....As Others See Us
Brian Doherty | December 17, 2007, 10:27pm
Mother Jones, in examining the strange phenomenon of Ron Paul, provides a timeline of libertarian thought.
Occasionally apt, often tendentious (especially with its obsessive belief that libertarianism is some sort of philosophy of corporate power and Pinochetism), but usually interesting to see the modern left try to grapple with the strange beast of libertarianism.
For the full picture of libertarianism unfolding in time, and for the true deep roots of Ron Paul, see my book Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement.
Tor Hershman | December 18, 2007, 5:32am | #
PloySci aside.....
HAPPY HUMBUG TO ALL
I made a New Year’s resolution many, many moons ago and NEVER broke it.
The resolution was/is to NEVER make a New Year’s resolution again.
HAPPY HUMBUG
A great many of The Old Testament’s stories come from earlier tales (e.g., Gilgamesh, etc) and the style is, mostly, a direct rip-off of The Egyptian Book Of The Dead.
To learn more of TOT times, view this YouTube film
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7iQRFP_e90
The New Testament, well . . . . . to learn more than enough of TNT’s creation, view this two part YouTube film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzY2bVsZK5s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sckuqPulRGk
And, as a special Humbug surprise, the hit parody song
“The Little Bummer Boy”
http://www.soundlift.com/band/music.php?song_id=82930
AND, if that ain’t enough, you may join moi’s YGroup
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Tor_Hershman/
May you all have a delightful ‘Someone’s Been Embezzling Oil And Selling It On The Side’ Eightdays, a wonderful Solstice, the happiest possible Humbug and may your Hollowdays be filled with the most joyous of pleasures.
Stay on groovin’ safari,
Tor
LarryA | December 18, 2007, 10:36am | #
They missed July 4, 1776, when the U.S. Declaration of Independence proclaimed that governments are formed among men to secure individual rights, and draw their just power from the consent of the governed.
Libertarian=Social Liberal, Fiscal Conservative
Irrelevant comparison based on the current U.S. left-right scale. Libertarians aren’t on that line, so liberals and conservatives can’t figure out where to pin them.
Both major parties believe that individuals must be controlled by government, and therefore they have lists of activities they want to prohibit. Libertarians believe that government should be controlled by individuals, i.e. “We the People,” and have no such list.
When the GLBT gunowners over at Pink Pistols look around both the Republicans and Democrats want nothing to do with them, the donkeys because they own firearms and the elephants because they sleep with their own gender.
Libertarians say, “Own a gun. Own two, or twenty. And it’s none of my business who you sleep with. And even if I personally think guns or gay sex is icky, I don’t think there should be laws against them. Live and let live!”
Understand that libertarians don’t hold these views because they particularly like or approve of all the odd behaviors out there. They do it because history proves that the only way to protect my right to do weird stuff is to protect everybody else’s right to do different weird stuff.
Time Enough for Love was IMHO his deepest novel of all. They were all great. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was very pro-freedom but Time Enough for Love covered many themes, not just political ones. Please do not misunderstand, I do agree all his novels were great.
My favorite was one of RAH’s kid books,
Red Planet, featuring school kids running around with handguns, leading the revolution against the evil corporation, saving the environment, and rescuing mankind from the consequences of imperialism. Plus, it was an exciting story.
Dave W. | December 18, 2007, 11:01am | #
legally require that every goddammed restaurant and market carry cane sugar-sweetened soda?
Here is a little fantasy I have:
One day there was one Coke and one Pepsi. They conspired. They lobbied. They used their economic power to do bad things to good sodas. They used the government and its willingness to tariff to help out with their plan. They also used their combined power to agree that a cane sweetened soft drink would not come from either of them. They also used their combined power to make sure such a soft drink would not come from 7Up or Snapple. They also used their combined power to buy up a substantial portion of all the store shelves to help out with their plan. The government helped with the tarriff parts of the plan, but the other parts were possible because the market was unregulated . . . or so they thought.
One day a thoughtful "Private Attorney General" named Badley Ralko brought them into Judge Dave W.'s courtroom on a Sherman Act claim. Badley said: this isn't my idea of a free market -- rather, concentration of economic power is, well it is different in nature than a concentration of government power, but it still has mega-substantial bad affects at the level of quotidian ppl's quotidian lives. It is not like an unjustified police shooting, but its net effect is as if the police inflicted 300 million hangnails, with each hangnail representing the yuckiness of modern sweetened soda taken over the course of an individual's life.
Judge Dave W. asked to break in and sed that some of his libertarian friends sed that the government helped Coke and Pepsi with their plan, so it wasn't really Coke and Pepsi's fault.
