Different poxes on different houses
By Thoreau
Act I: The Suckitude of Democrats
So, the other day, I was reading some commentary (sorry, can’t remember where) on the Dems letting Lieberman keep his committee chairmanship. The comment that struck me was that this was just one more way that the Dems are showing absolute scorn for their base. It reflects something I’ve noticed for a while: The Republicans, for all of their many, many faults, aren’t ashamed of themselves for anything. Even when they do betray their base, they smile at their base, and praise them up and down for being good salt of the earth folks. A Republican who betrays his party’s base for political advantage will brag that the people he’s betraying are the finest folks on earth, finer than all those city dwellers, and he is so proud to have earned the votes of the people he’s sinking the knife into AND LOOK OMG GAY PEOPLE GETTING MARRIED!!1!!!11!
Democrats don’t do that. Democrats will boast that they were willing to sink the knife in, it just shows that they’re better than those icky hippies and weirdo ACLU members.
Act II: The suckitude of Republicans
But I don’t think it’s really the virtue of being able to tell gentle lies to the people they betray. No, I think it’s simply a reflection of the political landscape: For many years, the center was seen (however inaccurately) as being well to the right of the Dems and only slightly to the left of the GOP. Say what you will about the accuracy or inaccuracy of that statement, but that’s how it was sold. More importantly, the key swing demographic was seen to be rural and blue collar whites, a socially conservative bunch. If you’re a Democrat, you woo them by screwing over blacks and hippies and peaceniks and latte-sippers. Say what you will about whether social conservatives were really the key to it all, and whether the way to win them was really to screw the Dem base, but it was sold that way.
So if you’re a GOP politician, praising your base isn’t an act of loyalty at all, but rather a way of pandering to the people that all of the pollsters and Serious Media People assure you are the most important swing voters. Those dog whistles weren’t really being blown for the GOP base. They were being blown for the people who were (however accurately or inaccurately) perceived as the key to winning the election.
Act III: Man, we libertarians really fell for it
For a long time, I was kind of amazed by the libertarian rhetoric of the GOP, the way that somebody could argue for torture and corporate welfare and unchecked police powers and massive deficits and a global empire, and then follow it up with “Because I believe in limited government and the free market.” The cognitive dissonance wasn’t what bugged me (I’m cynical enough to take it as a given that politicians know how to lie) but rather that they would even bother appealing to the small government crowd that they feel free to screw over. I mean, aren’t we, like, a miniscule faction?
And then it hit me–it was never about us. All those dog whistles that libertarians respond to whenever Republicans blow the whistle? Those were for other people. Second amendment? It’s a cultural thing, not principle. Free markets? Intellectual cover for corporate welfare. Limited government? This is their way of saying to the subsidized farmers of the Great Plains and the employees of the Military-Industrial Complex and all the other beneficiaries of GOP-style redistribution “Don’t worry, you aren’t a welfare recipient like all those city folks that I bash. You’re better than that. You’re a hearty, self-reliant person who supports limited government.”
I already knew that all of the stances that the libertarians like were just there for other elements of the GOP coalition. But I used to think that the “limited government” rhetoric was a way of fooling us. Nope, it was never about us. The fact that too many of us were fooled was a coincidence (one that Republicans probably still laugh about over drinks). It was for everyone else in the coalition. The fact that we fell for it was just a coincidence. The fact that some of us actually provided them with pet intellectuals was just icing on the cake.
What brought a lot of this to the fore was seeing libertarians swoon over Sarah Palin as she blew dog whistles. I was never fooled by the whistles, but I did miss the purpose of the whistles: It was never about us. It was about the rest of Team Red.
Comment by CL —
November 20, 2008 @ 2:15 am
“Don’t worry, you aren’t a welfare recipient like all those city folks that I bash. You’re better than that.â€
You nailed it.
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
November 20, 2008 @ 3:36 am
Yeah, but remember that “city people” is yet another dog whistle.
Comment by Ian —
November 20, 2008 @ 5:13 am
All those dog whistles that libertarians respond to whenever Republicans blow the whistle? Those were for other people.
Oh that’s just brilliant, that’s what that is.
Comment by Mithras —
November 20, 2008 @ 9:25 am
Finally. I wish liberals had been able to clearly make this point to libertarians earlier, rather than just coming across all hostile.
Oh, and Gsnorgathon is right. The total message is: “You’re a hardy, self-reliant, white, straight gun-owning citizen who supports limited government, and not permissiveness for illegals, handouts for lazy minorities, and special rights for sexual degenerates, which the gun-grabbers want.”
Comment by Doug T —
November 20, 2008 @ 9:32 am
I think you’re only half right about the point of the GOP rhetoric. It’s true that libertarians aren’t a big constituency, but libertarianism provides a great philosophical cover/justification for most of the GOP’s domestic policies. “Governing the country for the benefit of our capitalist overlords” doesn’t sell real well, so you need a cover story. Small goernment libertarianism is perfect, since it’s philosophically striaghtforward and consistent, and has a very high overlap with the supply-side/corporatist GOP agenda.
This helps with wooing voters and, even more importantly, with providing intellectual cover for various conservative pundits, think tankers, journalists, and the other folks who think about issues. They’re not an important voting bloc, but they’re a very influential bloc, and so need to be provided for. Just like the target audience of theology is priests rather than the congregation, the target audience for political philosophy isn’t the bulk of the voters, it’s the opinion leaders. Having a coherent theology can help with an appeal to the mass of believers, but most of them aren’t going to dig down much beyond superficialities.
As a final side note, you don’t have to be completely cynical about the motivations of folks who are both Republican and claim to hold libertarian ideals. People are pretty good at maintaining contradictory ideas in their head, and once you’ve firmly established a connection (in this case GOP = conservative = libertarian), it takes a very long time to break it, if you ever do. Witness the widespread firm belief among many voters that the GOP is the more fiscally conservative party, despite the fact that this hasn’t been true for at least 30 years. I don’t think people are being intentionally dishonest, they’re honestly beliving things that aren’t true.
Comment by Doug T —
November 20, 2008 @ 9:34 am
Another side note that ties in to the success of the limited government rhetoric is the bizarre notions most people have about what the government actually spends money on. People seem to think there are huge amounts of federal spending going to foreign aid, welfare, earmarks, prok, etc. This explains why so many voters will say they want to slash government spending, but also oppose any cuts in medicare, social security, or defense. Those are good government programs–I just want to cut the bad, wasteful ones.
Comment by Barry —
November 20, 2008 @ 10:55 am
My impression (formed in the early/mid-1990’s, when I first go on the intertubes) was that “I’m a libertarian” was also a great opt out for right-wing republicans who wanted plausible deniability. They could say that they supported the more appealing promises of the GOP, but not the less appealing actions. And, of course, they could hate on Evul Libruls (that’s what first hit me – why would ‘orthogonal’ libertarians spend most of their time hating on one side of the spectrum?).
We’re seeing a similar thing now, with ‘conservatism’ being preferred to ‘right-wing’, which is a far more accurate description of the GOP.
Comment by Picador —
November 20, 2008 @ 11:02 am
As one of the aforementioned liberals, Mithras, I can tell you why we didn’t bother: from the voting patterns of self-styled “libertarians”, it was pretty clear to me from a very young age that they didn’t actually have any principles, but were simply providing cover for corporate welfare, the police state, and imperialistic military aggression. How could I think otherwise when they supported the Republicans, who were so forthright in their advocacy of those policies?
Now you’re telling me that “libertarians” don’t actually support those policies; they’re just too dumb to understand that candidates who advocate them actually, uh, plan on implementing them.
So, you know: apologies for thinking you were dishonest instead of just incredibly stupid. I guess I should have given you guys the benefit of the doubt… or something.
Quick terminology question for Thoreau: what distinguishes a “libertarian” from an anarchist? The only answer I’ve been able to glean from reading “libertarian” writings is that libertarians seem to fetishize property rights: demanding that the gummint has no function at all except to protect the sacred property rights of those fortunate enough to own property from the filthy hands of the poor unwashed masses. If I’m wrong about this, could you please set me straight?
Comment by dhex —
November 20, 2008 @ 11:29 am
you’ve got it pretty close, if snidely.
if you don’t own your shoes, you don’t own your soul.
“What brought a lot of this to the fore was seeing libertarians swoon over Sarah Palin as she blew dog whistles.”
hurr hurr blew hurr hurr dog whistle.
yeah, i don’t get it. alaska is basically a communist country. wait a minute…look who they’re so close to! RUSSIA.
palin…palin…putin…palin…putin…
oh my god.
Comment by Moe Blues —
November 20, 2008 @ 11:33 am
Speaking as another liberal, I must confess that I, too, was stymied for years as to why most libertarians supported Republicans. After all, given that the positions Republicans espouse are, for the most part, antithetical to the stated positions of libertarians, it was baffling as to why libertarians loved them some right-wing.
