Morning Ed: Media {2017.11.09.Th}
[Me1] Apparently InfoWars does not property respect Russian intellectual property.
[Me2] Ask a Mexican was a pretty interesting feature – that I was introduced to on the Unz Report, of all places – and I’m sorry to see it go. {More}
[Me3] The Rand Paul attack does look vaguely suspicious, but the response to it from some quarters has been quite odd.
[Me4] I’m not sure how much responsibility to assign to Facebook and Twitter for their media workings, but this doesn’t look great for Twitter. Though when we ask (or demand) that Facebook and the like do something about “fake news” we should be careful what we wish for.
[Me5] Conservative media bias may be expanding to television sets near you. Unlike Fox News, and like the broadcast network news programs, they carry more of a veneer of neutrality and therefore could be especially effective.
[Me6] Some of Russian propaganda efforts in the US look to me like they were just having fun and seeing what stuck rather than thoughtful provocation. Relatedly, what Tucker Carlson and Fox News is doing defies charitable explanation and when and if we ever get to the other side of this thing Carlson should not be able to shrug it off as roleplaying.
[Me7] Twitter keeps finding new and inventive ways of discrediting the media. For consumers on Twitter, it’s veils slipping. For consumers off media, it’s things like this and media focus on Twitter.
[Me8] With Teen Vogue and a couple alt-weeklies, I wonder if the lack of a print edition leaves the web edition without a rationale. Teen Vogue has the whole Social Justice thing going for it now, but that has only gotten the attention it has due to the counterintuitive fact it came from a teen media outlet.
[Me9] If you’re in media, unionizing can be dangerous business. I don’t have a problem with him pulling up his stakes, but shutting it down immediately was just an ass move.
[Me3] What is not suspicious, however, is the political attacks on the guy. Hey, a non conformist is attacked, pile on! That being said, a libertarian might actually prefer to live in an area NOT managed by an HOA. One assumes Paul bought into the development voluntarily, and so he agreed voluntarily to comply with the covenants. But I loved the hate lines, especially by Jack Moore. “Libertarians don’t want to follow the rules that we as a society have agreed upon,” Of course, he doesn’t present the “agreement” that’s been signed or agreed to either so….it’s all bullshit. It would have been smarter to say “he’s anti conformist so we hate him”.
[Me4] The reason title is correct, but this is already happening independently by Twitter and FB. One must not deviate from the official narrative!
[Me9] During the union vote campaign, the guy likely said that a pro union vote would kill the company, so I expect there was warning but it wasn’t believed. Either way, asshole move? Why continue to fund a now increasingly larger loosing company? Nope, you tie the last straw to the shuttering of the company. Bamp! I got your union vote right here. It’s cold here baby.Report
I read that Reason piece earlier, but it was frustratingly vague. Just what rules had he violated? No big riding mowers? No mowing the lawn yourself? Most of the links that looked like they might say something were behind paywalls.
As you say, he chose to live there, so he chose to follow any covenants. That doesn’t mean he should get 5 ribs broken. It means his neighbors should sue him, like civilized people do.Report
“Rand Paul likes to grow pumpkins on his property. You might like pumpkins, but to some people, pumpkins are kind of big and ugly and, stinky..”
“Reports also indicate that Paul makes his own compost (also stinky) ”
I’m old enough to remember a time when being on the left meant having certain pride in the “stinky” things of life.Report
March,
I have pride in things like that. I also loathe HOAs.Report
Actually the HOA would take action if he was violating the community rules. It sounds more like he was doing that, but as you say, things are vague.Report
The HOA received no complaints.Report
Reason may have been frustratingly vague, but so was the original story about how this was (or might have been) about lawns.
Part of the thing is that it’s not clear that Paul was actually breaking the rules and keeping his lawn in disrepair, or whether he was just not doing as much as his neighbor would have liked. It’s also not clear it had anything to do with lawns.