Unruffled, Badley confidently replied that he was ready for this line of questioning. He claimed the American Republic was founded on the principle of one person, one vote and not one dollar one vote -- that representation was supposed to be proportional in that way. He said that an important aspect of safeguarding against sliding into a one dollar one vote republic was to avoid concentrations of economic power that are too monumental and too iresistable -- like what happens when Coke and Pepsi (and later 7Up) combine and plan their business together. Badley said that the Sherman Act was important in the modern world because it could help insulate the political world from being bought and sold too much.
Judge Dave W. asked the lawyer for Coke and Pepsi if she had any counterarguments to make. She sed that Coke can't put you in jail. She sed that Coke won't take your gun. She sed that the government's power to set tarriffs was too tempting for her clients not to exploit so long as this attractive nuisance existed. She sed, in closing, that Judge Dave W. just had to try the brand new formulation where they used cane sugar.
How much? asked Judge Dave W.
That is a trade secret the antitrust lawyer replied.
The Judge gave permission to approach the bench with a cupful of the new formulation in hand. He took the cup and took a swig. He rolled his eyes heavenward, settled back in his chair and let his glasses slide down his nose just a bit.
I am ready to render my verdict. Coke will be split into 1,000 companies of equal size and capitalization. A like remedy is to be applied against Pepsi. Also, all the executives go to jail, because, as I learnt at
HnR, in the comments section one time, Sherman Act violations are a
crime.
Ron Bailey, who had been seated in the audience, blanched and fainted dead away. Somebody get the corporatarian a medic intoned Judge Dave W.
Fluffy | December 18, 2007, 1:14pm | #
"Unequal power relationships" as an expression is such a fucking canard it's ridiculous.
Corporations have customers. Every one of those customers has just about much power over that corporation as an employer has over an employee. This is because all an employer actually IS, is a customer purchasing labor. Everyone who is not living on their savings is is an equal position of dependence on their set of customers, whether they're selling goods, services, or their labor.
"Oh, but corporations have thousands or millions of customers, and employees only have one!" Well, whose fault is that?
And Mr. Nice Guy, if you argue that a corporation is exercising power over you when they fail to sell the exact sort of toothpaste you want, then why aren't YOU exercising power over me when you fail to sell the exact sort of toothpaste I want?
You are both engaged in the SAME "power exercising" act.
Crest Corporation: Not selling the toothpaste I want.
Mr. Nice Guy: Not selling the toothpaste I want.
"Oh, but Crest is a big corporation, so they have obligations. I don't have any obligations."
Crest is at least selling toothpaste that meets SOMEBODY'S demand. You aren't. So you're exercising power over EVERYONE, and they're just exercising power over the set of customers displeased enough with the available choices to get worked up about it.
Mr. Nice Guy | December 18, 2007, 3:20pm | #
Fewer than 1 percent of Americans are millionaires, but almost one in three believe they'll end up among that group at some point.
The belief that our chance of moving up the economic ladder is limited only by our innate abilities and our appetite for hard work is almost universal in the United States. When you define the "American Dream" as the ability of working-class families to afford a decent life -- to put their kids through school, have access to quality healthcare and a secure retirement -- most will tell you it simply doesn't exist anymore. In stark contrast, when you define it according to mobility, the picture is radically different; according to a study of public opinion in 25 rich countries, Americans are almost twice as likely to believe that "people get rewarded for intelligence and skill" than working people in other advanced economies (PDF). At the same time, fewer than one in five say that coming from a wealthy family is "essential" or "very important" to getting ahead -- significantly lower than the 25-country average.
It's impossible to overstate the impact that has on our policy debates. Americans are less than half as likely as people in other advanced economies to believe that it's "the responsibility of government to reduce differences in income." Working Americans are parties to a unique social contract: They give up much of the economic security that citizens of other wealthy countries take for granted in exchange for a more "dynamic," meritorious economy that offers opportunity that's limited only by their own desire to get ahead. Of course, it's never explicitly stated, and most of us don't know about the deal, but it's reinforced all the time in our economic discourse.
But new research suggests the United States' much-ballyhooed upward mobility is a myth, and one that's slipping further from reality with each new generation. On average, younger Americans are not doing better than their parents did, it's harder to move up the economic ladder in the United States than it is in a number of other wealthy countries, and a person in today's work force is as likely to experience downward mobility as he or she is to move up.
Moreover, the single greatest predictor of how much an American will earn is how much their parents make. In short, the United States, contrary to popular belief, is not a true meritocracy, and the American worker is getting a bum deal, the worst of both worlds. Not only is a significant portion of the middle class hanging on by the narrowest of threads, not only do fewer working people have secure retirements to look forward to, not only are nearly one in seven Americans uninsured, but working people also enjoy less opportunity to pull themselves up by their bootstraps than those in a number of other advanced economies.
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSS
