidizes their pet beliefs.

[np]

It's just like Marc Victor's (defense attorney who ran against Jeff Flake in AZ) speech who describes encounters of typical potheads in his past talks:

"Marijuana should be legal!"
- whoohoo! *cheers*
"Methamphetamine should be legal!"
- dead silence *confused*

which has lead him to create and distribute pamphlets called "Are you really for freedom?"

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Marc Victor is amazing. Some local Republicans got really bitter about him possibly spoiling Flake and there were ads saying that a vote for him was a vote for Harry Reid. I laughed and voted for Victor without hesitation.

While I'm on this topic can McCain just shuffle off this mortal coil already? I know he's going to keep his office until he has to be carried out of it, otherwise I'd merely hope for retirement.

[RBS]

Free markets are a huge part of libertarianism. If Maher thinks that is a "creepy obsession" then I feel like there is little hope for him and the rest of his fellow travelers.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I've read Atlas Shrugged all the way through. Several times. And I've never had a girlfriend.

Sexist fucker.

[RBS]

Nobody ever said he isn't an asshole.

[Archduke Pantsfan]

he thinks there are no female libertarians?

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

He knows our secret!

[deified]

You two are great! Both of you!

[In my best creeper voice: Bring moar WOMMYNZ]

[Caleb Turberville]

It's been my experience that the only people who haven't read Atlas Shrugged are the people who don't understand that its theme is a populist revolt against crony capitalism.

[kinnath]

I have not read Rand at all.

[RBS]

You should read Anthem it's nice and short and gives you most of what you need to know. Then read We the Living.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I enjoyed Red Pawn also. It showed her Hollywood roots and was kind of Zhivagoesque.

[Cytotoxic]

Huh. I read Night of Jan 16 but never heard of Red Pawn.

[Irish]

Anthem is one of the most ridiculous stories I've ever read.

Was that the one where a guy living in a dystopian city magically rediscovers electricity?

[darius404]

From The Wikipedia:

Anthem is a dystopian fiction novella by Ayn Rand, written in 1937 and first published in 1938 in England. It takes place at some unspecified future date when mankind has entered another dark age characterized by irrationality, collectivism, and socialistic thinking and economics. Technological advancement is now carefully planned (when it is allowed to occur at all) and the concept of individuality has been eliminated (for example, the use of the word "I" is punishable by death).

[Irish]

That's it! He rediscovers electricity, and if I recall he just finds a lightbulb somewhere that still works after decades of being buried in an old subway or something.

I also seem to remember them finding a house in the woods which is somehow still standing after decades of no one living there.

[Nooge.]

It takes place at some unspecified future date when mankind has entered another dark age characterized by irrationality, collectivism, and socialistic thinking and economics.

That...is pretty fucking scary.

[Kaptious Kristen]

In Anthem, she never really discusses how humankind got to such a primitive state, but my guess would be she envisioned some kind of Khmer Rouge-style agrarian "utopia". The protagonist did not discover electricity. On his escape from society, he and his partner discover a subway system and some remnants of the previous civilization.

[jesse.in.mb]

I thought he rediscovered electricity while in the subway system. I'll be honest it's been several years since I read it and I read it on a plane while half asleep.

[BakedPenguin]

Yes, he becomes a criminal because he's going to put the candle makers out of work.

[IceTrey]

I'd start with "The Virtue of Selfishness". That book changed my life.

[Brandybuck]

And then finish off with "Mozart Was a Red". Rothbard's finest work.

[Smilin' Joe Fission]

Ditto. That was my first Rand book. Thoroughly enjoyed it and woke me up to what I had been searching for for years.

[Caleb Turberville]

I'm not her biggest fan, but I hate the willfully ignorant commentators that try to characterize Atlas as "pro-rich, at the expense of the poort" when in actuality, it's more like "anti-cronyism at the expense of the government." It's basically Iron Man 2.

But I bet $100 Maher has never actually read it. And he thinks he can cast judgment against others who have actually read it.

[Irish]

I don't like Ayn Rand because I think she's a bad writer. However, what I have read of hers is nothing like what leftists claim it is.

She was opposed to people using the power of the government to control other people. That's a vastly different intellectual position than 'I want rich people to rule the poor.'

[Caleb Turberville]

Yeah. It's so goddamn obvious I have to think that those that push the common misconception of Rand are being intentionally dishonest.

[Irish]

They just haven't read her. Liberals get their views of Ayn Rand primarily from other liberals who also haven't read her.

I imagine that one progressive read Atlas Shrugged in the mid-1970s, and since then everything progs know about her came from that guy's pot induced recollections.

[Francisco d Anconia]

I actually turned a liberal by getting him to read AS.

[Cytotoxic]

Excellent work!

[Brutus]

I actually turned a liberal by getting him to read AS.

My niece was a Chomsky-quoting shithead until she read AS. She's nearly an Objectivist now.

[Nooge.]

Dishonest and lazy. The Rand strawman is entrenched, though, and that is regrettable.

She was a bad-to-okay writer, but a good thinker. Her approach to thinking about human liberty is counterintuitive and requires (and is worth) serious contemplation. It doesn't feel good, initially. It's difficult. PC intelligentsia find it much more comfortable to simply dismiss caricatures of her arguments, rather than dissect and analyze them.

Selfish. Self-absorbed. Cruel. Immature. Easy pejoratives that have become boilerplate arguments against anything Rand.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Stole my thoughts there, Irish.

[jesse.in.mb]

She writes a gripping story, she just constantly knocks you out of the narrative with exposition to make sure you get her philosophy, which comes through perfectly clear from the narrative anyway.

[Irish]

I met a liberal who hates Ayn Rand's philosophy, but likes her stories. How is that possible?

He apparently loves the Fountainhead as a book, but disagrees vehemently with the philosophy.

I guess this contradicts my earlier point that no liberals have read Rand, since at least one has. I just don't understand how anyone could read something so didactic if they don't agree with the philosophical arguments it's making.

[RBS]

Irish, the person who gave me a copy of The Fountainhead was a girl I dated in college who loved the story but hated Rand's philosophy. Her favorite character in the book was Howard Roark...

[Kaptious Kristen]

Well, I loved The Jungle (very similar style to Rand), but abhorred the ideology behind it.

[prolefeed]

I met a liberal who hates Ayn Rand's philosophy, but likes her stories. How is that possible?

Root for the villains?

I like Iain Banks' Culture novels, even though it is a Communist society.

[Heedless]

Is it really communist?

Post-scarcity economics get really weird, really fast, and I'm not sure that our terms map all that well.

[dithadder]

I loved Ragged Dick, but HATED Horatio Alger's philosophy.

[Nooge.]

Terry Goodkind's writing suffers the same.

[Nooge.]

Stuipd threading. Response to jesse.in.mb.

[IceTrey]

Read her non-fiction.

[Joe M]

Yes, Atlas Shrugged is an awesome story if you can get past the crappy writing. If some enterprising individual were to go in with a red marker and cut about 1/3 of the text, it would be a thousand times better.

[prolefeed]

Yes, Atlas Shrugged is an awesome story if you can get past the crappy writing. If some enterprising individual were to go in with a red marker and cut about 1/3 of the text, it would be a thousand times better.

I was reading an edited version of Les Miserables (another lefty screed, but with a great plot), then switched to an unedited version which I found unreadable.

The trick would be to cut the RIGHT 1/3. And to avoid the subsequent lawsuits for copyright infringement.

[StackOfCoins]

Anyone who has such skillz would be better off writing their own fiction based on Objectivism. Honestly there needs to be more books that spread the good word without being overly preachy.

[Mike Laursen]

True, but can you imagine how much it would suck to be Ayn Rand's editor.

[Xenocles]

People think that anti-cronyism is pro-rich because the rich tend to prosper wildly in that environment. But the rich prosper wildly in every situation except being shot in the head or direct confiscation of their stuff. They're rich, it's part of the nature of being rich. What differentiates the systems is how everyone else can do.

[IceTrey]

I believe it's an elitist revolt against crony capitalism. The people who strike are 1 percenters.

[Caleb Turberville]

Is John Galt a 1%er?

[Virginian]

That's not true. The people are from all walks of life. Dagny specifically mentions how difficult it is to find competent people at all levels. She just doesn't make any of them viewpoint characters, for better or for worse.

Remember the mother in the gulch who just wants to be the best mother she can be?

[IceTrey]

Yes but her removal from society doesn't really have any overall effect like that of Rearden, Taggart, d'Anconia and some secondary characters. It's like how the American Revolution was elitist. In other words it didn't start at the bottom of society it started at the top.

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

Good point, Caleb. Maher (and others like him) would probably be shocked to find out that many of the villains in Atlas Shrugged are capitalists, of the crony variety. Hence, the chapter title: "The politics of pull."

Galt and his friends are among the few who don't want the state to support them and restrain their competitors.

And can I just say again, fuck Bill Maher. What a waste of space. A loud-mouthed, statist, liberal piece of shit. I hope he gets busted for pot possession, then takes it up the ass in prison.

And explain again why we have to kiss the balls of people who are opposed to our fundamental principles?

[prolefeed]

I've read Atlas Shrugged all the way through. Several times.

How the hell did you manage to slog through that prose several times?

Great message, meh editing.

[Blueman]

Aw hell, I never even read Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand is not my reason for becoming a libertarian.

[Rights-Minimalist Autocrat]

I guess he also didn't notice it was written by a woman.

[h3k86qc35923]

Is Bill Maher Right That "Libertarians Have to Stop Ruining Libertarianism"?

Minarchists aren't that bad, but I wouldn't accuse them of ruining libertarianism.

[DEATFBIRSECIA]

Partisanship doesn't produce very good comedy, that's the bottom line. There might have been a time when Dennis Miller was funny, but he sure as shit isn't now. Bill Maher, who made one of my favorite movies of all time, Religulous, is heading down that same miserable path.

[Rights-Minimalist Autocrat]

I could watch Religulous every day without getting tired of it. Too bad he can't turn a decent skeptical eye to other bullshit.

[GoldBug]

This just shows what we previously knew about Bill Maher; he only likes the parts of libertarianism that coincide with neoliberalism. Just like how Glenn Beck disregards libertarian criticism of conservatives, Bill Maher has, until now, pretended that libertarianism was NOT by virtue pro-free market. Whenever people call Ron or Rand Paul a "good" or "bad" libertarian, I raise an eyebrow, because what the Pauls preach is mainstream libertarianism, like it or not.

[IceTrey]

Except on abortion.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Damn, I thought we'd brush against the Triad of Unfortunate Subjects much later in the day.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Are ferrets and circumcision counted separately?

[darius404]

And slavery.

/Maherliberal

[Francisco d Anconia]

Except on abortion.

Bullshit!

[IceTrey]

Pro-life is mainstream libertarian? I think not.

[Xenocles]

As ever, there is no single libertarian stance on abortion. A libertarian is pro-choice if he denies the moral status of a fetus and he is pro-life if he affirms it. Libertarianism does not allow killing children, but neither does it allow restraining a woman from scraping valueless cells from her body. It is agnostic on which of those two extremes most closely matches any particular abortion.

[IceTrey]

Sure there is. A fetus is a parasite and we all know the libertarian view on parasites.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Sarcasm, right?

[IceTrey]

No.

[SIV]

The Huns used to throw Belgian parasites up in the air in a good-natured game of bayonet lacrosse.

[Xenocles]

So is a newborn, yet you will find few of us who would say that a parent would be within her rights putting a bullet in her baby's brain.

Drawing a distinction between "worthless cells" and "baby" is outside the realm of politics so as a political philosophy libertarianism is powerless to help you do it. It only picks up once you have answered that question.

[IceTrey]

A newborn can be taken care of by anyone, not so a fetus. A newborn is needy, but not a parasite.

[Go_Cats]

If there is no one else to take care of the baby is it killed?

[IceTrey]

A fetus survives solely on the good will of the mother and that's all there is to it.

[Xenocles]

This is a distinction without a difference. The number of qualified hosts has no bearing on the parasitic status of an entity. A fetus can't survive without its particular mother keeping it alive, and a newborn can't survive without some other person keeping it alive.
Both of them:
-require resources from some host, and
-contribute no resources to that host in exchange for those resources it takes.
In most cases the mother had a hand in putting that fetus where it is, even if the result was not intended. I can't shoot you for trespassing if I invite you into my home and lock you in my basement - you're there through no fault of your own.

As for good will, I'd note that you survive in large part on the good will of the masses, as do we all. If the ability of someone to kill us is all the moral justification one needs to do so, we're proper fucked.

[IceTrey]

Just because the resources babies exchange are intangible doesn't mean they aren't real. What is love? Also anyone taking care of a newborn not there own does so by choice, a decision libertarianism has no problem with.

[Jim in Denver]

My take on abortion has been equal application of the law. If I run up to a pregnant woman and kick her in the belly, prematurely terminating her pregnancy I can be charged with feticide - murder! It cannot be murder if it isn't a life and if it is a life than any termination of that life, regardless of the mother's consent, is murder. Anyway you get the picture.

[Cyto]

Ancient Jewish law had a position on this. Murder was punishable by death. Causing a pregnant woman to lose her child cost the family something of great value, and was punishable by a large fine - see Leviticus.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Libertarians can be either pro-life OR pro-choice depending on when the lump of cells is a person.

Claiming libertarians have a decided position on the issue is, once again, complete bullshit.

I have no position on abortion, simply because the matter is subjective. Why do you insist everyone in the club must agree on every point?

[IceTrey]

Saying you have no position is what is bullshit. As for the rest, because of libertarianism absolute belief in property rights it's position can be nothing other than pro-choice. The question is, who owns the womb. Now obviously the woman does. Even as a human with full human rights a fetus has no right to the use of a woman's body to support it's life. If you say that a fetus has a proprietary use to the womb then you are in effect enslaving that woman to the fetus. I'm pretty sure libertarians are against slavery too. The fact is, a fetus survives solely on the good will of the mother and that's just the nature of the thing.

[Xenocles]

If you're dangling from a rope and the only thing keeping you from falling is someone on the other end holding onto the rope, is it really your position that the person holding that rope has no duty to hold on as long as he reasonably can without endangering himself? You'd be placing a claim on that person's labor, after all.

If we're in a lifeboat together do I get to keep the water supplies to myself because they're on my side of the boat? I have possession, therefore it's my property.

Arguably, if I tie you up and point a gun at your head the only thing keeping you alive is my good will - if that fails I'll pull the trigger. But I wouldn't say that grants any rights to me nor removes any from you. You might say that the scenario is illegitimate because I'm ignoring how you got in that situation, but you're doing the same for the fetus.

[Xenocles]

And before I go to bed, a supplemental thought. The idea of a Grand Unification Theory for moral and political philosophy is likely a total fallacy. It is probably the case that while libertarianism is a good model for most of life, there are conditions and situations in which it breaks down into absurdity. The concept of private property is meaningless in a lifeboat, for example. Lifeboat passengers have a temporary duty to support the common goal of maximizing each other's survival to the best of their ability, even if that means losing what was once their property. It would be absurd to claim that because I own the lifeboat (whether as a salvage claim or because it was from my ship) I can throw you overboard any time I choose or deny you water.

I would extend this mindset to other emergency situations that are clearly definable and limited in temporal and spacial scope.

[IceTrey]

"is it really your position that the person holding that rope has no duty to hold on as long as he reasonably can without endangering himself?"

Yes, absolutely! You are a terrible libertarian. I suggest you read Rand's take on "duty". Spoiler, she's not much for it.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Saying you have no position is what is bullshit.

Yet more bullshit.

IF, and I REPEAT IF, the fetus is a person at conception, the mother made a voluntary decision to put it there. She must accept responsibility for her actions and respect the rights of the person she created. You make it sound like the mother had no part in the conception and the "child" spontaneously appeared without her consent.

Your opinion is like saying a mother can make a decision to adopt an infant and the next day, change her mind and decide to kill it.

[An0nB0t]

You're preaching positive rights while ignoring the self-evident truth that a woman may introduce a human life into her womb (usually, but not always, voluntarily) and then evict that life--even if said life is a person--at any time.

Walter Block has written about evictionism for years now, and there's no excuse for literate libertarians who want to engage the multifaceted topic of abortion to be ignorant of the arguments supporting the rights of both mother and fetus.

[Francisco d Anconia]

You may not evict someone unless they break their contract. Conceiving (voluntarily) is in essence a contract. By allowing some guy to fuck me, I accept the risk that I may get knocked up and if I do I will care for the person I create.

Positive rights? If it is a person at conception, that person has the right to not be killed. That isn't a positive right. It trumps the mother's right to not have a parasite in her, primarily because she is liable for her actions. PERIOD!

If it's not a person at conception she can scrape it whenever she wants, up to the point it is.

So, like it or not, there IS ONLY ONE QUESTION wrt abortion. When is the fetus a person?

And since we cannot currently answer that question (and quite frankly I don't really care what the answer is), I'll form a libertarian opinion on the issue after that answer is decided upon.

[IceTrey]

What if she was raped moron?

[Francisco d Anconia]

Nice ad hom. I appreciate it. Totally deserved.

Do you see the 12th word in parentheses in the post above? In case you missed it, it was:

(VOLUNTARILY)

[mnarayan]

Libertarians think people should be free. Maher thinks people should be free to do things that he thinks they should be allowed to do.

In some ways this this can look like a lot of overlap...but I don't really see anyway to build a coalition out of it.

[GILMORE]

+10 re-education camps

[CatoTheElder]

^THIS

[John C. Randolph2]

Why is Reason giving space to the blatherings of this hollywood adolescent? What's next, Paris Hilton's advice on chastity?

-jcr

[Sevo]

Taking advice on libertarianism from Maher? Next, we'll get a lecture on human rights from Lil' Kim.
Maher thinks you can allow the government to control the markets but then tell it you don't want it in the bedroom. Sorry, Bill, no chance. See, oh, Obamacare and that nanny Bloomberg.

[Caleb Turberville]

Why is Maher even taking shots at Rand Paul? The only thing newsworthy about Rand Paul has been his public stances against the War on Terror with a few minor rumblings about opposing gun control legislations.

[MJGreen]

Because he's getting popular. And he actually seems serious about reducing the size and scope of government.

[StackOfCoins]

The more Rand Pauls influence grows, the more mouth-foaming we will see from liberals. If he wins the primary there will be savagery of the likes never seen before.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Because he's a Southerner, and Maher is the kind of asshole for whom that type of regionalism matters.

[Warty]

Bill Maher goes out of his way, all the time, to make it clear that he's an ordinary socialist who is distinguished only by his hatefulness. Why would I want him as an ally? Fuck him.

[fish_remote]

Doubleplusgood!

[deified]

Come the revolution, his smirking head will make a fine soccer ball.

[Michael]

But for anybody interested in growing the influence and impact of liberatarian ideas, it's worth thinking about the ways in which the libertarian identity fails to move a guy who is anti-prohibition, anti-empire (belatedly!), pro free expression, and pro-much more that falls in line with a libertarian perspective.

No, Nick. Maher is none of those things and never has been. He is a fucking loathsome piece of rancid horse shit that shamelessly self-applies whatever political label will make himself appear "edgy" to his mindless fan base. Fuck him and double fuck you for even hinting at the notion that libertarians should seriously consider how we're perceived by troglodytes like him in order to somehow help promote the "brand". I hope you never land another guest spot on Maher's show. It'll be for your own good as well as ours.

[MJGreen]

Agreed, though I'd put it a bit more nicely. I can see the benefit of such a discussion, but not centered around Maher. There's no reaching him. A person that uses such tired cliches does not want to be a libertarian. He's actively shielding himself from an intellectual challenge. And of course, a person who talks politics for a living (or spends a lot of their free time doing so) will probably never change his position. And if they do, it will be from personal experiences outside of our reach.

I know plenty of conservatives and progressives that can be reached. A unifying theme is that they don't constantly call me an adolescent, a slave to Ayn Rand or a selfish prick. Likewise, they'd know they couldn't reach me if I constantly call them slavers and statists.

Maher's a tiresome idiot, and the only thing I can learn from him is how closed many people's minds are.

[CatoTheElder]

I agree with Michael. And it ought to be expressed in strong terms: the suggestion that libertarians reach out to snarky statists like Maher is insane.

[Blueman]

I was a statist at one point and no one ever "reached out" to me to help me be a libertarian. I came to libertarianism after life experience and thinking, not by being spoon fed some line by a jerkwad like Maher.

FFS, I'm tired of hearing about all these theoretical people who need to be "reached out" to. They are either going to get it or not.

[Irish]

I expressed support for libertarianism because back then it meant I didn't want big government in my bedroom, in my medicine chest, and especially not in the second drawer of the nightstand on the left side of my bed. And I still believe that.

I like libertarianism when it lets me do what I want to do. When it lets you do what you want to do, I am opposed to it.

[Episiarch]

Well summarized, Irish. That cuts to the heart of it.

[Kevin Parrish]

Dead on, this is why I don't think sacrificing anything to appeal to this group is worth it. It only helps to explain the 3rd grade tit for tat morality of "if you don't mess with other people's business they won't mess with yours," and hope they eventually understand.

[Warty]

Well said. Fuck him.

[John]

Exactly.

[IceTrey]

All he's saying is that he agrees with the social liberal side of libertarianism. It's like when conservatives agree with the fiscal conservative side of libertarianism. Neither group wants to admit they have it half wrong.

[John]

Or that it is pretty hard to have one but not the other. If conservatives are allowed to get their pony and stop he evils of pornography, then how do you tell liberals they can't stop the evils of the 32 oz drink?

[Virginian]

Yeah, that kind of thing was what finally broke me lose of conservative Republican stance on immigration. Someone said to me "How the fuck can you, as a staunch advocate of the free market, justify telling business owners who they can hire." And the answer is of course, I can't.

[Xenocles]

Because our team is right, dammit!

[VG Zaytsev]

Without betraying core values, are there ways we can reach these simpatico folks on the right or the left, so as to kickstart (perpetuate!) what Matt Welch and I once bravely called "The Libertarian Moment"

I've come to the conclusion that propagandizing (brainwashing) the young works.

It's really the only explanation for someone like Bill Maher's continued respect for government despite all the ways that he despises it. He believes that it functions better in the areas that he has little personal knowledge or direct contact despite the fact that he sees it fucking up in areas that he has direct experience and or expertise. I've seen the same thing happen with people all across the political spectrum. On the right it takes the form of people that hate government in every way, except for fighting terrorist and teh evil drugs.

So back to the question of how to reach those people, it can only be done by some type of deprogramming. They've literally been brainwashed by an evil cult.

[Francisco d Anconia]

So back to the question of how to reach those people,

Same way you eat an elephant. One bite at a time. You slowly change the Republican positions on the social issues. Pot, preemptive war, gays, immigration. Slowly. The Pauls are having some success with this. I see a light. Train?

[Sam Grove]

Obviously Bill Maher is way smarter than any libertarian and a smug asshole about it too. Why would anyone want to b liked by him?

Actually, Maher is as clueless now as always.
He doesn't know that libertarians have always supported free market capitalism? He should have found out before trying to label himself as such.

[GILMORE]

You can dismiss everything he says easily, logically, emotionally and bring up all the myriad ways in which he's just WRONG WRONG WRONG and how he's really a COMMIE DOUCHEBAG who hates womenz and all that (that is what unmoderated comments sections are for, right?)

I thought comments were for bullying minors into suicide, and keeping track of Warty's rape-career? Shrug.

My problem with Mahr is that regardless of his stated desires for privacy rights, liberalized drug policy, etc, he's still a neoliberal who thinks his personal version of utopia is brought about by a GOOD Government, The Right People!, TOP MEN = just a landslide election and some more regulation and some fixin' before government finally delivers his 'balanced' neoliberal dream where we libertoids may be mollified by their more tolerant and permissive attitude towards some of these 'overlapping' issues...but in the end, they still want MORE CONTROL - 'reasonable' restrictions on liberties - and COMPULSORY 'tolerance' and rightthink.

Mahr doesnt hate the idea of Big Brother. He just thinks Big Brother needs to be a more groovy and cool kind of guy like him. Why do you hate the drones? The drones *protect* you! Whats with your kooky 'anti-government' schtick? The government feeds the poor and keeps our energy clean and gives us permission to travel and to own certain things... didn't you go to public school?

[IceTrey]

Maher is just a classic egalitarian.

[Michael P. Shipley]

The beauty that was the US was you didnt have to get everyone to agree on any one way of running society, you had 50 ways of doing it your way. But with centralization everyone is fighting for control to force their way on everyone. This is the disease, decentralization is the cure.

[Vince aut Morire]

"Libertarians also hate Medicare and Social Security and there are problems with those programs but here's the thing: It beats stepping over lepers and watching human skeletons shit in the river and I also like not seeing those things. I'm selfish that way!" ~ B.M.

Flesh Eating Bacteria+Bill Maher=Schadenfreude.

I will never understand the rem "left libertarian".

[Vince aut Morire]

rem should say term.

[RBS]

left libertarian

Are you trying to summon Terry Michael?

[Episiarch]

Oh boy, he can call me a "garden-variety idiot" again! And I don't even have a garden!

[MJGreen]

Maher's neither left nor libertarian.

[John]

And of course those programs are free. Not like having them is going to bankrupt us or anything.

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

I will never understand the rem "left libertarian".

There are left-libertarians who are much, much more comprehensible?and more libertarian?than Bill Maher. Bill Maher has no idea what a left-libertarian is; he'd be just as horrified of Charles Johnson or Kevin Carson as he is of libertarians more generally.

[Virginian]

Charles Johnson? The same one I'm thinking of?

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

'I will never understand the rem "left libertarian".'

I understand it. It's and oxymoron which allows someone to embrace statism, theft (expropriation), and bullying under the guise of freedom, "organization of resources," and "community imperatives."

It also allows one to devalue markets to the point where some diaper stain like Bill Maher looks like an ally.

[prolefeed]

'I will never understand the rem "left libertarian".'

It can mean a libertarian who is more interested in legalizing drugs and prostitution, but is still free market oriented too.