As near as I can tell, the basis for support came down to two things: the simplistic belief many libertarians have that all taxation is theft, and an overriding commitment to the notion that there should be no limits at all to the kinds and amount of weaponry one can own. With those two conditions satisfied, all other libertarian principles could be easily jettisoned. Interestingly enough, even the part about taxes could be tossed over the side–as long as Republicans remain willing to cut someone else’s taxes (the rich, corporations, connected people and groups, etc.), then it doesn’t much matter to most libertarians that Republicans never seem to get around to cutting taxes for Joe Average (and indeed implement policies that end up raising Joe’s taxes).
So, yeah–we liberals were unable “to clearly make this point to libertarians earlier” because the actions of libertarians told us that you didn’t really care about this point. After all, libertarians consistently voted right wing, publicly supported every intrusive and government-expanding move of the Republicans, and vocally denigrated liberals and Democrats. Pardon us for thinking libertarianism was, for most of its adherents, just another strain of selfishness masquerading as political philosophy.
Comment by Picador —
November 20, 2008 @ 11:40 am
dhex:
I’m enough of a good Marxist to agree with you on that, as far as it goes: access to basic material resources is certainly the bare foundation which must exist before other rights can be constructed. What is still unclear to me is why, in a world where a handful of people own hundreds of pairs of shoes and many people own none, this principle should dictate that the government’s only legitimate function should be to protect the shoe-laden few from the shoeless many rather than, say, ensuring that everybody has at least one pair of shoes.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
November 20, 2008 @ 11:49 am
“Don’t worry, you aren’t a welfare recipient like all those city folks that I bash. You’re better than that.â€
“You’re a hardy, self-reliant, white, straight gun-owning citizen who supports limited government, and not permissiveness for illegals, handouts for lazy minorities, and special rights for sexual degenerates, which the gun-grabbers want.â€
Watching the Republican “Joe the Plumber” skit really drove this home.
Even tax cuts – TAX CUTS! – are big government welfare, redistributive socialism, just as long as they’re described as benefitting people who aren’t “like Joe the Plumber.”
Comment by Thoreau —
November 20, 2008 @ 11:56 am
To be clear, I was never one of those libertarians who liked the GOP. I’m way too much of a civil libertarian for that. But I used to think that Republicans were trying to seduce libertarians. Now I realize that they weren’t trying to seduce us, they were trying to seduce somebody else. It’s like, imagine you’re in a bar, and this hot chick is looking at you and making these seductive expressions on her face, and then you finally realize that she’s interested in the guy sitting next to you.
Difference between libertarians and anarchists: Basically, libertarians believe in a minimal state while anarchists believe in no state. Whether that small state is a police force that protects the innocent or enforces the will of the corporate overlords, it’s a small state. Anarchists recognize that there has to be some sort of police mechanism (whether it’s to protect the innocent or enforce the will of the corporate overlords) and they go to great lengths to describe a set of institutions that looks remarkably like a state but is most definitely NOT a state.
Comment by dhex —
November 20, 2008 @ 12:00 pm
but that would put the government into the soul-making business!
the gubmint also tends to help its friends get more shoes, especially when they have lots of them, and eventually, some shoes trickle down to everyone else sometimes. they’re often missing laces or are filled with pus.
you also forgot other limited government functions, like blowing the shit out of people who would also steal said shoes before the government can.
on a slightly more serious note, personally i’m a teeny “l” libertarian, so while i recognize in the objective brick and mortar universe that taxation is indeed theft (try not paying them sometimes, perhaps to de-fund a shitty war you oppose and let me know how the cage they throw you in feels) i also realize that reality is filled with sharp, pointy objects and other people and communitas and all that jive. i won’t be able to give you the hardcore true blue defense you’re looking for, but i also see minarchist thought as pushing against the gigantic cock of state, like a cockring two sizes too small, and recognize that the true free market is having a picnic with true communism and the noble savage.
anyway, unlike other rights – which are neat social fictions we tell each other and the rubes to keep them and us from flipping the fuck out at the madness of it all, like having men with guns steal your stuff and call it “voluntary taxation” – property rights are at least somewhat real, some of the time, unlike the other less tangible rights that come from “because we said so” or “god” or “nature” or some other neat collaboration. so i find property rights a decent place to start from, and something that’s morally sound and intuitive to most people if you break it down the right way.
republicans in public break it down the wrong way because they are, largely, scum.
anyway, a few posts above reminds me that pedigree – one’s political history and upbringing – is important and the winner take all system is important. why did so many leftists support bill clinton when he did his missles for blowjobs program? pedigree. why did some libertarians (not this one thank you very much) vote for bush or mccain?
if you don’t participate, people treat you to a 7th grade version of civics class, partly because of the winner takes all system; if you do and pick one of the two giant crime syndicate figureheads, you’re a sellout or a realist, and both chocolate jesus and captain foreverwar tasted like a shit sandwich; to add insult to injury, bob barr has all the charisma and integrity of afterbirth and that ron paul was the most sane candidate (before running back to the pixie forest of texas) says a lot about the madness of american politics. or me, or both.
either way, pedigree, coalitions, etc. why the fixation on gun grabbing by some on the left? why the fixation on abortion by some on the right? these fights have been lost, culturally, despite the fears stoked by those who raise funds off of the fearful.
pedigree is important.
Comment by dhex —
November 20, 2008 @ 12:01 pm
the above is directed to picador’s question, obviously, and my own awesome time with the stomach flu.
Comment by bellatrys —
November 20, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
Rather like the whole “Culture of Life” thing, which worked on my people (and myself, for a long time) – the dog-whistle exists to distract the sentimental working-class (largely) Catholic base from the rights-and-property-grab of the Loot’n'Squander Party, while providing a “respectable” cover for the Camel classes to justify their own siding with the party of Forever War, Prisons For All, and Let The Children Suffer the fate of the Undeserving Poor – they’re not ignoring the Beatitudes, they’re Saving Innocent Babies! (Or Protecting Families, or Defending Western Civ from the Swishy/Moslem Barbarian Hordes, as it might be today, where in yesteryear ’twas The Yellow Peril.)
Comment by bellatrys —
November 20, 2008 @ 12:20 pm
OTOH, blaming the other side for failing to hammer through your own stupidity, Thoreau, is a terribly conservative/Republican thing to indulge in. There are bad teachers, yes, and I have suffered from my share in many fields – but after one has been provided with multiple attempts from multiple pedagogical directions, vast study resources and example after example of the problem, “YOU didn’t teach me negative numbers! It’s YOUR fault I flunked the test!” rings hollow when the books remain unopened and the problems untackled…
Frex, I had to figure out for myself that the Right-to-Life movement was a fraud and a sham, and deal with the same of having been “had” by the same – but I at least recognized that the fact that I had already out-of-hand rejected all “secular” sources of information as being “liberally biased” if not directly of the devil (thanks to my parents and their friends and all the literature we subscribed to from 1975 onward being conservative progapanda) meant that there was literally no way that any liberal could have gotten through to me until I had struggled with the contradictions and discovered the lies of my leaders for myself…
Comment by bellatrys —
November 20, 2008 @ 12:23 pm
Basically, libertarians believe in a minimal state while anarchists believe in no state. Whether that small state is a police force that protects the innocent or enforces the will of the corporate overlords, it’s a small state.
And wanting a “small state” that does either – but particularly the latter – is like wanting a hot ice cube or a square circle. (Especially when you’re talking about a single nation that is larger than most historical empires.)
This is prolly why most people don’t take libertarians seriously, or at least not any more seriously than the kid who’s talking about how s/he’s going to invent a house made out of cake so that you never run out of food, studded with lasers so that the alien spaceships can’t come steal the cake…
Comment by Thoreau —
November 20, 2008 @ 12:48 pm
Eh, I think that one could enforce the will of the corporate overlords with a budget much smaller than the current federal budget. That would be a “small” state in terms of dollars per capita, even if not “small” in terms of powers. However, a certain type of libertarian would be most concerned with size as measured in dollars, not size as measured in “power to screw people over.”
Even on their terms, though, it still fail: Once the militias were formed and empowered, they’d take to looting, increasing the size of the state in terms of dollars per capita. Then somebody would decide that giving out some bread and circuses might be a more cost-effective way to placate at least some of the population, and they’d cut the militias in on it and some corporate overlord would get the contract on sweetheart terms, and pretty soon you’re back to a large state.
As far as Joe the Plumber is concerned, the biggest problem in that scenario is the free bread for those lazy louts.
Comment by Picador —
November 20, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
Wow. This is actually a great example of what I’m talking about when I say that libertarians fetishize property rights above all other rights: claims that property rights are “real” in contrast to “fictions” like the rights to life, liberty, equality, etc.