We’re talking about speculation that was converted into fact that was used to score ideological points against a guy with five broken ribs.Report
The odd thing here is that because Paul was attacked from behind and was wearing ear protection, there is a large blank space that the neighbor can choose to fill with what led up to the attack.Report
Or at least just complain to the HOA, which is what one is supposed to do.Report
Me8: The very first issue of the first teen magazine, Seventeen, had an article about the evils of anti-negroism and anti-Semitism in addition to what would be the normal teenage stuff for a mid-1940s teenager. There is a pretty decent history of teen magazines having some deeper stuff than celebrity gossip.Report
Me3: I just do not get the haterade towards libertarians* from certain corners of the left. It poisons any kind of coalition that could form. It’s the answer to the question, why do libertarians tend to align with the GOP?
*And Paul is only borderline libertarian, given his voting record.Report
Self-identified libertarians are frequently identified, frequently justifiably, as Republicans with intellectual pretensions. Cue the No True Scotsman discussion.Report
Caveat, caveat, caveat, pronouncement “all libertarians are closet republicans”.Report
This.
You actually need look no further for reasons for corners of the left hating libertarians than the people prominently identified in politics as ‘libertarians’.
When they routinely oppose left-leaning govt regulation/interference on the grounds of Libertarian Principles, but routinely support right-leaning govt regulation/interference because ….LOOK! SQUIRREL! I think people who don’t know anyone in RL who self-identifies as libertarian can be excused for thinking it’s just a fancy way of saying non-Luddite Republican.
Add in glibertarians who tend to also lean MRA and even alt-right, and it’s a perfect storm in terms of folks on the left, and even many in the middle, developing a certain disdain for anyone calling themselves ‘libertarian’.Report
Many libertarians who wouldn’t have anything to do with the Republican Party spend more energy making fun and going after liberals and leftists than they do rightists. Not on this site necessarily but on other sites, sympathies run much more towards Red America than Blue America as a result of fusionism of the past.Report
And exactly how many right wing sites do you frequent where libertarians hang out?
Take Reason, they are regularly critical and mocking of right wing politicians. You notice the left wing hits more because they hit home (and we tend to remember the negative things we perceive more acutely than positive things).Report
I see this on Jason’s facebook feed. He tries to get his libertarian friends to support the Democrats when they are doing things like advocating for more immigration, legalized marijuana, and criminal justice reform. A lot of people on his list just seem to whine “But they like the welfare state….”
So this makes me think that there are a good chunk of libertarians who would prefer dismantling the welfare state above all else.Report
Conceded, although whenever I see one of those people, I think of my aunt, a lifelong R who only recently (past 10 years or so) became disillusioned with the GOP and decided she was more libertarian. Except when it comes to anything libertarians support that falls more to the left than the right (like immigration, marijuana, police reform, etc.).
There are a lot of former republican voters like that who muddy the waters.Report
Slate Star Codex, Thing of Things, and the Facebook feeds of James Hanley, Jason K., and Jon Rowe.Report
You consider Hanley and JK’s FB feeds to be right-wing?Report
No, but many of their Facebook friends are self-described Libertarians with nothing but contempt for anything left leaning.Report
That doesn’t necessarily make them right wing. There are more than two wings.Report
For a while, I used to semi-regularly read the comments on Reason’s site, I occasionally read the Bleeding Heart Libertarian site and their comments and have run into libertarians in mixed company, especially out on the Internet at places on SlateStarCodex, etc.
In general, even if I disagree with the main article writers at Reason, they seem reasonable (even though they’ve fallen into the trap of “let’s talk about this horrible thing a non-tenured professor at a small community college said and act like it’s proof the liberal order is falling apart because SJW’s” for the past few years, but the actual commentariat have always been horrible.
Also, there’s been a big case of people who claim until their dying breath were libertarians, who went hard alt-right in the past year or so. It’s almost like their arguments about the Civil Rights Act weren’t actually based on libertarian principles, or something.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-insidious-libertarian-to-alt-right-pipelineReport
I stopped reading the comments at Reason a long time ago. Despite the name of the publication, the commetariat has little of it.Report
That has been my personal observation and experience in RL. More so when I lived in the tail end of VA and ran into the pro-confederate branch of libertarians, but I’ve run into them in PA, MI and AZ too.Report
Here’s the question: Do people on the left want libertarians under their tent?
If Yes, then the left needs to call out stupid crap like Me3 (You ever had a broken rib? I have, it’s not funny. Every single breath is agony, for months.)