My Vice Chair of the LP of HI is like that.

[entropy]

Thing is, that's not really left. That's just a garden variety libertarian.

[Rights-Minimalist Autocrat]

I will never understand the rem "left libertarian".

If I had to choose between ending the war on drugs and cutting government spending by 10%, I'd choose ending the WoD. Does that make me a left libertarian? That would be weird, since I came to libertarianism from the right.

[Joe M]

But somewhere along the way, libertarianism morphed into this creepy obsession with free-market capitalism...

That's where I stopped. Fuck Maher.

[John]

What is up with their obsession with the word "creepy"? Fuck him. What the hell is creepy about having principles?

[Joe M]

We had a discussion about that a few weeks back.

[StackOfCoins]

Maher can't win on the validity of his arguments alone. His only hope is to accuse people who have inviolate principles of being "creepy"; it's the same thing as "wacko birds". Ad hominems never go out of style, because they appeal to everyone who is too stupid to join in the argument.

[General Butt Naked]

What's worse is that Gillespie exhorts us to answer Maher's insults with a reasoned argument.

When someone calls you a creep a bullet pointed list of reasons why you're not aren't going to convince them.

[MJGreen]

"Somewhere along the way" = 1776?

[Caleb Turberville]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEgiU3rT7g8

Here is a 2002 episode of Politically Incorrect in which Maher gives Penn Jillette a hard time for being against the statist security theater of TSA.

[Caleb Turberville]

Now, I do think, before anti-Bush hysteria became the prevailing fashion among the Left, that Maher had some clear contrarian viewpoints with liberals and the Left.

But in this clip, I am having a hard time understanding how Bill Maher was ever really a libertarian, if that word is to have any meaning.

[Irish]

Again, Maher likes hookers, porn and blow. That's apparently what he though libertarianism is. Just a bunch of dudes hanging out with hookers and blow.

[General Butt Naked]

It's not?

*walks out*

[Caleb Turberville]

What about violent video games?

[Episiarch]

THAT'S WHAT IT IS FOR ME YOU JERK.

[Irish]

He's missing the fourth and fifth parts of libertarianism: Guns and muscle cars.

A bunch of bros driving around town in a Mustang with hookers, pornography and piles of cocaine, while firing AR-15s out the window.

That's what libertarianism means to me.

[Episiarch]

muscle cars

Camaro IROC:

Italian
Retard
Out
Cruising

That's me!

[Mechafenris]

Driving without a mullet in a Camaro is a $200 fine in most states now. Be careful...

[Shine on, Nikki Diamond]

I thought the thing about his night table drawer was a gun reference. Was it a gun reference or a sex toy reference?

[Episiarch]

Can it be both? Probably not. What a shame.

[Irish]

A gun that fires sex toys would be the most libertarian item in the universe, provided it was made in a sweat shop.

[jesse.in.mb]

I don't see why not, guns are just penis replacements/enhanements anyway, no?

[fish_remote]

I hope Bill is confused as well. Accidents happen!

[Rights-Minimalist Autocrat]

I thought it was where he kept his pot.

[Francisco d Anconia]

bunch of bros driving around town in a Mustang with hookers, pornography and piles of cocaine, while firing AR-15s out the window.

These are a few of my favorite things.

[General Butt Naked]

We should produce some commercials based around Irish's comment.

Have a man on the street interview thing where some dude asks the public what they think libertarianism is. One lady would say, "Old people starving and no public schools", some guy might say, "Unchecked capitalism and corporate power", get an old man to say, "It means an undefended border and weakened national defense", etc

Then you have Irish say, "Hi I'm Irish, and I'm a libertarian"

Cut to: A bunch of bros driving around town in a Mustang with hookers, pornography and piles of cocaine, while firing AR-15s out the window.

"...and that's what libertarianism means to me"

Who would argue against that except some pearl clutching scum?

[entropy]

A bunch of bros driving around town in a Mustang with hookers, pornography and piles of cocaine, while firing AR-15s out the window. That's what libertarianism means to me.

This is why there are no libertarian women. Except the hookers. Which is how we like it.

[jesse.in.mb]

Wait, you pay for your skanks?

[Warty]

The fucking musclebear harness and chaps doesn't get us heteros as much action, dude. You lucky dickhead.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Tell me more....

[Kaptious Kristen]

(that was for Warty)

[Warty]

Who's this delivery of sploosh for?

[Episiarch]

Dude, stop posting pictures of your mom.

[Kaptious Kristen]

I'll. be. in. my. bunk.

[jesse.in.mb]

I REFUSE to go full bear and get decked out in a harness and chaps. Maybe in my late 30s/early 40s when my boyish charm has worn off.

[JW]

jesse, I've been meaning to ask. What is that on your avatar's shoulder?

[jesse.in.mb]

It is a spite crepe. A friend gave me a crepe pan for my birthday, so I would make her crepes, but cancelled plans with me so she was denied future crepes. I had a bunch of mutual friends over and photo-documented the whole thing. It is just as hard as you'd imagine to look tough while holding a crepe.

Even the cat got a crepe.

We have since gone hiking and has been allowed back in my crepe good graces.

[General Butt Naked]

I totally thought that was an owl on your shoulder.

Finding out that it's a crepe is more than disappointing.

[jesse.in.mb]

I totally thought that was an owl on your shoulder.

That would be significantly more awesome than me holding a crepe while trying to look tough. Unfortunately I was not a hardcore member of the Harry Potter fandom and do not have a pet owl.

Less tiny version of my avatar.

[General Butt Naked]

Oh, okay. I thought your hand was the head of a nice pet owl.

[JW]

That's a much better story than I would have imagined.

[juris imprudent]

Maher just likes sucking Dem dick better than Repub.

[A Serious Man]

Maher is a Palin's Buttplug 'libertarian': a smug, self-righteous atheist with an uncontrollable hatred of all things GOP and Christian.

[RBS]

Bill Maher (PBL-Hollywood)

[E.H. Munro]

Are libertarians really that desperate for affirmation that they're feeling slighted because a dyed blue democrat doesn't like them?

[Episiarch]

Are you really this stupid?

[MJGreen]

Anyone who is offended that Maher doesn't like them has huge self-esteem issues.

Jubilation is the proper response. I'm only offended at the tired cliches. This is my reaction.

[Sidd Finch]

We've finally reached Peak Yglesias.

We've had a lot of occasions in this space to ponder "the end of retail," and in my real life I've had plenty of opportunities to visit the shopping dystopia known as CVS. Now I've seen the future, and it's name is Walgreens. Specifically the new flagship Walgreens at the corner of 7th and H Northwest in the District of Columbia. It's a magical place that paints the way forward for retailers and, indeed, the entire American economy.

The whole thing is magnificently Yglesian, but this is my favorite bit.

In terms of frozen foods, they have the usual Hot Pockets dreck but also upscale brands like the Amy's Organic frozen burritos that I used to subsist on before I learned how to cook.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Yglesias and Marcotte should get together and try to breed the retard version of the Kwisatz Haderach.

[MJGreen]

The douchebag that can bloviate in many places at once.

[hamilton]

This is the best comment I have read this month. I just wanted to make that clear.

[juris imprudent]

the retard version of the Kwisatz Haderach.

That would make Epi a retard Count Fenring.

[John]

Why does that retarded little Aspy think anyone gives a fuck where he shops?

[Irish]

That's the greatest thing I've ever read.

It's a magical place that paints the way forward for retailers and, indeed, the entire American economy.

It's a fucking Walgreens, Yglesias.

[RBS]

He should check out the new Piggly Wiggly here, he'd think he died and went to retard heaven.

[John]

The one I knocked over in Yahoo City was pretty nice.

[Kaptious Kristen]

And it's in one of the most retail-intensive neighborhoods in all of DC. 7th & H is positively hopping, and it was so way before Walgreens took over that space (which was empty for many years). More accurate would be that the vitality of the neighborhood painted the way for Walgreens, not the other way around.

[John]

I keep thinking I will see sad beard or douche bag Klein out somewhere in public just so I can point at them and laugh in their faces. Just once ask douchebag "are you the guy who thinks the constitution is hundreds of years old and written in a language no one understands?"

[Kaptious Kristen]

I tend to ignore people on the street (which is why my friends have to positively knock me over to get my attention if they see me), so I wouldn't know them from Adam if I were out-and-about. I'm sure I've breezed by many a DC insider asshole without even knowing it.

I wouldn't mind running into Fists of Fury.

[Irish]

Who is fists of fury?

Also, I wouldn't laugh in Yglesias' face if I were you, John. Getting that close to fatty McSadBeard's mouth is pretty dangerous. It's like standing near a Sarlacc.

[Kaptious Kristen]

EJ Dionne is Fists of Fury

(I can't seem to find the picture that gave him his nickname, though)

[Kaptious Kristen]

Found it!

[Irish]

My God! That is the funniest picture I've ever seen. He appears to have T-Rex arms.

[Generic Stranger]

He looks like a little kid in a suit, except with an old person's face.

[John]

So do I. I probably have seen them and didn't notice. But it is still a nice fantasy.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

As a class, pundits are awful but the new breed of 20-something year old yuppies fresh out of college is particularly repugnant. It baffles me that these people aren't out mopping floors or giving Senators blowjobs, like the up-and-coming politically inclined kids of our generation were wont to do.

[Irish]

I've heard people call that generation of hack the 'Juice Box Brigade.'

I'm 24, so maybe I shouldn't be mocking people for being too young, but these dimwitted yuppie 26 year olds who think they understand how the world works are just infuriating.

[John]

They have no advanced degrees, no skills to speak of, no experience. Why the fuck should anyone care about what they have to say?

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Evidently somebody pulling the money strings at American Prospect thought both Klein and Yglesias were worth it.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Well, you probably don't think that anyone should pay for you to broadcast your political insights to a mass audience, which puts you a step above these clowns.

There's something infuriating about how pundits seem to think that the world and its complexity can be reduced to a set of talking points implemented by a small cast of mandarins -- and this quality is particularly acute in the Juice Box Brigade.

[John]

TIT,

There are some subjects I know more than your average bear about. But those are things that I have degrees in and have actually done in the real world. Everything else, my opinion is what it is nothing special.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Just so. We're all basically talking out of our ass outside the subjects where we have real world experience; isn't that distribution of knowledge itself a compelling case for a limited government?

[John]

Yes it is. And notice how it is always clowns like Sad Beard who don't know shit, who think that running the world is so super easy.

[Cavpitalist]

I was in DC in February, and I can say that the Walgreens off DuPont Circle sucks. Couldn't even get a belt. Fuck you, DuPont Circle-adjacent Walgreens.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Reminder: Yglesias studied philosophy at Harvard and graduated magna cum laude.

[Irish]

Yeah, but it was a philosophy degree. It's not like he studied a real subject.

[Zeb]

Hey!

[John]

Is there a bigger indictment of that school and philosophy today than that? He is a fucking moron. I really think there is something wrong with him. He is definitely somewhere on the Aspy scale. He is just not normal and not in a "oh he is just really smart" way. In a really fucked up, oh my god how does that guy live on his own, way.

[Sidd Finch]

In a really fucked up, oh my god how does that guy live on his own, way.

Jeez John. Didn't you read the quote? He ate upscale frozen burritos until he learned how to make burritos all by himself.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Organic burritos. He made sure to specifically mention that for extra bien-pensant street cred.

[deified]

I'm pretty sure that pudgy pussy-fart is just proving to his friends that the Slate editors don't actually read his work so he can do whatever he wants.

[Boisfeuras]

He's just a culture warrior. His basic premise here is that the government should leave you alone to do the things with which he agrees. His view does not apparently preclude government theft of private property and redistribution of the spoils, or intercession in voluntary exchange between two private individuals. Those are such fundamental, foundational rights that I cannot see how anyone can support liberty without opposing such depredations.

[John]

Yes. Maher is the walking cliche of the liberal who just wants his hookers and to smoke dope. He is every bad thing conservatives accuse Libertarians of being. Why Reason wants to treat him with anything but disdain is beyond me.

[Cytotoxic]

Because they want to be friends SO BADLY.

[Jordan]

I expressed support for libertarianism because back then it meant I didn't want big government in my bedroom, in my medicine chest, and especially not in the second drawer of the nightstand on the left side of my bed. And I still believe that.

Bill Maher wants the government out of your bedroom, unless you happen to keep an AR-15 in the closet or a 32 oz soda on the night stand.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Glad I'm not the only one who though "handgun" when he mentioned the nightstand.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Maher was probably not talking about a handgun in his nightstand. Think adult toys.

[John]

Your body, your choice, in areas the government approves.

[Mint Berry Crunch]

In fairness to Maher, I thought he was against Bloomberg on the soda thing?

[John]

He was. But mostly it was because he felt like it was making liberals look bad. He didn't seem to have much of a substantive problem with it.

[[e-mail]]

Likes libertarians when they're bashing George W. Bush
Libertarians bash Obama
Doesn't like libertarians now

Yeah, but pretend it's because we like the free market, Bill.

[Nazdrakke]

"left libertarian"."

Seriously. It's like describing yourself as an atheist Christian. Does not compute.

Maher has never been interested in liberty, only license. He just cannot see the inherent contradiction between the two.

[Boisfeuras]

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

Is there an ideological analog of Rule #34?

[John Galt]

If there's one thing a liberal absolutely will not tolerate it's liberty.

[[e-mail]]

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

[John Galt]

The power of positive thought.

[Trash Hauler]

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win a boot stamping on a human face -- forever.

[Numeromancer]

Now we're talkin'!

-- O'Brian

[mr simple]

No one who has a section of their show called "New Rules" where he weekly makes up rules he thinks everyone else should have to live by can ever call themselves libertarian.

[John Galt]

Was Maher once libertarian? Or does Maher claim he once tolerated libertarianism, however, no longer does.

[Mickey Rat]

He once called himself libertarian, apparently because he thought it sounded more serious than "libertine".

[yonemoto]

I think you win this comment thread.

[IceTrey]

Libertarians have rules for everyone to live by.

Libertarian Bill of Rights

Article 1

No person may initiate force, threats of force, or fraud against any other person's self or property.

Article 2

Force may be used in defense against those who violate Article 1.

Article 3

No exceptions shall exist for Articles 1 and 2.

[John Galt]

Watch the whole bit before weighing in.

With that requirement I won't be weighing in.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Nick quoted the parts that make Maher sound the most sane.

[IceTrey]

Maher like all modern liberals are just egalitarians. They want everyone to be debased to the lowest comment denominator and they want the government to do it.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Here is my take.

BM is not now, nor was he EVER a libertarian. His claim to once supporting libertarianism shows only that he had/has no clue what libertarianism is. The short list of issues he rattled off are completely in line with full blown progressive liberalism.

And he's scared to death of true libertarians emerging as leaders within the Republican Party. That those social issues dearest to him could somehow find supporters among the free-market supporting capitalist pigs is repugnant to him. This rant is an effort to undermine those having the potential to upset his little apple cart.

FUCK BILL MAHER. And fuck you Nick for making me break my oath not to watch that fucker. Nice plug BTW. 😉

[John Galt]

I'm going to take your word on it since watching any more Maher giving his opinion on anything serves no useful purpose.

[Wholly Holy Cow]

At heart, every Leftist is a phony. The only thing they care about is their own pleasure. They care about racism, sexism and dead Iraqi kids only if it gives their own lives meaning and pleasure. Improving lives? Sure, but only if it feels good and impresses the other ignorati. In 10 years, climate change will be relegated to the dustbin of lefty activism, tucked under the rainforests, sitting on top of the ozone hole.

When Bush was pres, the economy was good and the money flowed. Obama's drains the private sector, Maher feels a pin prick and he squeals.

Anyway, Reason, go back to vilifying Christian conservatives and their decidedly unhip beliefs about limited government. After all, those folks don't have TV shows in which to uninvite you.

Let me guess, Reason, the nitwit you interviewed from the Wire a few months didn't really like your pilot. But you hear HBO is looking for new material. Hence the BS piece on Maher.

Since 99% of the commenters here are dumber than a box of rocks with a missing Y chromosome, let me spell it out: Reason goes soft on Maher and David Simon because movie/TV writing pays a helluva lot more than writing for this rag.

[Irish]

Oh, hey guys, Wholly Holy Cow is back! It's the guy who lost his shit and got angry because people were making fun of Ann Coulter's Adam's Apple! Let's all sit back and hear what this titan of intellect has to say.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I don't agree with the latter half of this comment, but I have wondered why Reason's editorial position seems to extend significant credulity to claims that leftists and libertarians are simpatico, while not doing the same for other movements. I mean, every other book review is some "libertarian" praising a Communist or an "anarchist" who stumped for pure evil in their time -- when are we going to see an equivalent article for supporters of apartheid or somesuch?

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Cocktail partiezzzzzzzzzzzzz.

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

"Since 99% of the commenters here are dumber than a box of rocks with a missing Y chromosome, let me spell it out"

I get your criticisms of Reason for publishing the Bill Maher puff piece, but since 99% of the commenters on Hit and Run usually slam Reason for publishing this kind of stuff, I'm not sure how they qualify for the label "dumber than a box of rocks."

It might be more true to say that 99% of the commenters here will kick you in the balls for showing one scintilla of sympathy for a liberal statist, now matter what his views on pot or the Iraq war.

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

NO matter what his views on pot or the Iraq war. Apologies.

[buybuydandavis]

The test for libertarians is whether you want your neighbor free to do things you disapprove of. Whether you want him to be able to live his life according to his own values, even when you disagree with those values.

Maher wants drugs legal because he approves of using them. Wake me when he wants me to be able to buy medicine with getting a permission slip from a duly deputized government medicinal gatekeeper.

Maher is a collectivist theocrat. The tip off is always the whining about selfishness. Bill doesn't want you to be *allowed* to live according to your own values. You should be forced to serve the collective. To him, that's what the government is for.

[lap83]

"The test for libertarians is whether you want your neighbor free to do things you disapprove of. Whether you want him to be able to live his life according to his own values, even when you disagree with those values."

I think it's more nuanced than that. Most libertarians don't want their neighbor to free to murder or pillage. I also don't think it's enough to add the qualifier "as long as it doesn't hurt anybody", since what qualifies as hurting is so debatable.

That's why I don't argue about who is or who isn't a libertarian. There are patterns but no absolute definitions. I find it more useful to discuss particular policies.

[JW]

I think it's more nuanced than that. Most libertarians don't want their neighbor to free to murder or pillage

Did you come here just to drag the thread's IQ down?

[JW]

Maher is a collectivist theocrat. The tip off is always the whining about selfishness. Bill doesn't want you to be *allowed* to live according to your own values. You should be forced to serve the collective. To him, that's what the government is for.

Bingo. I hear this from my proglodyte friends and acquaintances more than anything.

You are not permitted to refuse the collective.

[lap83]

"But somewhere along the way, libertarianism morphed into this creepy obsession with free-market capitalism based on an Ayn Rand called Atlas Shrugged, a book that's never been read all the way through by anybody with a girlfriend...."

Translation: Libertarians ruin the ideology by not basing their political choices on what will get them laid.

[A Serious Man]

I know. Don't we want to be cool and hip like Maher?

[John Galt]

They also believe support for the Second Amendment means the supporter has a small penis.

There appears to be a pattern emerging indicating mental immaturity.

poo-poo pee-pee penis nani nani!

[CatoTheElder]

"Is Bill Maher Right That "Libertarians Have to Stop Ruining Libertarianism"?"

In a word, NO.

Bill Maher is a guy who's kind of smart, but not really.

Much like a knuckleheaded conservative, he is intellectually incapable of distinguishing between libertine and libertarian.

[Fist of Etiquette]

It seemed like the audience was only applauding his speech cadence. I don't think they understood what he was talking about any better than he did.

Anyway, I couldn't get through even half of that. I doubt even the straw man Maher was describing could hold interest in that unmerited smugness.

[John]

Bill Maher wants the government to allow you to do a few things he likes. Libertarians think they should be able to do whatever they want period.

[Joe M]

Okay, I am watching more of it, and it's effing obnoxious. He's trying to say the libertarians are the spoiled entitled rich college kids? When it's clearly the liberals who are demanding shit like student debt pay offs.

[Episiarch]

Projection, dude. It's always projection with them.

[Nazdrakke]

"Okay, I am watching more of it, and it's effing obnoxious. He's trying to say the libertarians are the spoiled entitled rich college kids? When it's clearly the liberals who are demanding shit like student debt pay offs."

Sometimes I think that the Libertarian Party should produce an emblem of a scarecrow being beaten by a stick wielding donkey and elephant. Might get the point across..

[Irish]

This may be slightly off topic, but when did liberals become so boring?

You go back to the '60s and the left had guys like Hunter S. Thompson who would huff ether, hope in a Camaro, drive into the desert and fire a revolver at a cactus while screaming racial slurs at the nearest iguana.

Now they bitch about microaggressions and take gender studies classes.

When did the great bitchification of the American left begin?

[John]

Around 1972 when the New Left took over. The New Left were always boring pussies.

[IceTrey]

The push for the Equal Rights Amendment.

[General Butt Naked]

I think the only liberal like Hunter was Hunter.

I've always had a mistrust of authority, even as a child, but it wasn't until I was a teen and started reading Thompson that my mistrust and distaste turned into the studied hatred that would form the basis of my politics.

I don't think my views could have really been much different (I feel programmed to think of liberty as an end), but Thompson helped me get here. I don't think any other liberal could have done that.

[Irish]

Thompson's the man. I just got through reading his book about the Hell's Angels and it is incredible.

[RBS]

His Watergate stuff is great.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

Liberals became pussies when it switched from being about Freedom to do X into The "right" to be free from others doing X that makes you feel bad, is hateful, etc.

[General Butt Naked]

Yep, and the book on the '72 campaign trail is a must read for any political/actual junky.

@Irish

You should check out the anthologies of his writings, like The Great Shark Hunt. They have tons of articles, letters, and various excerpts in them.

And Fear and Loathing in Elko, the story of Thompson's meeting of Clarence Thomas is great.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

I don't think the counterculture was ever as strong as some leftists seem to think it was.

During the Progressive Era, you had a labor movement with typical white lower class sensibilities.

From the 30s into the 60s, you've got a mostly middle and lower-middle class consensus around welfare and vaguely Keynesian doctrine -- again, not terribly countercultural.

For a brief moment in the 60s, you saw a revolt in the party that lasted until perhaps McGovern's run against Reagan.

Then you have the New Left, and that's where the story ends.

Not terribly subversive stuff.

[General Butt Naked]

Also, though the hippies and yippies get all the historical coverage in the 60s and 70s they were actually a very small subsection of liberal politics. Hell, there are probably more libertarians now by percentage, than there were ready for revolution hippies back then. It just makes for a good story.

It would be like describing John Kerry's views in '04 using the occupy crowd as your basis.

[Wholly Holy Cow]

It's like this: True Libertarians are a lot like leftists in that their political beliefs dovetail nicely with their myriad personal demons. Is Reason really so pro-weed? Can you light up in the office? Does your employee health plan cover medical marijuana? Probably not. Sure, everyone's for gay marriage. I mean, not for your own kids or course, but for anyone else.

Nah, much of Reason's pro-weed and pro-gay marriage stuff seems more gleeful at poking the eyes of cops, the religious and traditional America than anything else. It's a great way to undermine the motivations of the Right and conservatives and traditional America. Just like Leftists would do!

Reason's coverage of cops and foreign policy is unhinged Leftism, indistinguishable at times from indymedia.com or some Occupy Wall Streeter's Fruit of the Looms after a few freebie veggie tacos.

Yeah, Irish, you know what? The lovely Miss Coulter was right: you guys ARE pussies!

[Francisco d Anconia]

And he's she's got an adams apple.

[Episiarch]

MORON ALERT

[Dunphy (the real one)]

You are not poking the eyes of cops by being pro-weed. At least in my state, most of the guys on my beat (actual beat cops, not cop-o-crats) are relieved that we finally legalized it. It's largely viewed as a waste of time by most of the guys I work with.

There are some who think it should be illegal. There are others who don't really care about MJ per se, but like the fact that it can open up a fishing expedition search/seizure wise to get "bigger stuff". Iow, as a practical matter, it's a tool to get a FREE SEARCH card. They personally could not care less about the MJ itself.

But there was hardly a hue and cry from street cops when we legalized MJ. A metric assload of us have smoked back in the day, or spent a lot of time around people who did, and see it as the relatively benign drug that it is.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Sure, everyone's for gay marriage. I mean, not for your own kids or course, but for anyone else.

Don't speak for me, jackoff.

[darius404]

Personally, I only want gay marriage for my parents, whether they want it or not.

[General Butt Naked]

I'm honored to be called a pussy by someone who obviously types through untold tears, blubbering, and hurt feelings.

I salute you, Mr. Cow.

[Sevo]

That's *MRS.* cow to you, GBN!

[Irish]

The lovely Miss Coulter

I'm glad we could help you come out.

[np]

More gleeful poking stabbing please.

[Jesus H. Christ]

Let's leave Maher out of the question for a moment. I think what Nick is trying to get at is simply how to make the message of liberty sound less selfish and insensitive. There are those who (a relative few I belive) who cannot adequately care for themselves. How does a libertarian society deal with this? Is it possible to have safeguards for the unfortunate? How does a libertarian society deal with bad things happening to good people?

Most people will never accept freedom if they think it is heartless and cruel.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Most people will never accept freedom if they think it is heartless and cruel.

]

But freedom is "heartless" in that it requires one to deal with the consequences of poor decision-making or just rotten luck.

[Jesus H. Christ]

So there is no help for those who cannot help themselves? At all? orphans starve, the infirm are left to die? Is that it? Again, this is not an accusation. I'm asking. In your libertopia, what does it mean to "deal with the consequences"?

[Irish]

Freedom is heartless in that it is 'amoral.' Individuals are free to do good things or bad things. Many individuals would help the infirm, feed orphans, etc. This happened before the welfare state, so the idea that it wouldn't happen without the welfare state is a blatant lie.