Pardon me if I differ from you in failing to find property rights “intuitive” — I never have, and studying (and practicing) property law for the past several years has not made it seem any more “morally sound” or “intuitive”, but has instead made it seem ever more alien and arbitrary.
“Property” is the idea that the state should punish anyone who makes use of a given piece of land or a material article because you or your predecessors in interest (usually this has meant your ancestors) used it first. For most of the history of “property”, this initial use was the result of military conquest, and the articles in question were often human beings. Today, the state continues to protect these interests even when they are directly derived from such conquest and/or enslavement.
It’s certainly an interesting way to structure a society, but I don’t see how anyone could argue that it’s “intuitive” or “morally sound”, especially from the vantage point of someone looking in from the outside.
Can somebody tell me how libertarianism is different from feudalism? It seems to me that a feudal society displays all the logical features of the libertarian utopia: individual peasants whose parents bequeathed them no property are free to form contracts with property owners to farm their land and keep a portion of the food for themselves. They also agree as part of this contract to obey the policies of their employer, whose employment contract includes a robust non-compete clause.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
November 20, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
In most feudal societies, the peasants weren’t actually allowed to negotiate contracts and decide who to contract with. And…umm…the libertarians who wear chain mail are just hobbyists.
Comment by Thoreau —
November 20, 2008 @ 1:27 pm
Yeah, there’s a big difference between libertarianism and feudalism.
It may be that Real Libertarianism in some extreme form would be unstable and collapse into feudalism, but the basic ideas of libertarianism can lead to states in many shapes, and the less extreme forms would be nothing like feudalism.
Also, if you are a property lawyer then you also know that people can freely sell and exchange property. While there is no land on earth that wasn’t acquired by conquest at some point, some of that land eventually gets moved into a system where it can be transferred by a voluntary exchange of goods, not conquest. That’s a pretty significant thing.
Besides, our utopia doesn’t involve chain mail. It involves starships. Man, don’t you liberals know anything about us?
Comment by Brock —
November 20, 2008 @ 1:42 pm
There were libertarians who swooned over Sarah Palin?
Comment by Thoreau —
November 20, 2008 @ 2:48 pm
Well, some of it was just one-handed typing, but I know that on Hit and Run some of the writers (not just commenters like DONDEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO) considered Palin one of the better Republicans out there because she could talk the good talk on taxes and guns and regulations and then blow a dog whistle on some obscure issue like jury nullification or whatever. Perhaps “swoon” wasn’t the best word, but they definitely felt like some of those dog whistles were aimed at them.
Comment by Picador —
November 20, 2008 @ 2:49 pm
But of course they were. At birth, each peasant had the right to either accept his landlord’s employment contract or to enter the free labor market and seek his fortune elsewhere. Of course, his parents would be unable to assist him in the latter case, as stipulated in their own employment contracts. And only some kind of nanny-state pinko would suggest that the employer would have some kind of obligation to care for ungrateful infants born to his employees who refuse to sign up with the company.
Later in life, some peasants did indeed choose to breach their employment contracts, making them trespassers and poachers on the employer’s land. These people were known as “outlaws”, and the landlords took lawful steps to defend their property from such people.
I’d like to point out that these ideas are hardly new: I’m essentially paraphrasing Locke’s justification of monarchy on social contract grounds.
Where are you getting this stuff about instability and collapse? What about my scenario is reflective of an “unstable” libertarianism that has “collapse[d]“, as opposed to just plain old libertarianism? It preserves all the rights and freedoms beloved of libertarians everywhere: freedom of contract, and enforcement of contract and property rights.
In fact, the most “libertarian” period in American history — the Lochner era — saw many people living in essentially feudal conditions, whether they were coal miners living in company towns in West Virginia or sharecroppers living in the South. Freedom of contract and property rights had been declared sacrosanct by the Supreme Court, and the consequences were very clear in how our society organized itself. In fact, things pretty much stayed this way until the communist labor unions started getting traction and eventually the Great Satan, FDR, transformed the American legal and economic system with his socialist New Deal, which created the modern welfare state in the US.
That’s another thing I really don’t get about libertarians: are they all completely ignorant of these major historical events, or do they actually have a coherent way of distinguishing their ideology from feudal despotism and Gilded Age robber-baron rapaciousness?
Please note that I’m actually curious about these questions; I’m not just trolling. I genuinely appreciate this opportunity to engage with real-life libertarians on these questions.