If no, then enjoy your haterade.Report
Yeah a lot of the reactions to RandRibGate on the left have been brimming over with stupid takes. Really shallow stuff.
I think there is a place for lefties and libertarians to work together on some issues but then i’ve always been left-libertarian sympathic. Jason K is doing good work. Props to him.
If there is a distorted view of libertarians among liberals it partially comes from guys like Paul being talked about as libertarians in some way. He is a Repub who occasionally mouths libertarian rhetoric. Lots of liberals hear libertarian rhetoric only in service of Repub goals so thats what they think libertarians are. Sadly there are libertarians who play right into this. There was also that funky period around 2005-08 where lots of Bush voting long time R’s started describing themselves at Libertarian since they were so disgusted with the Bush era. They weren’t any less Repub though.Report
Exactly. Totally libertarians, until you started talking about more immigration, police reform, decriminalizing drugs, etc.Report
If you realize that, why are you so defensive about Rand Paul?
Why do jokes about this weird situation with him strike you as evidence of ‘haterade’, as an attack on all libertarians?
Surely you realize that if this had happened to any politician there would have been a ton of jokes about it. Do you really think there wouldn’t be very similar stuff from the right and from libertarians as well if it been Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer? (Heck, the left probably would have joked about it if it had been them. Trevor Noah would have done nearly the same bit)Report
TotallyReport
And frankly, I am growing weary over people casually conflating politics and violence. The man was beaten, that is not when you make jokes about how he was asking for it because of his politics.Report
I have not made any jokes about it. Nor have I said he was asking for it.
You asked a question about why liberals perceive libertarians in a negative light. I just tried to offer an perspective, purely from from own personal experiences, and saying it was just some people who identified as libertarians – I even used scare quotes to emphasize that they probably weren’t true libertarians – and I feel like you are jumping down my throat for hating on libertarians, when that is not at all what was doing.Report
Again, I’m not jumping down anyone’s throat here, specifically. I’m pushing back against two things:
1) Assaulting someone and causing grievous bodily harm is not funny, and people who think it’s funny need to get called out, especially if they think it’s funny because of politics.
2) The animosity towards libertarians from some corners of the left is quite obviously misplaced, since it seems everyone here understands that there is a difference between a libertarian (of any flavor) and a republican who wears the label, and they understand how to tell the two apart, and yet it still appears to be acceptable to bear animosity towards libertarians because of it. I mean, this is right up there with hating on liberals because hard core socialists & communists tend to vote Democrat. I can kind of excuse it for the woefully ignorant, but political pundits and commentators know the difference and still can’t seem to help but conflate things.
I have not aimed my ire at anyone here specifically, but I am pushing back against those ideas.Report
@oscar-gordon If people feel like you’re jumping down their throats and/or being defensive, it’s possible that some of your comments did in fact involve one of those things. It may be more effective a corrective if you say “I wasn’t intending to jump down your throat” rather than asserting you are not.
FWIW, I do think @richard-hershberger was out of line, he’s one of the folks I was cautioning in my remarks to the commentariat – but you do seem to be on tilt in some of your earlier responses to people answering a question they legitimately enough thought you were asking.
It’s also the case that just because everyone *here* understands it doesn’t mean they are doing anything other than informing you of their experience when they say that their sense of the rest of the world is that they mostly don’t understand it.
********
As for the sources quoted in the Reason article: Any longtime commenters here are far more familiar with real libertarians than the average writer for, say, GQ… (The lead source quoted in the Reason article). I personally would prefer that people writing politics stuff for GQ were a lot more well-informed, but I don’t really expect that. At all. I remain consistently surprised if and when fashion magazines produce anything resembling coherent political commentary. And consistently unsurprised if they can’t tell the difference between a republican and a republitarian because, like bookdragon, I find that most people can’t.
I also find that groups like, for eg, FIRE, are extremely well-known in the liberal circles I move in, and extremely focused on targeting liberals, almost exclusively. And their loudness has made it hard to *hear* libertarians that have other aims in mind. The idea that say, employees of the ACLU could be libertarians (many of them are!) is just not on people’s radar outside libertarian-affiliated circles. Rightward or leftward.