The problem is, liberals see the amorality as a bug, when in fact it's a feature. A system that relies on the morality of the ruling class is doomed to fail, because all you need is a small collection of people who are stridently immoral, and find themselves in positions of power and the entire system will get tilted to their benefit.

You want a system which works regardless of anyone's morality, which is why capitalist society's are the most effective.

[Jesus H. Christ]

That's a start! However, I think it needs to be refined a bit, as far as how to sell that to those for whom government = charity.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

Before the welfare state, there were literally STARVING kids. There are no starving kids, at least in situations where parents have the mental capacity to sign up for basic food programs, get themselves to food distribution programs, etc.

Let's be honest here. That's a huge difference. There was a point in time where povery meant your kids went hungry. There is a sufficient safety net now such that no kid needs go hungry. Obesity is a bigger worry.

[Sevo]

"Let's be honest here. That's a huge difference. There was a point in time where povery meant your kids went hungry."

Let's be REAL honest here. There are places where the gov't acts to prohibit people from being prosperous to the extent that your kids get eaten; see the Norks.
It's not the timing, Dunphy, it's whether the gov't allows humanity to make money.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

Personally, in my libertopia, there IS a social safety net - a govt. one. This does not mean that the role of charity cannot be handled to a large extent by private groups (the mormons btw do a bang up job within their group. tithing helps, obviously). As a libertarian, I oppose welfare system that incentivizes bad behavior, like having kids out of wedlock, and especially when you can't afford them, etc. In my libertopia, NOBODY starves.

But dealing with the consequences means that it's not the role of govt. for instance to incentivize reckless loans, nor is it the job of govt. to bail out a person who massively overleveraged their own loan. It's not just the fault of evil predatory mortgage co's. It's the fault of recklesss homebuyers. And that's a cost the reckless homebuyer should bear, for instance.

[Irish]

I'd also argue that there's a major difference between a 'safety net' and the welfare web people get caught in today.

People will go on disability who don't actually need to be on disability and they will stay there for the rest of their lives. Somehow, liberals think this is a 'safety net.'

[Jesus H. Christ]

So a safety net, perhaps funded by tax deductible donation, instead of by a tax, where the revenue is not placed in the general fund, with tightly defined goals, might be acceptable in a libertarian society?

[Francisco d Anconia]

So there is no help for those who cannot help themselves? At all? orphans starve...

Ron Paul had a good chapter about this in The Revolution. What it boils down to is charity.

People weren't dying in the streets before the government got involved in the forced charity business. People helped other people. Doctors did a portion of their work pro bono. Private charities would do a hell of a better job at getting goods and services to the truly needy than the government does.

[Irish]

Also, look at something like this.

The countries that give the most to charity are Ireland, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland. The countries with high rates of charitable giving tend to have relatively low taxes and relatively low government intervention when compared to other nations.

Within the United States, Republican states give more money to charity per person than Democrat states do. Republican states also tend to have lower taxes and less government economic intervention compared to blue states.

I'd argue that large amounts of taxation and large amounts of government intervention actually crowds out charitable giving. In other words, government spending on the poor doesn't necessarily help the poor, since it might just have crowded out private spending on the poor.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

There was a study came out a while ago also showed that those on the right gave a greater %age of their income to charity than those on the left.

Libs at DU 'splained this away by saying that since their idea of charity was conservative causes it wasn't real charity or some such.

[Irish]

They also try to say 'well conservatives give money to churches.' That also falls flat, because churches tend to do charity work.

Back when I was still mildly religious, I used to give money to my church. The church used that for two things: Church expenses (our pastor, upkeep of the building, paying bills) and charity. We had dinners for the poor, ran a soup kitchen, and we also had food drives where people would bring in canned food and cereal for poor people.

Now, if I'd given money straight to a charity, maybe a greater percentage would have reached the poor. Even that isn't necessarily true though, since many charities have such large overhead costs.

Giving to church can result in just as money reaching the poor and needy as giving directly to charity. Leftists don't like to admit this, because they'd have to say something nice about religion.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Unless that religion mostly stands in opposition to Western values, and then it becomes "you can't criticize Muslim mistreatment of women because you're not in the right identity politics subgroup, check your white male privilege."

If only I was joking.

[Heroic Mulatto]

_ J.H.C.

See my response about private charity downthread.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

I think this is hugely important. I remember an ex-girlfriend saying she'd support "libertarianism with a conscience". Iow, libertarianism without a social safety net is abhorrent, and for good reason, to many people.

This is also the prevalent attitude amongst DU leftists - that libertarians are just selfish conservatives that happen to want to smoke pot. Libertarians are viewed as the "I've got mine, so fuck you go get your own" party by the DU left, without any consideration for systemic issues of poverty, etc. Libertarians recognize otoh, that many govt. programs have done more to increase poverty and suffering than to make the situation better

[Kaptious Kristen]

That's similar to when lefties screamed about Rand Paul's opposition to the Civil Rights Act, without bothering to find out why he was against it. It's just one big ball of emotion for them (and for SoCons who scream about "the family")

[Jesus H. Christ]

So how do we reassure those who fear for the welfare of others that the "disadvantaged" again, another horrible term, won't be left to rot in a free society?

[heller]

It's simple, if they actually care about the poor then they will do something about it. It's their responsibility to carry out their personal vision of society, not ours. If they are arguing that the poor will suffer in a libertarian society then they are saying that all the people in this country who claim to care about the fate of the poor are lying.

[juris imprudent]

Which of course gets right to the heart of the matter. All those compassion fascists don't care so much that they will give liberally their own money; they are only liberal with other people's money.

[Jesus H. Christ]

Basically, what does a libertarian society have to offer for those who are "less fortunate" I really hate that term, but there are those who simply are not as well equipped to deal with modern society as others. How would they be treated, what opportunities would they have, in a libertarian society?

[General Butt Naked]

I like Ron Paul's answer to this line of inquiry.

He basically says that to get to a libertarian society is gonna take a big reduction in government and a lot that can be done before we start dismantling the welfare state. Not only that, but we can dismantle a big chunk of the welfare state before we even start in on those who truly need it.

Thing is, most of those asking the question are only trying to show some major flaw in libertarianism.

"If they've got no plan for the needy in their 'utopia' how can we trust them on immigration/drugs/prostitution/taxes/etc."

[Jesus H. Christ]

That's a good answer. I'm a libertarian and I never heard that from Ron Paul, and I'm paying attention. How do get that message out?

[Jim176]

I like Dennis Miller's idea-" We should help the truly helpless but we don't give damn about the clueless"

[Francisco d Anconia]

There are those who (a relative few I belive) who cannot adequately care for themselves. How does a libertarian society deal with this?

You eat them, of course.

*removes monocle and stares in disbelief

[The Immaculate Trouser]

To be honest, I wouldn't be bothered in anything but a philosophical sense to see a government that is libertarian in everything except, perhaps, having a limited welfare system for people who get in a temporary rut.

I'd note that libertarianism typically applies its analysis to functional adults -- in the same way that children are viewed differently by most libertarians, there is cause for government intervention in the case of marginal members of society (those with serious and severe mental problems, for example). In some ways, a libertarian society would be better for such people than is currently the case.

[Heroic Mulatto]

having a limited welfare system for people who get in a temporary rut.

Why couldn't that be handled by private charity? If I could afford it, I would give an extra loaf of bread to a hungry man. I don't need the government to point a gun at my head to force me to do it.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

It could be and I agree with the case made in the video, but I am speaking in a Bernardo de Paz sense -- I would find a welfare system that offered limited relief in unfortunate circumstances something not worth complaining about.

At any rate, I do think that some government intervention is needed for marginal cases where people are not fully equipped with the ability to pursue their own right to life, liberty, and property (children, the mentally disabled).

[Boisfeuras]

I agree that a limited 'safety net' program is not, in itself, overly onerous?although voluntary private charity would be pragmatically more efficient, and philosophically more moral because it does not involve forcible extraction of its funding.

But in practice, the problem is our government has no mandate for charity, and in allowing it, we accede to an unconstitutional incrementalist expansion of governmental power. Franklin Pierce said in his veto message of a bill for federal assistance to insane persons:

"I readily, and, I trust, feelingly acknowledge the duty incumbent on us all, as men and citizens, and as among the highest and holiest of our duties, to provide for those who, in the mysterious order of Providence, are subject to want, and to disease of body or mind; but I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the federal government the great almonder of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution, and subversive of the whole theory upon which the union of these States is founded."

A few decades later, Grover Cleveland used a similar argument to veto the Texas Seed Bill.

[JW]

I would find a welfare system that offered limited relief in unfortunate circumstances something not worth complaining about.

The problem is that it would never end there. Scope creep is the norm.

[Virginian]

Yeah I'd be perfectly comfortable if the government ran a network of dormitory style homes free to anyone to come in off the street, with arrangements for hygiene and nutritious meals. I am not opposed to three hots and a cot. I am opposed to writing endless checks to subsidize poor decisions.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

This.

[Virginian]

Seriously. You come in, there are lockers you can store your belongs in securely, showers and hygiene supplies, a cafeteria with nutritious and somewhat tasty food, and then a big room with extra long twin beds. Each with a pillow and a nice warm blanket, and privacy curtains. In the morning, you throw your dirty linens in the laundry chute before you get breakfast. Maybe have a common room with newspapers and books. A few email terminals, public phone booths. Workout equipment in the basement. Security on staff, maybe an EMT.

I am willing to pay for a safety net, not a fucking hammock.

[Francisco d Anconia]

I am willing to pay for a safety net, not a fucking hammock.

And I know I'll probably catch shit for this, but it needs to be a little humiliating. People should be ashamed to be living at the expense of another. That's what's missing from the current system. Shame.

I have no problem helping people through a bad time, but they damn sure need to be taking action to take care of themselves.

Incentives.

[JW]

That's what's missing from the current system. Shame.

What is with the KULTUR WARRIURS and their need to fucking lord over the underclass?

It needs to be clear that it's temporary and when it runs out, so do you. It's a helping hand, not a way of life. The rest will sort itself out without the morality play.

[JW]

You don't need the state for that. At. All.

You're inviting the fucking vampire into the house to do the laundry and cooking and thinking you're quite clever for it.

[Jesus H. Christ]

First, there's the marketing. How do you convince other people that charity is enough. Secondly, there were many well-organized charitable organizations that helped the disadvantaged. Most of those organizations are gone now, as the gov't has taken over that role. It's going to be hard to say "private charity will do it" when the private charity has dried up and blown away. Lastly, it was easier for private charity to do the work because the overall tax burden was lower and many families only needed one wage earner, so that left an adult in the family with time to help out. Again, that's long gone.

[Heroic Mulatto]

First, there's the marketing. How do you convince other people that charity is enough...

Well, this is the point where I shrug my shoulders and say "Not my problem, but if you attempt to use force to take my wealth to redistribute, I will kill you." That may make me a "selfish prick" but it's a much, much bigger sin to be a violent thug who steals from peaceful, innocent people.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

Do you pay taxes? If you do, you DO allow people to redistribute your wealth under threat of force.

[Heroic Mulatto]

That was the point of the video, "George Ought to Help", I linked to upthread.

[Jesus H. Christ]

... and libertarianism remains a tiny minority in the political spectrum.

[Skip]

So basically, Maher was all in favor of libertarianism as long as rich people weren't benefitting.

[Eduard van Haalen]

Except rich people he knows, or is.

[Jim176]

everybody wants to rule the world-Tears for Fears

[Bruce Majors]

Isn't it a little heteronormative to belittle those of us who read Atlas Shrugged and have boyfriends, not girlfriends?

[jesse.in.mb]

Don't worry Bruce, Kristen has your back!

[CatoTheElder]

The "Venn diagram of Maher and libertarianism is going to show a huge amount of overlap on things."

This is an absurd contention.

First, I'm not so sure it's nearly as huge Nick thinks. For every overlap that he could name, I'll wager that there are two contrary examples that I could name.

Second, the overlaps that do exist are merely coincidental. Maher does not arrive at his conclusions on such things based upon the libertarian principles.

[toasted]

The critics of Reason.com finally won me over. If Gillespie and Austin Petersen are the leaders of libertarianism, I need to find a new home. So what if libertarians sound selfish in world scarred with the history of collectivism and shared sacrifice.

[mr simple]

OT: Is anyo e else watching the final four coverage? Is the sideline reporter, Tracy, wearing a shirt of mithril chain mail?

[mr simple]

OT: Is anyo e else watching the final four coverage? Is the sideline reporter, Tracy, wearing a shirt of mithril chain mail?

[Sevo]

I'm not.

[Heroic Mulatto]

OT: Another example in the "No Double Standard" file...animated!

[[e-mail]]

I think the Huffington Post hit the nail on the head by filing this under comedy. The fact that I don't find him at all funny is nothing new.

[hamilton]

that is what unmoderated comments sections are for, right?

Jesus Nick, do you have to be such a dick to the commenters? Aside from all the snark and nastiness I actually find the HampersandR to be an awesome place to try out ideas and see other concepts essayed and beaten to the ground.

Not to mention we think you're cool and go to your book signings. Well we think the jacket is cool anyway, and it did not sign my book.

[darius404]

beaten to the ground

Personally, this is my favorite part. But then again, my first instinct with things I find wrong is to smash them utterly.

[Irish]

I don't think Nick meant that to be offensive to people who comment here. I just think Nick gets very lazy with his writing when he's doing a blog post. His actual articles tend to be solid, but the writing he churns out for blog posts is really poor. It seems like he just writes whatever pops into his head.

[hamilton]

I get that, but god it gets old. I mean, WTF else is the proper reaction to the Maher video above aside from the brainless "gee guys, makes ya think, huh?" BS in the posting? I get about a billion times more interesting thoughts on libertarianism broadly and on specific case studies from the likes of the commenters. Even when it's responding to retards like M o n o t o n y or whatever Merkin's new name is.

[Bookkeeper]

How about this one: "He who pays the piper calls the tune."

Bill and Co. can wish to keep government out of the bedroom and medicine cabinet all day, but like the best of prostitutes, so long as someone else is paying, the payer get to call some of the shots. If the government buys my drugs, they get to limit what drugs I can get. That's perfectly rational from the government's perspective - they have to be able to control costs somehow. When the State pays for something, they get to regulate it. When we ask for Obamacare, we get tremendous government intrusiveness into our health care decisions. And it's perfectly fair.

Being free on someone else's dime would require a government of saints. If you want Freedom in any sphere, you have to make it the domain of individuals.

[Xenocles]

The best trick TEAM BLUE pulled recently, in my opinion, was convincing women that they were the party that wanted to leave their health care decisions alone even as they were generating a human-sized stack of paper regulating those same decisions.

[Jim Walsh]

Here's the problem: libertarians don't win elections. They never have. They never will. Too many people just don't like the idea. Reagan and Goldwater won for their social conservatism and military hawkishness, among other factors. Free markets just ain't sexy to most people. They don't think the world can work without great, big governments to tell people how to live. I wish it weren't so.

[YoureWrong]

I've never met a thinking democrat or republican who at the end of the day didn't share large blocks of common cause with libertarians. And that left/right "overlap" you see is one I've argued for years. Unfortunately, it is the elephant in the LP's living room that is persistently ignored. Exploiting that overlap could be the pivotal direction for the LP. It's a simple shift in narrative that could build ideological bridges that all could traverse, it seems to me. Instead our current narratives seem to stress the big, virtually unusable differences, like phony market differentiators in a failed sales scheme, that have no (pragmatic) reason for being stressed whatsoever. That stunted discourse has little real value save building walls, and is the most likely the reason the LP limps along instead of soaring like it should.

[SaltySeaCaptain(LAOL)]

"You can dismiss everything he says easily, logically, emotionally and bring up all the myriad ways in which he's just WRONG WRONG WRONG and how he's really a COMMIE DOUCHEBAG who hates womenz and all that (that is what unmoderated comments sections are for, right?)."

Since all the tReason cosmotarian bullshit has already been thoroughly trumped, I would just like to point out that the Reason Commentariat could shit a better article.

Why doesn't Reason write an article about how great Pat Robertson and Rick Santorum are, and how we can "appeal" more to them?

[YoureWrong]

That's would precisely be the kind of article that factors in political expediency for the sake of the advancement of a political platform. All political parties that succeed advance by building commonality of ideas, notions and values in those who previously didn't share them, acknowledge them or even think about them. Patty and Ricky aren't the only Patty and Ricky out there that vote, or think -- or can be turned. Nick has put his finger on what is, or should be, the LP's strategy of choice: building bridges across divides where ever they can be built, even if seemingly risky. These can be built, should be built and are useful as tools of political change.

[ETremens]

Attacks on Ayn Rand by people who have admittedly never read her "all the way to the end" should be viewed for what they are: attacks on any non-emotionalist approach to a political philosophy Bill Maher likes pieces of.

Whether you attack Rand, Rothbard, Nozick -- people who agreed on few things -- you're attacking the messenger telling you that advocating some freedoms (e.g., who I can sleep with) but not others (e.g., what I can buy) is intellectually irresponsible.

And that, I submit, is what Maher dislikes about the libertarians who have "ruined" it for him: they asked him to put his subjectivity to a logical test.

And that can screw up your whole day.

[Sevo]

"And that, I submit, is what Maher dislikes about the libertarians who have "ruined" it for him: they asked him to put his subjectivity to a logical test."

IOWs, he was called on his bullshit.

[Tony]

Neither Paul Ryan nor Rand Paul nor Dagny Taggart would be anywhere without their daddies.

[Xenocles]

And...?

[Irish]

And no one would ever benefit from parentage in Tony's grand socialist utopia. Don't you know anything?

[Xenocles]

If not for his father, Tony might have been able to go somewhere other than the family sex dungeon.

[Virginian]

It's comments like these that make me think Tony is one of the regulars trolling. I mean, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, anyone named Kennedy, etc. only have a political career because of their fathers.

[Tony]

It is impossible to eliminate the inequality of parentage. That's what makes it absurd to premise an anti-collectivist philosophy on the idea that we can avoid a parade of horrors without collective action if only people would try and perhaps be motivated by starvation a little more.

The thing about Darwinian processes is that they are never, ever "fair." You can embrace social Darwinism as the least bad option, but don't blame others for believing there are actually good options, even if they entail collective action.

[Virginian]

I have no problem with collective action. I only have a problem with forced collective action.

Which, as always, you have no response to. At the end of the day, you want to order people around at gunpoint. Which makes you a moral cretin.

[Tony]

We have invented ways to do collective action that isn't forced, namely democratic governance. You tell me how you organize collective action on any scale, even 10 people, without establishing governing rules or how you have a freer system than equal voting. The fantasy is in the assumption that you can do anything without violating the wishes of some people some of the time. Not even with 10 people trying to act can you do that. Everyone else assumes our form of government is legitimate as long as it allows everyone an equal vote. You guys sound exactly as Maher described: merely uncontent that you don't get your way all the time.

[Xenocles]

If you think democratic governance doesn't constitute force, try going against it.

[Virginian]

Seriously, if democratic government is not force, then what are all the cops and soldiers for?

[Francisco d Anconia]

You tell me how you organize collective action on any scale, even 10 people, without establishing governing rules

The difference being, you disingenuous immoral fuck, one is voluntary the other is forced upon you. If I do not like the rules of a private collective action, I can CHOOSE not to participate.

[Sevo]

Tony| 4.6.13 @ 7:49PM |#
"We have invented ways to do collective action that isn't forced, namely democratic governance..."

Now there is "dumb". There is "stupid". There is "ignorant". There is "abysmally ignorant". And then there's shithead.

[Irish]

But Sevo, people who are democratically elected can never behave tyrannically.

When the Athenian Democracy forced Socrates to drink hemlock, that was okay, because they voted on it.

When the Athenian Democracy murdered a bunch of generals because they'd made a mistake during battle, or liquidated entire population centers during the Peleponnesian War, that was okay, because they voted for it.

Hell, the Athenian Democracy was more of a pure democracy than America is, so those acts are actually closer to collective action than what our government does.

And it was all okay. Because it was voted for.

[Xenocles]

Socrates may be a bad example - in many of the legends he did it willingly.

[Irish]

Regardless, the murder of the generals and slaughter of non-combatants is part of the historical record. The point stands.

[Sevo]

Irish| 4.6.13 @ 8:06PM |#
"But Sevo, people who are democratically elected can never behave tyrannically."

Especially if they are 'elected' with 99.9% of the vote!

[Brian]

Tony:

You tell me how you organize collective action on any scale, even 10 people, without establishing governing rules or how you have a freer system than equal voting. The fantasy is in the assumption that you can do anything without violating the wishes of some people some of the time.

No, the fantasy is beliefing that you have to have government to have rules.

Otherwise, please explain how the government coordinates the rules between you and your lovers.

[Sevo]

Tony| 4.6.13 @ 7:39PM |#
'The thing about *government* processes is that they are never, ever "fair."'

Fixed, shithead.
Oh, and no one here is promoting 'Darwinism' except as an analogy for spontaneous order.

[Irish]

Government is not collective action. Collective action is people choosing to work together. When more than half of all people either voted against Obama or stayed home, he cannot be said to work for 'collective action.' The same is true of all congressmen and senators.

Such a small percentage of people even vote, and an individual can be elected while earning only 51% of those that do. Hell, Clinton was elected twice and never even got 50% of the vote. He was president based on approximately a third of the population voting for him.

Explain to me again how someone can represent 'the collective' when only 35-40% of people actually voted for him and a similar number of people actively despise him?

[Virginian]

Explain to me again how someone can represent 'the collective' when only 35-40% of people actually voted for him and a similar number of people actively despise him?

You know very well why Irish. It's the same answer the control freaks always give: "Fuck you, that's why!"

[Tony]

I'm all for a runoff system and for the president being required to actually get a majority of votes. Sign me up.

[Sevo]

Tony| 4.6.13 @ 7:50PM |#
"I'm all for a runoff system and for the president being required to actually get a majority of votes. Sign me up."

Of course you are, shithead!
I'm all for a republic where shitheads like you are prohibited from stealing! Sign me up!

[Virginian]

Answer his fucking question dipshit. Not a majority of the votes, a majority of the fucking people who he's claiming the power to rule.

Are you retarded? Can you not read? We don't want a fucking ruler, elected or selected or handed a fucking sword by the lady of the lake. I don't want him inaugurated, invested or anointed. I wanted to be left the fuck alone to live my life without governments stealing from me at gunpoint.

[Francisco d Anconia]

And shit streams from it's mouth yet again.

[Sevo]

Tony| 4.6.13 @ 7:17PM |#
"Neither Paul Ryan nor Rand Paul nor Dagny Taggart would be anywhere without their daddies."

Shithead, you left out Lil' Kim. Yep, gov'ts are famous for rewarding merit over connections!

[Brian]

Tony:

Neither Paul Ryan nor Rand Paul nor Dagny Taggart would be anywhere without their daddies.

Who would be?

[DRM]

If someone lived through the last forty years as an adult and couldn't figure out that the free market works and the alternatives don't, there is quite literally nothing you can say to reach them.

China versus Taiwan? South Korea versus North? West Germany versus East? NATO versus Warsaw Pact? China/Vietnam since the 1980s versus North Korea? Chile versus Argentina? The collapse of Venezuela? California's long steady decline, and Texas's long steady rise?

At some point, you've got to write the dumbass off.

[Tony]

Bill Maher does not endorse authoritarian communism.

[Sevo]

Tony| 4.6.13 @ 7:36PM |#
"Bill Maher does not endorse authoritarian communism."

Except when he's being a 'comedian', right shithead?

[Irish]

I was unaware that California was an authoritarian communist state.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Please.

[Irish]

Well, Tony certainly wouldn't call it an authoritarian communist state. So I'd like to see him explain how a state that was once the envy of the world in terms of economic prosperity turned into a corrupt, anti-business, bankrupt kleptocracy with the highest unemployment in the country.

Huh, did it maybe have to do with them adopting policies that Tony happens to support?

[Jeff]

Fonzie, this has to be the dumbest shit you've written since you farted out that bit about how the Nazis weren't gun grabbers because they let Nazis keep guns.

[SIV]

Gillespie writes stupid sloppy shit all the time. I'm sure he's written dumber things than this.

[entropy]

If the nazis weren't gun grabbers, neither are the US gun grabbers, because they always include exceptions for police and military and you'd have to be a total moron to think disarming the cops would go anywhere in US politics.

[chicagoron]

He's dead on. There are a number of problems with today's libertarians that he doesn't even mention, like the propensity of birthers, truthers, and other conspiracy nuts to identify themselves as libertarian and sometimes Libertarian, when the LP has never espoused these notions.

But on the subjects Maher is talking about, the great problem with libertarians has always been the tendency to speak in broad strokes about ideals, instead of defining a path to those ideals. When you say things like "privatize education", or "deregulate the financial system" - people tune out immediately. We need to talk about reforming education by providing choices to give students an equal opportunity to succeed regardless of their financial means. We need to talk about simplifying financial regulations to eliminate loopholes and level the playing field. The truth is, with all its flaws, the SEC is one of the primary reasons our market is funded by capital from all over the world.
There are serious libertarian solutions to health care that rely on market forces to improve the quality of service and lower the cost curve but don't require a complete elimination of the safety net for the poor. If we can focus on making things BETTER instead of going from black to white, I think the message will be better received. Until then, there will always be something the mainstream just can't get past to listen to the rest of the story.

[IceTrey]

Why am I not surprised you're from Chicago?

[Sevo]

chicagoron| 4.6.13 @ 7:46PM |#
"He's dead on."
No, he isn't even wrong; he's worse than that.
And as regards the rest of your post, are you familiar with what Reason does? Cato? IJ?
What you propose is *exactly* what they do, and hardly anyone listens (Maher included; he's beneath contempt).

[chicagoron]

He is dead on. His thesis is that libertarians are ignored by the mainstream because those who are given a mouthpiece to speak for rest do a very poor job of communicating. We can keep pissing in the wind forever, or soften up a little bit and maybe get a seat a the big kids table.