Comment by albatross —
November 20, 2008 @ 2:50 pm
FWIW, around the time of 9/11, I saw a huge split among libertarians and fellow-travelers/useful idiots like myself: Lots of them split toward the GOP, supported war and torture and prison camps and whatever we had to do to to keep them safe. Others (like me) were freaked out by the obvious power grabs, the sudden policy changes w.r.t. stuff like treatment of prisoners of war, the creepy “with us or against us” rhetoric used to silence dissent, etc.
Is there any good data on how self-identified libertarians went between Democrats and Republicans? I certainly don’t recall, say, L Neil Smith or Harry Browne being huge supporters of the GOP’s post-9/11 insanity.
To the extent that self-identified libertarian or libertarian-leaning pundits went more for the Republicans than Democrats, I’m curious how that related to who was paying their salaries–the way think tank jobs influence the expressed ideas of pundits is something that hardly anyone has thought about, but which has had a big impact on the country these last few years.
Comment by Thoreau —
November 20, 2008 @ 2:51 pm
Read the Jesse Walker article linked to a couple posts up.
Comment by Mike Snider —
November 20, 2008 @ 4:28 pm
Thoreau,
It may be because I’m stupidly tired (last week of a three week run in community theater) but I can’t find the article link you mention. I followed the link to Jesse Walker’s blog below, but there’s nothing on the front page about feudalism.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
November 20, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
Thoreau, I missed this – where did you do that?
Comment by Nick —
November 20, 2008 @ 4:53 pm
Most of your list can also be used to buttress arguments essential to the Southern Strategy.
Limited government is a rallying cry against federally mandated intervention, and it is also useful for arguing against welfare for ‘welfare queens’–both key issues undergirding the Southern Strategy.
The Second Amendment? We need guns to protect us against those rampaging dark hordes.
Free Markets? Supports the idea of limited government and opposes social welfare programs.
There’s a reason why the GOP base is largely composed of reactionary white men, and it doesn’t have a lot to do with that most basic American value that all men are created equal.
Otherwise they’d have been as ecstatic as many of the rest of us were to see an African American prove that progress is being made towards that radically American value–equality for all.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
November 20, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
Well, I’m glad there aren’t any left-wing principles that are used as codewords to get out the Blue vote.
Comment by MNPundit —
November 20, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
Not really city people, they mean “dark skinned” people
Comment by Eric the .5b —
November 20, 2008 @ 5:30 pm
I will just note that I’m glad, for once, to see someone get it right. Obama’s election wasn’t progress, just the evidence of progress.
Comment by Nate —
November 20, 2008 @ 5:49 pm
What a breath of fresh air! Seriously, between Thoreau and Jesse Walker’s article, I have finally found some kindred spirits on these issues that I have been mulling over but was not able to completely articulate.
I will go ahead and admit that I am guilty as hell for falling for a lot of the Bush/GOP propaganda, but I always felt as though he was the LOTE.
Now, I’m not so sure that it wouldn’t have been better that Gore and or Kerry got elected instead because Bush has succeeded only in conflating his decidedly un-libertarian policies with being for “free markets”. At this point, conservative=free market=libertarian is generally accepted amongst most of the voting public.
All I can say is that I never really identified with much of anything that Bush said, I just thought that he wouldn’t raise taxes and that he was better on national defense. And I admit that I was probably suckered to some extent by his down-home affectations.
I’m not looking for absolution from anyone because I did the best I could with the information that I had at the time. However, after the GOP trotted out McCain as their candidate, NEVER again will I vote for the LOTE. I don’t give a crap how many people tell me that I am throwing my vote away, the GOP in its current form does NOT represent my ideas in any significant way.
In fact, here’s an idea: If we are going to spend tax dollars on failed institutions like AIG or Ford or GM and basically benefit only the already rich and the overpaid (unions), I’d just as soon see that money handed out in the form of cash to people that are already on welfare. Hey, at least it’d give those poor people some temporary relief and it would make me feel a hell of a lot better than handing that money over to our idiotic and corrupt corporate overlords.
What a diatribe this is! Sorry. The point is that, to me, there is such a huge difference in my belief in minimal government and what the GOP has actually done. It gets me way more worked up to see GOP “free marketers” shill for a bailout for huge corporations that are “too big to fail” than seeing people abusing the welfare system ever did. The thing is, I don’t think that I would ever make this sort of statement pre-Bush as I firmly believed that once the GOP got into power that they would go about reducing the federal government.