As for why the GOP doesn’t attack libertarians, as far as I can tell they mostly *also* don’t tell libertarians apart from republitarians, and so they are smugly sure that they are really just some other type of GOPers, and don’t take them seriously as a contestant.
Neither of these things is particularly respectful – as a feminist I certainly know a lot about the “shut up” vs “ignore” dichotomy, and I’d actually prefer the shutter-uppers by a hair – but one is a lot louder than the other. So one is a lot more noticeable than the other.
That’s my take on it anyway.
If your original point was that the haterade is unpleasant and toxic, yep, I think most of us would agree. That’s not what people were responding to though. They were responding to an expression of not knowing why it happens.Report
So what do I get to call all those liberal Democrats that seem to be doubling down on censorship because of Russia?
I mean, expecting ideological consistency from politicians is something we should have stopped doing when we were teenagers.Report
Just blanket apply the strawmen that have been used on all liberals for the past 40 years no matter what they actually believe or support? I mean, that’s pretty much been the libertarian practice since most seem to have jumped on the rightwing talk-radio version of liberal with both feet. 😉
Honestly, if you want sympathy from the left, commiserating on being stereotyped in the media and public mind by the worst people claiming to represent your ideology seems like not a bad start.Report
What strawman? If I can point to an example, it isn’t a strawman.
And you are acting as if libertarians just jumped up on the scene a few years back, instead of being around for decades. As far as I can tell, looking back, certain corners of the left have been vocally hating on libertarians from the word go, which is not something you see much of from the right.
This is like the republican strategist I was listening to last night on NPR. He tells the politicians and pundits, you have to court the immigrant vote, the minority vote. You can not expect them to vote for you and support you if you are constantly talking down to and about them. So when I hear democrats complain about why libertarians don’t support them, I point to crap like what we see in Me3, and this conversation is usually what I get in return.
PS Most libertarians do get pissed about people like Paul claiming the ideology while not even trying to follow it. But Paul has an R after his name. I don’t see him hanging out with Gary Johnson and Bill Weld.Report
I mean, that may be true of the younger Paul, but I didn’t see any complaining about the older Paul, who is closer to a socially conservative isolationist racist goldbug than an actual libertarian during the ’08 and ’12 primaries in most libertarian friendly places on the Internet.Report
I did, but it was always liberally colored with a sense of resignation. “He’s the only politician we got that is even remotely in our corner…”Report
So if I can point to an example of a libertarian vocally hating on liberals while totally supporting rightwing conservatives that isn’t a strawman either?
I give you: Ron Paul, and as a bonus, Glen Beck
Now, you are projecting a lot of stuff on me. As far as I can tell, I haven’t said anything to imply that libertarians just appeared a few years back. In fact, I think I said pretty explicitly that the hate toward liberals, at least in terms of my awareness of it, goes back 40 years or more.
However, I’m not interested in a ‘who cast the first stone?’ debate. You asked why liberals seemed to dislike libertarians more than conservatives did. I gave an answer based on my own perspective. That’s it.
I do not now, nor have I ever, claimed to speak for all liberals. Or for liberals at all for that matter, so kindly don’t put whatever you want the greater universe of lefties to do on me.Report
Read back, I didn’t put anything on you regarding Paul. You suggested that your experience was somehow demonstrative of others.
I even conceded that there is a strain of self-identified libertarians who are just disgruntled republicans, and frankly, they are easy as hell to spot. So what people are really pissed at are those republiterians, but they lump the rest of us in which them, because they label themselves that way?
Yeah, that’s helpful. Can make a guy a bit defensive, given I can’t exactly kick those folks out and make them stop labeling themselves.Report
Oscar,
Really, it’s best you don’t try to kick them out either.
They have a lot more money than you do.
(I’ll laugh at the whole Paul thing, but… no more than I’d do if it was Ronnie Reagan, and there’s a hilarious story on dkos about Ronnie Reagan and the Next Door Neighbor).Report
And many, many liberals feel that way about the examples that you say justify applying strawmen about them to everyone identified as liberal.
That was what I was trying to get across. The way you feel in terms of how those republitarians get lumped in with you is how a lot of liberals feel about the worst of the left being used to characterize them. Which ought to be a point on which to build dialogue and develop understanding.