[Virginian]

Soften up on what? Ending the Drug War? Unshackling the market? Guns? Gays? A peaceful foreign policy?

[General Butt Naked]

Look Virginian, if you don't start believing in what everybody else believes in then people won't believe in the same things that you believe in.

It's simple logic, learn it and you'll have a seat at the big kids' table.

Jeesh.

[Virginian]

Seriously, I am willing to make compromises. But I mean....can someone tell me the last act of Congress that expanded liberty?

Anyone?

The idea that people in power want to work with libertarians, if only we weren't so extreme, is insane. They hate us, they hate our ideas, because they love control and centralized power.

[Xenocles]

Compromise is only possible when the general direction is the same. We can compromise on which horror film to see, or that we'll see my movie this time and yours next time. We can't compromise if you want to go see a movie and I want to go to sleep. We can't compromise if I want all your money and you want to keep it. We can't compromise if I want to kill you and you would prefer to stay unharmed.

[Irish]

That's not his thesis. His thesis is 'I like pot and strippers. Why can't libertarians just talk about pot and strippers?'

His argument is that he hates the entire fiscal aspect of libertarianism. He wants the part of libertarianism that lets him be a hedonist, but not the part that lets other people live their lives without government coercion.

He's a hypocrite, a liar and a delusional, hedonistic fraud. Don't pretend that raving bellend has a point beyond a hypocritical hatred of government when it impacts his life and a love of government when it impacts everyone else's.

[chicagoron]

I gave him the benefit of the doubt that at least part of it was meant to be comedy. I certainly don't agree with Maher's personal politics in most ways, and never really understood why he identified as a libertarian when he's clearly a far left progressive, and certainly a hypocrite.

[Sevo]

chicagoron| 4.6.13 @ 8:27PM |#
"I gave him the benefit of the doubt that at least part of it was meant to be comedy."

Bullshit!
I'm tired of listening to people giving his stupidity a pass because it's "comedy", while claiming some random nugget is evidence of his intelligence.
The man is clever; that's a long ways from intelligent. And he's trolling for audience.
A cynic, in the worst definition of that word. Much as shithead is here.

[Sevo]

chicagoron| 4.6.13 @ 8:10PM |#
..."or soften up a little bit and maybe get a seat a the big kids table."

Like the 'big kids' who rammed Obamacare through?
No thanks. I'd rather not go swimming in the septic tank.

[chicagoron]

Like the people who are actually charged by the electorate with making decisions instead of sitting on the sideline and playing monday-morning quarterback. The LP can't even get invited to a debate. The two major parties are selling campaign finance reform as something for the people, rather than the insurance policy it really is for them to be the only choices in perpetuity. All the good ideas in the world are worthless if you can't win elections. And whether or not that was really what Maher meant, THAT is the premise I am agreeing with.

[Sevo]

chicagoron| 4.6.13 @ 8:30PM |#
"Like the people who are actually charged by the electorate with making decisions instead of sitting on the sideline and playing monday-morning quarterback. The LP can't even get invited to a debate."

All bow to the status quo! King Obozo, Queen Pelosi and Prince Boehner will accept the tributes paid by the petitioners upon the proper incantations!
Uh, are you familiar with what libertarian views are?

[chicagoron]

Sevo - you win the interwebz -!!eleventy!

If you can't see a world where a member of the LP gets elected INSTEAD of Peolosi or Boehner, and enacts real policy change to reduce the size and scope of government, just sign the freestate petition and move into a bunker and have fun inbreeding with the 3 people that join you.

[Sevo]

chicagoron| 4.6.13 @ 9:17PM |#
"Sevo - you win the interwebz -!!eleventy!
If you can't see a world where a member of the LP gets elected INSTEAD of Peolosi or Boehner, and enacts real policy change to reduce the size and scope of government..."

I'll call 911 for that strawman; what's the address?

[fish_remote]

We can keep pissing in the wind forever, or soften up a little bit and maybe get a seat a the big kids table.

Ah..."the Big Kids Table". Chicago Ron that hand up your ass, the one moving your mouth. It's T o n y s. Your being sockpuppeted by reasons house S o c k p u p p e t!

I'd be careful. That hand has really made the rounds if you know what I mean.

[chicagoron]

RE Cato and Reason - they don't reach much of an audience beyond self-identified libertarians. Why do you think that is?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

And yet, Cato does the exact opposite of what you say detracts from the credibility of libertarians -- Cato is all about coming up with incremental policy that is liberty-friendly.

School choice is not a full privatization, but it is liberty-friendly, marginal policy that has been shown to work.

There are articles in Cato about how to run the Fed in a more transparent way without abolishing it.

[General Butt Naked]

Not to mention that the two most prevalent complaints about Reason are contradictory.

"Reason is a bunch of comsmotarian traitors that just want to please everybody and get invited to all the DeeCee cocktail parties!"

"Reason is made up of a bunch of extremists who won't soften their views to attract those with mainstream political views!"

[Virginian]

Well, they aren't contradictory. DC is so statist that you can shape your arguments to be as nonthreatening as you can to statists without compromising your principles, and you'll still be a radical extremist.

DC is truly bizzarro world. Those of you who haven't experienced it will have to take my word for it. It's a place where Eleanor Holmes Norton is considered to be far too conservative by a good chunk of the city. It's a place where Adrian Fenty is thought of as a borderline right winger.

[Sevo]

"It's a place where Adrian Fenty is thought of as a borderline right winger."
And Obama is a 'centrist' for the love of pete!

[SIV]

A is correct.

[General Butt Naked]

One trick pony has one trick...

*surprised*

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Yeah, I find that the latter complaint is typically made by mendacious concern trolls.

[RBS]

The criticism is funny considering how many people write and contribute to Reason, especially coming from people who claim to hate collectivism...

[SIV]

Gillespie is the online Editor-in-Chief.

[chicagoron]

Exactly - but you get Ron Paul running around saying Abolish the Fed and go back to gold on every single MSM network and that becomes the voice of libertarianism and nobody logs onto Cato or buys their policy reports.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Um...why is advocating going back to a system that worked in the past, considered out of the mainstream?

[Virginian]

Yeah, the problem is we have people who believe that magical pieces of paper backed by big computers full of theoretical magical pieces of paper, all controlled by some wise men in a boardroom is a sensible basis for a monetary system.

Meanwhile the people who think that the stuff that every single human society throughout history has found valuable is a more sensible system, well those people are just crazy extremists.

[chicagoron]

How can you say you believe in free markets and then ask that question? You don't get to CHOOSE what the mainstream is. That idea empirically IS outside of the mainstream, whether it is a good or bad idea. And most of the mainstream has a fleeting and facile understanding of basic economics, so it's not like he's going to make a case that anyone understands.

[Virginian]

See, the thing is that I consider a belief in fiat money and Keynesianism to be akin to believing in intelligent design.

I have the same contempt for Paul Krugman that I do for some inbred moron who thinks Jesus rode around on a T Rex. Actually, I have more, because Cletus McFuckhead has never contributed to the destruction of wealth in the way Krugman has.

You're saying I should concede to idiots that they are almost right, that there just need to be little tweaks made to their idiot philosophy.

"Oh, yeah flying with those wings you made and attached to your hands is possible. We just need more feathers....maybe get you a nice aerodynamic suit to wear."

[chicagoron]

I'm saying you are at a dangerously inconsistent spot. Either you need to invoke fascism so that you can accomplish what you want, or you need to convince cleatus mcfuckhead and all his ape-brained friends to VOTE FOR YOU before you can actually change anything. And making suggestions that are horribly at odds with the mainstream (right or wrong) does not win elections.

[Virginian]

It''s not inconsistent. Contradictions do not exist. Check your premises.

And go read Nock.

[chicagoron]

Not familiar with Nock. But I'm interested to hear your path from where we are today to abolishing the fed and going back to a gold-backed currency that somehow bypasses the electoral process.

[Virginian]

Not familiar with Nock. But I'm interested to hear your path from where we are today to abolishing the fed and going back to a gold-backed currency that somehow bypasses the electoral process.

Read Nock. Specifically the concept of "The Remnant". Then, I think, you will have the answer to your question.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Contradictions do not exist. Check your premises.

I love that line. That may have been my biggest takeaway from AS.

[Sevo]

chicagoron| 4.6.13 @ 8:56PM |#
"I'm saying you are at a dangerously inconsistent spot."

Pretty sure you aren't really familiar with the definition of "inconsistent".

[chicagoron]

would a libertarian who espouses fascism not be inconsistent?

I pose the same question to you Sevo. How do you get from today to gold standard without invoking some type of autocratic rule, when it is extremely unpopular with the electorate?

[Sevo]

chicagoron| 4.6.13 @ 9:09PM |#
"How do you get from today to gold standard without invoking some type of autocratic rule, when it is extremely unpopular with the electorate?"

Uh, that's a toughy. How do you get to unicorn farts without....
WIH are you posting about?!

[darius404]

The only difference in exposure is that Ron Paul was on TV a lot as a politician and political candidate. As neither Cato Reason is either of these nor do they field candidates, it's unfair to compare the two and say "Cato and Reason should be like Ron Paul". Getting on TV, as Reason employees try to do, is as close as it gets for a publication. Cato is mainly about policy proposals, which aren't really TV sound-bite material.

What you're thinking of already exists, by the way. Look up the Institute for Humane Studies or the Young Americans for Liberty, which do lots of seminars, outreach programs, and general get-togethers of libertarian sorts.

[SIV]

HuffPost Live and Russia Today aren't really TV

[Sevo]

chicagoron| 4.6.13 @ 8:12PM |#
"RE Cato and Reason - they don't reach much of an audience beyond self-identified libertarians. Why do you think that is?"

Uh, because they are convinced of libertarian principles? Maybe that?

[chicagoron]

Please explain the value of preaching to the converted

[Sevo]

chicagoron| 4.6.13 @ 8:43PM |#
"Please explain the value of preaching to the converted"

Please explain the value of supporting the status quo.

[chicagoron]

who said anything about supporting the status quo? I simply said that if the few people who have mainstream exposure espouse extreme ideas instead of the type of incremental improvement advocated by cato and reason, then nobody will ever know they exist who doesn't already agree with them. That is not a good way to change anything, it's just a way to sit on the sidelines and bitch about how wrong everyone else is.

[Sevo]

chicagoron| 4.6.13 @ 8:59PM |#
"who said anything about supporting the status quo?"

You.

[entropy]

In reality, every church there is preaches to the converted. That's mostly all they do.

It's the converted that want the preaching.

[Irish]

There are a number of problems with today's libertarians that he doesn't even mention, like the propensity of birthers, truthers, and other conspiracy nuts to identify themselves as libertarian and sometimes Libertarian, when the LP has never espoused these notions.

I don't know that this is even true. Truthers maybe, but Birthers by and large are actively conservative, not libertarians.

You might say that Alex Jones calls himself a libertarian, but I'd respond by pointing out that Andrew Sullivan is a weird conservative/liberal hybrid who comes up with just as many absurd conspiracy theories as Alex Jones.

I don't know that libertarians are any more prone to conspiracy theories than the nutters who make up the two major parties.

[Sevo]

"I don't know that libertarians are any more prone to conspiracy theories than the nutters who make up the two major parties."
Pretty sure Shermer did a comparison in his Scientific American column, and left/right turned out ~even.

[chicagoron]

I'm sure this is true - purely a perception thing... the GOP and Democratic parties have been around long enough that they can credibly denounce this as the "fringe"

[Agile Cyborg]

I've watched an awful lot of this fellow over the years and I like the guy. It's hard for me NOT to enjoy someone who expresses his cognitive whims no matter where he's at on the thinking scales throughout the years. I've heard him be stupid, dumb, genius, brilliant, so-so, and everything else in-between and I dig this transparency so I've always handled Maher with a certain oky-dokeyness in my social group. I'm just not interested in drop-kicking him with my brilliance and astrological astuteness which I am comfortably convinced is unparalleled within the Agile Cyborg universa. I said all that to say... Maher, you can fuck with us Libertarians all ya want... at least we won't outlaw ya and your head gears, dear.

[Old Man With Candy]

He's a comedian/entertainer. Why does anyone give a flying fuck?

[Sevo]

He's got an audience larger than Olbermann's, that's why.

[Jeff]

Who doesn't have a larger audience than Olbermann?

[Sevo]

Rachel Maddow?

[Old Man With Candy]

So does Drew Carey and Penn/Teller. So what? He's an echo chamber, not an influencer.

[Reggie1971]

I remember about three years ago seeing an interview with this hateful and nasty little man. He was asked why so many people opposed Obamacare. His reply was simply "Because they're stupid".

Such a man's opinion is not worth a bucket of puke. For one thing, during his "politically incorrect" (?!) days in the 1990s, he opposed the efforts of Hillary Clinton to nationalize healthcare. I actually used to watch the show back when it was on Comedy Central and Maher was a self-described "libertarian". Fast forward about fifteen years and his transformation to hardcore liberal is complete.

I suppose that according to his logic, this must be related to a remarkable accumulation of I.Q. points and a sense of compassion. But perhaps the real explanation is that this metamorphosis was to a great extent a BUSINESS decision to go hard left when his show tanked a few short years after moving to ABC, and target a niche demographic. This would be his obnoxious and sheep-like group of mindless sycophants you will hear applauding everything he says if you have the misfortune to watch his program.

Whatever the reason, anyone who would rely on a cheap insult to opine against millions of people in this country is someone we need to ignore. The man has his best interests in mind, not libertarians.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

His audience and name recog would make him a good "useful idiot" to have on our side... but someone else got to him first.

[SumpTump]

Tehr eis a dude that clearly knows what time it is. Wow.

http://www.Net-Privacy.us

[Xenocles]

He may really know what time it is, but does anybody really care?

[Sevo]

Xenocles| 4.6.13 @ 8:29PM |#
"He may really know what time it is, but does anybody really care?"
Does anybody really know what time it is?

[Xenocles]

I can't imagine why.

[General Butt Naked]

I think the day just caught up with his stopped watch, that's all.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

For the time was .......... 1789!

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I wouldn't be considered libertarian by some here at Reason but at least I'm able to distinguish what libertarianism is from anarchy from modern liberalism etc.

This from a guy who made a vapid movie that basically chastised other people's beliefs.

Other than that, what does objectivism have to do with libertarian thought? Objectivists don't exactly hold libertarians in high regards seeing them as a loose bunch without much philosophical discipline.

As for free market principles, it's a philosophical and economic thought that goes as far back as The Enlightenment - and practiced in Renaissance Europe. He makes no sense equating free markets with 'creepiness.' It's a statement borne out of pure stupidity. What he should be railing against is CRONYISM which has little or nothing to do with free markets.

This run of the mill liberal can squawk all he wants but modern liberalism wrecked Western civilization. All the malignant movements in the 20th century were a direct consequence of the failure of liberalism leading to Nazi Germany and fascism. It wasn't classical liberalism or conservatism that did it. It was MODERN LIBERALISM.

Reason is best to not look to increase its self-esteem by running after liberal dead beats. Liberalism is a carcass on the side of the road. A skid mark at this point on a true journey to progress.

There has to be people out there with something more substantial to say about libertarianism.

[Palin's Buttplug]

You can't read. Maher did not say free markets were "creepy". He said the obsession of free markets by people like Rand Paul who are ignorant of business is creepy. And it is.

We have a free market economy here today. The freest in the world. Rand Paul and others should quit disparaging what they don't understand.

[Virginian]

We have a free market economy here today.

False.

The freest in the world.

Also false.

The only category where America retains it's title of the most free is in gun rights. Nothing else.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

um, false. we are the freest in regards to speech, hands down.

[General Butt Naked]

I'd agree with that.

I can't think of another country with the freedom of speech/press/religion that we enjoy.

[Sevo]

So dipshit found an acorn?
Awright, I can't offer a counterfactual.

[RightNut]

For the lazy.

[Sevo]

Still HK? Amazing!

[RightNut]

Ya I would have thought they would have slipped by now with PRC pulling the strings. I guess they don't want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

[CatoTheElder]

There is more anti-communist activism in HK now than there was in the 70s and 80s.

Bookstores openly offer Mao-The Untold Story and Mao's Great Famine for sale.

On the Kowloon Side of the Star Ferry, there's a huge booth with unmissable signs advertising the evils of China's communist history. I don't know who's sponsoring it, but it's clearly addressed to CCP tourists.

Go to the Victoria Peak tram, and across the street from the US Embassy, you might find some anti-CIA protests worthy of Alex Jones coverage.

HK is China, but like Macau it's a really special administrative region.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

We have free markets today?

That means... libertarians are dangerous utopian radicals for ... being in favor of the status quo?

[Palin's Buttplug]

You may make and sell anything you wish here for any price.

Of course recreational drugs and prostitution are illegal (sadly) but in the sense that one can put out their shingle and market we are #1 still.

Rand Paul (the optician) might complain about his $200 optician license but when he defended his Medicare loot he betrayed strict free market ideals.

[Virginian]

You may make and sell anything you wish here for any price.

A lie. Not even close to the truth.

[General Butt Naked]

You may make and sell anything you wish here for any price.

Wow, you really do live in a fantasy world, don't you?

[Irish]

You may make and sell anything you wish here for any price.

AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. You can't even sell food for any price in this country. We have government mandated price floors on milk.

What in the world are you talking about.

[General Butt Naked]

Yup, the first thing to come to mind when I read shrike's ball-smashingly ignorant comment were those signs at the mini-mart advertising "Milk At State Minimum Prices".

[Sevo]

Palin's Buttplug| 4.6.13 @ 9:00PM |#
"You may make and sell anything you wish here for any price."

Dipshit, you have no idea of the definition of "free market". Your stupidity is continually surprising.
No, you may not "make and sell anything you wish here for any price."
Yes, I can pay the risk fees to buy dope wherever I wish and I'm sure you see that as a "free market".
And I'm also sure you are convinced that "up" = "down".

[Palin's Buttplug]

No one is stopping you from producing safe milk and selling it - you fucking idiot.

Go ahead and run against food safety regs then. 2% will be the high water mark.

You are the kind of creep Maher is referencing.

[Sevo]

First, shreek posts this:
"You may make and sell anything you wish here for any price."
And when shreek is called on bullshit, shreek posts this:
Palin's Buttplug| 4.6.13 @ 9:26PM |#
"No one is stopping you from producing safe milk and selling it - you fucking idiot."
Now, I'm sure any first-grade kid in even a gov't school could spot the internal contradiction, but not our dipshit shreek!
You go, shreek! Go fuck your daddy.

[Irish]

Yes, but if I produce safe milk and sell it, I can't set the price. And that's for milk.

If something as unimportant as milk prices are given a price floor, how on earth can you even attempt to claim we have a 'free market?'

You're such an idiot. It's unbelievable.

[darius404]

You don't understand, Irish. Those milk prices? That's a cow's minimum wage. How can we have a free market if the cows aren't getting their fair share for the labor?

[RBS]

What about those Happy Cows from California, driving up the cost of labor here in SC?

[Irish]

I love how he moves the goal posts, too. He's the one who claimed that you can sell something for whatever price you want. We point out that he's wrong. He than claims that we're the ones being idiots because obviously what he meant is that you're allowed to sell milk at all.

Okay, Shrike.

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

"No one is stopping you from producing safe milk and selling it - you fucking idiot."

You're a goddamned liar. Raw milk is safe. I drink it. Americans drank it for a century. No one has EVER produced a scintilla of evidence that it is not safe.

Swat teams have been sent to raid farms selling raw milk, either because selling raw milk was illegal in that state, or because they were selling it in violation of some ridiculous regulation.

What is it like to be so fucking stupid?

[Sevo]

OK, we do have some few free markets:
You can buy used things without gov't interference; not a black market, but getting close.
You can buy quite a few IT products without gov't interference; the gov't is still trying to figure out how to screw up that market.
Window shades? Pretty sure.
Oh, wait! Hot rod parts! I don't think the gov't has yet figured out how to regulate T/F blowers!

[Dunphy (the real one)]

Our market is far from the freest. Singapore, to give one example (of many) is freest. Hong Kong too

[General Butt Naked]

Hell, wasn't Canada recently ranked above us in economic freedom?

[Irish]

Heritage ranked us 10th, behind the following:

Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Chile, Mauritius (?) and Denmark. Mauritius surprised me, but according to Wikipedia, they've developed from a poor, agrarian economy in 1970 to a diversified, middle income economy today, so I guess it shouldn't be surprising that they're a relatively free market.

The thing is, after us comes the deluge. The UK is fourteenth and in no way has anything resembling a free economy. Shrike's point that we're relatively free compared to other nations means nothing when we're living in an era where virtually every country has a large and intrusive government.

If my dad beats me but yours beats you harder, that doesn't mean my dad doesn't beat me. If we're not free, but other countries are more not free, that doesn't mean we're free.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Bloomberg ranked us #4 and is a capitalist publication (unlike Heritage).

[Irish]

Unless you can show me that Bloomberg's methodology is superior to Heritage's then we're both just cherry picking data points.

Regardless, I notice you didn't acknowledge my point that the entire world is unfree, therefore where we are in comparison to other countries is irrelevant.

Nice job sidestepping the argument.

Plus, you said we're the 'freest.' The best you can find places us at #4, which shows that you were wrong in your initial post.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Well, in the purist sense of the term (including drugs and pussy) I have already admitted we are not 100% free.

[fish_remote]

Well, in the purist sense of the term (including drugs and pussy) I have already admitted we are not 100% free.

Where did those goalposts go? I could have sworn they were right near here just a moment ago. But seriously, you are a pussy and I'm guessing that most of your posts are made when you are fucking high as a kite.

[Sevo]

Palin's Buttplug| 4.6.13 @ 9:28PM |#
"Bloomberg ranked us #4 and is a capitalist publication (unlike Heritage)."

You sleazy shit, we don't care what cherry you picked!
Go fuck your daddy.

[darius404]

Sevo, it's the other way around. Why do you think he here? That's Dear Leader, getting off by thrusting violently so OB's hands randomly smack the keyboard. He's the ultimate cockpuppet.

[SaltySeaCaptain(LAOL)]

^I have to say, most of Reason's commenters have more comedic talent in their fingernails than Bill Maher.

[DRM]

The Economic Freedom Network (Frasier Institute and associated groups) rates us a dismal 18th, after:

Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Bahrain, Mauritius, Finland, Chile, United Arab Emirates, Ireland, United Kingdom, Estonia, Taiwan, Denmark, and Qatar.

Seriously.

[Cytotoxic]

More lies. Chile is more free-market than America, and so is Canada.

[CatoTheElder]

For a micro-entrepreneur, communist Laos is more free-market than the US. The government there doesn't bother with kids' lemonade stands like the US.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Yes, that's accurate. My fault for not putting it as such.

I still don't see what's creepy about it. Obama's understanding of the markets and economics is worse.

[np]

Fuck, Shrike. An actual "free market" means voluntary exchange, as in without interference.

We cannot do any kind of trade between people in literally almost anything if we are not given a permission slip from the government. And they regulate and micro-manage what you exchange and how. How can you not see that?

(This is why I also do not differentiate between so-called economic liberties and civil or personal liberties in principle)

[Palin's Buttplug]

No. Taxes are interference no doubt.

The Boston Tea Party opposed tax CUTS for the East India Company and thus protested by disrupting the tea trade.

A free market means that you are free to compete.

[juris imprudent]

You were a HS classmate of John Blutarski, weren't you - but not smart enough to get into college.

[Koko B. Ware]

It would be one thing if Bill Maher simply disagreed with the purist free market line. But the guy called himself a libertarian for like ten years, and has never shown the lease bit of understanding regarding what economic conservatives actually believe. He still doesn't. Yes, he likes pot and free love. But you're not going to win over somebody who is this uninterested in hearing views that come from outside his bubble.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

You can dismiss everything he says easily, logically, emotionally and bring up all the myriad ways in which he's just WRONG WRONG WRONG and how he's really a COMMIE DOUCHEBAG who hates womenz and all that (that is what unmoderated comments sections are for, right?)

Am I the only one here who finds it troubling that Nick Flerking Gillespie is essentially AGREEING with Maher about "libertarians ruining libertarianism" here? That it's somehow our fault that Maher doesn't favor libertarianism?

I'm all for trying to massage the message to win converts, or at least open some minds and hearts, but Maher is a crusty old man who's gotten fat and famous on the power structure as it is now. That's not the kind of person you start trying to woo -- he'll come along once he sees a meal ticket and an audience gained by doing so.

And Gillespie's level of self-righteousness in this post would make Jerry Falwell blush. Sheesh.

[np]

Nick Flerking Gillespie is essentially AGREEING with Maher

Eh? That's not my take. After all, Nick did admit that you could easily prove how wrong Maher is. His point is:

Without betraying core values, are there ways we can reach these simpatico folks on the right or the left

Which I get in why Nick is bringing up Maher, but I think is fruitless and not worth the effort in trying to shape the delivery to persuade those who can't be persuaded in the first place.

[Fatty Bolger]

That's Nick's mistake. Maher is not "sympatico" in any way with libertarians. He just likes his hookers and drugs. If Maher didn't like drugs, he would be a drug warrior. Libertarians who don't like drugs support their legalization anyway. That's the difference.

[James Anderson Merritt]

Very nicely and succinctly put, FB.

[RBS]

Yeah, that was my point way up above. It's a waste of time with people like Maher. As for Nick, he seems to be getting a little grumpy. I mean the way he writes about movement libertarians is the opposite of the way Doherty writes about them. Nick more and more seems annoyed with the various factions and eccentricities while Doherty embraces them because that is the history of the movement.

[Sevo]

Tulpa (LAOL-PA)| 4.6.13 @ 8:46PM |#
..."Am I the only one here who finds it troubling that Nick Flerking Gillespie is essentially AGREEING with Maher about "libertarians ruining libertarianism" here?"

Only if you choose not to read some 500 comments.
Uh, do you think the party starts when you show up?

