Libertarians make peace with liberals all the time.

Specifically, when they realize that Rush is puerile and Rand is insane.

It's called "growing up".

Libertarianism is a reaction to the modern state and would not be credible were it not for modern state institutions and infrastructure. Libertarianism argues that the private sector could do a better job than the state without acknowledging that much of the infrastructure we currently have is a result of the state or state programs. Libertarianism lacks an understanding of the functions and necessity of a modern state. As an alternative direction to increasing state power, libertarianism is a valid political position, but as a governing principle is no more desireable than "Lord of the Flies".

Someone should tell Mr. Lindsey that Social Security and Medicare are not insurance against reaching retirement age and having medical expenses. They are insurance against being destitute in retirement and/or dying from lack of money to pay for treatment. These are insurable risks, whether one saves for retirement privately or not.

Someone should also tell him that since our social values will tend to force us to support our elderly population in some way, he is better off if this is done by extracting funds from each individual. Shift retirement savings to private funds and we'll still be supporting those whose investments fail. We're better off requiring insurance.

The only common ground I can see for liberals and libertarians is the need to make sure that religious conservatives don't achieve their goal of constructing legal regimes around biblical law.

No.

The Libertarians sold their souls to Theocratic Tyranny.

No "do-overs".

You either stand up for Liberty (even if it means terrorists can kill you), or you bend over and hand Ted Haggard the jar of vaseline.

I always wonder if a tax on consumption is supposed to apply to services as well as goods. Like - what exactly? - we haven't been actively and purposefully driving American manufacturers into bakruptcy since the Nixon administration?

Why not a lawyer tax of say 500%? Then maybe people would stop suing each other all the time.

I sometimes wonder if there's any level of income inequality that conservatives and libertarians would consider high enough to merit an arched eyebrow.

No, there isn't.

On a libertarian site, referring to Billion-dollar annual incomes for certain hedge-fund managers, I suggested that any society in which single individuals can "earn" a half-million dollars per hour is not structured sensibly, and doesn't consider the benefit of the society as a whole to be a worthy objective.

I said that you didn't have to be a socialist to think that such obscene incomes are a bad thing.

The immediate reply: Yes, you do.

If you're trying to find the intersection of libertarianism and liberalism, why in the world even talk about the economic sphere? It's the precise spot they are least likely to agree on. Church-state separation and the first amendment are what you should look at.

The problem with these latter-day pseudolibertarians is they are really just economic conservatives with a meaningless dollop of nonpuritanical sex attitudes laid on top. They don't want to give up their Girls Gone Wild tape collection, but what they really care about is pretending taxes can be cut forever.

I said that you didn't have to be a socialist to think that such obscene incomes are a bad thing.
The immediate reply: Yes, you do.
Posted by: R.Porrofatto on December 4, 2006 at 10:53 PM | PERMALINK

See. That's just name-calling. This is the level of debate the Right has brought us to, since the McCarthy era.

I always wonder if a tax on consumption is supposed to apply to services as well as goods.

Not if the principal purpose is to create a better balance of trade - in which case you would want to make producing tradeable goods more lucrative, and consuming tradeable goods less lucrative.

Libertarianism is pretty much a belief in the freedoms originally put into our Constitution. Big government is pretty much the opposite of freedom, as defined by the Founders.

Today many people believe in big government and also in civil liberties. Some even believe in socialism and in civil liberties. These people evade the contradictory nature of their beliefs by defining civil liberties narrowly, so as to exclude all economic liberty. In fact, today, many have further narrowed their definition of civil liberties by eliminating items concerned with race, gender, etc. That is, they don't perceive that the requirement to speak and act politcally correctly has taken away much of their freedom in these areas.

Anyhow, I think Kevin is exactly right in his point.

True libertarians worship the Free Market like a deity (Mammon?) and millionaires are their saints. I've had libertarians argue to my face that society should tolerate racism because the forces of the free market will eventually lead to behaviors the majority of people will accept.

Libertarianism is pretty much a belief in the freedoms originally put into our Constitution. Big government is pretty much the opposite of freedom, as defined by the Founders.

Hogwash. If you think Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton were essentially libertarians then you need to go read some more history. A true libertarian would have found the Articles of Confederation preferable to the Constitution.

K: A true libertarian would have found the Articles of Confederation preferable to the Constitution.

OK, but by today's standards anyone who believed in the original Constitution would be pretty far out on the libertarian scale. We're talking no Social Security. No federal regulation of lor aid to education. No earmarks. No federal involvement in welfare. No HHS. Etc.

Libertarians:
Liberals who want to be racist, and conservatives who want to smoke pot.

Liberalism, in the pure sense of the word, is defined by the tension between the public good and the private interest. Libertarians refuse recognise this tension, considering the private interest and the public good indentical ends. As a practical matter Libertarianism is basicly selfishness on stilts.

But.... where we can work with these people it is in our interest to do so. Simply give them little or nothing in return. What are they going to do? Return to the republicans? We know they'll screw us the second they get the chance. We should forge temporary alliances and watch our backs.

bakho nails it and k also makes an important point. Libertarianism, perversely like radical Islam, is a reaction against the modern world. It's the willful denial of the need of a state to adjudicate between unequally matched interests.

The conservatives who've made such a fetish of Constitution-worship are barking up the wrong Founding Father. Jefferson was closer to a radical, as was the entire anti-Federalist tradition. True conservatives are defined by authoritarianism and a crabbed view of human nature, so Alexander Hamilton is their boy. But that also makes them, umm, statists.

And that's the crux of the fundamental incompatibility of the libertarian strain of modern conservatism (classical liberalism) with the authoritarian right.

The Libs truly feel at sea in a Texified, social-authoritarian GOP and are just casting about for any port in a storm. Civil liberties, yes. But liberals are as concerned with "freedom from" as they are with "freedom to," so again here, liberals welcome state intervention to level the playing field.

The key distinction there is between the private sphere and the public sphere. A true civil libertarian recognizes (unlike, say, ex-liberal) that most economic liberty cannot exist in the purely private sphere.

And that's why we civ-libbers can regulate the hell out of corporations and restrict campaign contributions, while arguing strenuously for the government to get the hell out of our bedrooms.

Public vs private spheres resolves this seeming contradiction.

Bob

Sure, ex-liberal. And slaves worth 3/5 of a person and limited sufferage and indirect election of senators.

Seriously, do you believe child labor ought to be legal? How about getting rid of the FDA? USDA? EPA?

Technological change has resulted in more complicated, interdependent societies which are mirrored in more complicated governing structures. If you don't like it, find yourself a failed state somewhere and enjoy your state of nature.

I think libertarians used to be Republicans who liked to smoke dope. Now most libertarians are Republicans who don't like the religious right.

Adam:

Good points.

Modern liberals tend to be more Hobbesian than Rousseauvian. We believe that the state of nature is a profoundly bad thing, whereas it's the Libertarians who cherish these impossibly utopian delusions about how nice people are if they were Just Left Alone ...

Bob

There are, *at most* three camps of libertarians:

1. The anti-tax, anti-government spending libertarians. These guys will
find no common home with the liberals whatsoever. They believe, as I'm
sure you know, that government is evil. Not just wasteful, but evil.

These guys are among some of the most intellectual of the libertarians,
but they're not going to be swayed by any argument on government
spending. The liberals will split the sheets with this crowd very quickly.

2. The dope-smoking libertarians. Yes, there is a wing of the
libertarian movement that is all about ending the drug war. While I have
sympathy for their position, given the track record and ineffectiveness
of the drug war, the people making this argument themselves too often
come across as brain-addled dope smokers who just want to smoke their
ganja in peace. No intellectual heft, and you really want to be careful
in making a public appearance with these types. The liberals have people
who will walk cheek-by-jowl with these folks, but the party "elders" in
DC will not let this merry bunch get onto the evening news, so while
there is common ground, it is to be hidden ground.

3. The pro-gun wing of the libertarians. There are pro-gun liberals, but
they're few and far between, and the "party elders" in DC (such as
Schumer, Feinstein, et al) are having none of these pro-gun guys in
their tent.

I would point out that what you have so quickly dismissed (cutting investment taxes and increasing consumption taxes) is precisely the compromise that supports the Scandinavian welfare states... perhaps the idea has some merit because it is a compromise. Liberals don't get all that they want, nor do the libertarians, but I would be willing to wager that ALL of society would benefit, even with a regressive tax scheme since regressive tax schemes do not imply that the poor are paying their actual costs.

yes there are unbridgeable gaps on economic policy, but it's cool that in the world of coalition politics the lefties are looking powerful enough to make unlikely allies sniff our butts. I've actually self-identified as a lefty-libertarian hybrid myself more than once. yes they believe in alien abductions but there are select areas where libertarians are pushing in just the right ways. the war on drugs, civil liverties, privacy rights, anti-military expansionism, corporate welfare, etc. Good to point out the differences, and be willing to work with folks who are better on some of the issues than "we" are.

Civil and political liberty along with protection from the power of accumulated capital is the type of government I consider the most pragmatic.

Trex,

You missed a huge segment of Libertarians, the free-associastionists. Everyone else would call them racists, but the Libertarian camp is the only party where white supremecy is for the cool kids.

I don't get it. Why isn't it for cool kids everywhere?

trex:

I'd quibble with you just a tad about how averse to an anti-gun position is the national Democratic Party. I think, with the prodding of Howard Dean, that there's been a consensus shift to let that issue devolve to the states, and I'd doubt very strongly you're going to see anymore national gun regulation legislation like the Brady bill and the assault rifle ban coming from Congress.

After all, many of the new class of freshman were quite open about their love affair with firearms (Schuler, Tester, Webb, Ellsworth ... )

This is an issue that's finally gone away for the Democrats nationally, and although I'm extremely pro gun control myself (heh, check out any of my many close-combat debates with Sebastian), I can't help thinking it's a good thing.

Bob

That is NOT the real trex, by the way.

Pale Rider:

Well, the formatting's a bit dodgy -- at least on my screen -- but either way, the post raised a cogent issue and I wanted to address it.

I'm not so much concerned with playing Identity Games if there's an actual discussion going on. And it's early enough in this thread that one is proceeding.

Bob

Pale Rider typifies the insanity of liberalism. I spit out that word like I spit out a curse word at someone who works in the food service industry--liberals. These liberals--liberalism is a mental condition, highlighted by a desire to do nothing all day except smoke pot and eat Doritos--don't realize that George W Bush has handed them a blanket.

That blanket? It is security. It is the safety of knowing that a man with a turban on his head and a bandolier full of hand grenades is not going to run through CostCo with an AK-47, shooting people through the ear and the eye and through the chest cavity. It is the security of knowing that a plane full of screaming people is not going to do a belly roll and tear into the side of the Sears tower on a placid morning in Seattle. It is the security of knowing that a grandmother with a vest full of C4 or plastique is not going to try to hug you in the elevator and scream "jihadi! jihadi!" and pull the detonator. It is the comfort that allows you to pull that blanket over your eyes and hide from the rough business of torturing people to find out whether or not they remember something about a terror plot they weren't privvy to in the first place. The blanket can be used as a distress flag and it can keep a kennel full of puppies safe in the event of a civil emergency--why you would do so, I do not know, but the blanket is there, sir, and it can be used for nearly everything. Do not wax your boat with it--that would be disrespectful. The blanket is soft, it is warm and it makes the American people feel good about themselves.

Liberalism is the unravelling of that blanket. And when a blanket unravels, it is merely thread. Thread which will warm no one. Yes, it can be processed BACK into a blanket and be good as new, but who has the time in this hurly-burly world of ours?

And you wonder why they should outlaw liberal blogs.

Hoo hoo?

Let your uncle Norman post what he writes, is that copaceptic with all of you?

I'm not pleased to see myself posted on threads where I have not had the pleasure of deciding which liberal to tear apart, thank you.

And you wonder why Kevin should get a gun that shoots IP addresses and sort the men from the boys on this blog.

I'm a libertarian - monthly pledge to the LP and the ACLU. Last election I voted for 12 Democrats and no Republicans. Here's the thanks I get for supporting you, in reverse chronological order:

-----------

trex denies I exist by creating three categories and denying anyone could have other opinions.

rmck1 compares me to radical Islam.

pj says I worship Mammon.

Adam says I'm selfish on stilts.

mkierwin says I'm either a racist or a pot smoker (nothing wrong with the second one, but still untrue).

Extradite Rumsfeld (good idea by the way) says I sold my soul to Theocratic Tyranny. Can't figure that one out.

---------

I guess putting up with the insults is worth it since you're (at this time) better than the Republicans.

Get lost, Norman. This thread is for real debate.

Well, the crystal-meth snorting wing of the Libertarian Party has been heard from. Thanks Norman. Try some Ketamine while you're at it.

True libertarians worship the Free Market like a deity (Mammon?) and millionaires are their saints.
Posted by: pj in jesusland on December 4, 2006 at 11:14 PM | PERMALINK

Yes. The starry-eyed members of the Cult of the Invisible Hand.

Even Norman is being spoofed?

What the hell is happening here?

Calm down, " "

Someone is merely cutting and pasting that which I write into the wrong thread.

Enjoy the fireworks and do attempt to make a cognitive argument in favor of the topic at hand, won't you?

Hey - somebody just spoofed me!!!

libruls are stupid

Why should consumption taxes be regressive?

They're only regressive if the rich don't spend money, but if they never spend it then it's useless to them. Eventually money gets spent and if you tax it then the worst you've done is delay the taxation.

If you exempt some basic items (ie. food and clothes) a consumption tax can be extremely non-regressive.

In fact, if you want to make our taxation system less regressive, how about eliminating gas taxes? Those are extremely regressive.

eeyn524:

Well, don't get all whiny about it. I mean ... isn't the Cult of the Victim what all you Rugged Individualists despise about us traditional PC liberals? :)

I mean, you can't very well expect us to have a cogent, fair-minded critique of *your* brand of Libertarianism if you don't spell it out. Some flavors of moderate Libertarianism are quite sane: for instance, the civil liberties stuff, the anti Executive branch run amok, a strong critique of a messianic foreign policy, anti-corporate welfare and monopoly -- all of these are things that traditional liberals can, and do get behind.

But there are also some serious meth-smokers and Randroids who call themselves Libertarian and want to dismantle the modern state and think we should all go live on the Idaho Panhandle or in Galt's Gulch (from Rand's Atlas Shrugged) or something. As "trex" (apologies if it's really you) pointed out, there's a philosophical hardcore anti-government strain that's just never gonna dance less than awkwardly with even ardent, ACLU civil libertarians ...

So which flavor of Libertarian are you, exactly?

Bob

Everyone should just pay the same amount in taxes. If the budget is a trillion and we have 300 million people, simple math: 3.3 grand each. Done.

you said "galt's gulch" dumbass

Fuck it. You guys are all boring. Especially Bob. I want to hear more from Norman. That's the only thing that's going to rescue this thread.

farm subsidies and other corporate welfare.

yeah, right.

Kevin,

The universe of consumption taxes includes more than sales taxes. In fact, some consumption taxes can be progressive (e.g., David Bradford's X tax).

But one of the key problems is transition. How do we fairly switch the tax base?

Thus, one of the famous public-finance dictums: "an old tax is a good tax"

So which flavor of Libertarian are you, exactly?
Bob
Posted by: rmck1 on December 5, 2006 at 12:20 AM | PERMALINK

The REAL question is - which flavor of Libertarian is Kevin talking about?

You wanna see progressive payment of taxes?

Lets tax ALL inheritance at 100%.
Eliminate all sales and income tax.
And make EVERYBODY pay for their use of any public infrastructure (if this were technically feasible - and IT may make it so some day.) - this means that if you own stock in UPS, you pay for your proportion of their use of the public highways to deliver packages, and your proportion of their use of publicly educated manpower. (etc.)