But apparently I made the point really badly, because of taking it as a suggestion of where common ground and understanding could begin, the response was “What strawman?” and the suggestion if even one bad example exists on the left it’s ok to apply that to the whole group.
::sigh::
I give up.Report
@bookdragon
Please go back and read your first comment to this thread, and explain to me how I misread it, because I see that not as a hand reaching out, but an incoming smack. This is an issue that gets under my skin, so I am more than open to the idea that I am not reading you charitably, but I’m going to need some help here getting there.Report
In my first comment I said
Please note the ‘ ‘ around libertarian. Maybe I’m bad at writing or don’t understand the conventions on this blog, but I meant to convey that I didn’t consider those people to be real libertarians.
Now, I also read Richard’s remark to mean that there are a lot of republicans calling themselves libertarians and the line often does get blurred since unless you do hang around libertarian focused blogs you rarely see libertarians pushing back on their claims to that identifier. But maybe I’m the only one who read it that way, so that confused things.
Either way, you’re next two replies to me felt very, very much like slaps directly at me. As well as unjustified attacks on people I know and care about who actually are liberals. I may have replied to the first one in particular with more snark than I should have because of that.Report
*Sorry for the delayed reply, I was on a bit of a road trip over the weekend visiting our oldest friends, and I only had mobile devices with me.*
@bookdragon
Then I owe you an apology. I took your single quotes to imply that all libertarians are just closet republicans/conservatives. Clearly you understand the difference and respect it. I am sorry if I gave you heartburn over it.
And yes, it is incredibly frustrating to have to defend yourself against the ideals of people who claim the brand, but not the ideology. I think a lot of libertarians are just tired of the constant effort to push back, since it often falls on deaf ears, so they don’t bother. And in my experience, far too often those deaf ears belong to a liberal who damn well knows better, but just doesn’t care because it’s more fun or useful to hammer the libertarian (i.e. see @maribou ‘s reference to the “shut up” & “ignore”). So it isn’t the casual person on Facebook or Twitter that irks me, it’s the political writer/junkie who should damn well know better what the distinction is (especially political writers – it’s part of their effing job! I don’t care if the write for GQ or NRO), but runs with it anyway because they just have some special kind of hate for libertarians.
See also liberals and Socialists/Communists/Ecofanatics; conservatives and evangelicals, etc.Report
Which ignores the actual point I was making. The right, despite not being onboard with large swaths of libertarian preferences, doesn’t have the haterade the left does toward libertarians.
Hell, the left doesn’t even have the haterade toward the GOP that they do toward libertarians. I don’t recall this kind of mocking when Steve Scalise got shot, but smash a handful of a libertarians ribs, and it’s on like Donkey Kong.Report
I think there are two different things going on there.
First, some of the reaction to Rand in particular is from just the sheer ridiculousness of the attack. It’s almost a relief giggle. After Scalise we all braced for a political motive behind the attack. Instead it was the most stupid of neighborhood feuds – the sort of thing you’d expect to see on a silly middle class life sitcom. The way Rand’s generally hypocritical politics played in how he justified being a douchy neighbor is the only place where libertarianism came in.
The second is that as I mentioned above, the haterade goes both ways. I’m not even liberal but on more than a few occasions over the years I’ve been on the receiving end of condescending mocking from libertarians I know for just about any opinion that falls more to the left. I don’t get that with opinions that fall more to the right.Report
I actually haven’t seen much reaction. I mean we talked about it here briefly, and the short version was “It was either politics or petunias” (that is, either it was someone upset over something political or one neighbor going nuts over some long-standing petty grudge) followed by “I wonder which it was, people really do go nuts over both”. (Well, there was a side order of “Was someone diddling someone else’s wife” but nobody seemed to really think that was likely).
Which followed the same general responses I saw on reddit, political blogs, and even Twitter. I mean the neighbor was arrested, Paul — while hurt — will recover fully, and if anything the thrust of the follow-up has been “I wonder why neither side will talk about what it was? Must have been really petty or stupid”.
I wonder how much of the “reaction” Reason cites here is nut-picking and how much is real?Report
I’m sure Reason is nut-picking a bit, but it’s a nut that I don’t see often from right-wing authors (commenters at right wing sites, on the other hand, can be really mean).