[RBS]

Uh, do you think the party starts when you show up?

Well, it is Tulpa.

[Sevo]

Tulpa's slogan:
"Not as Bad as Shreek!"

[Jose Chung]

I'm pretty sure he was saying that in order for the libertarian movement to grow it is important to see how others perceive us to come across and find a way to make sure that any misconceptions can be rectified in the future. Considering that libertarians are as varied as Andrew Napolitano, Alex Jones, Greg Gutfeld, Milton Friedman, Ron Paul, and Murray Rothbard it is easy to see how core libertarian principles get lost in some of the fringe, especially to those who only see what their preferred media sources toss in the trough.

[setTHEline]

How the hell is Paul Ryan considered a libertarian?

Concerning TARP: "This bill offends my principles, but I'm going to vote for this bill in order to preserve my principles, in order to preserve this free enterprise system," explained Ryan.

If that guy gets to ride our gravy chain of good press (read: any press) after Rand Paul's fili, I'm going lose it.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Do you read H/R often? Paul Ryan is considered a joke here.

[setTHEline]

Paul Ryain is considered a joke most everywhere.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

I didn't want big government in my bedroom, in my medicine chest, and especially not in the second drawer of the nightstand on the left side of my bed.

Am I the only one who took this as a reference to gun rights and immediately got confused? He's not pro-gun, is he? He can't be.

[RightNut]

I assume he was referencing the giant stick that is usually lodged deep up his ass but is carefully telescoped and put away each night.

[General Butt Naked]

That's what I thought at first as well, but considering that he's barely supports civilian firearm ownership, I doubt it was about guns.

More likely it's the 2012 commemorative Obama buttplug he's talking about.

[RBS]

I just assumed he was talking about the 8 ball he keeps on hand for the hookers.

[General Butt Naked]

See, that I could understand, but to keep up the 2-minute hate it's imperative that whatever is in that drawer is something that only a bootlicking statist would own.

Hence, an Obama buttplug.

[Irish]

I assumed it was a reference to a sex toy or something.

[RightNut]

If Maher, and liberals in general, are not smart/curious enough to understand the difference between being against state coercion and being a prick, that is his/their problem.

[James Anderson Merritt]

This was very hard to watch. This rant came from a guy who had Harry Browne on his show a couple of times, for cripes sake. If he had only talked to Harry in any depth, and had actually LISTENED to what the late LP Presidential candidate said, or read any of that fellow's books, he would have known that most of the things skewered in the recent rant had been in movement libertarianism (not to mention the Libertarian Party platform) ALL ALONG, even during the time that prominent Libertarians were guests (props???) on the his show. The kindest conclusion I can draw is that the guy either suffers from selective amnesia, or didn't really pay attention in the first place. A more cynical view is that he once made a play to co-opt the word "libertarian" for the left, just as Ann Coulter and Jonah Goldberg have made plays to co-opt it for the right. After being rebuffed or spurned by people who REALLY understand libertarianism, ALL THREE have taunted libertarians with rants, which sound so remarkably similar in their marginalizing rhetoric that they could have been written by the same hand.

[RightNut]

I haven't seen anything disparaging towards libertarianism by Jonah Goldberg.

[James Anderson Merritt]

RightNut, you haven't looked very far. And to be precise, we are not talking about being disparaging toward libertarianism so much as toward libertarians, especially those in the Libertarian Party, and now, apparently, including Rand Paul and Paul Ryan (neither of whom are very libertarian in my eyes, though Rand Paul seems a skosh closer to the mark than the former Mr. 7 of 9).

[RightNut]

Eh, I can get fairly ornery at other libertarians for certain things. I'm sure in Coulter and Goldberg's view being constantly rebuffed by a group that at least in principle agrees with you 50+% of the time can be very tiring.

[James Anderson Merritt]

Well yes! Libertarians shoot themselves in the foot all the time, and are notorious for "vehement agreement" that damages both parties, even though they agree with each other far more than they do with any political rivals or opponents. The problem with Maher, Coulter, Goldberg, and a host of other marginalizers -- and even, to some extent, Ryan and Paul -- is that they presume to lecture on how to present and market libertarianism effectively, but what they are actively marketing is either very weak tea libertarianism, or no libertarianism at all (that is to say, many self-avowed "libertarians" do not speak of wanting liberty on the basis of human rights as much as they want the government to dole out more privileges -- a real libertarian knows the difference and will sometimes take advantage of privilege when there is no alternative, but would, instead and overall, trade arbitrary, artificial privilege for having his or her rights acknowledged and respected).

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

the former Mr. 7 of 9

That's Jack Ryan, one state south.

[JMos]

I think he wrote something about liberals like Maher who call themselves libertarians but complain about the economic side of libertarianism. He's probably my favorite National Review writer, I used to read it a lot before I went full libertarian and realized a lot of them were statists, and I had the pleasure of seeing him talk about why conservatives should change their attitudes toward gay's at this years CPAC.

[JW]

James. He doesn't care. It's that simple.

He wants his whore and to eat it too.

[James Anderson Merritt]

As far as Medicare and Social Security were concerned, Harry Browne as much as said that we have to end those programs, though he thought that it wasn't fair to break promises to those who were currently dependent on them or soon to become so. Thus, Harry proposed selling off government assets to pay for the phase-out.

As far as meat/food inspection is concerned, he pooh-poohed the power of word-of-mouth and reputation to regulate the food industry. Yet there is no way that government inspectors can possibly keep up with all the food outlets and he well knows it. Despite government participation, many foods still carry disease or contain poisons. The utopia where the government is "on top of it" doesn't exist and never existed. What government inspections and seals do accomplish, however, is to give the public a false sense of security, and to protect the food industry from the consequences of free-market regulation. If the word gets around that the restauranteur alluded to in Maher's rant is selling bad steaks, that poor reputation not only hits him hard, it keeps hitting him for years, forcing him to redouble efforts to earn the public trust or go out of business. But if a government inspector comes along and blesses the enterprise, people are lulled into thinking it's safe to go back to the restaurant. (Actually, they may not do so immediately, but a government seal of approval appears to go a long way toward rehabilitating a bad reputation in many minds.)

[James Anderson Merritt]

"As far as meat/food inspection is concerned, he pooh-poohed the power of word-of-mouth and reputation..."

I wanted to make clear that the "he" I mention in the quote above is Maher, not Harry Browne, who actually SUPPORTED and RECOMMENDED such things as word-of-mouth advertising and reputation, as opposed to the phony fig-leaves bestowed by government food inspection.

[General Butt Naked]

Not to mention (about the food thing), that inspectors are highly variable, and can be very arbitrary in what they write you up for.

I worked in one place that was a "fancy" restaurant and it was absolutely filthy. I wouldn't eat their supposedly fine dining if you paid me. The inspectors would give them no more than a cursory look over and no write ups.

The last place I worked was a small family place that was immaculate and the owner was compulsive about safe practices. The inspector would come in and find about twenty things to complain about. Things like a crate of onions being 10" off of the floor as opposed to 12". Or the paper towel dispenser being empty in the kitchen. Once the inspector wrote on his report that one of the dining room tables was wobbly.

[jesse.in.mb]

I had an incredibly similar experience. A cafe I worked in was taken over by an Indian couple and they FREAKED out when they saw some of the conditions. They felt that the old owner had unfairly been given a pass for things they would've gotten hammered on in their other locations. The last inspection that they old owner had, I was in charge of touring the inspector around and he found enough problems that we absolutely should've been shut down, but just gave us some notes and said he'd be back in two weeks to sign off that we'd been compliant.

[Sevo]

jesse.in.mb| 4.6.13 @ 10:19PM |#
"The last inspection that they old owner had, I was in charge of touring the inspector around and he found enough problems that we absolutely should've been shut down, but just gave us some notes and said he'd be back in two weeks to sign off that we'd been compliant."

Not sure what to make of this; the inspector was nice enough not to put the place out of business?
What would have happened if he'd fought with his wife that morning?

[General Butt Naked]

What would have happened if he'd fought with his wife that morning?

They'd of gotten written up. It's arbitrary.

Another thing that people don't realize is that in a dirty restaurant they aren't "shut down' upon failing an inspection.

There are levels of violations. Non-serious things like I mentioned above, or even a fridge at 42 deg will merely get written down and noted for the next visit. Bad stuff gets written as a violation to be fixed before the next visit. And really bad stuff gets written up for fixing in 2 weeks (this can be extended if some things are taken care of). They won't shut down a restaurant unless it's on the news, or there's a for sure outbreak of food poisoning.

The idea that people that support food inspections is that minor violations will cause the heroes at the health department to swoop in and save the populace just isn't true. It's a make work program.

This is just how I've seen it work in PA, I can't speak for other places..

[jesse.in.mb]

I make no value judgement on how he behaved. I was agreeing with GBN that inspectors can be capricious. I doubt he would've fought with his wife that morning since he was quite clearly gay and I was quite clearly put in charge of him as the most attractive male scheduled to work that day.

The inspector found rat shit and didn't close us down immediately even though that's considered one of the few unforgivable health code violations that requires an immediate shut down.

The new owners ran a MUCH tighter ship, but they didn't seem to get the same level of leeway that the old owner had.

[Sevo]

jesse.in.mb| 4.6.13 @ 10:43PM |#
..."I was agreeing with GBN that inspectors can be capricious."...
I missed that intent. And I find it abhorrent. One guy/gal gets to say 'ah, fix that', the other gets to say 'you're out of business!'
We can joke about it, but to one owner (and the employees), it's no big deal, to the other it can be financial ruin.
Not funny.

[General Butt Naked]

I worked in construction for a while as well, and building inspectors are way, way worse.

[jesse.in.mb]

Yeah, I generally think that if you're going to have a regulatory structure, having very few rules and rigid enforcement is better than having a ton of rules and capricious enforcement.

[General Butt Naked]

What's funny is that at the really clean place we got inspected once and the inspector seemed mad and disappointed at all the supposed "violations", but then in a couple of weeks we got a certificate in the mail from the health department (the kind that looks like a diploma to hang on the wall) announcing how our restaurant went above and beyond the standards of the health department as a safe and clean place of business.

The government is fucking weird. I don't get it.

[Sevo]

I'll yield to RightNut re: JG (below), but in all else I agree.
L(l)ibertarians, as those who choose to adhere to principles, are invoked and courted by those on the left and right who hope to gain some authenticity when it suits their hopes.
Sorry, that authenticity isn't for sale for the crumbs offered by Maher or Romney for that matter.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Romney never claimed to be one of us, he just asked for our support against the common enemy.

[Palin's Buttplug]

When Bill Maher was claiming himself to be a libertarian he supported John McCain for POTUS.

Bush (sorry to mention his name here and break the rule) cured many of us classic Hayek liberals of "Conservatism".

[Sevo]

Palin's Buttplug| 4.6.13 @ 9:31PM |#
"When Bill Maher was claiming himself to be a libertarian he supported John McCain for POTUS."
OK, I simply do not watch TV "news" or supposed 'news' programs like Maher's. He really supported McCain over Obama?

"Bush (sorry to mention his name here and break the rule) cured many of us classic Hayek liberals of "Conservatism"."
No, sorry, "many of us" never confused the two. But then you have 'daddy issues', so I can see how yo9u might think so.

[RightNut]

I think he means McCain over Bush in the 2000 primary.

[Palin's Buttplug]

And wisely so.

[Sevo]

RightNut| 4.6.13 @ 9:58PM |#
"I think he means McCain over Bush in the 2000 primary."
Hmm. Yep, that really says 'libertarian' to shreek. To the rest of us, it says 'WIH are you talking about, dipshit?'

[RightNut]

To me it says giant douche or turd sandwich. I voted for giant douche in 08 by the way, knowing he was a giant douche.

[James Anderson Merritt]

Another cynical conclusion might be that, as JW asserts, Maher simply doesn't care. Still, he's happy to fling poo (and none too accurately) at real libertarians, merely as an excuse (and a means) to savage Paul Ryan and Rand Paul. Perhaps the progressive poobahs have identified this duo as a possible Pres/VP pair in 2016, and have recommended an early start to the obligatory hatchet jobs.

Finally, Maher's criticism might perhaps carry more weight if he had done at least the minimum homework necessary to pronounce AYN Rand's name correctly and represent her views fairly. In a society where we are told that money is the root of all evil and find ourselves drowning in evidence of greedy bastards putting it to the less well-off, his choice to deride Rand's quote about money as the barometer of virtue is understandable. But that snippet is merely the summary-conclusion of a very convincing argument that Rand makes in Atlas Shrugged, which Maher conveniently ignores. Her key point was that the competent and virtuous INCREASE WEALTH, while the incompetent and venal DESTROY WEALTH, however much money the latter may acquire. Value for value, voluntary win-win exchanges were what Rand was about, ideas that Maher ignores and encourages his audience to never even discover, as he trashes Rand and rants about a "creepy obsession with free market capitalism."

[James Anderson Merritt]

I want to be clear that I am not much of an Ayn Rand fan, but did manage to get through and appreciate A.S. for its good qualities, back in the 1990s. I had been libertarian for many years by then and was, at the time, after several girlfriends, finally a family man, with a wife (we're still married!) and son. I am only one of numerous counterexamples to the cliches Maher invoked. I realize that he exaggerates and incites outrage to get attention: that's his schtick and his bread and butter. But if he won't fight fairly (and you can be hilarious while being completely honest -- especially about libertarians), someone needs to set him (and those who think -- or do not think as he does) straight.

In the final analysis, the problem with Maher for libertarians is that he abuses his freedom of speech to our disadvantage, yet we are pledged to defend with all our might his right to do so, and he knows it -- perhaps he even counts on it. That makes him a grade A jackass. That he can get away with his abuse of freedom of speech/press because there is no similarly situated person with enough understanding of real libertarianism to effectively rebut him is a very sad thing. Maybe Penn Jillette -- channeling his inner Harry Browne? -- can do the job with class and grace.

[Cytotoxic]

Without betraying core values, are there ways we can reach these simpatico folks on the right or the left, so as to kickstart (perpetuate!) what Matt Welch and I once bravely called "The Libertarian Moment" and wrote a whole book about?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhTv2kSBMhc

Nick has been getting dumber and dumber for a couple years now. I'm relieved that he's getting trashed in the comments here. I think most of Reason has realized the cultural left just isn't that into freedom but Gillespie is the slow kid.

The whole bit about selfishness gives an Objectivist so much vindication. You can't separate advocacy for freedom from selfishness. Altruism will forever be the fount of evil.

[Palin's Buttplug]

You're not an Objectivist. You would reject religious superstition if you were.

[SaltySeaCaptain(LAOL)]

Mother fucker you are dumb.

[fish_remote]

Mother fucker you are dumb.

Actually, "Impervious to reasoned logical thinking" is the correct diagnosis but don't worry it's a common mistake.

[minarchist]

Free markets ruin economic freedom, right Bill? I guess whatt we need is a kind of Marxist version of liberty and it will all make more sense...What a dickhead..

[np]

It doesn't matter at all if people don't give a shit about politics, or even about other people. The problem is people using politics to shit on other people.

But the system is also setup so that you have no choice to be shit on one way or another, by default

[np]

read this timely newsletter yesterday, discussing the nature of government and people, and how Coca came to be outlawed, tying it into 1984, reminding us:

But there is one aspect of 1984 that most commentators fail to mention: in the end, Big Brother wins.

Given a choice, most people will choose "happiness"--the misguided sense of comfort, security, predictability, regularity they think they get from government--over freedom any day.

I know some disagree, but affecting significant change through the ballot box is futile. I will take any gains in freedom where I can and certainly vote if and where it makes a difference, but he makes the same salient points of why I think the opportunity cost in the time, effort, resources in political persuasion is too great, and better spent elsewhere. IMO being a "productive (and evasive) pessimist"

This is all easily understood. As is the fact that most people in a society won't bother taking a stance against a law or regulation that doesn't directly impact them in an urgent and important way. For example, what does it matter if the state you live in mandates that hair dressers must first go through extensive training and licensing before being allowed to coif your curls?

Then there's the billion or so laws and regulations hanging over your head, any number of which can be trotted out as needed to ruin your day, or even your life.

[entropy]

I think the opportunity cost in the time, effort, resources in political persuasion is too great, and better spent elsewhere.

You know, if people had taken the 800 million dollars or whatever they gave to the media and the consultant class failing to elect Romney, and just used that money to buy free cell phones and laptops for morons, they probably could have picked up 10 million more voters.

They could have paid 8 million people $100 to 'work on the Romney campaign' handing out fliers and picked up 75% of the campaign staff vote.

[fish_remote]

Yeah but that would have gotten us President Romney which is hardly an improvement.

[Rimfax]

I think this is more a signal that Bill Maher stopped listening to libertarians a long time ago. Libertarianism has become more and more cosmotarian and less Randian than it has ever been, yet Bill chooses to look only through shit-colored glasses.

Nick's appearance with Bill and Rachel was another example of this. Regardless of how much Nick attempted to engage them on the issues, they kept bringing it back to tribalist partisanism. Bill has become a progressive culture warrior for the Democratic Party and has immersed himself in the perspective where libertarians are the greatest threat because they agree too much, not because they agree too little.

I'm all for improving the message, but aiming for Bill Maher is much more of a recipe for disappointment than his reported policy positions might suggest. He is not meta-rational.

[AlmightyJB]

646 comments for this douchbagZ? Really? Fuck that bullshit.

[RBS]

And nothing about the Final Four. I want my goddamn weekend sports open thread.

[juris imprudent]

I can't believe Lullville came back. Wichita was in double bonus for what, half of the second half?

[RBS]

You can't believe it or choose not to? No way The NCAA was going to let that happen.

[The Late P Brooks]

SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM

SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM

SPAMMITY SPAAAAAAAAAM

[Sevo]

It's not got much spam in it.

[BlueBook]

Education and outreach to non-libertarians is all good and well but I can't help but think that it's of secondary importance to other liberty-enhancing projects. Encrypted communications, independent digital currency, inexpensive 3-D printing; these and other emerging technologies could enable libertarians to live free and prosper regardless of what the nanny-statists decree.

[RightNut]

Tech is always a double edged sword, just look at how far drones have come. I can easily see powerful AI's being developed to block undesirable websites more efficiently than the Great Firewall of China.

[BlueBook]

I agree, which is why I think it's important for libertarians to focus on tech. It's going to keep advancing with or without us, so we'd better figure out how to use it to our best advantage.

[RightNut]

Problem is tech doesn't advance much in un-free societies. Could you imagine 3D printers being developed and sold in a country like Cuba or even China?

[BlueBook]

You only need to smuggle in one, then use it to print out parts to build more, then distribute them on the black or grey markets. Not saying it'd be easy, but it's doable.

[CatoTheElder]

Not today's Cuba ... but China? Definitely.

[Kurbster]

and I want the government out of how I run my business or who I can trade with. That's a free market, billy-boy...and it's liberty

way before Medicare and Social Security, we use to have families and charities taking care of the sick and elderly. All that these programs have done are take away the decisions made by the community and give them to the central government. Quite frankly, if you screw up with securing your retirement or health insurance, it's none of my business nor should it be my taxes' business

[[e-mail]]

Winning over Bill Maher will be fruitless. Not because he's a liberal, but because if he's ever right on something it's entirely accidental.
Enough gloom and doom from commenters, libertarians are being talked about by Glenn Beck AND Bill Maher. We are making a major impact as it is.
Furthermore, we can and must have an ideological revolution.

[Hyperion]

Wow, very impressive amount of posts here. We're talking about Maher? He's an irrelevant asshole, who should be summarily ignored. There is nothing going to come out of his mouth, that is of any value at all.

[Denis]

Nick Gillespie seems to have missed the fact that Bill Maher criticized libertarians PRECISELY FOR their core values1!

On top of that, his arguments are juvenile. How does this critique merit libertarians re-evaluating our approach? Only in the sense that we haven't properly communicated our beliefs to people who have a hard time thinking beyond a 2nd grade level.

[Jayburd]

He's the Left's version of Rush Limbaugh, just a rock-thrower with not much original thought and not much understanding of libertarian principles. Do you know what the difference between Limbaugh/Maher and Wm. F. Buckley Jr. is? About FIFTY books.

[SaltySeaCaptain(LAOL)]

Limbaugh doesn't have writers and is at least funny every other day.

[RightNut]

My problem with Maher and others like him(Jon Stewart), is that they use their audience as a tool to shut down the conversation whenever someone outwits them or says something that makes them feel uncomfortable. I admit I don't watch much of Maher, but the last time I saw any of him he had Dinesh D'Souza on to supposedly talk about his new movie, Obama: the untold story(or something). D'Souza got to talk for maybe 30 seconds without being constantly interrupted by quips from Maher that would get the audience applauding and cutting off whatever D'Souza was saying. I didn't know anything about D'Souza, or his movie, and watching Maher didn't give me any more information about them. The only thing I did learn was that Maher doesn't want real debate and discussion.

[Old Man With Candy]

This was my point above about an echo chamber. Comedians of the Maher/Stewart/Savage don't get people to change their views, they just get laughs from people who already agree with them.

No one here really knows what any of those guys actually thinks, nor does it matter. They're all about audiences and success. It's show biz, folks.

[Hyperion]

Libertarians have the benefit of simply being right on all the issues.

There is no compromise on any of our core principles, only some minor debate.

For instance, you own yourself, there is no victimless crimes, and ones self cannot be the victim. This is why we have such a large amount of debate about abortion, but on most issues, it's very clear cut.

Republicans and Democrats are corrupt institutions without any moral or merits, outside of trying to steal what rightfully belongs to someone else, to enrich yourself, or trying to gain illegitimate control over others.

[SaltySeaCaptain(LAOL)]

Nick fucking cosmo Gillespie has been steadily getting worse, and even more flamboyant of his cocktail leftism. . ..

Exhibit A: http://reason.com/archives/201.....sandy-hook

Reason needs to hire a few of us.

[JW]

Reason needs to hire a few of us.

Lew will only take payment in the form of freshly shorn scrotums.

[Hyperion]

You're joking, right? Nick was 100% Libertarian spot on there. Can you tell us, how he is being lefty here, or at least use the /sarcasm end tag?

[Nooge.]

Nick, you should do a similar post about, say, Ann Coulter. She seems like the warboner socon equivalent of a Bill Maher, doesn't she? A slick populist style designed to appeal to the broadest swathe of the base; blithely dismisses other people's arguments, no matter how cogent; pays lip-service to liberty until a sacred cow is gored.

I don't think she's ever claimed to be even libertarian-ish, unlike Maher. She really couldn't, with that warboner of hers. Fucking thing is the size of Ronnie Coleman.

[Hyperion]

How about a porn vid where Coulterica invades Maheristan with a huge war boner?

[fish_remote]

How about a porn vid where Coulterica invades Maheristan with a huge war boner?

Because at the end, the mantis (Coulter) bites the head off Maher. That makes it a snuff film.

[Bam!]

Does Coulter actually claim to be a Libertarian? I don't think she does. I think she simply tries to co-opt Libertarians by arguing (poorly) that they should more blindly support Republicans because Democrats are even worse.

[Hyperion]

Bwahhahhaahhh! Are you kidding us? Giraffeta is the anti-libertarian.

[RightNut]

You missed

http://reason.com/blog/2013/03.....roying-lib

I guess

[RightNut]

bah

http://reason.com/blog/2013/03.....roying-lib

[Hyperion]

Wow, that is extremely creepy.

[RightNut]

That Time magazine picture?

[Hyperion]

That. She looks like some extremely anorexic and insane version of a transsexual giraffe/human hybrid. That is the stuff of nightmares.

[RightNut]

Well, its Time, I'm sure picking a more flattering picture was not high on their priorities. I really only think Coulter is pretty compared to other political commentators.

[Hyperion]

Yeah, like Maddow? Fuck, I'm not even sure I could describe her as pretty in that context. I'm not even sure that she's prettier than Chris Matthews. I think he is more feminine than her.

[Irish]

I'm going to come right out and say it: I would have sex with Michelle Malkin.

For a political commentator? Yowza. One of the few legitimately good looking pundits.

[RightNut]

I see your Michelle Malkin and raise you Kirsten Powers.

[Irish]

Katie Pavlich from Townhall.com.

[RightNut]

I see your Katie Pavlich and raise you Liz Marlantes

[Irish]

I win.

[jesse.in.mb]

I really can't think of any sexy commentators.

Maybe Jason Jones of The Daily Show, but that rather stretches the category.

[RightNut]

I win.

No Bret Baier does

[darius404]

RN, are you familiar with the meaning of the word "raise"? I'll give you a hint, it doesn't mean "lower".

[Hyperion]

Why not, Malkin is hot. Very pretty woman.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Ok. Just for you, a video of Michelle Malkin in a cheerleader's uniform.

[Hyperion]

Hmmm, she sounds like a neocon there, but... still hot. If she were to go Libertarian, she might be the most hottest Libertarian chick, evah...

[Heroic Mulatto]

Malkin? She's the neocon of neocons. Even if she became Libertarian, she wouldn't be as hot as Kathryn DeLong.

[darius404]

You're right, HM. DeLong wins, hands down.

[Irish]

Considering how few women are libertarian as a proportion of society, we seem to have a strangely high number of attractive women on our side.

Take Kerry Howley.

Or, fellow Reasonoid, Emily Ekins.

[fish_remote]

Even if she became Libertarian, she wouldn't be as hot as Kathryn DeLong.

HOLEE FUCKING SHIT! You owe me new underwear HM....simultaneously torn beyond repair and soiled with my purest male essence!

Nice!

[darius404]

How old is she in that video, 15? She looks terrible. Just dress (and act) normally woman, you'll get more likes that way.

[Irish]

Dude, she would have been like 35.

Asians, man. They're like Time Lords.

[jesse.in.mb]

Asians, man. They're like Time Lords.

Because it's still appropriate.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Yeah, yeah. It's all fun and games until you take your wife out on a romantic evening and then get arrested on charges of pedophilia.

[Nooge.]

Oh, I remember that now. Thanks for the link.

[kinnath]

This is why I hate threaded comments. I post a note in an interesting bit of comments and then head out for dinner and wine with friends. When I come back, there are 780+ comments, and I cannot make heads or tails of them -- and I ain't that drunk.

So to reiterate, Bill Maher, please shut the fuck up.

[Xenocles]

You pick your poison, I guess. Threading keeps the comments organized (roughly) by thought, unthreading keeps them organized by time. The advantages to both unsurprisingly correspond to disadvantages in each other.

[Hyperion]

This is true. It's not necessarily about threaded comment, it's just that you can't sort the comments, by posting time.

[Xenocles]

You can with Reasonable - just click the "unthread" command.

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

"Bill Maher, please shut the fuck up."

Reason: please replace the headline on this article with the above quote from kinnath. Sums it up perfectly.

[Hyperion]

I'll stick around, if this breaks 1000 comments.

[fish_remote]

6:16 EST - 953 comments!

C'mon POST MOAR HARDER!

[villavec02]

Ok, let's look at what you wrote earlier, "Understanding the Libertarian Moment is fundamental to understanding the 21st century. Power?economic, cultural, political?will accrue to those people who recognize that it's over for existing power centers. The command economy, the command culture, and the command polity have all been replaced by a different model?that of a consultant, a docent, a fixer, a friend. The individuals and groups that will flourish in the Libertarian Moment will be those who open things up, not shut them down." So we stop worrying about Maher and hit the twitter comedians.

[Bones]

Where the hell was the funny part? People in the audience laughed but I think that was at the weird facial contortions Maher was making as he patted himself on the back with his own mouth after every "joke." Is there a more smug asshole in the entertainment industry? It's impressive really. That's a lot of smugness to overcome to be the most smug.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

People in the audience laughed but I think that was at the weird facial contortions Maher was making as he patted himself on the back with his own mouth after every "joke."

Seems to be fashionable at the moment.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Over Macho Grande?

[Ghetto Slovak Goatherder]

RULE 5: "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.

[Skip]

The 2002 Politically Incorrect clip posted above where he was arguing with Penn Jillette about the TSA perfectly encapsulates Maher's belief system. He was willing to enthusiastically agree with the Bush Administration when Bush's approval rating was sky high but as soon as the Democrats brought it down to earth, he changed his mind.

[Archduke Pantsfan]

Thank you reasonable for allowing me to block "Reynolds"

[gregory palamas]

This guy is simply a stooge. He doesn't represent the person Bill Maher, but instead the Democrat Party.

[BBell]

Maher is just WRONG WRONG WRONG, and he's really a COMMIE DOUCHEBAG who hates womenz.

[MotherLodeBeth]

Bill Maher is a small 'L' libertarian, not a authentic Libertarian.An authentic Libertarian believes in staying out of peoples sex lives, drug use, as well as believing in 100% personal responsibility, which means NOT wanting the government as a baby sitter, or bailing you out when you make poor decisions. Libertarians believe that ones family should be taking care of ALL the needs of their family members NOT some government agency.

And just as a Libertarian believes in no government debt a Libertarian also believes in personal financial responsibility. If you cannot afford to pay for it, don't buy it. This goes for business as well. A Libertarian should believe that if you cannot afford to run a business and make a profit without some government welfare then maybe you should not have a business. Thus a Libertarian would suggest that NO bail outs for ANY business would send a message that if YOU mess up YOU pay.

As for Medicare and Social Security. I believe an authentic Libertarian would ask where does it say we are supposed to have someone else pay for our retirement or health care?

As for his snarky comments about Ayn Rand and that her book Atlas Shrugged has never been read all the way through by anybody with a girlfriend, I would suggest he has never met well educated men (and women) from the best universities who not only have read the book for some class, but have taken part in some heated debates about the book.

[fish_remote]

Bill Maher is a small 'L' libertarian

But he is a Big "L" loser!

[Libertarian]

I don't think "small L libertarian" means what you think it means. BM is NOT a small L libertarian.

[Fatty Bolger]

You may be a bit confused. "Big L" libertarian refers to members or supporters of the Libertarian Party. Any other use is "small L" libertarian.

[Paul.]

meant I didn't want big government in my bedroom, in my medicine chest,

Wow, tells a big fucking lie right out of the chute.

The medicine chest is exactly where he wants government. Every fucking liberal on the planet has been trying to make government the gatekeeper on your medicine chest.

[ThatSkepticGuy]

Yeah, it's kind of a foregone conclusion to argue you don't want the government in people's medicine chests when every other thing out of your mouth is some fresh new bullshit conspiracy about "Big Pharma".

[Paul.]

pro free expression

He's not pro free-expression. He supports McCain Feingold.

[ThatSkepticGuy]

Sorry, but I have a rule about not heeding advice from people who don't believe in germs.

[Libertarian]

Maher toys for a bit with being a libertarian, then when he discovers he has issues with certain aspects of it, he doesn't say, "oops, perhaps I've made a mistake -- I'm NOT a libertarian." No, he says, "wow, I've been a libertarian now for, what, three weeks, and already other libertarians are subverting what being libertarian means and they are hurting the cause. This needs to stop!"

[np]

I check back after a while and we still haven't crossed 1,000 comments yet? I am disappoint.

[JeremyR]

Do Libertarians really go on about welfare anyway? The country isn't going broke giving poor people $5 a day to buy food with.

But the free market is essential to Libertarianism and classical liberalism. The trouble is, what we have today is not a free market, but corporatism, basically, yet the free market constantly gets blamed. We need to explain better why it's not a free market, why a free market is better. And that you can't really have a free market if the government has so much power over trade, because it's inevitable that government will get corrupted by large companies, using it to drive out competition.

[np]

It's impossible to grow and be successful after a certain size without being a crony in one way or another nowadays.

[Fatty Bolger]

Yes, that's the thing. People like Maher create the conditions for crony capitalism, and then complain about it. Their only answer is "we need more regulation!" Ignoring the fact that crony capitalism thrives on regulation.

[Paul.]

No, but we do go on about commonplace six-figure pensions for public sector workers, as everyone with a working brain cell should.

http://seattletimes.com/html/l.....sions.html

[minarchist]

What he really means is that libertarians are ruining liberal fascism for all the little liberal fascists like Maher who know what is good for you and have no interest ever in leaving you alone, ever.

[John]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/da17.....z2PmOi6fG3

David Frum and the entire suck ass Washington establishment is really burthurt over this STockman book. The truth apparently really does hurt more than lies.

[JohnLocke]

In my opinion we're smarter and not hypocritical about anything. The left and right are both hypocritical about freedom and our federalist systems. The right wants freedom in the economy, but not the bedroom. The left wants it in the bedroom, but not the economy. The right also wants state rights for some things, but not for other things. There are going to be more examples from either side I could run down. The left wants to help poor inner city kids, but not at the expense of unions. Etc. We're consistent, freedom is good in every realm, a special interest does not change our principles. Both parties, as of right now, are a disparate coalition of special interests that have joined together, even when it doesn't make much sense for them to do so, which is why they produce so many hypocritical policies.

[eyeroller]

Without betraying core values, are there ways we can reach these simpatico folks on the right or the left

Sure, just avoid saying anything your audience doesn't want to hear! Duh!

[Number 2]

No, he is not right. He is another example of a person who can be found all along the political spectrum: people who are in favor of liberty when it comes to activities they like, engage in, approve of or see no fault with, but are all for statism, nannyism and the regulatory state when it comes to everyone else.

Maher does not understand that a government that has plenary authority to regulate every aspect of "commerce" and the "free market economy," especially under the Wickert v. Filburn take-every-little-thing-and-aggregate-it approach, cannot be prevented from regulating his bedroom, medicine cabinet and nightstand. Since, as Alex Kozinski recently noted, there is not a single human activity that does not, in some way and at some level, affect "commerce," plenary authority to regulate commerce equals plenary authority over everything.

He is not alone in this. As I said, it occurs all along the political spectrum.

The lesson for libertarians is the need to explain to all that liberty is indivisible, and has to be extended to things you don't like as well as things you do. The best way to guard your own liberty is to treat me as though I am capable of handling mine as well.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Come on. Only 47 46 more comments to get this fucker over 1000.

[robc]

Im not reading thru 900 posts, but his problem is the liberaltarian problem all over again.

He refuses to accept that economic liberty is a civil liberty. You cant be a libertarian and only go half way.

[SIV]

Maher doesn't even go "half way". Or are you referring to Nick Gillespie?

[JohnD]

God help anyone that takes Bill Maher's advice

[DesigNate]

I'm gonna go back and read all the comments, but holy shit there's nearly 1,000 and I hope it's not all troll shit.

[fish_remote]

It's mostly troll shit with some chunks of Shrike and kernels of T o n y interspersed.

[The Late P Brooks]

You're not free unless you're free to be wrong.

[Mike.P]

How did the connection between Ayn Rand and libertarianism become prima facie? It wasn't until after I became a libertarian that I read her instead of regurgitating Howard Zinn or Charles Beard.

[Francisco d Anconia]

It's the "go to" insult to libertarians. Those that haven't read her work use "information" they've heard about her writings to draw a bunch of bad conclusions.

That they conflate libertarianism with objectivism shows how little they understand either. Rand didn't really approve of libertarianism, although many parts overlap.

[Tony]

I've read her ouevre, and the problem with libertarianism is when it overlaps with Randism. I would call Randism a form of authoritarianism, but it's not really coherent enough for that, since it's basically just a fantasy story about a fake universe in which wealth is gained entirely on one's own and everyone else thus deserves their horrible fate. It's a self-help pamphlet for the ultrarich telling them how special they are, and it wouldn't be the last, though it's the most mean-spirited.

[Francisco d Anconia]

FUCK! Every time you have me nearly convinced you aren't a sock, you pull something like this.

No thinking human being could possibly put those words into a paragraph and actually claim a point.

Simply a series of nonsensical phrases without any meaning or logic.

No one is that stupid, you must therefor be a sock.

[Irish]

He has to be a sock. He's basically a fascist who managed to use the phrase 'All authoritarians think they know what's best for people' while trying to insult us.

That sounds like something a person trying to mock Tony would say.

[Francisco d Anconia]

I agree, it does. But he also does some things that makes me believe he isn't. There have been several times, where he comes back to dead threads and replies to posts. Sometimes many hours later. I can't think of why a sock would do that. It would seem he'd get the most, whatever he gets from being a sock, from a live thread.

I go back and forth. Maybe he's just a good sock.

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

Tony, Randism is the opposite of authoritarianism. If you want to argue against her, go in that direction. Maher's comments about skeletons eating out of garbage cans is better than your comment (and his is pretty stupid). At least Maher is envisioning a country without the welfare state and with complete freedom of trade and interaction. You've simply abused the word authoritarianism.

"I've read her ouevre." No, you haven't. Because if you have, and this is what you think, you are beyond help.

Your comments are so ignorant I'm ashamed that I responded. I should have more self-respect than that.

[Tony]

The other thing wrong with libertarianism is where it doesn't overlap with Randism, of course.

Bill Maher was wrong. There is no saving the movement. It's fundamentally either utopian and thus useless or an inconsistently principled assemblage of policy preferences that libertarians don't feel should be subject to the democratic process. Either way it's dangerous. All authoritarians think they know what's best for people.

[Irish]

All authoritarians think they know what's best for people.

Said without a hint of irony.

[Sam Grove]

Tony, it's amazing how you continually demonstrate your essential cluelessness about libertarian sensibility.

[OldMexican]

Re: Tony,

It's fundamentally either utopian and thus useless or an inconsistently principled assemblage of policy preferences that libertarians don't feel should be subject to the democratic process.

"Don't fight, and you may even grow to like it!"

Said the democratic mob to the individual girl they were about to democratically rape, through a process Tony would like.

[AgrarianBarbarian]

Given a choice between the authoritarianism of the right and the totalitarianism of the left, I choose "neither".
However, I've got to say, I am trending right more and more lately. Let's face it: The left is just a way bigger threat to individual liberty at this particular moment in history. We've all heard the jokes..."scratch a libertarian, and you find a Republican", or "A libertarian is a Republican that smokes pot." Maybe. I know that, even when I intellectually disagree with the right, I often find myself EMOTIONALLY rooting for them. This is because their opponents on the left are just..So. Damned. Smug. Maher being a case in point. And besides, though I viscerally disagree with Republicans on the "drug war" and other "victimless crime" issues, I'm not seeing anyone on the left offering an alternative...certainly not Barack Obama, who wake-n-baked his way through high school and college, and now has no problem presiding over the imprisonment of thousands who are acting just like he did as a kid. Libertarians are much more likely to reach "the right" on the victimless crime stuff then we are to reach the left on economic liberty and gun rights. Strategically speaking, the Republican party is ripe for a libertarian takeover as well.

[sage]

There should not be a thousand comment post on anything related to the assclown known as Bill Maher. And yet here we are...

[Irish]

It was like the perfect storm:

1. Someone says something stupid about libertarians
2. Tony, Shrike, American and various other weirdos show up to drive comments.
3. People start posting pictures of hot pundits.

How could that not get to 1000 posts?

[Hyperion]

969

[Francisco d Anconia]

So, my friend's wife is having a kid and he's wondering whether he should get him circumcised if it's a boy. What do you guys think?

[sage]

I dunno. Does the dad like thin crust pizza?

[Francisco d Anconia]

Wait, what just happened? The comment counter went from 969 to 896. WTF?

[Francisco d Anconia]

Somebody deleted Reynold.

Another racist troll meets his end.

[heller]

You mean the same racist troll meets his end.

[jesse.in.mb]

I think we actually lost both trolls, I jut can't remember the name of the other one. I was disappointed when I clicked on and saw it was just one post ahead of where I left it last night (910) and then saw that the thread about hot pundits was missing reynold and knew why.

[heller]

Reynold is just Ameritard's 500th incarnation.

[The Late P Brooks]

my friend's wife is having a kid and he's wondering whether he should get him circumcised if it's a boy. What do you guys think?

I think he should buy her a laptop and tell her to get to work making 92 bucks an hour on the internet, so she can buy him a nicer car.

[The Late P Brooks]

an inconsistently principled assemblage of policy preferences that libertarians don't feel should be subject to the democratic process.

No dictatorship of the 51%? Inconsistency of principle derived from individual preferences?

Oh, the horror.

The horror.

[Big Chief]

The first thing that would have to be done to have a possibility of getting Maher on the libertarian track would be convince him that Paul Ryan is NOT a poster-boy for libertarianism. I know of no policy that Ryan holds that would qualify him as a libertarian as much as any other fiscal conservative you could name. If there are any I'd like to know them.

Maher is a partisan Democrat, though he evidently can't admit it. And the most hopeless task is to try and change a partisan's position since they are mentally and emotionally shackled not just to the ideals and policies of their own party, but against all policies and ideals of the other party. I've had a good political discussions with rock-ribbed conservatives and radical progressives as long as they don't express a strong party allegiance. With partisans it's almost impossible to overcome the tortuous mental gymnastics needed to hold to their "principles."

The only thing that can overcome the prejudice of partisanship is time and self-awareness, and even then some will never get there.

[Banh]

Don't forget who pays these Court Jests to entertain the serfdom. This is no different than Germany, the USSR, etc. Our government is more like a regime these days. Many Americans are willing to follow the media-driven herd, so these polito-comedians serve a purpose. There is a reason they get to continue.
Libertarians are a wild card for the Duopoly; it's a challenge to corral us, reform us, discredit us or redirect us to fit back into the system. We could undo the work of our puppet masters if left unchecked.

Rand Paul is coming on fast (and a threat),maybe the Trojan Horse which could transform the Republican Party. The Neo and the CON in the NeoCon Party could be swept out the back door in DC. If small government is reinstated inside the R party, the Death Star's in trouble.

Glen Beck, Bill Mahr, etc, are media's Pied Pipers, leading people down dead end paths to dilute the power of political awareness in the population. Awareness and action are 4-letter words in the Beltway. A nice, confused, obedient, complacent, ambivalent herd is easy to steer.

Bill Mahr is manipulating his audience just as guys like Glenn Beck. Bill Mahr is a political tool. As we lose our freedom, voice, sense of self-determination on our way back into European-style serfdom, he will be on the PA system all along the dead end path distracting us with his strategic "humor". Political regimes never leave public entertainment out of their budgets.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

The only place in my dwelling where I want big govt is in my kitchen sink drain, so I can piss on it.

[The Bearded Hobbit]

You piss in your kitchen sink?

... Hobbit

[General Butt Naked]

Yup, and he eats shits like you for breakfast.

[The Bearded Hobbit]

Jeez, Francis, lighten up!

... Hobbit

[General Butt Naked]

Non-comment to get us closer to 1000 posts.

[Irish]

If they hadn't nuked the racists, I think we'd already be there!;

C'mon, Reason. Think of the greater good once in a while.

[General Butt Naked]

At least leave the comment count the same.

Even Barry Bonds got an asterisk.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Trying to get more comments than roaches in your restaurant's kitchen?

[RightNut]

This still going? How my Bret Baier joke didn't spawn at least 50 additional comments is beyond me.

[Francisco d Anconia]

I tried an Airplane quote and even circumcision, but got nuthin.

[BlueBook]

I don't think I'll ever be over Macho Grande, or circumcision.

[Francisco d Anconia]

I knew I could count on somebody.

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

"Overlaps" are irrelevant. It doesn't matter if Maher appears to agree with libertarians on a given issue; if he rejects the core principles of libertarianism and thinks that the state owns us body and soul, then he's a statist--a blind squirrel with a broken clock.

[Maryelle]

I've never understood how a "libertarian" could/would feature a program segment entitled "New Rules." It's clear that he never was or will be a libertarian, despite what he thinks/says.

[Hyperion]

Why is this thread showing 932 comments now, when it was at 969 earlier today?

[RightNut]

Do a search for Reynold and Lord Byron.

[Hyperion]

Screaming Lord Byron?

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Oooooooooooh what a lucky man, he was!

[OldMexican]

But somewhere along the way, libertarianism morphed into this creepy obsession with free-market capitalism based on an Ayn Rand called Atlas Shrugged

Goes to show you that the faux libertarian Maher is as clueless about the subject he's discussing as most of his brethren on the left. Free-market capitalism was neither invented by Rand nor was the advocacy started with her.

Or at least do a better job of explaining the difference between today's libertarian and just being a selfish prick.

The beauty of freedom, Billy boy, is that you can be a selfish prick yourself without admonition from self-righteous pricks. You happen to be the latter in many instances instead of simply limiting yourself to be the former; at least, I would respect you more if you were.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Wesley Crusher was the greatest Star Trek character EVER and the Phantom Menace the greatest Star Wars film.

(that should do it)

[BlueBook]

Phantom Menace did have, IMHO, the best light saber combat sequence, in large part due to John Williams' "Duel of the Fates" score.

[RightNut]

You mean it had the best choreographed lightsaber fight. I didn't really give a shit about the fight itself which in my book puts Empire and Return's lightsaber battles higher.

[BlueBook]

Ok, I'll concede that the OT duels had greater emotional impact, though I did feel bummed when Qui-Gon got it in the guts.

[RightNut]

Why? Qui Gon-Jinn was an emotionless target dummy. That is the biggest problem with the new star wars, I don't give a shit about the plot because I don't give a shit about the characters.

[BlueBook]

Eh, his dialogue was crap but Liam Neeson still brought some avuncular charm to the role.

[BlueBook]

Forgot to add, M. Night Shyamalan is a pretty good filmmaker, and anyone who says otherwise is an artsy fartsy elitist snob.

[BlueBook]

Wesley could have been much improved if he had a second chance like Worf got on DS9. Imagine Wesley commanding the Defiant, Wesley fighting hand to hand with the Jem Hadar, Wesley banging the spots off Jadzia Dax...

[BlueBook]

There's probably a lot of room for libertarian recruiting/conversion among the apolitical average joes and janes who simply haven't had much exposure to the philosophy. But for someone as intellectually sclerotic as Mahr, well, you could try but I wouldn't hold out much hope.

[General Butt Naked]

Have you guys heard about these racist newsletters that Ron Paul supposedly sent out?

Jeesh, this could be real bad for the guy...

[Hyperion]

Yeah, and like father, like son. Obviously Rand is racist. They say that they named him after some racist white bitch that wrote libertarian like fiction. And he's from KY, and had curly hair. Racist, no doubt, the science is settled.

[BlueBook]

Maybe Rand could obfuscate his odious past by replacing his current toupee with a huge black Afro wig.

[Hyperion]

That would be even more racist. WTH are you going to suggest next? That he gets a tan?

[General Butt Naked]

Looks like BlueBook is another one of the American-Taliban rethuglicans, and wants to bring back Jim Crow.

[Hyperion]

So, do we get to 969 posts again before they reset the counter? Or is there another randomly chosen number?

[Hyperion]

So, do we get to 969 posts again before they reset the counter? Or is there another randomly chosen number?

[Francisco d Anconia]

Sorry, Double posts do not count and will be subtracted from the total.

/the referee

[Hyperion]

I can get this to one thousand, all by myself, you wussies!

[RightNut]

Double post?

[RightNut]

Double post?

[Hyperion]

Triple post, triple post, triple double IPA!

[RightNut]

I'd drink to that!

[BlueBook]

A friend once told me of a mythical "Blue-Feathered Sasquatch" that dwells in the mountain forests of California and occasionally wanders down into the suburbs of San Francisco to sexually molest domestic animals. Was wondering if this was perhaps a relative of STEVE SMITH?

[Hyperion]

All we can be sure of, is that HuffPo is looking for him/she/it as an employee. Especially if he/she/it is an alien.

[General Butt Naked]

STEVE SMITH is dead.

For some reason, all of the mythology associated with that magnificent beast has been appropriated by Warty.

When and why this happened are a mystery, but I blame capitalism and the patriarchy.

[Francisco d Anconia]

STEVE SMITH died when it became difficult to change your screen name (thanks to Mary). Most people don't want their moniker associated with rape diatribes. Funny as they were.

[Slumbrew]

I thought it had something to do with Warty consuming the still-beating heart STEVE SMITH

[Slumbrew]

"of" STEVE SMITH, dammit.

[DesigNate]

You're right to blame the patriarchy.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Fuck, back where we started this AM.

969

[RightNut]

Hey I'm trying my hardest here!

[Hyperion]

You done said it, bro. I had that magical number, 969, then the demon squirrels did their worst. And damn them to hell, when I get a bead on them with my machine gun, assault rifle,ordinary semi-automatic rilfe that is black and looks scary, it's gonna be rainin squirrel guts...

[Irish]

We've passed it again, Francisco! I don't think HampersandR is going to have any more posts today, which means we've got plenty of time to get the remaining 30 posts and reach 1000. And that's with 70 posts getting nuked due to their virulent racism.

[General Butt Naked]

And that's with 70 posts getting nuked due to their virulent racism.

And someone deleting Lord Byron's (same guy) asinine posts. Which makes the conversation about the sexual mores of history's empires seem a bit off.

Never did get a satisfactory definition of "sexual individualism".

[Slumbrew]

Yes, it's been wildly confusing reading the comments - took me a little bit to figure out someone got nuked.

[RightNut]

Ya it kinda looks like I brought up the subject or masturbation and orgys all on my own. Which I would have, if Lord Byron hadn't beat me to it.

[Slumbrew]

I would like to do my part to help with this noble effort.

[Irish]

I posted this in another thread, but this one needs my help to get to 1000. Plus, Maureen Dowd must be mocked in as many forums as possible.

Here's what Maureen Dowd wrote in her op-ed yesterday.

Joe Biden wants the job (presidency). He's human (very). But he's a realist. He knows the Democratic Party has a messianic urge to finish what it started so spectacularly with the election of Barack Obama ? busting up the world's most exclusive white-bread old-boys' club. And he knows that women, both Democratic and Republican, want to see one of their own in the White House and became even more militant while listening to the G.O.P.'s retrogressive talk about contraception and vaginal probes last year.

Everything about this paragraph is fucking stupid. I'm glad that she finally admitted that the Democrats are nothing but a religious cult, though. I mean seriously 'Messianic?'

Way to admit the sputtering cultists who helped elect Obama don't actually have a thought in their vacant little heads beyond a vague obsession with demagogues and Christ-figures.

[Slumbrew]

ugh, why would you even expose yourself to Dowd's weapons-grade stupid?

[Francisco d Anconia]

Ah yes. The purpose of legitimate government...

busting up the world's most exclusive white-bread old-boys' club.

So everything can be faaaaiiiiiir and everybody can be eekwal.

[RightNut]

urge to finish what it started so spectacularly with the election of Barack Obama

It will never be finished. Even if a woman is elected president, the Democrats will claim the country is racist because we haven't had a hispanic president. Then after we have a hispanic president, they will claim its racist because we haven't had a president who is asian, ect. They will never stop because they see the country and all its institutions as racist, and no amount of "barriers" being broken will convince them otherwise.

[Hyperion]

I'll take those flannel zebra jammies, second-hand, I rock that motherfucker.

The built-in onesie with the socks on that motherfucker
I hit the party and they stop in that motherfucker.

Lots of jammies and motherfucker, that's what this thread needs to rock it over the top.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Do you think Reason writers should get paid by the comment?

[Slumbrew]

they'd instantly start gaming the system. lobster girl posts 24x7

[General Butt Naked]

It's hard to type comments with one hand.

Maybe throw a couple Palin posts at us.

[General Butt Naked]

1000

[Slumbrew]

Now I can sleep easily tonight

[Francisco d Anconia]

Huzzah!

[General Butt Naked]

Can I go eat now?

[jesse.in.mb]

Christian Broadcasting Network profile/interview with Rand Paul

It's interesting, a bit long and a bit fawning, but interesting.

[General Butt Naked]

Dang, he loves himself some jesus.

What's the aquabuddha, chopped liver?