If you own stock in ExxonMobil, you pay for the oil company's proportionate use of the US Army to prop up puppet dictators in oil-rich 3rd world shitholes.

Oh, and all this wonderful IT makes it possible for all stockholders to take a fully proportionate role in corporate government via electronic voting. Bye bye CEO-BoD circle-jerks.

I wonder how long it would take the stock market to collapse and all corporations to go bankrupt. . .
Oh, and one more Libertarian Wet Dream?
Corporate Bankruptcy should be banned.
Hell - why not get rid of Corporate Charters as well? Why should they get a Special Government Privilege? And roll Patents back to the 7 years as described in the Constitution. And those patents can not apply to business processes, or software. Those are protected by Copyright.

Those are great ideas, Extradite. By great I mean really dumb.

I admit being attracted to the libertarian point of view. I was one for a while, when I was young and did not understand the power of capital. Most libertarians are greedy and don't really believe in the ideology. They want pot decriminalized, but not heroin and every other drug. None say open the borders and let people come and go without arbitrary lines being drawn on a map restricting their movement and enforced by police, which would be the decent way to treat all human beings. I endorse both ideas.

Many libertarians want less regulation. Those people should have toxic waste dumped in their yards and children's playgrounds. They do not understand the meaning of what they say. The demonization of Marx and the complete rejection of socialism make it difficult to talk about social goods and the best way to protect ourselves from industrialization's ability to allow individual's to dominate markets and capital. Liberals play along and have even let their own description become taboo.

Prohibiting regulation of capital and its collectives, corporations, is also a big plank of libertarianism. These things are not people, so providing for their liberty and rights equal to the needs of people denies humanity in favor of materialism. This I think is where Cato and I really disagree. These collectives and the markets they affect require regulation and oversight. They should not be protected in the same way that individual liberty is.

rmck1:

It wasn't a serious whine. Anyway, you're right: there's no copyright on the word libertarian and any a**hole can call himself one, and many do, including immigrant bashing warmongers it's embarrassing to be associated with.

As to flavor, I rarely disagree with anything Jim Henley writes.

On the list of stuff KD had in his post, one would have to agree that economic issues are probably the last area to look for agreement. But the statement that "social issues don't matter that much anyway" is surprising, especially if social issues includes things like starting wars, shaving away at the Bill of Rights, nativism, etc. The idea that some self-identified liberals think these aren't important is surprising. Does they really mean not important, or just not important with respect to winning elections?

warmongers

Thanks, eeyn524. In the libertarian ideology war is only fought and paid for by volunteers. Everyone is free to pay and fight in wars, but not to impose any of the costs on the nation. It is a denial of the national bond we share as citizens, but Bush's War exposed the organized libertarians as corporate welfare whores who use the ideology to line their pockets and fool the young and economic ignorant.

Hostile: None say open the borders and let people come and go

Here, I'll say it: Open the borders and let people come and go.

A lot of libertarians favor a policy of admitting anyone that shows up at the border with reasonable ID and no particular reason to believe they're dangerous.

eeyn524:

I'm not familiar at all with Jim Henley -- what are some of his hobbyhorses? Are you a Glenn Reynolds fan?

Personally, I'm a strong civil libertarian, though I'm more on the liberal side than the libertarian side on certain issues. I support Affirmative Action and gun control, and do believe there are structural forces in society that make the level playing field envisioned by so many Libertarian thinkers problematical. I do think there's such a thing as white skin privilege, deep-rooted sexism and a dominant religious culture that tends to oppress minorities, and these things need to be addressed by government.

Economically, I'm pretty much a straight-no-chaser liberal. I look askance at large corporations and believe strongly in a social safety net -- though I'm reluctantly glad that Clinton did away with lifetime welfare for the able-bodied. I think the entitlement system should be strengthened and preserved as a government guarantee, and I'd also like us (along with Kevin Drum) to move in the direction of single-payer healthcare.

On choice I'm an ardent reproductive rights-ist -- and I have no personal problem with gay marriage although I think civil unions is currently the way to go politically. On guns, I'd like to see them remain controlled in our larger, more heterogenous cities. I'd like to decriminalize soft drugs (pot and organic psychedelics), while keeping tight control on pharmaceuticals, narcotics, coke and "designer drugs."

On war and foreign policy, I'm pretty much a soft liberal internationalist. I *do* believe that unintended consequences are important to consider even in humanitarian missions to places like Somalia and Liberia, but generally support the Clinton/Bush I line on those sorts of interventions. I completely reject the idea of wars of choice without broad international support. We were right to take out the camps in Afghanistan and we should've focused our efforts there. Iraq, OTOH, was perhaps the worst foreign policy decision the US has ever made -- certainly in my lifetimee. I believe we deal with radical Islam by the sort of soft power that Tom Friedman advocates in his saner moments; ultimately it's a problem that Islam needs to solve for itself -- and we wasted a golden opportunity to underscore to the Islamic world just how dangerous Osama's brand of Sunni takfir Islam is to all of Islam generally.

Bob

I was a libertarian a long time ago. There's no theory against letting the first $50,000/person of income be tax free. There's nothing against paying for the full bill as you go; as a matter of fact, borrowing and letting others pay for it in the future is particularly evil to honest libertarians. Therefore, a very progressive tax rate could be achieved by making up a huge first tier of tax free income.

rmck1 or Bob

Glenn Reynolds?! Come the revolution, things will go hard for him. Actually don't know what he stands for these days since I stopped reading in disgust two years ago.

Jim Henley is at www.highclearing.com. The war and things associated seem to be his main issue right now, with some comics and sports blogging in between.

On affirmative action, two things: (a) of course a libertarian purist believes a company can hire for any reason they want, therefore, private corporate AA is just fine; (b) one could make an additional case that race is a special case in that the country operated on a spectacularly un-libertarian basis with respect to race for three hundred plus years, therefore, some temporary exceptions to the libertarian line might be in order.

Healthcare: don't like national health care but it looks inevitable. I could go with upgrading Medicaid, flat out pay for it with tax money for the really poor, and then allow anyone else who wants to, including employers, to buy in as a baseline policy at reasonable cost. However, those who want to stay out of the system should have a right to do so - still pay for the poor through their taxes, of course, but for themselves they can go private or without.

Gay marriage, choice, drugs - you'd fit in well at an LP convention except for your position on guns.

I completely reject the idea of wars of choice without broad international support.

The international support is irrelevant except as a tactical matter after the war is started. The lack of int'l support is an ominous sign, but the presence of it doesn't prove anything.

Here, I'll say it: Open the borders and let people come and go.
A lot of libertarians favor a policy of admitting anyone that shows up at the border with reasonable ID and no particular reason to believe they're dangerous.
Posted by: eeyn524 on December 5, 2006 at 12:56 AM | PERMALINK

Anyone and everyone is potentially dangerous.

I'd favor opening up the borders if you get rid of the reason for borders in the first place: make the laws and jurisdiction the same on both sides.

Otherwise, if you let people cross willy-nilly (and we do) then they will game the system for the differences in the laws.

Reading the comments here reminds me of how Karl Rove managed to get his 'big tent' fallacy going. Talking with a bunch of hard-core liberals, anyone who is different on one viewpoint gets attacked.

Thought experiment for you: You're sitting at a party talking with folks who pretty much agree with you on everything. You're pro-choice, pro-taxation, support the teacher's unions, and everything else is falling in line... but you have one place where you are adamantly opposed. Say you support Israel. Or the rest was straight-line liberal, but you are adamantly opposed to abortion. Or as is the case with many people who identify as libertarians, you think that government rarely solves a problem well.

In this thought experiment, do you get welcomed as a fellow liberal who is generally in agreement but happens to disagree in one area? I doubt it. My experience in person and what I'm seeing in this blog is that you get attacked as a terrible person and a conservative.

By contrast, the GOP will happily welcome you as a conservative, lie to you, screw you over, and go on with life. I sincerely hope we can get those corrupt bastards out of office and in the cases that deserve it, behind bars.

But how many people will happily go back to a party or a social group that attacked them harshly for having one difference of opinion? Why do people who tend to have 80% of their opinions aligned with the Democratic party vote for the Republican party? Think about this before you assault libertarians and whoever else might be dissenting on some point or another. The strength of liberalism is its ability to accept views that contradict long-held beliefs. Its a pity that doesn't seem to extend to much of the "liberal" party.

Anyone and everyone is potentially dangerous.

Which is the reason for the phrase "particular reason", meaning something specific to that person. And no, race or religion would not be enough.

make the laws and jurisdiction the same on both sides.

This implies some sort of universal/world gov't, which would be unfree no matter who ran it, because it inherently lacks a fundamental human right: the right to leave if you don't like it.

KMB;
Karl Rove pulled the coalition together because they all had one thing in common: Intense burning irrational hatred of Liberals. For one reason or another - largely justified by or arising from some concocted BS spewed on Hate Radio, or on the WSJ editorial page via astroturfed letters from various "think tanks" like Cato, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Focus on the Family, etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

This implies some sort of universal/world gov't, which would be unfree no matter who ran it, because . .
Posted by: eeyn524 on December 5, 2006 at 2:24 AM | PERMALINK

Or - maybe it implies some sort of universal/world anarchy?

it inherently lacks a fundamental human right: the right to leave if you don't like it.

Bah - what good is such a right if there's nowhere to go. As it stands right now, I have no right to leave the US for a sensible free country where I can be served drinks by naked women. What a world we live in.

As it stands right now, I have no right to leave the US for a sensible free country where I can be served drinks by naked women.

Somehow when women are free they don't seem that interested in undressing and fetching me drinks. Can't figure it out.

Think about this before you assault libertarians and whoever else might be dissenting on some point or another.

The problem with libertarians, from a liberal perspective, is that they disagree with us on an absolutely critical foundational principle of public morality, namely, that governments are necessary and obligated to promote the common good. Often enough, it's not clear that libertarians think there is such a thing as the common good.

That's not one little minor matter of disagreement on a policy issue. That's a basic disagreement about the nature of human beings and human society. I'm not saying no collaboration is possible - in fact, the only international reproductive health NGO that was willing to go toe to toe with the Bush Administration over promoting condoms was a libertarian one, and most liberals get along with them just fine. But in the long run, this has got to be a coalition for certain issues, not a matter of accepting libertarians as liberals or something. I'm willing to cooperate with conservative evangelical Christians on the issue of global poverty reduction, too. That doesn't mean I think my party should make concessions in its agenda to attract them, though.

Incidentally, eeyn524, I'm curious: where you stand on traffic signals?

I would point out that what you have so quickly dismissed (cutting investment taxes and increasing consumption taxes) is precisely the compromise that supports the Scandinavian welfare states

You left out the 1% (I think it is) wealth tax, a delightful though profoundly unAmerican idea. If the U.S. could collect 1% of Sam Walton's wealth (not income) each year, it could get by with a lot less of yours.

brooksfoe:

I have no problem with traffic lights. And to anticipate one line of argument - I don't believe in some universal rigorous libertarian theory of human existence, which implodes from inconsistency if traffic lights are allowed. (Although one has to admit there are some guys like that.)

It's just a simple belief that liberty has a good deal of inherent value that doesn't need to be justified in terms of any other benefit, and that it's valuable enough to make small to moderate sacrifices in things like safety, convenience, order, and yes, fairness.

It can certainly be outweighed in the right circumstances but I'd say it takes 5 lbs of fairness to outweigh 1 lb of freedom. A relative value judgement and maybe an insurmountable one, but not really a "a basic disagreement about the nature of human beings and human society"

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There really are a lot of pointless insults on this thread because people get stuck in their positions. Here's one area where liberals and libertarians could find common ground if they'd get beyond their ideological blinders - new, actually progressive solutions to problems.

Look at one issue - education. The system is broken and it needs to be fixed. We are tryi9ng training people in the essential skills for the reality of today's world or tomorrow - skills like creativity, design, applied science and s on. We're still teaching kids cursive and piling on more and more rote homework so the kids will pass the tests that are mandated. Look at the TED Talks for a lot of views of the problem.

The problem is that nobody seems to have an actual solution for the 21st century - they just reguritate what they've been saying for 30 years. Teacher's unions are not the solution and in fact they have an entrenched position that doesn't really help - the liberals don't have an answer. Shutting down public schools isn't an answer - sorry, libertarians. And school prayer certainly isn't the answer. These cliches are no longer relevant, if they ever were.

Progressive should mean something - like you want progress. Smarter government programs that take advanatage of existing technologies and work with the rapid change our free market can produce. But that means throwing away old slogans - but I'll end with a nice old hippy slogan, anyway. Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait.

This is, like, the best comment thread I have seen here in aeons. Is it past the bedtime of the usual trolls? Anyhow, good work, most of you!

You're right in a lot of ways Kevin, but there is still room for compromise. There are different paths we can go, and I'll expand on those after I digest the Cato article. For instance, universal healthcare is not a no-go for the libertarian crowd, even though they think it is. If they're hardcore, well, it is, but otherwise it's not. There's no good reason at the moment why businesses are required to offer health insurance, as opposed to citizens voting for their taxes to provide it through a "social insurance" function, just as there's no good reason to devolve the "insurance" function of our military to private militias funded by private interests. One could find a compromise where basic rights to health care are "insured", but at the same time there are plenty of "elective" procedures where a private market could still thrive (as if our insurance rackets as they currently exists accurately reflect a free market to begin with).

The whole point is that the libertarians need to face a hard dose of reality and realize that they are not defending a free market, because there is no free market that exists as Adam Smith envisioned it. Instead, you have a trend towards oligarchy and plutocracy, market interference through political manipulation, power over choice, and what our society really needs to do is embrace a truly free market vision that pivots on individuals and entrepreneurial businesses, not the current cartel system.

What do the labels mean today? You got single issue Papists and radical Christians, as well as borrow-and-spend liberals, calling themselves "conservatives." You got Reagan Democrats who found a new way of feeding at the public trough--not paying taxes instead of collecting benefits. You got liberals who are really criminals and traitors who are aiding and abetting the invasion of Hispano-fascists. Ain't a one worth the powder and shot to blow 'em up.

Indeed, hispano-fascism should be our primary focus as a nation, in terms of our security efforts.

A tax on consumption should actually be the libertarian antichrist. For a philosophy that embraces free exchange, the idea that the state has the power to tax every single individual exchange is appalling. The obvious direction for libertarians is that pointed to by Henry George, even though they struggle to deny that because of aristocratic infection.

If you're trying to find the intersection of libertarianism and liberalism, why in the world even talk about the economic sphere? It's the precise spot they are least likely to agree on. Church-state separation and the first amendment are what you should look at.

This is dead-on. Our intersection is at the political crossroads, not the economic. The root of both camps is in political liberty, which is at stake today.

Thanks for the info...

True libertarians worship the Free Market like a deity (Mammon?)

True liberals worship the govt like a deity. The 'social contract' is just a religious creation myth. The 'govt has a monopoly on force' claim is just a religious "the normal moral standards don't apply to God" argument. Once we got rid of the Divine Right of Kings, we just started making the govt the divine entity; it's still religion.

Reducing taxes on investment income won't make the tax systems regressive. And eliminating (or reducing to near elimination of) payroll taxes will likely make it more progressive because it insentivises higher pay. Plus, tax breaks for savings and dis-insetives for consumption would lead to more income at the lower ends of income distribution.

The tax rate on investment income could be made progressive also.

I found this article (or rather the goal of the writer, not necessarily the result) interesting because I know may people who say "I'm an economic conservative but a social liberal." In most cases that's not really a good label, but there are a lot of people looking for a new label to describe a "live and let live" type of political philosophy.

Previous commenters have a made a lot of interesting points about the difficulties of marrying the two strains and the difficulties of compromise between the two.

My particular, admittedly very muddled, philosophy:

I believe in free markets and low taxes. In particular, I have confidence I can succeed on a level playing field; I just want the playing field level.

I believe that the government should provide a modest safety net for the poor, focusing on their health and education, and a large safety net for children, the elderly, and the disabled.

I believe the government should encourage immigration, particularly among the highly educated, entreprenurial, and fertile.

I believe we should decouple health care and old age support from employment, allowing complete job mobility.

I believe government should live within its means within the current generation. (All debts should be paid within 15 years, so most of the current beneficiaries pay for them.)

I believe owning guns is fine, but that densely populated communities ought to be able to restrict how they are kept and the types of guns permitted.

Individuals should have the right to use birth control and access to early, safe abortions. As a society, we should work realisticly to decrease the number of abortions here and abroad without undermining sexual freedom.

I believe it would be better if Congress had to explicitly authorize all military conflicts and renew that authorization every 3 or 6 months on the record. The president should command the troops, but our elected representatives should think long and hard every day about whether to continue that authorization.

I believe government should recognize civil unions between heterosexuals, homosexuals, and polygamists. Any social grouping is fine, except those that exploit children or women (or men). I believe churches, mosques, and temples should confer the sacrement of marriage, with any restrictions they prefer.

I don't particularly care about who uses drugs or their legality, but I don't want my children using them or seeing them used and I don't want to live next door to a disruptive member of the community. If the medical community thinks some currently illegal drugs would on balance be helpful to the sick, that's fine.

So, what does this make me? I vote reliably Democratic as the lesser of two evils, but I suspect there are equal numbers of those who vote reliably Republican as the lesser of two evils.

By traditional labels, this is a fairly "muddled middle", yet I suspect there are large numbers of middle class voters who vote consistently and would like one party or the other to embrace these values. Is there a coherent "fusion philosphy" that largely encompasses the "muddled middle"?

Lyman

True liberals worship the govt like a deity. The 'social contract' is just a religious creation myth. The 'govt has a monopoly on force' claim is just a religious "the normal moral standards don't apply to God" argument.

So Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau were prophets, not philosophers? Who knew?

(Point to Bob, above -- you may have noticed how often I cite Hobbes, especially in critiquing the mess Bush made in Iraq.)

I'd also like to throw out one concept -- I believe in checks and balances, which means I beleive in government as a check against the power of corporations. (And, therefore, that the alliance of corporations and government is seriously troubling from a standpoint of individual liberty.) Essentially, I believe the government gives -- or ought to give -- citens the power to petition for a redress of grievances when a corporation does us harm -- say, by dumping toxic waste in our water.

Reducing taxes on investment income won't make the tax systems regressive.

I would like to quote a personal philosopher of mine:

"Greed is Good"
-Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Because I am a true libertarian in the sense that I really wish the government would let me keep what I have worked for and stay away from my conseriderably large property, I have not seen the argument framed properly here.

Liberalism and Libertarianism will never find common cause. I am a Libertarian and to me, modern liberalism is a canker sore brimming with pus that I cannot heal except with liquid hydrogen and a blowtorch. If we can just get the tax and spend liberals back up onto the ash heap of history where they belong--and this might allow people like myself to continue to create wealth and make this a better country--then one of you amateurs can come lecture me about economics.

Mr. aaron also said:

The tax rate on investment income could be made progressive also.

Who are you attempting to bankrupt with your crazy ideas?

Joe six pack--you can pay 7 percent of your income in taxes. Me? I'll pay five percent of my income in taxes--no more, no less and that's your uncle Norman being generous.

If we adopt that system, look out mama, there's a white boat coming up the river, as Neil Young would say, and the government would function just fine and dandy. Liberals would squeal like stuck pigs, but the reality is, after the government is slashed in sized and we get rid of all the freeloaders and the bums, the system would correct itself. A massive die-off of needy and confused old people would infuse the system with a refreshed perspective because the main drain on funds, resources and the creator of a massive bureaucracy would pass into the afterlife painlessly and without too much fuss. It would be horrible for a few years to have so many old farts kicking the bucket because of a lack of drugs or health care, but as a Libertarian, I assure you--this is the state of nature, writ large. It's natural for a man to die because his medicines don't appear magically at the end of the government handout that went away. What do you think the 1770s was like? Me, personally, I'm nostalgic for those days.

Our deficits would plunge and this country would race ahead of all others and take economic prominence in the world once again.

What say you, liberals? I'll pay five percent of my income in taxes and we'll call it even-stevens.

Gee, I'd love to participate but since I'm currently the target of a particularly stupid troll

(Who doesn't, just for one example, know I'm a Mac user or that my participation here only began in the immediate wake of Katrina, for another.)

anything I post will immediately draw out this pusillanimous cretin who will attempt to attribute to me positions I do not profess in language which I do not employ...

sigh

You may find shelter under my considerable wings, CFShep--please, explain to me the liberal position on taking your uncle Norman's wealth away from him to give to Moms Mabley so she may drive about the town in an Cadillac Escalade.

I will not tolerate anyone engaging in "spoofing" of handles/names/identities. This is outrageous behavior.

Isn't theorizing wonderful?
How about this: we let 40% of the households in this country pay no income tax at all; in fact, let most of them pay a negative tax by having the gov't send them a check (like the $29 billion sent out in 2/06);
then, we continue to tax payrolls because it's really a tax on employers and the employees never see the money anyway (nor would they if the payroll tax were eliminated);
then we can tax corporations, inheritances, investment income (including the non-cash income of mutual fund gains) as well as gifts, collect excise taxes (gasoline etc.).

What would you have? The current system which includes all of the elements above.

In this whole thread, no real discussion of how to control gov't spending e.g. on Medicare which is the one element capable of bankrupting this country.

In this whole thread, no real discussion of how to control gov't spending e.g. on Medicare which is the one element capable of bankrupting this country.

Were you able to read clearly, I believe I outlined the solution above at 805am--I favor starving the beast completely.

And your idea? About allowing Joe Six Pack to have a free ride and pay no taxes? Do you take your commentary on the road and do comedy in front of strangers?

Are there any woman libertarians?

Seems to me it's almost entirely a guy thing.

(I think there's a woman blogger who calls herself a libertarian, but I'm not talking about a few outliers. Generally speaking - to you folks who know - what's the male/female ratio at libertarian conferences and get togethers? I suspect it's similar to the male/female ratio at a Marlyn Manson concert.)

I am not sure the liberal, conseravative, libertarian debate isn't over. Everybody lost.

It is clear that liberals, thought of by many Americans as big nannie government loving slackards, are never again going to be given control of the government.

It is equally clear that conservatives, defined by their actions during the last 12 years as a bunch of monarchists, theives, incompetents and hypocrites, are never again going to achieve the kind of popular support they enjoyed before George Bush.

Libertarians, who have defined themselves as a bunch of utopians worshiping a free market god, are never going to win the support of rational people who recognize there is a role for government and don't want to surrender the benefits of that government for the insecurity that comes from competing with corporate giants.

What political movements will replace the traditional libertarians, conservatives and libertatians? I don't know. The intellectual landscape seems bereft of new ideas.

In the meantime the democrats seem to be about running politicians who promise to shrink government (pay as you go) while expanding services (universal health care), without raising taxes (except the rich). Promises that seem impossible for anybody to keep.

The next few years are going to be interesting as intellectuals thrash about trying to define new visions of the political landscape. What is really exciting is that the casting about is not going to be done by a handful of cloistered professors safe in their well funded chairs, but by millions of people who read and write blogs like this one. Technology will mean that the time for the intellectual debate will be compressed as never before.

Ron Byers:

It is clear that liberals, thought of by many Americans as big nannie government loving slackards, are never again going to be given control of the government.

An insane but well-dressed grandmother and an avowed San Francisco Liberal named Nancy Pelosi is now in charge of the US House of Representatives. Who writes the Tax Code in this country? The House. Who controls appropriations? The House. Who controls government spending? The House. Do you have any idea what that does to the idea of a free market investment capitalist like myself investing in a brighter tomorrow? It shatters it into a million pieces. You are completely incorrect in your assumption: control of this business end of this government is in the hands of a woman who wants to drive a stake through my heart. And she is the vampire, sir! She is the undead, stalking the Earth, ready to take my money and suck blood from young victims.

It is equally clear that conservatives, defined by their actions during the last 12 years as a bunch of monarchists, theives, incompetents and hypocrites, are never again going to achieve the kind of popular support they enjoyed before George Bush.

You wound me, sir. The only thing keeping America safe is George W Bush and the only thing keeping this country from falling into the abyss is Ben Bernacke. And you certainly should apologize to the insult given to your betters.

And you liberals wonder why I bother to try to tell you how the world really works.

Norman

You haven't been paying attention. The American people rejected you and your ideas last month. They rejected them big time.

As to knowing how the world really works, you don't have a clue.

You haven't been paying attention. The American people rejected you and your ideas last month. They rejected them big time.

No, they asked me to put them in a blind trust, and in 2008--after Nancy Pelosi has spent 126 billion dollars just to put every man, woman and child in touch with their feelings and made the world safe for taxing and spending--my way of thinking will emerge triumphant.

Think of 2008 as a replay of 1980--and a great man shall emerge to lead the country and it shall be morning in America once again.

That, sir, is how the world really works.

Since libertarians come mostly from the unprivileged end of society and, as such, I would venture to say that "entitlement reform" is not high on most liberatarian's list of wants or needs. The word "entitlement" is customarily a rich conservative's worry. George Will doesn't like it but I'm sure Mr. Will is a wealthy man, he doesn't need his SS or free health care.

Your liberal tax dollars at work:

WASHINGTON — NASA may be going to the same old moon with a ship that looks a lot like a 1960s Apollo capsule, but the space agency said Monday that it's going to do something dramatically different this time: Stay there.

Unveiling the agency's bold plan for a return to the moon, NASA said it will establish an international base camp on one of the moon's poles, permanently staffing it by 2024, four years after astronauts land there.

It is a sweeping departure from the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and represents a new phase of space exploration after space shuttles are retired in 2010.

As a libertarian, I object to the use of my tax dollars to put a lesbian-friendly, eco-friendly, good-feelings-for-all type base on the moon.

Please do not lecture me about science--science is best left where it belongs, in dusty books no one reads and in places where foreigners can use it to make little trinkets that only they know how to use.

Mark my words, put this base on the moon and an astronaut will have to recycle their own waste and write feel-good letters to shut-ins and read Al Gore's book over the airwaves. This is an invasion of the moon and I thought liberals were against invading anyone who was defenseless. What if the moonmen don't want to be invaded? And if we anger the moonmen, what then, liberals? What if this provocative move angers an undiscovered race of people who are more technologically advanced than we are? What if they have weapons and machines that are far more powerful than our own? Do you know what that would do the bond market in this country?

That last little bit was a funny I thought of, ha ha ha, liberals. Your uncle Norman knows you sometimes laugh at his ideas.

Well, too bad. My ideas are the gold standard around here.

Lyman,
Interesting philosophy; while we part ways on a bunch of that, you seem like me to have a muddled (there's got to be a better word that makes it not sound like a bad thing) or mixed bag approach that increasingly a lot of us share. You represent the all important swing voter to a T, perhaps?

Whenever this conversation comes up, you see a bunch of folks on the conservative side scrambling to say "yeah I'm really a libertarian at heart too cause I support your right to (insert social cause here)". Conversely, you'll see a bunch of liberals drawing similar lines in the sand, saying "well I don't agree on the economic stuff but I also support (insert social cause of the day here) so give me some of those libertarian props."

We liberals love deriding libertarians as hopeless idealists who don't realize how important the USDA, the FDA, the EPA, etc are...but secretly we all fancy ourselves that free loving hip personal-freedom warrior just a bit, don't we?

Where I get off is folks who do so with such intellectual inconsistentcy--the "well you have the right to sleep with your gay partner, own a gun, smoke a joint...but I draw the line at doing coke or peyote." Or, as Bob alluded to our infamous gun control dispute, it's not so much his policy positions I take umbrage at but the idea that he above expresses an affinity for many planks of the libertarian screed...but his position amounts to "yeah, libertarians are right that you can have a gay marriage, an abortion, a marijuana plant in your basement, but no you can't have a gun to protect yourself."

To me that's horribly dissonant--you either support personal freedom and choice, or you don't. Picking and choosing is arbitrary. And you see it happen in spades whenever this subject comes up.

The bottom line, and at least on social positions the thing that libertarians have right (for the record, I think they're weenies too and their economic positions are vile): FREEDOM means allowing people to make choices you wouldn't make for yourself. Don't like abortion? GREAT! Don't have one. Don't like drugs? GREAT! Don't do them.

Sebastian (Mallaby?)

"yeah, libertarians are right that you can have a gay marriage, an abortion, a marijuana plant in your basement, but no you can't have a gun to protect yourself."

No, my position is, if you let someone have a gay marriage, they will be no different than any other married person.

What is a married person? A miserable wretch, that's what.

So if, by extension, someone is allowed to inflict great misery upon themselves by getting married, they will be forced to ingest large amounts of marijuana and other drugs to dull the pain and to deaden the senses to inevitable drudgery and grind. Have you ever felt like life was gnawing at you with big, flat teeth and just grinding you into a fine paste? Well, that's what marriage is and that's why liberals use drugs.

What then happens is, a policeman takes the drugs away from the liberal and then the liberal gets a gun and shoots people. This happens every single day in this country. So my position is, we all need guns to defend us from depressed and disturbed married liberals with guns.

Mark my words, this is a huge issue and I wish I had a better stock answer for it than this one.

I have never met a libertarian who wasn't a rethug.

My $.02 as one of those anti-gay marriage, pro-life (but not pro-earmarks or pro-Iraq war) Christian conservatives driving eeyn524 into your (not quite) open arms.

I see a lot of naive arguments against libertarianism. I would encourage you to educate yourselves a bit more about libertarianism. 'The Machinery of Freedom' by David Freidman is a good choice. But here are some teasers:

1. Libertarians do not believe that markets are perfect. They believe that as a general rule, *government failure* is worse than *market failure*. E.g. there would be no JetBlue or Southwest if the airlines were still regulated.

2. Libertarians do not support racism. They do believe that markets punish racism more effectively than government. Case in point: racist white farmers tried to pay Japanese workers below market wages in the early 20th century, but bidding wars resulted until the Japanese were actually paid slightly more than white workers (because they work harder).

Another great example that the libertarian Walter Williams relates: a freed slave started a coal business. But whites tried to stop him by "dumping" their coal at below-market rates. But he hired mullatos that could "pass" and bought from those whites and sold their coal instead. But if the government were bigger back then, the coal venders would set up a coal licensing board, and simply denied licenses to blacks.

And recall: it took the work and enforcement of the government to sustain slavery and segregation.

3. Libertarians do not have a consistent policy on the morality of criminalizing self-destructive acts. But then, very few ethical philosophies ever have.

4. On traffic lights, there are different takes. Some libertarians would like to see privatized roads. In which case, it would no longer be the government setting the rules. (If privatized roads sounds unrealistic, realize that gas companies lay their pipes by buying options on land until they can assemble a straight path. Then they make good on those options. )

Other libertarians have a more "decentralized" bent. They favor small units of local government in competition with each other. This weakens the monopoly powers of local government. Anyone that has ever tried to buy a house in a blue state recognizes the powers of the local town council when setting land use and zoning policies!

I'm a die-hard liberal but I think we should do the following:

1. Eliminate Corporate Taxes: Corp. taxes account for ~10% of federal tax revenues and that percentage has been dropping for years. The Dems could really outflank the GOP on this issue and it makes a TON of sense from a simplicity and efficiency standpoint - less taxes for corporations mean more money for wages and investment, less incentive to pile on debt, more incentive to pay dividends, and better economic decisions by management - managers should not make investment decisions based on tax considerations.