But the justifications I’m seeing in these threads are that it’s OK for liberals to have haterade because they are nut-picking from self described libertarians they’ve encountered in the past? Really, no one has ever had perfectly normal conversations with self described libertarians that didn’t turn out to be exercises in tolerating insults?
And again, I don’t see this kind of mocking haterade when a GOP lawmaker is injured.Report
Again, you are being really defensive here. I seem to recall quite a lot of mocking haterade when Reid got a black eye for instance, and I suspect you don’t see that directed at Rand from the right because they generally consider libertarians to be just slightly borderline parts of their ‘tribe’.
Now, in response to the rest, I have had plenty of pleasant and intellectually enjoyable conversations with self described libertarians. I would include you in that group btw.
However, I have also run into some really awful examples of the species too. I’m far from alone in that it seems.
One can say the bad examples aren’t real libertarians. In fact, I very much agree with the take here on the pro-confederate folks calling themselves libertarians. However, the fact is that there are lot of people self identifying as libertarians who never read Reason or really think about issues with any depth beyond “if it doesn’t affect me, the govt shouldn’t do anything about it”. (Quite a lot of them I suspect aren’t so much libertarians as people who read Ayn Rand in jr high and just never got beyond adolescent delusions of Galt-hood). But the sad fact is that those are the people out there presenting the face of libertarianism to quite a lot of people who also know nothing about it in terms of political philosophy.
I’m a bit of a political junkie so I know enough to not tar all libertarians based on the interactions I had in college with the smug glib jerks. But if you are demanding that everyone left of center go out and research libertarian thought so they can dismiss the Rand Pauls and Glenn Becks, that’s a pretty heavy lift.Report
Nobody here seems to be indulging in what you’re claiming. If other people, elsewhere, are — take it up with them.
I’m not sure what’s got your goat, but in general the internet — and America — seems to be treating this as amusing solely because it seems so very trivial and, bluntly, human.
Two neighbors got into a fight (or ambush) and someone got hurt over something they seem too embarrassed to discuss. Bluntly, it’s almost out of cops.
The fact that one of those people is a Congressmen just goes to show that they’re people too.
Now if it was about HOA and property issues, it’s also ironic.Report
I never claimed anyone here was doing that. I objected to @richard-hershberger suggesting that it was OK to be upset with libertarians because some conservatives self-identify as libertarians because they don’t like the GOP brand anymore.
And I was careful to point out, multiple times, that it was not the left in general, but certain corners of it, that are guilty of it.
So I’m not getting why anyone in this discussion is taking it personally.Report
Oscar,
Well, I save my hate for particular people that others describe as libertarians, despite ample evidence showing that they are not such.Report
What I have found in using the political compass to predict violent conflict, what I see is there is conflict between the high, upper left authoritarians, and the lower right anti-authoritarians. (top left, versus bottom right)
This is what I propose we are seeing here about Rand:
“This libertarian thinks he can live outside the social order and should be put in his place”
The same dynamic happens when the authoritarian right conflicts with the anti-authoritarian left: (top right, versus bottom left)
“That person thinks they are above the law, they should be put in their place (or prison)”
I think it is the most pronounced because the ideologies differ the most on both the x and y axis creating the largest gap of ideological differences.Report
I would say that part of that is that libertarians don’t have sufficient social skills.
Most Republicans (perhaps even almost all of them) were raised by parents who self-identified either as Republican or Democrat and I’d go so far as to say that many of those were parents who self-identified as either a Liberal or a Conservative (or a Centrist or whatever) Republican or Democrat.
The same for Most Democrats.
Why? Because most *PEOPLE* are raised by parents who self-identified either as Republican or Democrat and I’d go so far as to say that many of those were parents who self-identified as either a Liberal or a Conservative (or a Centrist or whatever) Republican or Democrat.
So when you encounter a Libertarian, you’re overwhelmingly likely to be meeting someone who went out of their way to be something that their parents are not. If you’re lucky, they’re someone who does research and came to the conclusion that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats can represent them. If you’re unlucky, they’re someone who had a roommate who read Atlas Shrugged and then they went on to get the gist of it during late-night bull sessions.