[lobo58]

The disconnect here is Maher does not understand liberty. He wants it when he wants it, and he wants to deny it to others when he thinks that is "best". It isn't a buffet. If you embrace freedom, Nazis get to march in Skokie, some people will be selfish pricks, and some will give away everything they own to spend their days reciting Euripides on the subway. That's freedom. That's liberty.

Some folks will choose to shoot meth between their toes, others will choose to open a business and retire early. There is no one size fits all.

Maher is a coward who lives in his own, tiny echo chamber. If he had balls he'd have had Gillespie there to answer his harangue, or Penn Gillette, or any of the hundreds of public figures who have a grasp of what freedom actually means and entails.

[paleo tyler]

Bill Maher's BIG GOV caused the current health pandemic spreading across the world. And he thinks that more BIG GOV health care is the answer? Ha.. http://www.establishment-anti.com

[Hyperion]

1010, it's like 2020, only half as much!

[TycheSD]

Many people lack discipline. Some people are poor or struggle paycheck to paycheck. You can argue about the reasons for this - poor parenting, government nanny state policies making people lazy, an uneven playing field, etc. But until people start earning more money, they are going to have a hard time saving for their own retirement and medical expenses.

If there was a way that providing medical care and retirement savings for people without a major government program would work, and could be sold to people, I don't see how we stop Social Security or Medicare.

Libertarians have not been able to make a case for how more government hurts the little guy who is struggling. So, in many ways they sound rigid and heartless.

Libertarians also have not come up with a way to penalize pollution or despoliation of "the commons," things like the ocean, the waterways, the air, etc. Businesses and corporations are pretty much amoral and really only care about profits. They will despoil and pollute and use up all of the resources unless they are prevented by government from doing so.

[lobo58]

You miss the point, Tyche. The point is freedom. Sure, you can go on the dole and be taken care of, live on what is given you--but that cuts both ways. You've given up your liberty to live as you choose, but you've also yoked some other poor working stiff to a plow to earn your daily keep. It's something, but it isn't freedom, and it is no way for a free people to exist.

[np]

On the last part, the answer is to first privatize, reducing the commons, which can include waters. Then it is a matter of damaging property. But your own body is private property too. So the same tort-like principle can apply for pollution effects on people that they haven't voluntarily agreed too (e.g. you can't enter an area where smoking is allowed then complain about it)

[General Butt Naked]

How about we start with means testing and see where that goes first?

How about we incentivize saving by not printing so much money, and (or) encourage investing with lower capital gains taxes?

Just like we incrementally got here, we're gonna need to incrementally step back; while we still have a choice.

[OldMexican]

Re: TycheSD,

Many people lack discipline.

And they won't learn if you keep insisting on having government give them money.

If there was a way that providing medical care and retirement savings for people without a major government program would work,

You get those things by paying for heatlhcare yourself and by saving. I don't see why that's so hard to understand. What you must be talking about is getting things you want without the pain of paying for them.

Libertarians have not been able to make a case for how more government hurts the little guy who is struggling.

120 million dead last century because of socialism do beg to differ.

So, in many ways they sound rigid and heartless.

So is my burglar alarm.

See me care. Can you see me care?

Libertarians also have not come up with a way to penalize pollution or despoliation of "the commons,"

Yes, we did: It's called "Private Property rights."

[TycheSD]

You sound judging and rigid - not likely to attract adherents to libertarianism with that attitude.

We can't privatize the ocean, the air or the Mississippi River. And who would want private entities owning these things anyway?? I think Georgism sounds like a better solution for commons problems than libertarianism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism Libertarians would never go for it though because they have a major attachment to private property. Milton Friedman was a fan though.

[OldMexican]

Re: TycheSD,

Businesses and corporations are pretty much amoral and really only care about profits.

No, they're pretty moral precisely because they care about profits. In order to obtain profits, you have to trade goods or services with people that want them. That means creating value, that means making people happy. That sounds pretty moral to me.

If businesses cared about making people UNhappy, they would be called "government."

[TycheSD]

You have a pretty benevolent, maybe na?ve, view of business. Yes, I can buy gas from Exxon, or we can buy products made from aluminum produced by Alcoa. Or I can buy tuna from Chicken of the Sea. That doesn't mean that the processes by which these products are developed and brought to market aren't polluting or rapacious of the natural resources of poor countries - or even our own! Ever see those chopped off mountains in West Virginia where they get coal?

[Joshua]

My attempt at a serious answer to the question:

First, Bill Maher likes to tell other people what to do. That's the first signal that you're not dealing with somebody who takes liberty seriously.

Second, we need to seriously stop talking about capitalism. I don't give two shits about "capitalism." What I DO care about is the ability to freely trade with other people. I don't care what you want to call that, but capitalism is a stupid word that has a bunch of people's knickers in a twist.

Third, start describing what a world with less state looks like. WHY WON'T there be lepers, or starving people shitting in rivers, or Nehemia Scudders, or beggars everywhere? Start painting that fucking picture, because people can not imagine it on their own.

[lobo58]

There are people starving, living with leprosy, and shitting in rivers in the world--and they are in places where government has total control and freedom is not recognized. No free people would choose to live that way. They must be shackled, first. Maher has no understanding of this. To him, "freedom" is a concept spoken over beers during the game of RISK in the dorm.

[Hyperion]

But, there are people peeing in their own water, just because they can! Because they aren't Murikan! Just ask our resident war boners about this. If you aren't Murikan, you want to pee in your drinkin water! No matter what!

[General Butt Naked]

My grandmother told me not to drink out of a squirt gun when I was a kid because they were made by mexicans and they most likely peed in them.

She said the same thing about the tops of coca-cola cans. Gotta wipe 'em down, and use a glass.

[Hyperion]

Yep, those dirty third worlders, peeing in everything. Some of our resident war mongers, can tell you all about this, because they know, even though they've never been out of the state that they were born in.

[jesse.in.mb]

The Germans are third worlders?

[SIV]

She's right about Coca Cola cans. Did she work in a bottling plant?

[Brian]

If you want to reach people like Bill Maher, I think you do it like this. Don't have conversations about Atlas Shrugged, free markets, and how we'd all be better without regulations. Instead, make the moral case. The state collects all of its resources by threatening to throw people in jail if they don't pay up. What roles of the government are worth such a radical, violent means of funding?

People need to come to terms with the fact that the government isn't just spending a big pot of magic money. Every time you come up with a law, what you're saying is, "I have a great idea, and it's so great that, instead of voluntarily organizing a group to do this among themselves, we're going to force everyone to go along with it, and throw anyone who doesn't agree in jail." It's not about getting rid of meat inspectors, and it's not about achieving maximum consistency with Atlas Shrugged. It's about treating people with respect and dignity. That's a lot more appealing than the way Bill Maher talks about people.

[JMos]

I like P.J. O'Rourke's take on this. On every issue of government spending you need to consider whether or not you would be willing to shoot your grandmother for it.

[Tony]

But the end result is stupid and can't possibly work.

We do things as voluntarily as possible in a community of 300 million people. You explain a better fundamental system. (Ours is hardly the best possible system, but it's no less legitimate than one that is.)

[Francisco d Anconia]

Derp.

It's been explained to you a hundred times you mendacious fuck.

[[e-mail]]

A more emphatic focus on the non-aggression principle would make libertarianism more attractive to good people and more uncomfortable for statists like Paul Ryan and Bill Maher.

[stowelly]

Social Security and Medicare trust funds are filled with IOUs instead of actual capital because it was raided by congress. I apologize (sarcastically of course) if its selfish of me to think that money taken from me to go towards social security or medicare should only be used for those purposes. If I give money to an organization, governmental or private that if they don't use the money on what they say they will use it for, I want the money back. Also if the goal is to help those in need and there is a more efficient organization I would prefer my money to go to the more efficient organization. That is if I can give $100 to an institution and they can help 10 people but another institution can only help 5 people with that same amount of money, wouldn't it be stupid to continue to give money to the latter organization? Also doesn't it increase everyones standard of living if we can help more people with less money? So if I'm paying for it I want results otherwise I want to give my money to another institution that can do what they say they will do and not spend it on other things I didn't give them money to do in the first place. So if it's selfish that I want my money to go towards what I pay for and I prefer my money to be used in the most efficient and productive way, then Hell to the Mother Fucking Yes I'm a selfish greedy bastard!

[16th amendment]

This article plays to the interview Ann Coulter had with John Stossel. Ann said that libertarians pander to democrats to look cool. Gay marriage, pot legalization, anti-war, etc. I pointed out that if libertarians were really honest, they would pissing off democrats even more. In fact they would be pissing of both republicans and democrats, but democrats more because the central state that provides for everyone is the central democrat idea. Republicans might only be pissed off about the gay marriage stance, but note that many republicans do support gay marriage. On abortion, I'm against it and consider myself a libertarian. Even on war while libertarians and the far-left agree, the reasons are different: for the far-left the US is an imperial power, while for libertarians the motivation for being anti-war is to cut spending. Now at least Maher realizes what I've been saying.

[Lincoln]

We are not Republicans and do not want to be Republicans even if we are going to use them and their platform to get media coverage . . . just remember that and we'll be OK.

[earthandweather]

Bill Maher is a progressive of the most common variety. He may be more witty than most but, his disdain for the rules of argument and the apparent joy he finds in the techniques of equivocation and Ad hominem make discussions with him more than undesirable / bordering on dishonorable. If he wanted to know the truth he'd know it by now - The purpose of government is liberty.
I believe that the libertarian strategy needs to be one of shaming the progressives for their careless initiations of force, which they dress and sell as common sense. We need to show their ideology for what it is. We need to pull back the curtain every time we engage them. Their lack of actual benevolence toward their fellow man needs to be thoroughly and habitually exposed by libertarians.

[Todd Gilbert]

Boy I thought reason would have a more reasoned debate. Instead it's just name calling.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

That's not an exclusively American phenomena.

[John Galt]

Surely the majority of us support their right to have sex with who they please and to put whatever they like into their own bodies. It matters little. In their mind if we don't like being forced to fund their choices and accept their obviously racist and sexist policies, then in their minds we are monsters.

It's unlikely it'll ever change. Why would it. Laughably they believe they are perfection.

[John]

Who gets an abortion in their bedroom?

[IceTrey]

Never heard of anti-sodomy and anti-miscegenation laws?

[ZackTheHypochondriac]

Lord Byron| 4.6.13 @ 5:00PM |#

"And I'm pro-life, btw."

in the legal sense? like do you think it should be against the law? Or just that it should be legal but is morally wrong?

[Kaptious Kristen]

In Virginia it's illegal for consenting adults to have anal or oral sex.

[Boisfeuras]

Ironically enough, Marx himself tried to: "Marx once said to Lafargue: 'Ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste.' [If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist]".

[Virginian]

Eh, I mean if you think that Jesus was just a brilliant and compassionate man who formulated the best moral code and way of life.

I mean if all people followed the 6 of the 10 commandments that I follow, the world would be a much better place.

[Sevo]

"Without a society that values the family, a society that values the individual will be nearly impossible."

Does not follow.

[Virginian]

You're confusing cause and effect, I think.

We don't have a Leviathan state because of single mothers, we have single mothers because of a Leviathan state.

[John]

Eh, I mean if you think that Jesus was just a brilliant and compassionate man who formulated the best moral code and way of life.

Those people always make me laugh. Jesus told his followers to love him more than their families. If he wasn't the incarnation of God on earth, he was one intense dangerous dude.

[IceTrey]

Jesus didn't come up with the commandments. Unless you mean as he was part of God.

[Episiarch]

Your KULTUR WAR obsession is amazingly tedious. Maybe you should go somewhere else if you want to obsess over "family values".

[Virginian]

Libertarians are not in favor of drug policy, anti-discrimination laws, tax breaks, welfare, or affirmative action. Our stance on all those is that they should not exist.

[darius404]

How's it going, Merkin?

[Irish]

Wrong. The things you say tend to be true of Reason's writers, but the culture of the Reason writers tends to be a bit to the left of the average libertarian, including most of the people who comment here.

People frequently talk about their hatred of affirmative action and left-wing social engineering in the comments. Don't mistake Reason editorialists with the average libertarian.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

+1 Lunatic, Liar, or Lord trilemma

Though to be fair, one can think Jesus was batshit insane and still think that he came up with some good stuff. Plenty of eccentric or downright crazy people have come up with plenty of advancements which have improved our lives -- for that matter, one of the most popular hymns in Protestant Christianity was composed by a guy who spent the last part of his life in Palestine calling himself the Messiah.

[John]

They refuse to understand that sometimes being kind just rewards bad behavior. There have always been single mothers. And life was always hard for them. So women avoided being such. Make life easier and there will be more of them.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

let's not confuse affirmative action with PREFERENCES. libertarians will be against preferences, iow unequal treatment/consideration based on race, gender, etc. but not necessarily against affirmative action when it comes to stuff like outreach (getting a bigger group of applicants for a govt. position for example can only be a good thing - larger talent pool.).

as for the op's statement, not only have libertarians have a lot to say about preferences, they have been strong supporters of movements in california (behind ward connerly), WA state, etc in those states that have banned PREFERENCES by citizen initiative.

the libertarian position on AA - specifically PREFERENCES is simple - govt should not give preferential treatment based on race, gender, or any other factor that isn't relevant to job performance. if that means DISPROPORTIONATE impact/result, then tough cookies.

as an example of affirmative action that does not use preferences, look at the work that was inspired by serpico back in the day where the PD started to recruit (iow actively seek) applicants out of colleges, many of whom simply hadn't considered a LEO career.

the studies i have seen in the FBILEJ indicate that college educated cops are less likely to use exccessive sick leave, less likely to incur civil liability on the dept. etc.

and anytime you can increase your talent pool, it's a win for everybody - except the less talented applicants.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Was my first guess. The "slut" comment. But then wasn't sure, as this guy is a little more subdued. Maybe Merkin is taking cold medicine.

[General Butt Naked]

It's funny, I'll never have an abortion in my bedroom, but I do have a lot of guns in my bedroom. When liberals say they want to keep the government out of my bedroom, is that what they have in mind?

[Lord Peter Wimsey]

I got an abortion in my bedroom once. It was horrible. No one told me they were just for women. Fuckers.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

I think you are correct in this assessment. Many libertarians don't grasp this subtle but extremely important distinction , that just because one thinks govt. should not (encourage/prohibit/ban, etc.) X does NOT mean that one cannot take a strong personal position on it, work through social groups, taboo structures, boycotts, etc, against (or for it depending on what IT is) etc.

For example, it's perfectly consistent for a libertarian to be extremely anti-drug. It's just not libertarian to believe that it's the role of GOVERNMENT to punish people for using them.

[darius404]

I think stuff like anti-discrimination laws don't get talked about as much (though contrary to what Merkin may claim, they DO get written about) because there's no coherent movement of people against anti-discrimination laws. You'll hear libertarians, as well as some non-libertarians, talk about it, but there isn't a large group of non-libertarians willing to go to bat over it. Most of the issues libertarians are able to gain traction on depend on large amounts of non-libertarians wanting the same thing.

Affirmative action, though, does get mentioned here a bit more, mainly because there's progress afoot (e.g., Michigan).

[darius404]

I guessed back when he asked HM if he would let his child go to a predominately black school.

[RBS]

I think you mean FAMILY VALUES.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Indeed. Those cultures that know how to deal with "sluts" are free-market paradises, full of innovation and entreprenuership.

Allahu akbar!

[yonemoto]

Actually I find it interesting that marx had a lot of reasonable things to say, even though he was wrong about quite a lot, principally the labor theory of value. The marxists generally speaking have doubled down on the stupid parts and jettisoned (for the most part) the reasonable parts - to the point where marx would be shouted down in a marxist meeting today.

[Irish]

I guessed when he said 'Libertarians call ME a 'collectivist' or a 'statist' for saying we should shame deviants even though I don't say there should be a law.'

This statement has been used by Merkin dozens of times before. On the other hand, he hasn't dropped any posts from white supremacist websites, so it's a bit hard to tell.

[Sevo]

darius404| 4.6.13 @ 5:39PM |#
"I guessed back when he asked HM if he would let his child go to a predominately black school."

Which is particularly amusing in that HM is a 'mulatto' if I'm not wrong.

[RBS]

This is one of the more retarded things I've read this afternoon, and I read that Yglesias thing.

[darius404]

Many libertarians don't grasp this subtle but extremely important distinction , that just because one thinks govt. should not (encourage/prohibit/ban, etc.) X does NOT mean that one cannot take a strong personal position on it, work through social groups, taboo structures, boycotts, etc, against (or for it depending on what IT is) etc.

I'm honestly not sure where you would get this idea from. I hear from libertarians all the time, both here and elsewhere, that being against government intervention on an issue isn't the same thing as being for that issue.

[Cavpitalist]

What the fuck are you talking about? I consider that distinction to be the selling point, and whole fucking mechanism of the philosophy. I can't recall seeing anyone make the opposite point. Have you ever heard of Bastiat?

[The Heresiarch]

There's another theory - that the sayings and teachings ascribed to Jesus weren't actually what he said. Jesus died approximately 35 A.D. Our earliest written manuscript is the Rylands Papyrus, c. 120 AD. That's a nearly century-long game of telephone in a pre-industrial society. There's a lot of room for mythmaking during that span of time. Just look at Appolonius of Tyana.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Did I hurt your poor little feelings by showing how people are treated in the Honor and Shame cultures you advocate for?

As Lord Buddha said, "True words irritate the ear."

[Sevo]

Reynold| 4.6.13 @ 5:53PM |#
"You know how much of a cliched liberal you sound like now?"

You know how much of a anal So Con you sound like now?

[Heroic Mulatto]

You deny that that example is how "traditional culture" deals with "sluts"?

[Heroic Mulatto]

In Virginia it's illegal for consenting adults to have anal or oral sex.

So, I guess we'll have to plan our date in another state, K.K. 😛

[Dunphy (the real one)]

and in Mass., it's illegal to "blaspheme the name of god".

There are a lot of laws that technically remain on the book but are not enforced. How many times a year are consenting adults in VA actually prosecuted for having anal or oral sex would be a good question. Iow, is this one of those unenforced legal flotsam and jetsom laws or is it an actual part of the law that is enforced?

[Xenocles]

Didn't Lawrence effectively nullify all those laws, regardless of their being on the books?

[Dunphy (the real one)]

A lot has to do with social stigma too. Look at the recent criticism of the anti-teen mother campaign that jezebel engaged in where they criticized the "shaming" of potential unwed teen moms.

If society removes shame/taboo etc. from a practice, that practice becomes more common. Somewhere around 70%+ of blacks are born out of wedlock and around 1/4 of whites. That could not and would not have happened without the change in culture regarding OOW births iow the fact that it's no longer viewed by nearly as many, as shameful.

[darius404]

Numbers matter, dipshit. If there aren't enough people to get things done, things won't get done. And depending on a minority of racists ("bigots") like yourself is a terrible idea.

[darius404]

Context is very important, liar. So is that stuff in the middle, what we call TEXT:

When examining schools, I look at factors like the instructional methods, curriculum, qualification of the teachers, etc.

So, if I had a choice between sending my child to a school in a middle-class Black yuppie (Buppie) neighborhood, say in Brooklyn or Dallas, as opposed to a school in poor rural White Appalachia, you're damn right I'd send my kid to the majority Black school.

[darius404]

You only cared about race in your selection, HM only cared about merit of the school.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Thanks, darius.

[Irish]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that feuding warlords strong arming people into joining their militias with the express purpose killing other warlords probably violates the non-aggression principle.

Not exactly libertarian.

[Heroic Mulatto]

You deny that Somalia has no government

Yes. Most of the country is under the control of the Islamic Courts Union, which is now a coliation government of groups like Al-Shabab, Hizbul Islam, and others. These groups are basically like Hezbollah in Lebanon.

If Somalia didn't have a government, this dude wouldn't be it's Prime Minister.

[ZackTheHypochondriac]

how do you defend that from a libertarian viewpoint though? even if you convince them the fetus is a person, how do you defend the property rights violation of the woman? do we lose the right to evict people from our property if doing so would result in the death of that person?

[Boisfeuras]

Rothbard said, "There was one good thing about Marx: he was not a Keynesian." Actually, the same thing you describe occurred with Keynes and putative Keynesians. According to Hayek:

"The very last time i saw [Keynes], about six weeks before his death . . . [I] asked him whether he wasn't alarmed at what his pupils?naming two, who I won't name now?were doing agitating for more expansion, when in fact the danger clearly was inflation. He completely agreed with me, and assured me, 'My theory was frightfully important in the 1930s when the question was of combating deflation. Trust me, if inflation ever becomes a danger, I'm going to turn public opinion around like this.' Six weeks later, he was dead and couldn't do it. I think he would have been fighting the inflationary policy."

[The Immaculate Trouser]

The same way that laws against child neglect are defended by libertarians, I'd suppose.

If I evicted my children from my house and told them to look somewhere else for food, I'd find myself afoul of the law in short order.

[Leroy]

Zach,

My stance on this is that a fetus is a person. You can not invite a person onto your property and then kill said person for being there.

As an analogy, lets say you write up a contract that allows a person to live in your house for 9 months, with no obligation to pay rent or provide any service in exchange, and no clauses in the contract to allow for termination of the contract. It would be unjustifiable to kill said person for trespassing.

With abortion, the woman has invited the child into her body. She has done so knowing that the child will either need to stay there for a period of approximately 9 months, or be killed. Killing the child is therefor murder. This is also why I believe in cases of forcible rape the woman does have the right to evict the child from her body, as she has property rights and never consented to the child being there in the first place. This position is completely compatible with libertarianism.

[Sevo]

Reynold| 4.6.13 @ 5:55PM |#
"A society that values slutism..."

"Slutism"
Have some 'issues' with women by any chance?

[ZackTheHypochondriac]

A society that values slutism will lead to state that takes action in support of slutism.

A society that values family values will lead to state that takes action in support of family values.

[heller]

It's that guy!

[Sevo]

"They are all about single mothers, sluts, homosexuals, blacks and Mexicans."

Do you have a newsletter? If so, I'd rather not subscribe.

[IceTrey]

Christianity is just romanized Mithraism.

[Heroic Mulatto]

The drug war is condemned for being "racist" because for some strange reason blacks are more likely to sell drugs.

Umm...no. The racism comes in the disproportionate sentencing for the same offense.

But you knew that already.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Um... nope.

Romanized Mithraism was, in fact, its own thing with distinctive iconography and doctrine well within the sphere of Indo-Aryan mystery religion phenomenology.

[Sevo]

That's OK, you're doing a good impersonation.
Idiot So Con confusing freedom with blaming 'races' for the problem.

[darius404]

Inner city schools suck, nothing to do with them being "black" or not. That you keep harping on color says a lot about you, none of it complimentary.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Which is particularly amusing in that HM is a 'mulatto' if I'm not wrong.

My daughter attends an all-White school on Mondays and Wednesdays and an all-Black school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Fridays, we homeschool.

[darius404]

Of course middle class blacks citizens don't want to send their kids to inner-city black schools. Wasn't that the whole purpose of the civil rights school choice movement?

There, makes more sense now.

[ZackTheHypochondriac]

but is that defended by libertarians? and even if it is, it doesn't answer why it is given that it is a direct contradiction to some of their other positions.

[IceTrey]

Then don't say "never".

[Sevo]

And HM, you can scratch any poster here and you'll find a mulatto under the common definition.
Lucy, the mother of us all...

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Because intent matters in a trespass situation, and in 100% of abortions and infanticides the intent of the "trespasser" is not criminal.

Because libertarians who believe in property rights to the exclusion of everything else are only a small part of the movement.

Because children aren't capable of giving consent in the same regards as adults, and libertarian assumptions rely on adults who can give consent.

Because sometimes rights intersect and the world is a messy place.

Pick any of the above.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Yes, but the "shame" of bastardy came from the welfare state:

In medieval Wales, a "bastard" was defined simply as a child not acknowledged by its father. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, that were acknowledged by the father, enjoyed the same legal rights, including the right to share in the father's estate. After England's conquest of Wales, English law came to apply in Wales.

The Poor Law of 1576 formed the basis of English bastardy law. Its purpose was to punish a bastard child's mother and putative father, and also to relieve the parish from the cost of supporting mother and child. "By an act of 1576 (18 Elizabeth C. 3), it was ordered that bastards should be supported by their putative fathers, though bastardy orders in the quarter sessions date from before this date. If the genitor could be found, then he was put under very great pressure to accept responsibility and to maintain the child."

[IceTrey]

Nothing like a bucket full of cold water to put a stop to the anal sex!

[darius404]

Speak for yourself, Sevo! I'd have a little bit of the North American version of Mestizo, if anything.

[darius404]

Only the factionalism of the Old Right for you, eh?

[Sevo]

Reynold| 4.6.13 @ 6:31PM |#
"I've heard many times how racist the drug war in general is, how it's destroyed the "black community," how many blacks are in prison, ect. It's a moronic and intellectually dishonest argument because a disproportionate amount of thieves and murderers are also black."

This needs to be preserved!
I guess it qualifies as simply a non-sequitur, but it sure leans strongly toward circular reasoning.
Regardless, it's hilarious!

[heller]

"Paleoconservative"

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, a little midnight golfing, eh?

Tell us more about sluts and the plight of white America, please.

[ZackTheHypochondriac]

interesting stuff, could you also help me out on animal rights in regards to libertarianism? do non persons that are capable of feeling pain and suffering get any special treatment as well? or are they equivalent to a rock and can be tortured by the owner? I wasn't a libertarian for too long, but these two issues (children/animals) were things i always struggled to fit into the philosophy and i'm interested in what you guys think about them.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

yes

[The Immaculate Trouser]

The reason you struggled to fit those two into a libertarian framework is that libertarianism, strictly speaking, doesn't apply to non-consenting adults. It's a category error to apply the philosophy to creatures that don't fit that criterion.

The way some libertarians have tried to square this circle is either by creating special categories for children and animals, or assigning tiered rights to those categories -- or by making beings in these categories the property of consensual adults. I am in the former group.

[ZackTheHypochondriac]

"What gives people the right to create other people? How do you justify that from a libertarian standpoint?"

thats another interesting question for libertarian philosophers.

"And once a woman creates another sovereign human, how is it exclusively "her" body?"

well for this one its not that the fetus is her body, but that it is in her body. so if you are allowed to kick an adult out of your house even if it would result in their death the same would apply to the fetus. although the immaculate trouser suggested that this isn't necessarily the libertarian position even with an adult so the analogy might not hold.

[Francisco d Anconia]

I gotta go with straight property on animals. Children have all rights but that of consent.

[ZackTheHypochondriac]

"The way some libertarians have tried to square this circle is either by creating special categories for children and animals, or assigning tiered rights to those categories -- or by making beings in these categories the property of consensual adults. I am in the former group."

I see. I think I would have agreed with the tiered rights group. thanks for the info though.

[ZackTheHypochondriac]

"I gotta go with straight property on animals."

even to the point of just being able to torture constantly? and do you believe that animals are incapable of feeling pain or that it is irrelevant that they do feel it?

[Xenocles]

That's one option. Just the same I find it hard to ignore the fact that most of the animals we keep as property have some relatively sophisticated brains. They certainly feel pain in much the same sense we do; or at least they exhibit the same reactions to it. While a pig will never be a boy, it seems reasonable to consider the idea that hurting the pig gratuitously is wrong even if killing it for meat and leather - or maybe even because you don't want to support it anymore - is perfectly acceptable.

[Virginian]

*stares*

you really know nothing at all about medieval society do you?

[ZackTheHypochondriac]

"While a pig will never be a boy, it seems reasonable to consider the idea that hurting the pig gratuitously is wrong even if killing it for meat and leather - or maybe even because you don't want to support it anymore - is perfectly acceptable."

yea they behave as though they feel pain, and have all the same parts as we do when it comes to experiencing pain, although i agree i have no problem with killing or deriving utility from them, but i think there is something to be said for avoiding excessive discomfort while doing these things.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Yes, I don't see any other way around it. They don't have rights. Once you go down that road you open a huge can of worms.

Just because it should be legal to torture an animal, doesn't mean you are not a monstrous shitbag for actually doing it.

[IceTrey]

Um...no. That was Romans practicing Mithraism not romanized Mithraism. The whole reason Christianity was invented was because Mithraism was an eastern religion which was being widely practiced in the Roman world and that worried the powers that be. So they took Mithraism, tacked on the stuff about patriarchy and bam..Christianity.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

That's one of the most idiotic theories I've heard this side of Lizard people controlling government. The Roman government prohibited Christianity and persecuted Christians for its first 300+ years of existence, and didn't relent until Constantine. Hell, Christianity wasn't the state religion until 380 AD. This is all extremely well documented -- and Christianity is, of course, itself an "Eastern religion" with ties to Zoroastrianism (you know, the fucking state religion of their peer rival in Persia).

In fact, when Julian the Apostate *did* try to do just what you described -- set up a Roman ethics/religious system in contrast to Christianity, which was perceived as an anti-Roman and feminizing religion by him -- it was a miserable failure. It was also extremely well documented, unlike your theory.

Seriously, Mithraist and Christian doctrines are worlds apart. What evidence do you have for your theory?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

BTW, Romanized Mithraism absolutely existed. Most historians believe that the bull-slaying iconography associated with the mystery religion was a Roman localization.

[Xenocles]

Once you go down that road you open a huge can of worms.

We should not shy away from moral problems simply because they are hard.

[Cytotoxic]

Animals do not have rights and I'd sooner give rights to my dog than a fetus. I don't even really see babies as real people.

Animals rights and anti-choice positions are incompatible with libertarianism.

[Francisco d Anconia]

I don't see it as a problem. They are property, can't possibly be anything but.

[Cytotoxic]

The Islamists got pwnd months ago. But otherwise you're right Reynold's shaming cultures do not produce freedom.

[Xenocles]

Animals rights and anti-choice positions are incompatible with libertarianism.

Both of those phrases beg the question in opposite directions. If animals have rights libertarianism mandates that they be respected. Our current answer to whether they do is transient; it wasn't too long ago when wide swaths of humanity were considered property. We take it for granted now that a human cannot be property - who's to say that the perception of animals will be static?

Same with "anti-choice." We're all anti-choice in some areas. We would all work against allowing someone to choose to kill us, for instance. I would oppose - violently - allowing someone to choose to kill my children - or even their own children. So really the only question is whether the mass growing in a uterus is to be afforded the same protection. This is not a political question - political philosophy doesn't operate until after you answer it.

Your stance on children doesn't surprise me; you don't even seem to consider foreigners to be "real people."

[Dunphy (the real one)]

supporting laws against cruelty to animals does not mean one has to believe in animal rights.

i support laws criminalizing certain cruel acts towards pets/animals.

i support hunting.

animals don't have rights, but the law creates a duty on us not to engage in certain cruel acts against animals. that doesn't mean they have rights

[Cavpitalist]

True, though the state taking action isn't usually necessary, as family values are not so blatantly anti-biology.

Monogamy says nuh-uh.

[RightNut]

It is a Saturday.

[RightNut]

I had never heard of VDare before, so no, I couldn't. But honestly can you see him saying that about any conservative?

[Irish]

VDare is a white supremacist site. As much as I hate Bill Maher, I hardly think he is comparable to the racists at VDare.

[RBS]

http://www.vdare.com/

[Cavpitalist]

I would say that shaming sluts

You do realize that you don't actually shame sexually promiscuous women by calling them sluts, right? That they think you're a dickhead, and wear tight shirts that say sexually provocative things on them just to piss off dickheads like you? Right?

Stop fucking up society with your sophomoric ideas of behavior control. You and your type have been the disease of this world.

[Francisco d Anconia]

So you may not do as you wish with your own property?

That's incompatible with libertarian philosophy.

[RightNut]

I'll admit my ignorance but playing devil's advocate control of the border is not as intrusive into a citizen's everyday life as control of the economy.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Quit lying.

[Irish]

Don't listen to American trying to tell you they're just in favor of border control. I saw an article there comparing black people moving to Detroit to the Huns sacking Rome.

[Sevo]

Reynold| 4.6.13 @ 10:13PM |#
"Really never heard of VDare?"

Nope and don't care.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Much like Stormfront - another conservative site opposed to immigrants.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Yep. White supremacist site. Why doesn't it surprise me that you'd have the web address handy, Reynold?

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Ooh, that reminds me of this amusing bit:

http://www.vdare.com/posts/law.....-gillespie

he reason the libertarian Gillespie would welcome a far-left, Mexico-oriented president of the United States is that what really motivates Gillespie is not the belief in freedom, but the desire to undo America. In this, he is just like the feminists, who never have a critical word about the Muslim treatment of women, but side with Muslim immigration and Muslim empowerment, which will assure the spread of Muslim-type suppression of women in the West. I began pointing out nine years ago, and many other conservatives, including mainstream conservatives, have now also been saying it, that this proves that the feminists' real motive is not the advance of women, but the destruction of America. The same is true of Gillespie. His true aim, as shown by his support for a left-wing, Mexico-style president of the U.S., is not liberty, but the destruction of America.

[RightNut]

The Huns never sacked Rome.

[Irish]

I know. VDare apparently doesn't.

[RightNut]

-High taxes.
-An affirmative action regime far worse than any in white liberal-ruled cities.
-Rampant crime.
-Parasitic public worker unions.
-Abandoned neighborhoods that have literally been picked apart by criminals for scrap metal.
-Squatters on private land, and the refusal of the police to remove them.
-Horrible public schools with illiterate children, illiterate teachers, and illiterate principles.

Those are all true for for many liberal areas, including those with few black residents.

[Sevo]

Reynold| 4.6.13 @ 10:36PM |#
..."black rule"...
OK, beyond bigot; flat racist.

[Irish]

It's also true of various parts of Europe. Greece has 27% unemployment and 1 out of every 4 Greeks have favorable views of a Neo-Nazi party.

Is that the black people's fault too?

[Sevo]

Reynold| 4.6.13 @ 10:38PM |#
"Stormfront is just as conservative as it is libertarian. It also opposes imperialism, much like this website."

Think you found an acorn, do you?

[JW]

A libertarian can be collectivist without violating any libertarian principles. I say this because because I tend to disagree with sexual individualism.

Disagree all you want and then fuck off. It's a free country, or so I'm told.

Tough to be a collectivist, OTOH, without all that violence inherent in the system.

[RightNut]

I say this because because I tend to disagree with sexual individualism

Does that mean you are pro-orgy and anti-masturbation?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Irish]

I say this because because I tend to disagree with sexual individualism.

What is sexual individualism?

[Sevo]

Lord Byron| 4.6.13 @ 10:45PM |#
..."A libertarian can be collectivist without violating any libertarian principles. I say this because because I tend to disagree with sexual individualism."

Uh, no. You say that because you're an ignoramus.

[Nooge.]

A libertarian can be collectivist without violating any libertarian principles.

Your argument. I'd love to see it.

I say this because because I tend to disagree with sexual individualism.

What the holy fuck does this sentence even mean?

[JW]

Psst, FdA, watch this....

Hey Reynold, SIEG...

[General Butt Naked]

Lord Byron famously "collected" samples of pubic hair from his many lovers.

That makes him a collectivist.

[Hyperion]

I need to know this also, because I didn't make any sense at all that.

[JW]

What is sexual individualism?

It's those deviant monogamists.

At least that's what Byron's 3 wives and 2 husbands would say.

[jesse.in.mb]

Parthenogenesis?

[Hyperion]

We're all waiting to find this out.

[juris imprudent]

I'm thinking it must be some reference to the bit in Ghostbusters...

Dana/Zuul "I want you inside of me."

Venkmen "Might be a little crowded in there."

[Hyperion]

Is there any orgies in that?

[Irish]

I guess the community should pick your mate for you? Damned if I know.

[RightNut]

Pro-orgy, anti-masturbation. That is what it means.

[Palin's Buttplug]

Fat Rush is a noon day comedian for out of work rednecks.

[Bam!]

Comedians are suppose to be funny. Maher is just smirking anger.

Limbaugh is more of a Republican weather vane.

[Hyperion]

Long as she's female, hot, and wife doesn't claw my eyes out, let's have at it.

[jesse.in.mb]

Entirely optional! So yes, probably lots of orgies, just as God intended.

[Hyperion]

Sorry, Jesse, I meant to say 'are' there any orgies in that. Hope no one was offended, especially the invisible sky god. I don't need for the lightening to come down and smite me during orgy time....

[General Butt Naked]

Okay, but what are the working definitions of sexual collectivism and individualism?

[Irish]

So is sexual individualism like sexual selfishness? Sexual libertinism? Because it seems like that's what you're saying, but that has nothing to do with what libertarians mean when they say 'collectivist.'

[Sevo]

Lord Byron| 4.6.13 @ 11:08PM |#
"Collectivism and individualism are cultural viewpoints, libertarianism and statism are political viewpoints. I disagree with sexual individualism for many reasons,"

Yeah, well fuck you. Individualism is individualism, and that includes what an individual might do that you regard as "sexual".
Fuck you with a (collective) creosote-soaked telephone pole.

[Irish]

You're using the word individualist to mean something different than what libertarians mean when they use that word.

Individualist doesn't mean 'it's okay for me to be an asshole.' Individualism doesn't mean that you have no moral code.

[jesse.in.mb]

If you can't recognize a difference between the cultural ideology of America today and all of the world at all times but now, then you are blind.

Weak sauce, please go study history and then come back and have this conversation with us.

Sexual morality changes from culture to culture and is often tied to economic concerns. The sexual morality of your average 1720s Parisian nobleman would be vastly different than say a tanner.

[General Butt Naked]

exual collectivism doesn't really mean anything, it is sexual individualism that I am disagreeing with. Basically, it is the do whatever the hell you want without any moral code ideology of modern liberalism.

This sounds like a lot of soft focus, generalized hocus pocus.

What are the moral first principles that you derive your stance from and could you possibly provide how these principles apply to a specific situation? I have a feeling that the things that you don't do and find icky are the practices that fall into the camp of sexual individualism and consequently are deemed, by you, as morally unsound, but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt if you can put your position in more concrete terms.

[RightNut]

Affirming the consequent I believe. Are their not other cities with black mayors and city councils that are in far, far better shape than Detroit? Atlanta perhaps? Are their not cities in better shape that have a large black population? Like any other large city in the US.

[Irish]

I don't know what you even mean. It seems like you're using 'individualism' to mean 'selfishness.' Being an individualist doesn't mean you think it's okay to cheat on your wife.

[Sevo]

Lord Byron| 4.6.13 @ 11:19PM |#
"It is about this whole cultural individualism crap"

As opposed to the collectivist crap?

[Irish]

No it doesn't. Individualist has literally nothing to do with being a good person or not. There's no connection between the two.

Individualist means I shouldn't be forced to adhere to someone else's moral beliefs, but it doesn't mean I have no moral beliefs of my own.

[Sevo]

Lord Byron| 4.6.13 @ 11:20PM |#
"Individualist doesn't mean 'it's okay for me to be an asshole.' Individualism doesn't mean that you have no moral code."

It does to many libertarians.'

No it doesn't. Just one more boring ignoramus.
Go away.

[RightNut]

The Huns did far less damage to the Roman Empire than the Goths, Franks, Vandals, Sassanid Persians, and Romans themselves did.

[Sevo]

Reynold| 4.6.13 @ 10:54PM |#
"No. My point is that the Holocaust denying neo-nazis on Stromfront cannot be compared to any single ideology. That they agree with VDare on immigration is no more evidence of their "conservatism" than their agreement with Reason on imperialism is evidence of their libertarianism"

Yeah, there's no "point" there.

[RightNut]

So you are for freedom in most things in life, just not perhaps the most important thing??? How in any way is that a coherent philosophy???

[Irish]

Wait, you're a libertarian who believes parents should be forcing their children into arranged marriages?

[JW]

No jesse, you have it all wrong. Fags only came about because women were on the pill and hippies fucking in the mud.

Now, go back into the closet where you belong, so Ozzie can feel all fuzzy wuzzy with Harriet.

[Irish]

But they weren't present in the lower classes and they were never condoned by the society

Horseshit. The late 1700s and early 1800s in America had the exact opposite situation. The lower class people, who weren't considered 'gentlemen' would be rolling around town looking for prostitutes and waving their penises in the air to signal that they wanted gay sex. At the same time, the upper classes were appalled by what they saw as savage behavior among the lower classes.

[jesse.in.mb]

Umm, actually you have that exactly backward. The lower classes were constantly doing things that horrified the delicate sensibilities of the nobility. While there were certainly deviant aristocrats who were often labeled "eccentric" for the most part sexual morality was hemmed in by the need to produce heirs and avoid bastard children. Much of historical sexual morality is about men not wanting other people's bastard children being born to their wives and not wanting their bastard children coming back to claim the family estate.

Rome was hardly a decadent outlier in the ancient world and their sexual immorality is hardly what brought it to its knees.

[RightNut]

But they weren't present in the lower classes and they were never condoned by the society, with the possible exception of the Roman Empire, and we all know how that turned out.

As one of the great empire's of human history?

[Sevo]

Lord Byron| 4.6.13 @ 11:31PM |#
"Individualism is, to a lot of people, simply a focus on the individual. I'm talking about cultural individualism, different from political libertarianism."

This post is, to Lord Byron, some sort of bullshit that people might think justifies Lord Byron's other bullshit.

[Irish]

Gay sex was a capital crime in colonial times.

Irrelevant. We aren't talking about legality, we're talking about culture. The fact that gay sex was illegal means nothing, it still happened, and happened often. It was illegal in Britain too, but that didn't stop the Royal Navy from being run on a basis of Rum, Sodomy and the Lash.

Prostitution has always been present was never used as extensively as it was in industrial times.

Not true. Prostitutes were EVERYWHERE in ancient Rome and Greece, despite the fact that they had relatively loose sexual mores.

[jesse.in.mb]

Haha, that would be awesome if someone tried to argue that decreased fear of producing bastard offspring increased license for non-procreative gay sex.

[jesse.in.mb]

Prostitutes were EVERYWHERE in ancient Rome and Greece

Shoot Irish, don't stop there, the first fictional female character was a temple whore. The Bible is full of whores although it's generally played down in English translation.

There's a reason we call it "the oldest profession."

[jesse.in.mb]

Again, please go read some history. None of that is an outlier for ancient history. Please see Egypt, Persia, Aztec Empire, etc.

Unless you think Solomon's 700 wives and 300 concubines, or David having an officer killed so he could cover up adultery sounds like bedrock modern morality.

[RightNut]

There are records of large numbers of patrician men simply refusing get married,

If you mean during the third and fourth centuries, that may be because large amount of men were converting to Christianity and joining the church. If you really think Rome fell because of sexual deviance then you don't know your history.

[Heroic Mulatto]

In 5000 years of Chinese culture, homosexuality wasn't even worth a raised eyebrow until Mao imported homophobia from the West.

Funny that.

[jesse.in.mb]

You said Rome was a historical outlier due to their sexual morality. I think you'll find that the sexual morality of ancient Persia, ancient Egypt and ancient Mesoamerican empires would not have been to your liking.

You'll find convincing Biblical scholarship that indicates that the historical books of the Bible were written under direction from King Josiah by a group now called the Deuteronomists" They shoehorned morals into the stories of the past to keep people on the straight and narrow. (I'm playing fast and loose with my hermaneutics, but you get the gist)

You'll also find that ancient Israel was highly concerned with prostitution because it was an integral part of the temple rites of their neighbors, and they were concerned with adultery because of their strict interpretation of what does and does not make one a Hebrew.

[RightNut]

It kinda makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing I made it up till now without knowing what VDare was.

[Hyperion]

On the 2nd piece, I cannot imagine being related to proglodytes, at all, species, or subspecies. they are completely alien to my way of thought. And I have no desire to share a country, continent, or even a planet... no, make that a universe, with them. They need to find someone else to pay for their stuff, or finally figure out that they need to pay for it themselves, which is impossible with their mythological system.

[BlueBook]

I hope to live long enough to have my deathbed surrounded by a half-dozen sexy fembot nurses.

[jesse.in.mb]

Ok Byron, read your Bible, and some history and then have a chat with us. Early Christianity was highly apocalyptic. And celibacy was a prized characteristic in some circles.

1 Corinthians 7:5-9

Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.

Now to the unmarried a and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

[RightNut]

The church had a prohibition on marriage?

If you were a monk, priest, or hermit, yes.

Why were young men and women, but especially young men, so eager to give up all of the pleasures of the world and to abandon their families, friends, and -- something that was extremely important to the people of the time -- to give up their hopes that their name and family would live on through their children? If we are to rely entirely the account in Athanasius' Life of St. Anthony, it was not only because people believed that the world was filled with demons that sought to lead men and women off the path that led to eternal life and that Anthony's way of life prepared people to fight off these evil forces. Apart from this, Athanasius portrayed Anthony as if he were a professional wrestler in training. In doing so, he tapped both the religious fervor and the sports fever that were characteristic of the common men and women of the Eastern Empire. The monks were known as "athletes of Christ," and so were doubly worthy of emulation.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I know a hell of a lot more than you.

The existence of homosexuality in China has been well documented since ancient times. According to one study, homosexuality in China was regarded as a normal facet of life in China, prior to the Western impact of 1840 onwards.

Homosexuality isn't very common in Asians in general, even here, there is very likely a genetic cause of it.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! You are so fucking ignorant.

By the way, how many years have you/were you resident in Asia? How many Asian languages do you speak with fluency?

[Irish]

...Nong Tum has me questioning my sexuality. Like, I know I'm straight. I just don't know if I'm straight enough to say no to her/him.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Yes. Who among us wouldn't want our last sight on Earth to be that of some hunky Latin or voluptuous Latina nurses (whatever your preference)? I'm guessing only Chris Mallory, as he molests his daughter, and the gravy-sweating yokels of VDare. (Dare to have VD!)

[Heroic Mulatto]

After a few shots of moonshine Thai rice whisky, it doesn't matter anymore.

[jesse.in.mb]

I randomly hooked up with (non-sexual) a straight British fellow whose one goal in Thailand was meeting a lady boy. We had an extended conversation with one and then when we walked away I said "Well you got your wish!" he had NO IDEA, so he sprinted back and spent another twenty minutes chatting her up.

[Heroic Mulatto]

You're entitled to your opinion. Though, I still can't see how a red-blooded male can fail to find beauty in this or this.

[jesse.in.mb]

There may be help for you Reynold

[General Butt Naked]

Yeah, you'd have to be pretty racist to make your penis racist too.

The penis doesn't care about race, creed, color or national origin.

[prolefeed]

Or pretty much any of these:

http://booty-honeys.com

[fish_remote]

Can't get too worked up about Vergara! Too much "Joker Face". Still likes me some Hayek....err Salma that is...... not Friedrich who just isn't hot at all!

[DesigNate]

Fantastico HM, fanfuckingtastico.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Heh. I know a few ladyboys myself. I was never sexually interested in my ladyboy friends, but most were quite stunning. Because birth control is OTC in Thailand, many Thai transwomen are able to go through puberty, hormonally, as a female. Once you are familiar enough with Thai culture and language there are quite a few "tells" to know if you're dealing with a genetic woman or a transwoman.

[Heroic Mulatto]

"The first one"? You don't know who Sofia Vergara is?

When did you escape Area 51 and what is life like on Alpha Centauri?

[General Butt Naked]

Don't say its name! You don't want to go humanizing spics and shit. Jesus.

[Heroic Mulatto]

What? I can't mention Sofia, but you can talk about Hey-sus?

[Irish]

I've been having trouble following this conversation since I keep having to go back and look at that Kathryn DeLong picture.

[General Butt Naked]

What the fuck was that?

That can't be real.

[Heroic Mulatto]

More proof as to the central thesis of penile indifference.

[Heroic Mulatto]

And....that site's bookmarked.

Thank you!

[General Butt Naked]

I'm just glad that I don't let racism get in the way of my enjoyment of booty honeys.

Daaaayummmm.

[Irish]

No, that happened. A vehemently racist workshop at Brown University attempting to force people not to be attracted to a particular ethnicity.

[jesse.in.mb]

To be fair, Reynolds TOTALLY needs that class.

[entropy]

Fuck your out on a limb shit. I want to see you link a Cato paper on it so I know you're not blowing smoke up my ass.

[heller]

What, your implying whites have a problem in there own country?

No, you seem to think they do.

Tell me, what do you think of the Trayvon Martin case?

Not much. What do you think I think about the Trayvon Martin case?

What do you think of "white privilege?"

Never heard of it.

Would you want to walk alone at night in a Mexican immigrant neighborhood? Why not?

Why would you assume I wouldn't want to? Do you know what happens when you assume things, Ameritard?

Come on, I need more of your retarded racist bullshit to laugh at.

[RightNut]

His racism is almost quaint. Kinda like the actors in Plymouth Plantation, or an Amish village.

[darius404]

Is there a class to get him to stop being attracted to ALL races? Because I think we'd all be better off.

[Old Man With Candy]

I think his argument is utilitarian, not philosophical. "Here's something that actually works." That's different than arguing, "This is something we should enact into law."

[fish_remote]

....and waving their penises in the air to signal that they wanted gay sex.

I guess I've been doing it wrong then.

[fish_remote]

He's almost as funny as you are when you claim to understand HIGH FINANCE shreeky.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

In your opinion, it's incompatible with libertarian philosophy. IMO, laws that REASONABLY restrict behavior like torture of a pet are not inconsistent with libertarian philosophy.

A pet *is* property. In my jurisdiction, you can kill it no reason required - you just can't TORTURE IT.

And I find it ironic and typical that in a thread about how do we get libertarians from ruining libertarianism, we get people arguing that any restriction on animal cruelty is incompatible with libertarian philosophy.

Iow, you are a perfect example of the kind of person this article addresses, one who would argue that people should have carte blanche to treat an animal any way they please, presumably including torture, starvation, etc. because - hey, it's just property.

Nice philosophy you got there. I'll pass.

[Dunphy (the real one)]

There is no "THE" libertarian position on abortion.

[heller]

Well you seem to be looking for a set of conclusions that fit your opinions, and not a philosophy based on principles. So I say good riddance.

[Francisco d Anconia]

So you are not the libertarian you claim to be. You are a utilitarian, who just happens to have a certain number of beliefs that overlap with libertarianism.

Nice philosophy you got there. I'll pass.

Did you bother to read what I posted above?

Just because it should be legal to torture an animal, doesn't mean you are not a monstrous shitbag for actually doing it.

Just can't get past the need to make a law, can you?

It's okay Dunphy. Whether or not you are principled, you can still come to the meetings.

[Tulpa (LAOL-PA)]

Is this the same Biblical scholarship that you cited when suggesting Paul was "cool" on sexual deviance among Gentile Christians, and only wrote against it in his letters because he was afraid it would piss off the Jews?

You don't need a conspiracy theory to draw the conclusion that the Israelites pulled their pants down and worshipped idols at the drop of a hat, from the historical books. It's right there in black and white.

[jesse.in.mb]

Is this the same Biblical scholarship that you cited when suggesting Paul was "cool" on sexual deviance among Gentile Christians, and only wrote against it in his letters because he was afraid it would piss off the Jews?

Were you paying any attention at all when we had that conversation? I never said anything to that effect. You're either willfully misrepresenting my position or have brain damage. I'm not entirely sure which.

Gentile populations of early Christians were rejecting social norms and Paul, being an uptight mofo he was, put the kibosh on it.

You're also reading everything I said outside of the context of the original statements. One of the troll handles and I were discussing his contention that Rome was specifically an outlier on sexual morality, and I was counter contending that he was wrong.

[General Butt Naked]

He's just another ignorant leftist that believes you can separate economic and social liberty. Happens on the right too, but we haven't heard much of that in the past 5 years.

[General Butt Naked]

Why do you spend all this time writing these comments that you know will deleted?