2. Equalize taxes on all forms of income - wages, interest, dividends, cap gains all get taxed at the same progressive rates. I'm tired of the GOP crap that you should have lower taxes on income from cap gains than wages. If I'm making $75K on the job I should not be taxed higher than a trust fund baby who earns the same amount in capital gains from her portfolio.

I don't know if equalizing the tax rates on all income types would recover all the lost revenue from eliminating corporate taxes but I bet it would come close.

I see government as a necessary force to prevent corporate greed from hurting the populace. I may lean toward some Libertarian issues, but Libertarian-ism itself is too radical and is frankly not practical.

I would like to form a new political party: the Practicalists. A party that works with the reality of the situation rather than the theory. For example, I believe that most americans want the social net of medicare and social security. I do not disagree with that. But I think we set limits as to who these services will be provided to.

For example: In medicine, 90% of the costs are spent on the last 30 days of life. Physicians, by and large, know which patients are not going to survive, but are forced by the legal and social systems in place to continue to pour money and resources into these people that they are 99% sure will die. If we had any faith in our doctors, we would give them the protection of the government so that they can make these hard decisions and allow the unsalvageable to die. This is hard for the populace to accept because it is ok for the other persons grandmother to die, but "do everything for my grandma." If liberals really were for doing the best good for the most people, they would strongly support the conservation of health care dollars so that the system is still available for the vast majority of people.

As it stands, Medicare is becoming a giant sinkhole where billions are spent, but the quality only gets worse. Why? The current way of "fixing it" seems to be cut the re-imbursement to hospitals and doctors. The unfortunate side-effect of this? The quality of your health care is RAPIDLY deteriorating. Right now, it is easier than ever to get into medical school because it is no longer the place where the best and brightest go. As our population climbs, the number of physicians is stagnant requiring that the same number of doctors take care of an ever increasing number of patients. And they get frustrated with endless paperwork, endless expectations from patients that they should be cared for but not have to pay for it; as if "life energy" of 13 years of post high school education did not cost my father anything, not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans it took to pay for school and keep his family alive while he was getting the schooling/training, then working 40% of the weekends and working 70+hours a week after he finished all that, not to mention the missed birthday parties and christmas mornings because the sick can't wait for such things.

It is ridiculous to expect the doctors to take CUTS IN PAY every year. My father who just retired got paid less in 2005 than he did in 1985. How many of you think that is fair? How many labor unions would agree that is fair? How many of you would stay at a job that paid you less and less every year but you got to work harder for more hassle. He finally figured out that, regardless of the personal satisfaction of helping others, the price of doing business was too high. Yes, this is a personal story, but it does illustrate a real problem.

If you want universal health care, you have 2 choices -

1) Walmart Health Care System where it is cheap, but you fight lines to get it and what you get is not very good.

2) Environmentalist Health Care System where the resource of health care is acknowledged to be scarce, so it is managed such that it is an inexpensive quality product, but you don't have unlimited access to it.

3) Big Government Universalist Health Care System where access is unlimited, and the costs are high and getting higher as everyone realizes they are spending someone else's dollar so they don't hesitate to use the ER for hangnails and colds.

Me? Of course I vote for option #2.

Kevin sez:

Making it even flatter — or even plainly regressive — by cutting investment taxes and increasing consumption taxes is a nonstarter.

I would like to see a renewed discussion of a *progressive* consumption tax. There was some talk about this years ago when some economist (whose name escapes me) made the suggestion.

I'm totally with David68 regarding eliminating corp taxes as a liberal initiative. I've advocated that for years.

Norm, that starve the beast theme, completely or otherwise, is so stupid an idea it fits you totally.What I described is the existing system where the talk about equalizing income thru the tax code is fantasy. The income is only one side of the equation and unless we define better what we are willing to pay for, like SS but ony a more limited Medicare, then the discussion is a qualitative one where the "rich" should pay some "more" but nobody knows how much more should be.

Since libertarians come mostly from the unprivileged end of society

I do not think that describes the Cato Institute members very well, but does describe the average John Birch Society member, who buys into the libertarian free market ideology while having their labor exploited and surplus value added confiscated.

What part of "promote the general welfare" do libertarians not understand? Always wondered how those people who claim to revere the Constitution get away with ignoring that part.

David68;
I agree. Completely eliminate corporate income taxes. Also, completely eliminate their right to donate to political campaigns. Corporations are not people, they have no god-given-right to free (or any) speech.

Libertarians do not believe that markets are perfect. They believe that as a general rule, *government failure* is worse than *market failure*.

This describes the Libertarian paradox in a nutshell, and the real reason why Libertarians will never be able to make common cause with Liberty, much less Liberals.

Libertarians believe that one form of corporate entity is inherently worse than another form. The only thing that distinguishes these forms is that one is controlled democratically (one person, one vote) whereas the other is controlled plutocratically (one dollar, one vote).

One guess which form Libertarians prefer, and one guess which of the two big parties prefers that form of control.

Liberals and Libertarians can possibly agree on issues like drug decriminalization and getting the government out of issues like marriage licensing and abortion, and getting corporations off of the government dole, but that is about it. Liberals of today and Libertarians have diametrically opposed ideas about property rights. Liberals basically have the position that you have as much right to property as the majority decides you do, and if you don't like their restrictions, then that is just too bad.

David69

I have heard CEOs argue for higher executive compensation by pointing out that dividends are paid from after tax dollars, while executive compensation is paid from before tax dollars. "By God, we don't want to pay the government any more in taxes than absolutely necessary. We can't afford dividends, but we can afford higher executive compensation." When asked how the corporation is going to reward its loyal shareholders the same executives have said that the shareholders are rewarded with higher share prices. From all that I have read, I am sure manipulation of the books for tax reasons and the desire to reward shareholders with higher share prices lead directly to Enron. Had the Enron board been given the incentive to either pay dividends or pay higher dividends Enron's meltdown might not have happened. Dividends are paid with real money and not smoke and mirrors. Real money means corporations have be be focused on real results.

I do believe the recent Republican capital gains cut was backwards. Make dividends tax deductible at the corporate level. Give corporations an incentive to pay them.

The problem with cosumption taxation is the accumulation of wealth. Once you have ten cars, ten homes, and have taken ten trips around the world, there is nothing left to consume. The diminishing returns of consumption mean that those who have earning power beyond their ability to consume continuously increase their investment portfolios, giving them increasing economic power over those who have to spend all of their income on consumption. This increased economic power is not earned by the individual, but is taken from someone else's surplus value added and used to increase the wealth of the capitalist, who can no longer eat anymore bananas, and invested wherever the highest return can be found.

The tax cuts for the rich Bush enacted increased the amount of money they had to invest, it did not increase their ability to consume. The libertarian/supply side economic theory is that these rich would increase their investments in the US economy and spur more economic development. What really happened is they invested the extra income in China or somewhere else that offered a higher return. It is much better to tax a small percentage of wealth and transfer it back to consumers who will use it, improving the distribution of income to the entire economy and providing for its growth.

Libertarians believe that one form of corporate entity is inherently worse than another form. The only thing that distinguishes these forms is that one is controlled democratically (one person, one vote) whereas the other is controlled plutocratically (one dollar, one vote).

That is not the only differences. Libertarians would argue that the salient difference is that one corporate entity has a legally protected monopoloy, and the other does not.

Hostile;
I think Adolf Coors said it best:
"No matter how rich you are, you can only drink two or three glasses of beer a day."

Wierd, my last post came up with the name 'Disputo'

Just want to make sure that one thinks he's switched sides!

Kevin thought there would be ducks in the barrel but then didn't see them. But he found them eventually!

That is not the only differences. Libertarians would argue that the salient difference is that one corporate entity has a legally protected monopoloy, and the other does not.

So, as long as the government contracts out the work to numerous private companies, libertarians would be happy? Have a number of competing private firms for all government services, with the government controlling them via contract and purse strings (uber-single-payer across the board)?

"I sometimes wonder if there's any level of income inequality that conservatives and libertarians would consider high enough to merit an arched eyebrow."

Eventually, the wealthy as a group will have so much raw power that they will no longer need middlebrow intellectuals to concoct hifalutin theories that justify their continued acquisition of just about everything. That's when the conservatives and libertarians will arch an eyebrow. Two, in fact, as they start to cry.

Adolf Coors must have been an idiot then. He should hang around my uncle. :)

As for this: "2. Libertarians do not support racism. They do believe that markets punish racism more effectively than government."

Yeah, cause that worked out so well in the first 250 years or so that this country was here (rolls eyes and smacks forehead). The idea that the US was paradise on earth before the 20th Century began and the govt was still all but nonexistant compared it's current power and prominence simply hasn't ever taken a history class since 6th grade social studies. Period. Libertarianism seems to revolve around the idea life before a strong central govt was idyllic and a bucolic utopian vision. The idea that the market handles social ills like racism, sexism, homophobia is so laughable that I'm surprised people can still utter that shit.

Anyone thinking that kind of nonsense should be directed to "United States, History of From 1700-1960".

Without federal govt intervention, the market for racism and segregation would have prevailed in large swaths of this country for a damn longer stretch than it did (and might still prevail today left to purely market forces).

Here's where I part with most libertarians--even if you can convince me that govt is inherently evil, it's still a NECESSARY evil.

"No matter how rich you are, you can only drink two or three glasses of beer a day."

This, of course, is complete piffle. Were liberals to free themselves of this arbitrary self-imposed constraint--what is it about socialists that you demand moderation in all things but sandalwood incense, "inclusive language" and the theft of iTunes?--you'd enjoy life a lot more, and whine about my stock options a good deal less.

Kevin quotes Lindsey: "Specifically, cut taxes on savings and investment, cut payroll taxes on labor, and make up the shortfall with increased taxation of consumption."

Top priority: a carbon tax. This will lead to reduced emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, which is absolutely the most critical imperative for the survival of humanity, and will spur the development of alternatives to fossil fuel energy which, apart from the global warming issue, are going to be crucial when oil extraction peaks and declines in the near future.

Second priority: tax all other forms of pollution as well. Pollution is the externalization of the cost of "waste disposal" onto society, i.e. government. Make the polluter pay, up front, through pollution taxes.

Those are two changes to the tax system that libertarians have every reason to support, and no principled reason to oppose.

Having said that, progressive taxes on both income and wealth should remain, although they could be somewhat reduced by shifting taxation to carbon and pollution taxes. Concentration of income and wealth into the hands of a tiny, hereditary minority is a social evil in and of itself, and income & wealth taxes for the explicit purpose of redistributing wealth more widely are necessary to preserve social and political egalitarianism and democracy. The founders knew this and wrote about it.

I don't expect much to come of this, since so-called "libertarianism" of today is a fraud, a fake, phony pseudo-political philosophy cobbled together from the demented ravings of Ayn Rand by a bunch of bought-and-paid for "think tank" shills for America's ultra-rich, neo-fascist, corporate-feudalist ruling class. That's why it has little or nothing to do with actually enhancing and protecting liberty, and everything to do with enhancing and protecting the ability of the ultra-rich to own and control everything.

Just FYI: "Norman Rogers," by his own admission a few weeks ago, is a parody troll written by a liberal. So respond to him seriously if you must -- but realize that it's the functional equivalent of responding seriously to Al's Mommy :)

Sebastian:

Didn't Emerson say that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds? The problem with philosophical consistency in a political worldview is that it pretty closely correlates with extremism -- and this would sort of make sense, if you think about it. Liberty and equality will always be in tension (somebody's liberty comes at the expense of general equality and vice-versa). That's why there are very few pure anti-statists (anarchism) or state interventionists (totalitarianism). Libertarians all seem to agree that a minimal state is necessary to prevent force and fraud -- but they spend all kinds of energy debating what precise size that state should be. And so it is for liberals.

For instance, drug decriminalization. The most liberal approach to drugs I know of -- The Netherlands -- recognizes in law the difference between hard and soft drugs. This is just common sense; marijuana is a less dangerous substance than cocaine -- or even Oxycontin. Or a peyote ritual with a shaman is a less dangerous experience than copping some purple microdot "acid" that might be cut with strychnine. So it's sensible to talk about drug decrim on a substance-by-substance basis. It's not just a matter of personal freedom is either important or it isn't. Personal freedom exists on a gradient.

As for my approach to guns -- it is absolutely of a piece with a civil libertarian's approach to regulating the economic sphere. While you might challenge me for curtaining your right to self-defense, a Libertarian might chastise you for curtailing his right to economic liberty. I'm not disputing your position (I think we should agree to disagree) -- only saying that Libertarians make precisely the same liberty argument for why corporations should be unregulated.

I boil it down by recognizing areas that are pretty much strictly private -- like who your sexual partner is (of course, there are limits even there to consenting adults), where economic activity affects far more people than merely the owners of a corporation. And thus it is with guns. You might consider it a fundamental matter of personal liberty, but guns also can have a much larger effect on a swath of society than just your ownership rights. For instance, one of my housemates is crazy; the kind of guy you read about going postal someday. He's got a shotgun in his closet. This *really*, *really* worries me.

Bob

oh okay bob. thanks for the heads up - youre on it man.

As a Small Government, Civil Libertarian that actual enjoys having a functioning society, I realize that compromises in my idealogy must be made. Since it's much easier to pay a little tax than regain a little lost freedom, I see no problem supporting Democrats.

I do try to:

1) Support government programs where the government can be more efficient/equitable in providing the service than the free market. i.e. Defense, Roads, Public Safety, Education, and yes, Health Care.

2). Support free markets where they more efficiently supply services i.e. almost everything else.

3). Oppose the anti-libertarian aspects of liberalism i.e. Nanny State initiatives, Speech Crimes, criminalization of voluntary behavior.

Within these general guidelines, I have no problem being a Liberaltarian.

Royalblue_tom said:
So, as long as the government contracts out the work to numerous private companies, libertarians would be happy? Have a number of competing private firms for all government services, with the government controlling them via contract and purse strings (uber-single-payer across the board)?

Yes and no. I would say "yes" because most libertarians would favor, say, vouchers over public schools. But on the "no" side, politicians still face electoral pressures. And this means that private firms will tend to win contracts not upon excellence, but upon political connections. Earmarks and campaign donations.

Sebastian said,
Anyone thinking that kind of nonsense should be directed to "United States, History of From 1700-1960".

Without federal govt intervention, the market for racism and segregation would have prevailed in large swaths of this country for a damn longer stretch than it did (and might still prevail today left to purely market forces).

Actually, it was the federal government that sustained slavery and oppression. The government was stacked against blacks from top to bottom. Heck, slaves eventually had to escape to Canada, because even though the north opposed slavery, they were forced to return escaped slaves.

Heck, read your Howard Zinn. One of the running themes of his book is that a small number of elites manage to oppress the larger group of people. Its a lot easier to oppress people with the reigns of government in your hands, than the ability to sell shoes.

Bob,

Yes, you should be very, very worried.

Just FYI: "Norman Rogers," by his own admission a few weeks ago, is a parody troll written by a liberal. So respond to him seriously if you must -- but realize that it's the functional equivalent of responding seriously to Al's Mommy :)

Hey, thanks for ruining it for everyone.

Norman:

*shrug*

Stuff happens.

Bob

I think if drugs were decriminalized few would use poison like meth, because better alternatives would be available. I think the reason so many people use crack, meth, and oxy is because they are simply available. If they had a choice, most would chew coca leaves and take valium when they self medicate.

One other thing about drug prohibition: every single meth, crack, and heroin addict is a testament to prohibition's failure as a policy. Prohibition makes drug use a criminal justice issue, bringing even more misery and cost to the users, while enriching organized crime.