If they had better social skills, they’d be better at fitting in within either the Republicans or the Democrats and explaining that they had a difference of opinion on this or that policy rather than up’n leaving.
(Now, of course, this isn’t as true as it used to be. More kids are likely to have one parent who self-identifies as a libertarian than would have a generation ago. But if you’re dealing with people our age? Yeah. I’m comfortable with the sweeping generation. Looking at these Gallup numbers, only *ONCE* did Republican+Democrat get as low as 50%.)Report
@jaybird
That is a colossal load of horse pucky. And if true, what you are basically saying is that it is OK for folks to pick on libertarians because they are the strange kid.Report
I’m not saying that it’s *OKAY*.
Good Lord. Until I visited Qatar, I considered myself one.
I’m just saying that if people go out of their way to point out that they’re not a member of the ingroup that the most likely response of others is to treat them like they’re not members of the ingroup.
If you want to get into “should” or “shouldn’t” (or “ought” or “oughtn’t”), we need to spend as much time on those who communicate that they’re splitters as those who communicate that they’re up to date on their dues.Report
This is why I don’t broadcast my political opinions anywhere. Unlike a lot of people it seems, your politics doesn’t determine your self worth or value to me. But hey, if you want to date, have friends, etc. of all the same political orientation, go for it. Your loss.Report
So that it means it’s OK to mock them for getting violently attacked?
Hey, your politics are funny, and you got the crap beat out of you, but it’s OK, because your politics are funny. But wait, why don’t you want to come under our tent?Report
@oscar-gordon Jaybird’s not saying it’s funny or OK. He’s attempting to answer the question of why it happens. Which question was implied by you saying you don’t get why it happens.
If you say you don’t get why it happens, you can expect to get a lot of responses trying to explain why it happens. If there are any insightful answers, they will probably be kind of awful, because human beings are kind of awful, at least when we’re discussing why they are jerks to each other.
If what you want to communicate is that it’s unacceptable, or unwise, and have a conversation about that, you should probably try saying that up front, rather than rounding on people when they try to communicate why they think it happens after you say “I don’t get why”.
(I would note, commentariat in general, that while most of you are answering carefully and good faith, answering that question with “because most of you suck” is also not good practice in a discussion, AT ALL, and a few – very few – of you need to move out of that area, please.)Report
@maribou
Sorry, I read it less as an explanation and more as a justification. @jaybird , if that was not your intent, my apologies for reading you wrong.
That said, as an explanation, it’s effectively victim blaming, which doesn’t exactly paint the author in Me3 in a very good light.Report
@oscar-gordon
If you see it as @jaybird talking about why he has been mocked in these ways (which he certainly has) and then extrapolating that to other-people-who-identify-fairly-loudly-as-part-of-an-outgroup (because he’s DEFINITELY not secretive about his identifications, and has never been secretive about them, including on this very site), does it still strike you as victim blaming?
Or does it strike you as someone trying to make sense of his own situation and understand what happens so he can find ways to make it better for himself?
(Sorry @jaybird honey, I know you hate talking about your own experiences of being mocked/excluded, and only slightly prefer me saying stuff about it, ie you are not thrilled with this particular Jaybird-splainer, but it’s *true* and I don’t like seeing you attacked because people assume it isn’t and you aren’t comfortable talking about it directly.)Report
Thank you, honeybear!Report
Sure, that makes sense. But it’s also context I didn’t have before.Report
@oscar-gordon I thought you’d been reading the site for a long time, and had the context. Which is why I thought you were being unfair.
But I can see now that you didn’t.
So I’m glad we ironed that out.Report
I have been reading a long time, but I don’t read everything. It’s easy to miss things, or forget them.Report
I think you have the microscope adjusted a bit too closely.
There’s a forest here.
Were these single exchanges in isolation, that might well be the case. In fact, it invokes terror management theory.
The fact is, human interaction is not single time-slices, but sequential. This is one of the main methodological issues with studies where photographs are used to project cognition traits; e.g., where photos of people smiling are shown to subjects, and the subject is to determine whether the smile is genuine, etc. We don’t interact with photographs. The sequence of events leading to the smile is just as relevant, if not more so, than the smile itself in external determinations of motive, etc.