But I was too naive at the time to understand how beholden the GOP is to its corporate cronies and that the individual candidates spouting “free market” and “limited government” rhetoric would trade whatever true convictions they once held about those concepts for corporate donations in a heartbeat. I’d like to think that I know better now, but I’m sure that I don’t.
Despite my dissolution with the GOP, and my utter contempt for our current president, two core ideals remain intact:
1) That government involvement, no matter how well-intentioned, in its citizens’ lives almost always does more harm than good and 2) That taxes are a form of government involvement in my life and See No. 1.
Comment by dhex —
November 20, 2008 @ 11:28 pm
“Wow. This is actually a great example of what I’m talking about when I say that libertarians fetishize property rights above all other rights: claims that property rights are “real†in contrast to “fictions†like the rights to life, liberty, equality, etc.”
thanks for missing teh whole “somewhat real some of the time” bit which would encompass all the weird, non-intuitive shit that also passes for property these days.
but your shoes, man? that’s pretty intuitive. well, for me at least, but i have excellent circulation. i know where my feet are at all times.
Comment by JimDesu —
November 21, 2008 @ 1:23 am
Libertarianism is best summed up by a quote I agree with, but whose source I can’t remember: “I want to live in a country where happily married gay people have closets full of assault weapons.”
Less pithily so, libertarianism is rooted in the principal that you own yourself, and that therefore your doings, in so far as they harm none, are yours to direct without outside interference. Want to sell plastic lizards to Guatemalans? Sure! Want to watch bad porno? Whatever! The emphasis on property rights that means you should be able to marry whomsoever you care to is also the basis for pro-choice beliefs (”Get your laws off of my body!”) and many other things that liberals wholeheartedly espouse if there’s no spotted owl at stake.
The difference between libertarianism and anarchists (which ISN’T apparent from all the closet anarchists hiding out in the Libertarian Party, which are why I’m no longer a member) is that libertarians believe that rights need enforcement, whereas anarchists (of the civilized sort) think that people, if freed from government, will spontaneously be good.
Comment by El Cid —
November 21, 2008 @ 7:36 am
I’d like to see Picador write a few essays or his/her own blog, as I too have grown incredibly tired of the propertarians glibly asserting all the time that only they are truly concerned with human liberty. Feh.
Comment by Nick —
November 21, 2008 @ 10:29 am
Comment by Eric the .5b —
November 20, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
Well, I’m glad there aren’t any left-wing principles that are used as codewords to get out the Blue vote.
——————–
Of course the left has code words for motivating its base.
But do any of those code words have the result of continuing the fear and ultimately mistreatment of an already historically maligned group, like African Americans?
That’s what makes the Republican Party so disgusting, to me, an otherwise fairly conservative person.
Comment by dhex —
November 21, 2008 @ 10:44 am
“But do any of those code words have the result of continuing the fear and ultimately mistreatment of an already historically maligned group, like African Americans?”
beyond the irrational fear of gun owners? and even that’s not so much anymore. it’s a less distinct “other” designed to push more intervention into hilariously stupid places.
but all of these dog whistles are based on motivating fears of potentially real but largely imaginary enemies; or not even imaginary as inconsequential, a la “welfare queens” or “gun nuts” – people who exist, sort of, but have virtually no impact on the day-to-day lives of the voters being motivated.
even most government bureaucrats are regular folk looking to get their check and gtfo before the friday rush; the cackling kafka-crats exist largely in the imagination of some of the more paranoid libertarians. even the “gun grabbers” v. “gun nuts” thing – it’s in the interest of the fundraising parties on both sides to continue to have the most ridiculous stances possible; the vast majority of folks passionate about the issue are motivated not by malice but by fear.
Comment by Nick —
November 21, 2008 @ 11:58 am
But gun owners are not a class of historically oppressed people. They were never enslaved nor the subject of Jim Crow apartheid.
The Southern Strategy is effectively kicking a group of people when they are already down, and doing it in contravention of that radical American value that all men are created equal.
Comment by dhex —
November 21, 2008 @ 12:33 pm
“But gun owners are not a class of historically oppressed people. They were never enslaved nor the subject of Jim Crow apartheid.”
ahh, but what about black gun owners in jim crow areas?
http://www.reason.com/news/show/32884.html
convergence!
but back to your question: you asked about fear and mistreatment, and i gave you an example – one that over the last 25 years or so motivated a great many people on the left and right out of irrational worry and anger.
for example, have fun getting a handgun (or long gun) simply for target practice in new york city; there are significant legal barriers in place that started with the Sullivan Act as a way of manipulating political force against specific immigrant groups – namely italian and irish catholics – and became an overriding “culture of fear” proposition, especially since the crack wars and crime waves of the 1980s. you can see this pattern repeated in various countries and under certain regimes who are seeking to mess with an outre ethnic, religious or racial group for political gain or – in more sinister and violent cases – literal control over their property and lives.
if you wanted to only use the category of “people who had been enslaved within the last two centuries” that would have been a better starting place to write from, because you already know the answer.
anyway, the larger point stands – politics requires demonization of groups, both real and (more often than not) imaginary. i don’t think anyone actually disputes that rather obvious set of facts, so the question is “whose demonization is worse” which generally drags us back into TEAM RED TEAM BLUE GO TEAM GO territory.
Comment by Thoreau —
November 21, 2008 @ 1:02 pm
I think that dhex’s points about the history of gun laws show that gun laws often are about going after historically oppressed groups. The fact that gun ownership groups are so dominated by whites, generally conservative and non-urban whites, might just tell us something about the effects of the historical gun laws that dhex mentioned.
Howard Dean said something very revealing several years ago, about how gun control might make sense in the big cities but not in a place like Vermont. Hmm…..
Comment by Nick —
November 21, 2008 @ 1:28 pm
“ahh, but what about black gun owners in jim crow areas?”
————-
Do you really believe the Republican Party’s messages are directed to black gun owners in Jim Crow areas?
Blacks regularly give fewer than 10% of their vote to the Republicans, because they recognize what the party has been doing for votes since Nixon (Southern Strategy).
The message of the Southern Strategy is going to drown out any appeal to the message the blacks in Jim Crow areas might want to own guns in order to protect themselves from attacks by whites. After all, whites generally have the apparatus of the state do their dirty work in those areas anyway.
Comment by Nick —
November 21, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
….so the question is “whose demonization is worse .
————
Yes. Which is worse–being a baby murdering pro-abortionist, or someone who supports bigotry against African Americans?
It’s certainly a question of personal values.
For libertarians, I’d think the answer is pretty obvious, from a standpoint of economic efficiency and of government staying out of the lives of personal decisions.
Comment by dhex —
November 21, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
Do you really believe the Republican Party’s messages are directed to black gun owners in Jim Crow areas?
no. i thought the question above was about a comparative democratic target, which i gave an example of, different though it is as apples and oranges tend to be. the historicism puts things into an interesting light; thoreau mentioned dean’s comment above, which may appear a bit sinister but i think it’s also in keeping with polling data. dense urban residents are far less likely to support gun ownership.
random fun fact: some nyc high schools had competitive shooting teams as late as the mid 1970s; i’ve heard stories about high school students riding the subway with rifles.
you keep mentioning the southern strategy but unless the “gayness is a white disease” meme is far stronger in predominantly black communities than it seems to be – not to mention seeing who won the election – i’d have to say it’s dead.
maybe for now, hopefully forever – though pandering is eternal, like love.
and taxes.
Comment by dhex —
November 21, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
um obviously i meant that residents of densely populated urban areas, not that they’re not smart as the dickens.
Comment by VikingMoose —
November 22, 2008 @ 3:33 pm
Great post Doktor T.
Highnumber and I were talking about this in the context of Ron Paul (another one who managed to fool a lot of libertarians). It’s even better hier with Sarah Palin! (remember at H&R how you got the “she’s more libertarian than the others” schtick)
or our understanding of libertarianism is out of whack…
Comment by Randolph —
November 22, 2008 @ 9:58 pm
To quote a certain famous troll-whisperer, “Just because you’re on their side doesn’t me that they’re on your side.”
What can I say? We really did try to warn you. I spent a lot of time explaining this to net.libertarians, not just once, but over and over and I wasn’t the only one. It didn’t sink in; most of the people I was talking to didn’t see past my beliefs, though many have been persuaded by subsequent events. It would have been nice to be more wrong, really–the W. Bush administration and the radical right have been a disaster, and we are not out of the woods yet. A lot of people on the right think that the left’s discomfort with violence is a sign of weakness. Not so. We know the history of having our ideals co-opted and used in the service of monstrosity.
One final point that you haven’t touched on that seems worth bringing up: libertarian ideals represent a particular reification of a US attitude. This is another reason why they were so successfully used by the radical right: a lot of Americans feel vaguely that they “ought” to be more libertarian. This secret shame is terribly persuasive, the moreso because people who feel such shame are ashamed to even examine it.