Hostile:

Then why do you think The Netherlands -- which shares much of your demand-side analysis of the drug problem, not to mention the humaneness of your general approach -- hasn't legalized all drugs?

Bob

Hostile:

We have plenty of alcoholics and cig smokers in this country without prohibition -- just as we'd have plenty of hard-drug addicts if we decided to legalize them.

I do support general decriminalization of all drugs, but I'd only legalize a very small class of substances that are available in nature, anyway. It's a compromise position, but it would be incrementally better than what we have now. My fear is that if you legalize highly addictive substances like narcotics, we'd see more addicts, not less.

That strikes me as basic human nature.

Bob

rmck1 wrote: "For instance, drug decriminalization. The most liberal approach to drugs I know of -- The Netherlands -- recognizes in law the difference between hard and soft drugs."

The essential difference between the US approach to (some) drugs and the approach in the Netherlands is that the US approach is founded on the premise that "(Some) drugs are EVIL so no one should EVER use them, so they must be banned and completely eliminated, and those who use them must be punished" whereas the Netherlands approach is founded on the premise that "Drugs can cause HARM, so given that people have always used them and some people always will, we must do what we can to reduce the harm that they cause."

The US approach is based on a bogus "moral" judgement about (some) drugs and the people who use them. The Netherlands approach makes no such "moral" judgement, recognizes that "drug use" is a perennial feature of human behavior, and is based on concern for human well-being.

The Netherlands approach is based on HARM REDUCTION. The US approach is based on HARM AUGMENTATION -- i.e. adding the harm done by the criminalization of (some) drugs to the (generally much lesser) harm actually caused by drug use itself.

The Netherlands approach is sane, and effective at reducing the harm that drug use can cause. The US approach is insane, and ineffective at reducing the harm that drug use can cause, and causes enormous additional harm on top of that (including such perverse results as preventing sick people from using a natural herbal medicine, marijuana, which has been scientifically established to be a highly effective and safe treatment for various medical conditions).

One can certainly make a case that certain specific drugs are so dangerous, and capable of causing such extreme harm, that they should be banned. In general I think that such an argument can be made for drugs where the amount that is consumed in normal use to achieve the desired effect is very close to a potentially fatal dose, e.g. cocaine and heroin (depending on how they are consumed). However, even if such drugs are banned, it is crucial that users are not criminalized, but are recognized as having a medical problem that requires treatment, not punishment.

I do not know Bob. Perhaps because there is no demand for the 'poisonous stuff' as the 'good stuff' is available. I can compromise. The US should adopt The Netherlands' drug policies.

Norman,

It's been pretty funny, but I think you've been playing it a bit looser lately. After all I'm pretty sure the moon-base thing was GWB's idea and Adolf Coors ain't exactly a liberal. Just sayin.

And for everyone else who's been contributing to this thread, it's been a very good read.

SecularAnimist:

No argument there.

Bob

cyntax:

The funniest thing about your last statement is that Adolph Coors pretty much just stated the neoclassical economic principle of marginal utility :)

And marginal utility, as we all know, became the intellectual basis for a progressive income tax.

Bob

Hostile:

The three of us (with SA) are in agreement on drug policy.

We should adopt The Netherlands' approach.

Bob

"Hey, thanks for ruining it for everyone."

norman - lay off bob. studies show that as many as 2 people out of 100,000 readers cannot instantly detect that you're a parody. bob is just looking out for them dude.

In general I think that such an argument can be made for drugs where the amount that is consumed in normal use to achieve the desired effect is very close to a potentially fatal dose, e.g. cocaine and heroin (depending on how they are consumed).

Actually SA, there are numerous "functional" addicts who use these drugs and the dosage needed to get high is nowhere near a fatal overdoes. William S. Burroughs being an example of someone who maintained a functional addiction well into his seventies. Overdose is a function of "street" quality drugs where the addict (or user) is unsure of the purity of what they are using and so inadvertently takes too much. In my opinion, the real danger is around substances that are so addictive one or two uses of them can cause addiction.

I wrote: "One can certainly make a case that certain specific drugs are so dangerous, and capable of causing such extreme harm, that they should be banned. In general I think that such an argument can be made for drugs where the amount that is consumed in normal use to achieve the desired effect is very close to a potentially fatal dose, e.g. cocaine and heroin (depending on how they are consumed)."

I'd just like to add to that category -- tobacco.

While tobacco consumed in the quantities that are normally consumed by smokers is not acutely dangerous like cocaine in the sense that someone intending to use it to achieve the desired effect risks instant death with a comparable dose, tobacco used in normal amounts is known to greatly increase the risk of death from cancer and other diseases over a period of years, and also, tobacco is one of the most extremely addictive substances known.

Having said this, I am not inclined to favor banning any drug, particularly naturally-occurring plants like marijuana, tobacco, psylocibin, peyote, coca leaf in its natural form, etc. or that are already widely used and culturally accepted by a given society like the various alcoholic beverages are in the West, for the simple reason that history shows that such bans do more harm than good.

It is better to practice Netherlands-style harm reduction and to find ways to encourage people who like to use "drugs" to use the least-harmful, which is generally the most natural, forms of the drugs.

The post at 1:35 is a spoof. All of us here at Misfit Manor are more worried about Bob than he is about me.

And marginal utility, as we all know, became the intellectual basis for a progressive income tax.

I do wonder how far Adolf Coors has carried his statement into other aspects of his life. It would seem not so much in the case of politics, ironically enough.

cyntax:

Well, except the problem with that view is that this is precisely where heroin and crack come in. They're not "instantly addictive" (that's a myth), but most people can't use them more than a handful of times before becoming addicted.

You could make the Burroughs argument that a responsible self-medicator could maintain an opiate addiction functionally into way late in life. There was plenty of laudnum and tincture of opium available on the frontier (before 1907) whenever a new patent medicine show rolled into town. Or if you wanted to order it in bulk out of the Sears Catalogue ...

But bottom line, you can't base laws on the exceptional cases. You have to base them on the average. I've known a few rigidly controlled drinkers in my time who could drive perfectly fine while blowing over the limit.

But we don't make the laws based on that. Most people with addictive personalities, if given ready access to safe, pure narcotics, would wind up using them to the point where it curtailed their potentials as human beings.

And while society absolutely has an interest in harm reduction and shouldn't demonize *molecules* when the issue is human behavior (and this holds true also for prostitution) -- I don't think society has an interest in allowing the reduction of human potential, either.

We need prohibitions against hard drugs as a break against this natural tendency.

Bob

cyntax: Actually SA, there are numerous "functional" addicts who use these drugs and the dosage needed to get high is nowhere near a fatal overdoes.

Doses of cocaine that are within the range of what is normally used to achieve the desired effect can cause sudden heart failure, and the susceptibility of a given individual to this outcome cannot readily be known beforehand. The "margin of error" with heroin is probably greater. Consumption of large amounts of alcohol -- larger than the vast majority of drinkers would consume, but within the range of what a heavy drinker with a very high tolerance might consume, can also be suddenly fatal.

In contrast, there is no known fatal dose of marijuana and there are zero recorded deaths resulting from marijuana overdose.

cyntax: In my opinion, the real danger is around substances that are so addictive one or two uses of them can cause addiction.

I don't know of any such substance. However, addictiveness is at least in part a property of the user, as well as of the substance being used, so certain people might be vulnerable to "instant addiction".

I became instantly addicted to both Twin Peaks and Mystery Science Theater 3000 after a single exposure.

It's a nice try, I guess, but this just has nowhere to go. Liberals are never going to give up on the idea of progressive taxation, and our overall tax system is only barely progressive as it is. Making it even flatter — or even plainly regressive — by cutting investment taxes and increasing consumption taxes is a nonstarter.

There's also nothing "libertarian" about further favoring investment income through tax policy; that's a plainly conservative position. Certainly, it is libertarian to favor minimizing overall tax burden, but selective reduction favoring a particular, already favored class of income is not "libertarian".

Ditto on entitlements. Universal pensions and universal healthcare are bedrock parts of the social safety net, and it's simply not conceivable that liberals will give ground on these.

This I disagree with; I'm pretty darned liberal, and my preferred degree of entitlement protection is based not on pure principle, but the combination of principle and pragmatism. Were there to be reforms that made such programs genuinely less necessary for security, I might be willing to reduce them, and I'd certainly support as preferable to reliance on entitlements programs which aimed to make entitlements less necessary. But while programs with that aim would be desirable, I wouldn't favor reducing entitlements unless those programs had demonstrable effect. Now, particularly on universal healthcare, I don't see that as a realistic possibility, but for lots of other entitlement programs, its quite possible than fundamental reform of other areas could render them less necessary.

"I sometimes wonder if there's any level of income inequality that conservatives and libertarians would consider high enough to merit an arched eyebrow."

I've been playing the libertarian, but here I'll really speak for myself as a Christian conservative. Here are my general thoughts:

1. Inequality is a different issue than absolute poverty. Poverty is an ethical issue that transcends self-interest. We all have moral duties to cure/alleviate poverty. But inequality is about whether or not our society is fraying and collapsing. Thus it is at heart a self-interested issue: "Will it be bad for me if our society continues this path?"

2. Root causes: (1) household inequality is increasing because of the breakdown of marriage. As a Christian conservative, I'd love to see that reveresed. That is the issue that made me switch parties. But the left is only interested in further undermining marriage (2) inequality is also rising because of high rates of unskilled immigration - but this kind of inequality is not a bad thing (3) there are increasingly high returns for a college education. There isn't much we can do to force people to go to college, what we need to do is change the culture, and again, it frustrates me that the left is working the opposite direction. At some point the left is going to have to "blame the victim" and say: be more like Asians, be more like Jews. Be a nerd, study hard, and have a stable marriage.

The left does not seem concerned about root cause. Instead they'd paper over the cause with income transfers.

3. At the top, incentives matter. A society that heavily taxes entrepreneurs will be more equal - but there will be fewer entrepreneurs. That means fewer businesses, and therefore fewer jobs.

If we could adopt a flat(er) tax with a low marginal rate, then we could better reward entrepreneuers *and* tax the wealthy more. Obviously it is the entrenched business interests that would lose out.

You can't have a flat tax with a high marginal rate, because high marginal rates increase the pressure on lobbyists to create loopholes. Reagan cleaned out most of the deductions, but they are all back 20 years later.

But we don't make the laws based on that. Most people with addictive personalities, if given ready access to safe, pure narcotics, would wind up using them to the point where it curtailed their potentials as human beings.
...
We need prohibitions against hard drugs as a break against this natural tendency.

Maybe. But I think people generally have sound reasons for not doing hard drugs and the legality of them is not at the top of that list. First and foremost they are flat out addictive and as such dangerous, and I think most people know that.

But I was making more of a distinction around the idea that the dosage is nearly fatal. Overdoses are most common around the intravenous usage of inconsistent quality drugs. If there was consisten quality, you could have less overdoses. As you point out, you might have more addicts then, and that might not be a good trade off.

And I agree with you, SA, and Hostile that the reduction of harm model that the Netherlands uses seems best.

I became instantly addicted to both Twin Peaks and Mystery Science Theater 3000 after a single exposure.
Posted by: SecularAnimist

Please SA, stay away from Invader ZIM then. I've already been ensnared and there were only on two seasons...

cyntax:

Well, I kind of disagree with your first assertion. Life puts pressure on people, and people in varying ways learn mechanisms to cope with it. Reaching for a drink is one way that has deep roots in our culture -- but it isn't qualitatively different than reaching for an opium pipe or even a syringe ...

If I was all depressed and decided I needed a molecular mood adjustment, I could go down to the local bar and buy a sixpack. If I wanted to cop some smack, I'd have to truck downtown and consort with some unsavory characters and potentially put my life at risk in the process. So the thought never occurs to me, primarily because the opportunity costs are too high -- not primarily because of all the stories I've told about myself that I "don't do hard drugs."

Now, if there were a Federal Party Pharmacy(tm) down the street next to the liquor store, it might be a different matter entirely ...

So while I believe in viewing drug abuse as a health problem and I support decriminalization -- I don't also wish to lower those opportunity costs to the point where the sort of people who might take up drinking as a hobby take up heroin instead.

And that's primarily because -- exceptions like William Burroughs aside -- opiates are a more dangerous substance and harder to use without full-blown addiction than alcohol.

Although if I had my druthers -- I'd rather this were a toking culture than a drinking culture. We might see a helluva lot less Saturday night fights and domestic violence, and the tradeoff in a little extra obesity would be worth it :)

Bob

SecularAnimist,

In regards to Twin Peaks and Mystery Science Theater 3000, we at last agree strongly on something.

Root causes: (1) household inequality is increasing because of the breakdown of marriage. As a Christian conservative, I'd love to see that reveresed. That is the issue that made me switch parties. But the left is only interested in further undermining marriage.
...
The left does not seem concerned about root cause. Instead they'd paper over the cause with income transfers.

At least be intellectualy honest enough to state that we disagree with you about the root cause.

Can you show us some data to back up your assertion that lower marriage rates are the cause of poverty? This seems patently untrue, since if it were true then minorities like African Americans should have been more affluent when marriage rates were higher in the past.

Anyway, you should take the opportunity to present your arguement and try to persuade us, your audience, as opposed to this more holier than thou hectoring tone that you're currently employing.

Norman:
*shrug*
Stuff happens.
Bob

Isn't that a smug, self-satisfied answer.

In point of fact:

Just FYI: "Norman Rogers," by his own admission a few weeks ago, is a parody troll written by a liberal. So respond to him seriously if you must -- but realize that it's the functional equivalent of responding seriously to Al's Mommy :)

By his own admission? No, dear rmck1--the admission was really just a way of preventing you from swallowing your friend's shotgun in a fit of panic and fear.

Goodness, when a man has to give another man a pass and a by your leave, there really isn't anything to discuss, now is there?

And you wonder why you can't grasp the obvious.

At least be intellectualy honest enough to state that we disagree with you about the root cause.

Can you show us some data to back up your assertion that lower marriage rates are the cause of poverty? This seems patently untrue, since if it were true then minorities like African Americans should have been more affluent when marriage rates were higher in the past.

In 1965 the Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan released the Moynihan Report, which showed that, contrary to expectations, the number one cause of black poverty was the breakdown of the family. Moynihan was pilloried by his own party for speaking the truth.

To address your rebuttal: in the past African Americans were poor because of segregation. But today entrenched poverty - white or black - is because of the breakdown of the family.

Whups, forgot the link. Here is some good information on the issue.

Well, I kind of disagree with your first assertion. Life puts pressure on people, and people in varying ways learn mechanisms to cope with it. Reaching for a drink is one way that has deep roots in our culture -- but it isn't qualitatively different than reaching for an opium pipe or even a syringe ...

Bob, I think you're right to say that, but I think you and I just disagree about what motivates people. I would liken it to the abuse of perscription drugs. Some people do abuse perscription drugs, but I don't think the people who do not abuse them are dissuaded by particularly high barriers of entry. I do rockclimbing and as such have sustained a few injuries, in my experience opiates in the form of vicoden, percoset, and whatnot are very easy to get. I think the abuse of legalised heroin would much more closely follow the epidemiology of perscription drugs than it would alcohol.

So for me, I believe that people would treat opiates differently than alcohol for the very reasons you want to treat them differently-- they're much more dangerous, and I do think an awareness of that shapes people's behaviour. But I'm prepared to believe that people are stupidier than I'm given them credit for being.
:)

cyntax:

Well, there's of course the difference between somebody like yourself -- a rock climber with injuries who had a good reason to take opiates and synthetic opiates and used them responsibily with an awareness of their danger -- and Rush Limbaugh, the back patient who had the same opportunities *plus* an ideological committment to scourging drugs and drug addicts who hoarded and abused Oxycontin *anyway* ...

So I think your last point about underestimating stupidity, avarice and pain avoidance weighs heavily into this discussion ...

By all rights, you should've become the opiate abuser and Rush should've been the one who used them responsibily -- if you go by your front-brain ideas about what constitutes drug abuse.

This is why I don't trust narratives people tell themselves and each other about how they personally relate to drugs. What triggers these needs is, I think, much more limbic and harder to control for a significant number of people.

Bob

This is why I don't trust narratives people tell themselves and each other about how they personally relate to drugs.

oh ... me neither!

justin,

I don't think your link works; it just times out. So anyway did some quick reading on the Monyihan Report from sources I Googled, and here are my thoughts.

I don't believe that any liberals would argue that family stability isn't a good thing and shouldn't be encouraged. Over the last 20 or so years the Reagan, GWHB, and Clinton administrations have all implemented or continued support for programs that reduce teenage pregnancy so I see strong support for these types of programs across the ideological spectrum.

Where there's room for disagreement, I imagine, is in the interpretation of the report and the subsequesnt formulation of certain policies. I don't see this data as supporting a strictly Christianist definition of marriage, I see it as supporting the need for a stable family unit. Which could be two mothers, two fathers, or a mother and a father, also a non-nuclear, extended family. So if one were to argue that this report justifies a Defense of Marriage Act, I would strenously argue that such legislation actually interferes with family stability and is the policy equivalent of window dressing.

cyntax:

Agreed. Nobody disagrees that family stability is extremely important for social health. The problem is when Christianists attempt to conflate family stability with some kind of idealized nuclear family. That just flies in the face of reality, considering the number of blended families and remarried couples out there.

It's funny, but there's no way to ground the idea of marriage on a union between two consenting adults. Why not four? Why not an old lady and her beloved cat -- who she always treated better than her deceased husband, anyway?

So what I've heard gay marriage advocates do, in order to keep the barn door shut against polygamy and marriage of underagers (not to mention anything bestial) is to argue in utilitarian terms that a family headed by two emotionally bonded adults is the most stable arrangement for the raising of children. That's an empirical question and it can be put to the test.

But clearly the idea that divorce and single-parent households are some kind of a social good in themselves is nothing more than a red herring -- although it may well happen as a consequence of greater personal freedom, especially of women.

Once again, it's the ol' social / individual balancing act.

Bob

This is why I don't trust narratives people tell themselves and each other about how they personally relate to drugs. What triggers these needs is, I think, much more limbic and harder to control for a significant number of people.

Bob, sorry I should have been more explicit there. I wasn't trying to point out that I didn't become addicted, I was trying to point out how much more readily available prescription drugs are to the average person than heroin on the steet is. This is because I thought your comparison of alcohol use to leaglized heroin use wasn't a good fit. I do not think that the epidemiology of legalised alcohol is an accurate predictor of how people would react to legalised heroin, instead I think prescription drug abuse is a more apt comparison. That's all.

But I think I'm getting a little down in the weeds on this one. So I'll happily shut up now.
:)

cyntax:

Well, I find this discussion interesting. By all means, ignore to taste if you feel you've said your piece on the subject :)

From what I understand, people who abuse oxy, percocet, vicodin and the others aren't doing it to get high so much as to self-medicate for chronic pain. The times I've had scrip for Tylenol 3 for arm injuries and dental work, it's not exactly a "high" the drug puts you into -- more like a controlled stupefication. I suppose some people grow attatched to that frame of mind, but it's entirely different than the euphoria that can come from social drinking or pot smoking.

From what I understand about smack (mostly from reading, but I've also known a couple of opiate enthusiasts), it's a much more intense experience. It stupifies you -- but also puts you into a dreamworld. Kind of like the really heavy synthetic opiates like Darvon. Somebody who's doing smack isn't so much "partying" as putting themselves away for a couple hours into a private realm. So yes, I agree with you that this behavior is not like drinking -- and nor would it be like abusing prescription painkillers.

Now I think pot and alcohol are pretty equatable substances, in terms of the way they're socialized. I do think that if pot were legalized, you'd see a number of drinkers drinking way less and smoking pot more. And I think the behavior you'd see around heavy pot use -- while not exactly "healthy" (no habitual recreational drug use is that), would be in important ways less dysfunctional than alcohol abuse. You'd see less violence and less automobile accidents, for two.

Bob

So what I've heard gay marriage advocates do, in order to keep the barn door shut against polygamy and marriage of underagers (not to mention anything bestial) is to argue in utilitarian terms that a family headed by two emotionally bonded adults is the most stable arrangement for the raising of children. That's an empirical question and it can be put to the test.

Bob, I'd settle for only adults of the age of consent. As to polygamy, as long as you aren't engaging in some type of expoitative behaviour like marrying a 14 year old girl off to a 60 year old man, I don't think it's any of my business. If some people can make a family of 3 moms and 4 dads work well, good for them. Sounds very complicated to me but I don't think it's inherently wrong. And I agree with you that it could be put to the test, though I don't think it will happen anytime soon.

Inequality is a different issue than absolute poverty.

No, its not. Goods have no inherent worth, they have value only in producing utility. Inequality is itself a demonstrated source of disutility, hence, it is itself a source of absolute poverty of the only kind that matters.

Root causes: (1) household inequality is increasing because of the breakdown of marriage.

Evidence?

As a Christian conservative, I'd love to see that reveresed.

As far as I can tell its, at best, an unsupported belief stemming from your biases as a social conservative, not any kind of fact.

But the left is only interested in further undermining marriage

Er, no, wrong again.

(2) inequality is also rising because of high rates of unskilled immigration - but this kind of inequality is not a bad thing

This is probably a source of some inequality, though I see no evidence that the increase in inequality is do to a proportionate increase in this kind of immigration.

Still, I wouldn't argue that this is "not a bad thing"; it certainly has potentially bad effects.

(3) there are increasingly high returns for a college education. There isn't much we can do to force people to go to college,

But there is quite a bit we can do to improve the degree to which the least well serve are prepared to go to college, and the degree to which they can afford to go to college.

what we need to do is change the culture, and again, it frustrates me that the left is working the opposite direction.

No, the left is working for (as opposed to the right, which is working against) changes to the social context that has produced and is reinforcing the culture that undervalues education and "the system" in the communities least well served in the status quo.

At some point the left is going to have to "blame the victim" and say: be more like Asians, be more like Jews.

At some point, conservative "Christians" are going to have to take the plank out of their own eyes and correct the policies that they eagerly sponsor which lead to the cultural forces they cry about rather than following their first instinct and blaming their victims.

cmdicely:

Damn straight.

Social conservatives have to develop more than an ad-hoc critique of how the marketplace fosters the very sort of social behaviors and consequences that their morality decries ...

It's funny, but while some of the less extreme Libs are looking to our party as an alternative to the Texification of their own previous home, it's really the social conservatives who -- ironically enough -- we share a more thorough social analysis with -- at least regarding how laissez-faire economic ideology breeds immoral behavior ...

Bob

The labels truly become boring and unproductive after a little while. We are stuck with problem-solving. Hopefully, we will retain representative democracy and accountability.

I have always found that people fond of frequently calling themshelves liberal, conservative, libertarian and all the combinations thereof (e.g., christian conservative) let ideology get in their way of solving problems. They get confused themselves about what to think about particualar issues. They also confuse themselves with regard to accurately comprehending what other people are trying to communicate. They just can't adequately file everything said and done it the correct ideological folder.

So red flags go up when I hear the following type of statement:

"As a conservative, I think blah blay blah..."

It's often time to tune out and move on to more productive things with someone talks like that. They are going to over-label and over-categorize. Can't help themselves.

The labels truly become boring and unproductive after a little while. We are stuck with problem-solving.

"Problems" don't exist outside of an ideological framework.

Things objectively are this way, or that way, but they aren't objectively problems. Problems are differences between facts and ideological preferences.

I have always found that people fond of frequently calling themshelves liberal, conservative, libertarian and all the combinations thereof (e.g., christian conservative) let ideology get in their way of solving problems.

From the perspective of someone with a different ideology, it will often seem that way because while they may share enough of a common value system to agree on a problem, the other participants different value system will often "get in the way" of that participant accepting a solution that would seem optimal from the complaining participants value system.

(There is also a different problem when ideological descriptors become tribal identifiers and people become unwilling to consider solutions simply because they are not on the pre-screened list for their tribe; this is particularly a problem when it is subconscious, because people tend to build ideological rationalizations for their resistance, but if someone tries to work with them and address those rationalizations as if they were the real reasons, new rationalizations spring up. But that's not so much ideology being a problem as lack of clarity about ideology being the problem.)

http://holdthesenate.blogspot.com/
While, Mr. Lindsey may be pro-choice and pro federal spending on stem cell research but Libertarians themselves are divided on those issues (see Ron Paul or Steve Chapman). Libertarian (big or small l) and social liberalism are not one in the same and are too often confused.

As I have blogged about previously, Goldwater the libertarian Conservative ran against Rockefeller the social liberal and they disagreed on more than just economic principles.

Here are a host of major issues that almost all Libertarians of the CATO Institute variety and liberals disagree on:

(1) Guns (except those liberals in pro-gun states who are doing so now for political expediency. Do you know of any non-rural blue state where a Democratic Governor is pro gun?)
(2) free trade
(3) size of the government in general
(4) socialized healthcare
(5) foreign policy on humanitarian interventions (no prominent libertarian that I am aware of favors going into Darfur)
(6) tax cuts
(7) minimum wage
(8) social security
(9) affirmative action
(10) differences still on immigration as libertarians tend to favor guest worker programs more than liberals do
(11) environmental regulation
(12) Judges (see Libertarian scholar Richard Epstein's version of a good judge versus a liberal's version)
(13) reimportation of Drugs
(14) Campaign Finance Reform

Bob,

Not a disinteresting conversation, just wasn't sure what level of detail you wanted to go to.

I suppose some people grow attatched to that frame of mind, but it's entirely different than the euphoria that can come from social drinking or pot smoking.

True it is different from pot and alcohol, but you're right the use for pain medication can be translated to a use for self medication of emotional states like stress and depression. And that's where people can get into serious problems.

I'd agree that pot and alcohol are more predominately drugs that can be used socially and so are different from heroin. But I'm still going to disagree with you about prescription drugs at least in terms of availability. Part of your original arguement turned on your own perception of the availability of heroin as the key driver for keeping you away from heroin. Later in our discussion you pointed out that my anecdotal example of prescription drugs was flawed because it was too dependent on variables specific to me. That being the case, I would agrue that your contention about the availability of heroin being its key deterent is subject to the same criticisms as my prescription drug example. Further, for reasons stated in my previous post, I still think that it terms of availability as a driver for abuse, prescription drugs and legalized heroin would have very similar levels of availability. So if availability is the primary driver than we should compare heroin to prescription drugs.

Your criticism of prescription drug use as qualitatively different from heroin is, in my opinion, a good one. Even though they are both opiates, it's much easier to take the prescription drugs at lower, more controlled doses, and so maintain a social usage pattern that doesn't involve checking completely out from reality.

"our overall tax system is only barely progressive as it is" - are you insane? The top 1% pays 34% percent of Federal income taxes. The top 10% pay well over 50%. The bottom 30% pay next to nothing. That sounds pretty progressive to me.

I'm with eeyn524.. his comments are the most rational. I believe in laws against racism (ie, housing, lending - we all need an equal chance), I'm pro-gun (government should be afraid of the people, not the other way around), pro-gay marriage (all legal "marriages" should be civil unions - let churches do the "marriage" part), and low taxes. I'm not rich, but I'm strongly for free markets. I'm a dues-paying member of the ACLU, but I stopped paying my LP dues, b/c there are too many in the party who are the libertarian wing of the Libertarian party. I would consider myself a middle-of-the-road independent non-affliated libertarian.

our overall tax system is only barely progressive as it is" - are you insane? The top 1% pays 34% percent of Federal income taxes.

Leaving aside that you don't measure progressivity by the percentage of population paying a percentage of taxes, but by the relation of overall rate of taxation to overall wealth or income, you are confusing "federal income taxes" with "our overall system of taxation", federal income taxes are one piece of the system of taxation, and are more progressive than much of the rest of the system (on the federal side, payroll and excise taxes are far more regressive than income taxes.)

Libertarians and liberals!!!! Someone is smoking real good stuff.

The ultimate expression of liberalism was in the Soviet Union in the 30's, Mao's China in the 60's and Pol Pot's Cambodia in the 70's.

Gimme a break! There is no difference between what liberals want to achieve and the attempts to create the "New Socialist Man".

Adam: Seriously, do you believe child labor ought to be legal? How about getting rid of the FDA? USDA? EPA?

What I said was that these would not be Constitutional under the original understanding of the Constitution. The country is very different today. I don't think the original Consitution would work.

I actually don't know if child labor laws are necessary or not. I do think the FDA anbd EPA serve necessary functions. In effect, the Supreme Court has passed a series of Consitutional amendments, via their decisions. Some of these "amendments" I like and some I don't like.

What bureaucratic socialists (i.e. Democrats) never want to speak of, though, is that their "utopia" can only exist by stealing from individuals who want nothing of their system of government. Just because a vote is taken doesn't make it democracy. It merely means a minority is being financially raped by a majority. Forcing anyone to submit to their idea of taxation under the threat of incarceration or at the point of a gun is NOT the definition of a civil society. Indeed, Democrats have created and fostered a system of income disparity, generational conflict, and, if it continues, the eventual collapse of the country. Libertarians understand that a certain amount of taxation is necessary in order to defend the borders and maintain a legal system that enforces justice. Beyond the few and delineated roles of the federal government as outlined in the Constitution, all else is the responsibility of individuals, individual states, or the result of legal precedent when one party injures another. If Democrats EVER wake up and begin to answer the question, "Well how is our view of the world possible without stealing from our detractors" then, and only then, will this country survive.

What I said was that these would not be Constitutional under the original understanding of the Constitution.

Which is not at all clear—since Congress, for policy rather than Constitutional reasons, saw no need to enact such sweeping regulations of interestate commerce until late in the life of the Republic, how early courts would have viewed the scope of the interstate commerce power is untested; what is clear is that further elucidation by the courts of the meaning of its provisions was part of the original view of the Constitution held by some of those involved in putting it together.

What bureaucratic socialists (i.e. Democrats) never want to speak of, though, is that their "utopia" can only exist by stealing from individuals who want nothing of their system of government.

(1) Democrats aren't, generally, "bureaucratic socialists", and further aren't generally utopian,
(2) All governments, by definition, apply compulsory power to secure the cooperation of those who disagree with them; if a body does not assert such power, it is not a government, and
(3) Any government which taxes, including a libertarian one, is "stealing from its detractors", if it has any detractors, yet you appear to have no problem at all with a Libertarian regime which does this, and imposes its view of proper taxation at gunpoint. Really, your own view as you describe it is objectively no different than the Democrats as you describe them. The only difference is that you subjectively approve of the things you think are important for government to do, but you don't feel that the Democrats priorities are important. You clearly, though, have no problem stealing from your detractors to acheive your priorities for government, so perhaps you ought to find a more honest basis for criticizing Democrats.

"our overall tax system is only barely progressive as it is"

Bullshit. Not only is the tax system massively progressive, but its progressivity has been gradually increasing since at least 1979.

I'm obviously late on this, but a lot of what "Extradite Rumsfeld" said at 12:34 AM today (abolishing corporate bankrupcy, democratizing big business, fees proportionate to use of resources) in principle sounds like something I could've read on Kevin Carson's site...

There are left-libertarians out there. Not enough room to explain this in full, but to summarize they basically agree with the New Left critique of big business while disagreeing with the proposed response to it, finding it redundent. Corporate status itself is a government privilege, 99% of the issue between radical free-marketers & progressives would be out the window if not for that.

BTW: to whoever said this:

"Libertarianism...[is] the willful denial of the need of a state to adjudicate between unequally matched interests."

In practice, how often does the State fairly adjudicate, rather than back up whoever already has the upper hand?

Marxism and libertarianism are polar opposites. Libertarians seek freedom. Liberal/Marxism is willing to trade slavery for the illusion of a "social safety net". Libertarians reject government intrusion into our private lives, period, which includes not just the bedroom, but the bank acount as well. Liberal/progressive/marxists promote the "freedom" to be degenerate and dissolute. These "freedoms" weaken the public, making us more dependent on the state. They reject real freedom, the kind that makes us stronger. Liberal/marxists are unconscionably, criminally rude. It is no one's business how much another person has or makes. It should be a hanging offense to bring it up. Envy is the great destroyer, the basis of our entire system of taxation, and the most egregious "hate crime" we have. If liberals want to pay more taxes, why don't they simply get out their checkbooks and start writing?

"Libertarianism...[is] the willful denial of the need of a state to adjudicate between unequally matched interests."

When the state adjudicates it always protects the interests of the judiciary, first, the legal elite,second, the government, third, the marxists,fourth,the powerful, fifth, and the common man, never. In criminal cases, the order is judiciary, legal elite, criminal class, government(i.e. prison guards), marxists, powerful, and victims never.

I'm a Libertarian. That is my version of the ideal. However, no one gets their ideal, not Liberals, not Conservatives, not anyone. That's what government is: compromise between varying philosophies of how to approach situations and provide solutions for them. The refusal to either compromise or at least attempt understand an opposing viewpoint sounds good when you're, for example, posting to a thread where everyone agrees with you, but it doesn't work in practice. In my case, I'm looking for a government that is as small, efficient and effective as possible- understanding that, in the real world, you can't have a tiny government that doesn't cost any money and provides nothing. The reason I personally prefer Liberals to Conservatives is because the Conservative philosophy has been hijacked by a large religious faction that does not grasp this reality. It's their way or the highway, and the voters, quite simply, have had enough of that nonsense.

The 'govt has a monopoly on force' claim is just a religious "the normal moral standards don't apply to God" argument.

This is from way up thread, but I wanted to respond because it's an error I've frequently seen in libertarian posts. "The government has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force" is a descriptive, not a normative, statement. It comes from sociology and political science, not political philosophy. That the US government enjoys a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within US borders is a fact, not a moral argument. Individuals or non-governmental groups which use violence may be brought to court for doing so. If their use of violence is justified (and the only justification is self-defense), then it is the government's decision (through the courts) to accord them legitimacy.

That is all.

"Problems" don't exist outside of an ideological framework.

Well, I think they do. Ideology is like religion in that people develop ideological “truths” that cannot be questioned. For example, a child’s health is threatened by a serious medical problem and dies because his parents do not believe in hospitals. I’ve seen this.

Ideology traps people by raising certain tenets up to the level of beliefs that can’t be questioned, thus, the ideology traps the believer. When a problem presents itself, the believer cannot thing outside the self-imposed ideological box.

Why could so many conservatives not accept that Saddam did not pose a threat? They were focused upon ideology. They chose to believe their fellow traveler, GWB, and all their other brothers who they perceived to share their ideology. Sans their ideology, they could have focused on obvious facts and solved the problem. Experts all over the world asserting that those aluminum tubes were no good as centrifuges would have impressed them. They would have been impressed when the uranium from Africa turned out to be bullshit. UN inspectors not finding anything would have impressed them.

But there was no way they could be dissuaded from their beliefs. The UN? Gee, their ideology equates the UN with the devil. Scientists? Experts? Hey, their ideology has it’s own experts and objectivity is not required.

Sure, an ideologue will attempt to place every problem within an ideological framework. That’s what they do, but the problem did not place itself in that box and does not belong in that box.

What ideological framework is going to help us solve the problem of global warming? Some ideologies will tell us to do nothing. Others will tell us each country must act alone, if at all. Want to solve the problem? Forget those boxes and assess the problem free of ideology.

I like my own "freeway" model. Libertarians imagine that without all the limitations imposed on drivers while driving on a freeway, they could zip along from place to place unimpeded, at their own pace. The ultimate "free" way. I think my vision is more realistic: without speed limits, lane markers, shoulders, spaced and controlled on and offramps, etc.. our feeways would be an un-passable minefield of bloody
wrecks, caused by the too-slow, the too-fast, the too-selfcentered and the too-dumb. wrecksdilineation

There have been posters on this thread, lately exemplified by anon E. Mouse and dcb, who call themselves Libertarians or Lib-leaning and who seem perfectly sane and amenable to working with liberals. These folks cite small government as an ideal, but also recognize that the very idea of government itself is a compromise between competing interests. Regardless of the specific areas on which we agree strongly (and there are a number of them), I get the sense that they'd rather emphasize them than insist on the points where they might strongly disagree with many liberals. We liberals should be able to partner with them.

But there are others, exemplified by swa and R. LaBonte, who can only be charitably described as batshit insane. They have an adverserial view of government, their posts are filled with belligerence and bile, namecalling Democrats and liberals with absurd labels like "bureaucratic socialists" and "marxists" (as if there were such thing anymore) in the manner that Bush calls his opponents "with the terrorists." They seem to be taking their own ample amounts of envy, greed and general malice and vigorously projecting them onto who they imagine to be their political opponents. These folks we *can't* work with, and in fact, I'd argue that we organize ourselves into a government in order to protect ourselves from angry ideologues and would-be demagogues. My advice to them is to move to the Idaho panhandle or the NH Free State Project, take your goddamn guns with you and leave the rest of us sane, easygoing people alone.

Bob

brooksfoe:

Agree generally with your post, but I'd also argue that there's definitely a normative content to the "monopoly on the legitimate use of force" argument. It's an important yardstick for what constitutes a legitimate state, so it certainly represents a "should."

For instance, the central government in Iraq in no way has a monopoly on the use of force, and everything we're trying to do over there both politically and militarily is centered to attempting to get them to make it so.

If they can't -- if Maliki proves incapable of dismantling the militias and inspiring the ISF to acquire the discipline it will take to have them represent the will of all of Iraq and not just the sectarian loyalties of each individual cop or soldier -- then the Maliki government will fail. If other PMs can't manage this, then our entire efforts in Iraq will prove a resounding failure.

Bob

But there are others, exemplified by swa and R. LaBonte, who can only be charitably described as batshit insane.

How the fuck can you make that judgement? They posted their views and beliefs-what's your fucking problem with that? Do you think their 'bile' towards liberals stems from the fact that they get shit from liberals? The point of Drum's post is that there is the possibility of a liberal-libertarian coalition. Did you read the fucking post? Or is this an oppotunity for you to unload on someone and take a shit on someone else in public? Seems like that to me. What's your fucking problem with guns? Not everyone lives in the urban jungle. Gun ownership is perfectly legal in places where there actually is law and order. What's your *fucking* problem, period?

Asshole.

"Not everyone lives in the urban jungle. Gun ownership is perfectly legal in places where there actually is law and order."

Dionysus--since you mentioned it, why is it that even gun friendly folks seem to think the "guns are ok when you're not in the big city" argument makes any sense?

Is it not radically apparent even to Libertarians that that argument is nothing more than a thinly veiled statement that "it's ok for you rural and suburban whiteys to have guns, but don't let the damn niggers have them?"

Frankly folks living in Queens and Baltimore and Detroit and Richmond and Atlanta have way more need to be allowed to carry guns than people in Idaho or Wyoming.

anon E. Mouse:

> BTW: to whoever said this:

That was me.

>> "Libertarianism...[is] the willful denial of the need of a
>> state to adjudicate between unequally matched interests."

> In practice, how often does the State fairly adjudicate,
> rather than back up whoever already has the upper hand?

I'd say the vast majority of the time. It doesn't make the news when
a cop properly adjudicates a dispute or a bad guy goes to jail or a
lawsuit gets settled fairly. But you'll certainly have a better chance
of hearing about it if some egregous miscarriage of justice occurs.

Nothing wrong with this; that's our Fourth Estate at work. But it
can leave the mistaken impression that the system is hopelessly
broken while reporting on the times when it occasionally fails.

I'll flesh out an example I cited upthread since it's become
troll-bait anyway. I mentioned my crazy housemate with the shotgun
in the closet. Well, long story short he's a miserable sonofabitch
who's become estranged from all of us who live here. And he's also
delusional; he has an established pattern of attempting to use the
law to harrass people who live here, but his grip on reality is
growing tenuous. He claims my friend owes him money because he
destroyed some of his property, which he didn't do. So this Sunday
we were planning to make dinner as we often do, and this guy went off
on my friend, got in his face, yelled at him to leave and eventually
laid hands on him and threatened to take him outside and kick his ass.

And of course my friend said he's not going anywhere (we had just
opened a bottle of wine), so this guy is delusional enough to call
the cops -- thinking that, you know, mere intimidation is all it
would take, since it's worked before with other hosemates he copped
an attitude about. Well -- *we* called the cops, too. Because, you
see, the cops don't want to hear about some stupid property dispute
between housemates -- but they *do* want to intervene in domestic
violence. So the cops get here. This guy's insane, all puffed up
body language, cursing, making overheated and false accusations,
and my friend and I were calm, reasonable and articulate. It took
all of 30 seconds for the cops to read the situation and, while being
careful not to explicitly take sides, pretty much said to us that it's
obvious who's got the chip on his shoulder and who's being harrassed.

So tomorrow, my friend and I are going to municipal court to fill
out a complaint (the cops advised us to), to generate a record
on this guy if he wants to go off again, which is his pattern.

That's an example of cops simply doing what's right and standing
up for the aggrieved party -- and not letting some slick-talking
asshole who thinks he knows something about the law blow smoke up
their asses for the sake of prosecuting his own bitter and envious
malice. It's quite obvious that this guy is simply jealous of the
fact that I actually have friends I socialize with and he doesn't.

Bob

why is it that even gun friendly folks seem to think the "guns are ok when you're not in the big city" argument makes any sense?

Guns in a big city are a legitimate problem. It's as old as the Old West-you went into town, you surrendered your guns. Sorry, it worked as far as keeping people from killing each other and using guns to settle their differences. Same as in a big city. The values of people who want to tell others how to live collide when it comes to guns. I think the argument does make sense-talk to any cop. More guns in a place where people are concentrated equals more violence. You don't have that problem in a rural area. But fucking assholes who know *nothing* like to opine about things they know *nothing* about and that's what I commented on.

Dionysus:

Nice handle. You certainly left a "dionysian" post -- were you drunk, like your namesake the Greek god of wine? :)

It might help to read in context. Prior to that graf, I had praised two other self-identified Libertarians (anon E. Mouse and the following person) for being perfectly reasonsble people that liberals would have no problem working with. In fact, there were many of those types of folks who made contributions to this thread.

There were, however, two people who left posts that I'd characterize as batshit insane. You might actually go back and re-read them. It's quite screamingly obvious why I characterized them the way I did.

Bob

Two comments....

Jim writes:

Why could so many conservatives not accept that Saddam did not pose a threat? They were focused upon ideology. They chose to believe their fellow traveler, GWB, and all their other brothers who they perceived to share their ideology. Sans their ideology, they could have focused on obvious facts and solved the problem.

****Exactly- ideology CANNOT preclude THOUGHT, or else you end up with Nazi Germany, or something equally hideous. You can't tell me that EVERYTHING anyone does, says or believes is the right thing, all of the time. It's not possible.

Bob says:

These folks cite small government as an ideal, but also recognize that the very idea of government itself is a compromise between competing interests.

***What would be the point of having any government without that, ESPECIALLY a democratic republic like the one we live in? Why would you vote? There'd be no point.

So the cops get here. This guy's insane, all puffed up body language, cursing, making overheated and false accusations, and my friend and I were calm, reasonable and articulate.

OK, your life is pathetic. Don't think that gives you the right to tell people anything about guns. Your shit is so fucked up, yeah, I'm dropping this. Whatever, man, whatever.

Dionysus:

We actually agree more than disagree about guns; I've had this debate with Sebastian before. I do believe that there's a legitimate urban / rural divide on the issue, and that's why I'm perfectly content to let gun control remain an issue for the states and/or municipalities and would rather not see the Democrats making national legislative gun-control proposals like the Brady bill or another assault weapons ban.

While I personally support gun control, I have no interest in running anybody out of the Democratic Party who disagrees with me about it. Sebastian and I have heavy differences on the subject -- but otherwise he's a solid progressive and his views are entirely cool with me.

Bob

dcb:

Precisely my point, and that's what separates your views from a self-described Lib like swa and/or R. LaBonte.

Those people apparently believe that they have a sovereign right to resist a government -- apparently with force if necessary -- if they happen to disagree with it.

If a majority of people feel this way, then the social contract collapses.

Bob

Bob says:

Those people apparently believe that they have a sovereign right to resist a government -- apparently with force if necessary -- if they happen to disagree with it.

If a majority of people feel this way, then the social contract collapses.

***Ah, but I do get to resist the government when I disagree....on the first Tuesday that isn't the first day of November, every year. The problem is that there are some people who do not realize that this is their best shot at resisting the government. All I can say to those folks is, hmmmm...let's see.....you have hunting rifles....they have nuclear weapons. I wonder if I can get any action on that contest in Vegas. I could sure use the money ;-). Again, I'm all for small, non-intrusive government, social freedoms and low taxes (I give money to Cato AND the ACLU- how's that for confusing the red and blue mainstream?). I'm just not going to sit here and hold my breath until I get my way, 100% across the board, because it simply isn't going to happen.

dcb:

Fair points. No problem with using any non-violent means to resist the government -- especially including voting and working for political candidates who reflect your views.

I was more referring to a more immature and/or dogmatically ideological set of political beliefs that demonizes the opposition. I think you and I totally agree on the uselessness of that -- as we also agree that our government has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.

Now that last statement might bring Sebastian out of the woodwork to argue the inalenable right of self-defense, and I don't disagree.

But any force we as citizens take it upon ourselves to use in the interest of self-defense must be justified to the proper authorities.

Bob

cmdicely states:

(1) Democrats aren't, generally, "bureaucratic socialists"

Let's see: government-run education , government-run retirement programs, government-run healthcare, government-run transportation systems, government-run food programs, government-run tuition programs, I'd say that classifies Democrats as bureaucratic socialists. (BTW, it's not the ideas I disagree with, just the implementation).

(2) All governments, by definition, apply compulsory power to secure the cooperation of those who disagree with them;

If you have to apply compulsion then, by definition, you do not have cooperation but enslavement. What you describe is either a dictatorship or nothing more than mob rule disguised as a democracy. Compulsory power of the state should be applied only to those who injure others not to those who disagree with you.

(3) Any government which taxes, including a libertarian one, is "stealing from its detractors", if it has any detractors, yet you appear to have no problem at all with a Libertarian regime which does this, and imposes its view of proper taxation at gunpoint.

Sorry, dicely, wrong again. In my opinion, anyone who disagrees with the Libertarian form of government is free to move elsewhere or carve out their portion of the U.S. to start their own form of government (i.e. a state). I would not tax anyone at gunpoint.

That was the whole point of having a small, well-defined federal government and giving the states the freedom to experiment. Each state would create its own unique character. With 50 options, chances are that everyone could find a state that suited them, with a system of taxation they could agree with. Instead, we have an overbearing, centralized government at the federal level that has all but destroyed any variation in state character. That leaves citizens who disagree with nothing to do but fight over control of the federal government in a zero-sum game. Thank you, Democrats (and Republicans), for starting programs that you will not fund properly via taxes (for fear of personally losing your job), creating a debt you will never repay, and slowly yet surely spiraling this country into financial ruin.

swa:

Well it would be very easy -- if extremely tedious -- to dipute your post point-by-point on the factual errors and conflation of fact with your political view, the confusion of what is with what you think it should be. But just a couple of points:

First, America wasn't set up as a Libertarian utopia. We, in fact, rejected the Articles of Confederation for a federal Constitution. As much as Libertarians have tried to make Jefferson and the anti-federalists patron saints, America owes at least as much to Alexander Hamilton and his ideas of strong central authority. You can't really have an enormous, continent-spanning country without a unified central government to coordinate interstate commerce, trade and foreign policy. The Boston Tea Party wasn't a rejection of taxation per se, but rather taxation without representation. You are perfectly free to vote for Libertarians or whatever other third party you feel would more closely represent your view -- but bottom line, like it or not you *do* have representation in government answerable to your ire. If you feel your ideas are more significant than ours, then by all means organize and make yourself heard.

The taxation at gunpoint = slavery stuff is standard-issue radical Libertarianism -- and it's completely unworkable. Name me a single soul who would agree with 100% of what any given government would promote with public money. Give people the *option* to pay taxes and, well, people are selfish. They'll drive on the public roads while choosing not to pay for road maintanence. They like to stroll through well-maintained municipal parks while simultaneously bitching about the lazy, unionized maintanence crews. They like to buy inexpensive stuff at supermarkets and big-box stores, while discounting how much public infrastructure, from the port authorities to highways to the meat inspections to the traffic control makes all this possible, safe and cheap. It's very easy to see a private benefit; you pay money to get this. So then you say hey I don't take this road, why do I have to pay to keep it pothole free? Only it turns out that the truck that brings your bread and eggs to the corner market uses it.

Whether you like it or not, we live in an interconnected world, and it makes sense to take advantage of economies of scale for the basic stuff that we all at some time or another benefit from. That makes the stuff we then choose to buy that much cheaper for everybody.

And some would include healthcare and retirement benefits in that calculus of social goods. Even if we choose not to have health insurance, we're going to be treated by doctors if we get sick. And when we get old and can't work, we have to live regardless. Some would argue that society has an obligation to spread these inevitable costs (nobody wants public health crises from sick people walking the streets or destitute elderly folks freezing to death in the winter) over as wide a base as possible.

But you'd never see this if you can't look beyond individual behavior and individual responsibility. And that is the perceptual distortion that allows radical Libertarian ideas to persist.

Bob

Bob says:

But any force we as citizens take it upon ourselves to use in the interest of self-defense must be justified to the proper authorities.

***I'd agree, here....being a realist, above any political inclination I might have. What you're talking about here is justifying self defense against another individual. The notion of self-defense against the government itself is an exciting dream for some, but like I said: ICBMs, with the potential for nuclear payloads, squaring off against what is at best an AK-47. Now back to our regularly scheduled planet...you know, the one the rest of us live on...:-)

swa writes:

Thank you, Democrats (and Republicans), for starting programs that you will not fund properly via taxes (for fear of personally losing your job), creating a debt you will never repay, and slowly yet surely spiraling this country into financial ruin.

***This is a good point, here, IMO, and is why you need people on our side of the fight to at least attempt to apply the brakes to a certain extent. I think the real problem here is the fear of losing the job, which is what directly foments the "a chicken in every pot" syndrome (all things to all people, for free) that has created our national debt- and you're right, it is both Democrats and Republicans, and Republicans are worse, because they run campaigns railing against this concept, get elected, and then do it anyway. Term limits are the only answer- if it's good enough for the President, it's good enough for Congress, IMHO.

" I think you and I totally agree on the uselessness of that -- as we also agree that our government has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force."

And out of the woodwork I come flying. Come on, that doesn't even pass the sniff test, and you know it. As Jefferson said, sometimes the tree of liberty needs be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants....one thing the Founders got right was that if the govt starts abusing or neglecting our rights wholesale, we have not only the right but the duty to do away with that govt and create a better one. The Founders would have bristled at the idea that the govt has a monopoly on force--the govt only has as much power as the people are willing to give it. The PEOPLE decide this for govt, not the other way around.

To believe otherwise is to gladly cede your freedom to tyranny by definition.

In short, every civilized rational society believes you have the right to defend your own life. No one really doubts this. Your statement is false on its face. The fact that post facto the govt examines the facts of the case and requires you to provide an affirmative defense in no way changes the fact that you do indeed have the right to protect your own life from imminent harm--and once you've provided such a defense, you're free and clear. Thereby even a cursory glance at the issue makes it pretty obvious the govt does NOT have a monopoly on legitimate force.

You kick my door in at 2am and come at me with a crow bar, and hit you in the head with a baseball bat protecting myself--that's a legitimate use of force that no govt could rightfully deny me.

"ICBMs, with the potential for nuclear payloads, squaring off against what is at best an AK-47. Now back to our regularly scheduled planet...you know, the one the rest of us live on...:-)"

This is a silly argument--the idea that we can't defend ourselves from our own govt. Ever heard of Iraq? Vietnam?

The fact is a ragtag bunch of disorganized tribesmen in Mesopotamia has quickly and effectively fought our military machine to a standstill with AK47s and improvised explosives. If the military of our country ever was dumb enough to turn itself on the American people, they'd be tripley or quadrupally fucked by comparison--our military machine eats and supplies itself thanks to the infrastructure of this country. It's made up of the citizens of this country, and it would rebel against the notion of turning it's guns on us.

The idea that the military would nuke New York and Baltimore and LA and Seattle to preserve a tyrannical govt is the stuff of outlandish conspiracy novels. Leave it there.

The reality is that our govt only has as much power as we choose to give it, which is what the Founders intended.

Sebastian:

Look, bro, I really really don't wish to argue with you anymore about stuff we've already hashed over pretty thoroughly. I don't dislike you or think you're a shoddy or underhanded debater. And most importantly -- we agree on about 98% on other issues. As much as Dionysus was just being a belligerent jerk -- he's right that we shouldn't use a thread like this to argue with each other, but rather to build on points of agreement between a liberal and Libertarian perspective.

Just two, hopefully very brief points before I go file a complaint against my housemate (the crazy one with the shotgun in the closet):

First, please lay off on the right to self-defense stuff. It is a complete red herring and a straw man. I am not a philosophical pacifist nor do I play one on a blog; I am not trying to argue against anybody's right to defend themselves, nor do I want to take away your guns, nor do I wish that the Democratic Party would do likewise. Politically, we haven't a shred of difference on this issue, although personally we might choose different tactics. And that's fine -- it's my right and your right.

Secondly, brooksfoe happens to be correct. Having a monopoly on the legitimate use of force happens to be criteria of a legitimate government. If you have an argument with this, take it up with political scientists; it is simply an empirical fact -- a statement of what is rather than what ought to be. This comments naught on your *individual* right to self-defense, save ex post facto you have to justify using deadly force. And in this culture, that means that you can't use it to, for example, prosecute a vendetta, but rather to counter a direct threat on your person.

Now Iraq happens to be a splendid example. Everybody has an AK. Everybody feels insecure at hell. While you can use Iraq to argue against the idea that huge armies and heavy weapons can't overcome a dedicated populace with small arms -- what you *can't* do is use Iraq to argue against the monopoly on the legitimate use of force argument. Quite the contrary, in fact. Everything that the Iraqi government is doing with our help is to try to make it so that the ISF and only the ISF have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. That's why Maliki is charged with disarming the Shi'ite militias. That's why we're fighting the Sunni insurgency and confiscating explosives and heavy weapons wherever we find them. Not to take away anybody's right to self-defense (it's policy that families can own AKs) -- but rather to get the violence under control.

If Maliki can't do that -- if he can't manage to disarm armed groups outside of the purview of his government -- then his government will fail.

It's really that blindingly simple.

Bob

Sorry, dicely, wrong again. In my opinion, anyone who disagrees with the Libertarian form of government is free to move elsewhere or carve out their portion of the U.S. to start their own form of government (i.e. a state).

Well, first, Democrats think people are free to move elsewhere (I've yet to meet a Democrat who believes in emigration controls, except perhaps that convicts sentenced to prison aren't free to leave, which doesn't seem to be relevant to what you are talking about.) And Democrats don't, as a class, oppose creation of new states (of course, new states don't make people separate from the federal government, and you haven't called for the end of all federal taxes, so it seems that your whole "new state" argument is completely bogus, since carving out a new state would not stop people from being taxed at gunpoint to support your ideal of how the government should be run.)

Instead, we have an overbearing, centralized government at the federal level that has all but destroyed any variation in state character.

No, mostly the elimination of variation in state character is the product of the fact that in many important areas, states have voluntarily adopted similar laws, often recommend by groups composed of (among others) legislators from different states with no direct involvement by the federal government at all; of course, the advance of technology and mass communication mean that ideas tend to diffuse fairly widely, within a freely-communicating society, so "regional character" in terms of radically divergent ideas that would produce radically different policy approaches is naturally less than it was when the nation was founded, and there weren't even telegraphs, much less radio, TV, internet, etc.

Secondly, brooksfoe happens to be correct. Having a monopoly on the legitimate use of force happens to be criteria of a legitimate government. If you have an argument with this, take it up with political scientists; it is simply an empirical fact -- a statement of what is rather than what ought to be.

No, its not an "empirical fact", it is the conventional definition of "legitimate government". Very different things.

"Secondly, brooksfoe happens to be correct. Having a monopoly on the legitimate use of force happens to be criteria of a legitimate government. If you have an argument with this, take it up with political scientists; it is simply an empirical fact -- a statement of what is rather than what ought to be."

How can be an empirical fact if by a very simple example I showed it's not even close to true?

The reality is simple--the state does NOT have a monopoly on legitimate force. I think you need to take it up with the political scientists before you make such sweeping statements, as I can't think of any of merit of any political stripe who actually think that. Individuals are permitted legally and ethically to use force in some circumstances--including resistance to tyranny and in defense of the self. So you can't say only the state can legitimately use force. Cause it's simply not the case. Any way you care to slice it.

Now, where we agree is that the govt should have central monopoly on law and order; until Maliki heads a govt that approaches that, yeah, Iraq isn't going to be a real state.

But that's a separate issue.

cmdicely:

Alright, conventional definition not empirical fact. Point taken.

Sebastian:

Okay, at least we're narrowing down our disagreements to their philosophical nubs -- and I think that's more interesting than arguing specific policy, but that might just be me. Two quibbles:

First, the idea of "resistance to tyranny" is a hoary one, but it's extremely prone to misinterpretation. It is found nowhere in the Constitution nor in any statute. It resides in the Declaration of Independence -- a document with an entirely different purpose.

No government, no matter how founded on the ideals of liberty, is going to have a self-destruct clause. There have been countless right-wing groups, so-called Sovereign Citizens and common law zanies, who've tried to use that broad defense in a court of law while defending practices like choosing not to have drivers' licenses or owning weapons of heft and caliber beyond what's allowed in statute. To my knowledge, that defense fails every time -- though perhsps one of our legal eagles (paging Chris Dicely) can disabuse me of this notion with an example or two of where I'm wrong. I don't think I am, though. Resistance to tyranny through force is not the right to protest or agitate against the government -- which are duly protected by the Constitution. It's the use of force to achieve political ends, as in our Revolution. But that that point, the government has ceased to be legitimate and the Constitution is thus no longer operable.

And this is to be expected. Resistance to tyranny as a rationale for violence has to be such a broad-based revolt against the government that the laws of the government would be rendered irrelevant -- as were King George's Colonial decrees. You can't use "resistance to tyranny" as a defense to spray a pattern at your local constabulary.

Now it's funny that you're attempting to deny the "monopoly on the legitimate use of force" definition while granting "monopoly on law and order." Because they're really both the same thing. What is "law and order" without enforcement? Nothing -- a piece of paper. And if law and order entails law enforcement, then law enforcement entails, umm, the use of force.

Now even with a right of personal self-defense, the state still has a monopoly on sanctionable justification. I can't go blow away my next door neighbor because I happen to be *dead convinced* that he raped my sister. Nor can I blow somebody away because I merely *thought*, in my own mind, that they were a threat. I have to go before The Man and present a convincing justification -- or wind up behind bars for the illegitimate use of force. And that's precisely what "a monopoly on the legitimate use of force" means. If I'm an immigrant from a tribalist country (say Albania) that sanctions by long tradition revenge killings -- I can't act on that just because I happen to have been socialized into those beliefs. I have to obey the laws of *this* country and only use force at the times when our government would deem to justify it.

I think you're confused about the word "monopoly." It doesn't mean that the cops have all the weapons, or even that only cops can use force the way violence happens in the real world. What it means is that our legal system has a monopoly on defining when force is and is not justified. You can't just arbitrarily re-write the laws cuz you're pissed off at your neighbor, or because I think my housemate really *really* needs to die. Monopoly on the legitimate use of force means, in the broadest sense, that legitimate governments never sanction vigilante justice.

Bob

The reality is simple--the state does NOT have a monopoly on legitimate force. I think you need to take it up with the political scientists before you make such sweeping statements, as I can't think of any of merit of any political stripe who actually think that. Individuals are permitted legally and ethically to use force in some circumstances--including resistance to tyranny and in defense of the self.

Individuals are permitted legally to use varying amounts of force for purposes that serve the interests of the state, including self defense, defense of others, defense of property, and effecting lawful citizen's arrests. All of these are, in essence, distribution of police power from the state to the citizen, and all of them are generally affirmative defenses that the citizen bears the burden of proving when charged with an offense, not elements the absence of which the state bears the burden of proving.

They certainly are not permitted legally to use force to resist "tyranny" by the state.

But even the allowances that exist for individual use of force does not undermine the idea of a government monopoly; the government narrowly circumscribes the conditions for the use of force, and enforces those conditions, and even places the burden on the citizen to demonstrate that the use of force was within the accepted conditions to avoid punishment.

That certainly is the government exercising paramount control on the rules for the use of force. And, while it may be a common definition that a government is "legitimate" only to the extent that it effectively maintains and enforces such a monopoly on force, it is an empirically-supported conclusion that governments which are unable to do so effectively don't tend to last very long once they lose the ability to control the use of force.

cmdicely:

Nicely, Dicely :)

Thanks for the precisely-worded assist. Egg-fucken-zakley.

Bob

Sebastian writes:

"This is a silly argument--the idea that we can't defend ourselves from our own govt. Ever heard of Iraq? Vietnam?

The fact is a ragtag bunch of disorganized tribesmen in Mesopotamia has quickly and effectively fought our military machine to a standstill with AK47s and improvised explosives."

***This is because our government proved to be INEPT, in both of these cases. You cannot fight a war in which half of the people you're fighting against are hiding in houses (or in a jungle), using too few troops and spending the entire time worrying about what the press is going to think about your tactics, and whether or not that will subsequently prevent you from being re-elected (one more reason for term limits). The government of this country needs to start taking war planning seriously BEFORE it invades another country. This, however, has nothing to do with what I'm talking about...

"The idea that the military would nuke New York and Baltimore and LA and Seattle to preserve a tyrannical govt is the stuff of outlandish conspiracy novels."

****Agreed, however, what I was using there was a little "poetic license" to prove a point. I'm not talking about the army nuking the country. I'm talking about people defending their property from the tyranny of the (insert government agency here), for example, with their hunting rifles. When the FBI shows up, that doesn't work out too well for said revolutionary, as I recall from previous examples. Again, my point is, you have to live in the real world.....and in the real world, as far as America is concerned, your best bet to change things you don't like is to vote, not stockpile grenades (speaking of things that only work in novels).