Those on the Left have a tendency toward verbal aggression.
That’s why people on the Left side of the spectrum tend to “unfriend” others due to political beliefs at a rate over three times as high as those on the Right side of the spectrum.
Further, in the interaction you reference, where a libertarian identifies as “other,” it can be assumed that such identification is itself geared toward engendering greater understanding and acceptance.
That is, the lack of social skills noted is exactly reversed.Report
will,
Those on the Left do not have a tendency towards verbal aggression.
The people who grew up under GWB have a tendency towards “you’re with us or agin us” behavior.
They’re predominantly liberals, sure.Report
True enough, but I believe this is correlation without causation.
I would go further, and say that Libertarians are more inclined to align with the Right, and the Right to be accepting of them, because both ideals are principle-based; whereas Leftism is, essentially, a disparate group of policy positions void of underlying ideology.Report
“Those on the Left have a tendency toward verbal aggression.
That’s why people on the Left side of the spectrum tend to “unfriend” others due to political beliefs at a rate over three times as high as those on the Right side of the spectrum.”
Is that why? Because of leftists’ verbal aggression?
Or is it maybe because when there’s a difference of opinion between someone saying they think demographic X is horrible, filthy, diseased, criminal, belong to a religion of hatred, should be kicked out of the country or put in pray-away-the-gay camps, and someone who belongs to demographic X or has loved ones who do, and finds the hatred toward that demographic too personally hurtful to continue the friendship, it’s usually the hater who’s on the right, and the target of their hate who’s on the left?
The bigoted person in that case doesn’t have to break off the friendship, because they are not hurt by it. They might see their victim’s protests as “verbal aggression,” but strong words targeting your opinion don’t hurt the way strong words targeting your personhood do. They can continue a relationship where they say “those people are filth. I mean, not your son, he’s one of the good ones” their whole lives, and not suffer by it. It’ll go on until the other party gets fed up and walks away.
And you think the reason for this is that “those on the Left have a tendency toward verbal aggression?”Report
See, you can say “I would go further, and say that Libertarians are more inclined to align with the Right, and the Right to be accepting of them, because both ideals are principle-based; whereas Leftism is, essentially, a disparate group of policy positions void of underlying ideology.” and I can just chuckle. That’s not something I’d break off a friendship over. I might think a little less of the person’s intellectual rigor, but that’s about it.
But, to take a local example, when someone is repeatedly saying ugly things about “lazy drunk Indians” – as personally bad and contemptible people – I’m out. I’m not going to put up with it. We are not friends.
Which is me, a leftist, ending a friendship with a rightist, over politics. (Not that rightists have a monopoly on racism against native people here, but they’re sure working on cornering the market – so, call it a 95% chance they’re a rightist.)Report
Is it just me, or are racist, homophobe, and bigot now considered complimentary terms on the Left, to where the presumption of Racist Homophobe Bigot (“RHB”) is now a form of ritual welcome?
Or do my eyes detect a verbal aggression?
I could be seeing a sequence of some sort here . . .Report
@will-h That’s just you, you’re mischaracterizing what @dragonfrog said, and you need to stand down at this point, rather than indulging in what you see as the sequence.Report
Thank you for your input, but I believe you are mistaken here.
In fact, it was I who was misread, though I am unconcerned about it. Seriously. There are other things more meaningful to me, like the fact that I have a couple of TV dinners in my freezer, and will soon microwave one of them. This is a really tough decision. You just can’t be too careful about such things.
Recap:
I noted verbal aggression among a demographic, and corresponding social aggression. This is not unusual, in that verbal aggression correlates to other forms of aggression generally; e.g., domestic violence, etc.
Kimmi then noted a tendency toward binary thought, and I then noted two principle-based ideologies, contrasting them with another which is not. This is not a matter of opinion. In fact, it was from a very Leftist PoliSci prof (who describes himself as “Marxist”) that I first heard this explanation from, the today’s Left evolved from the institutionalization of the student protest groups of the 1960’s, which have very little in common ideologically, other than everyone is out for all they can get for themselves.
Here, I would like to note that I do not FB at all. Just thinking of that gives me a wonderful feeling, sort of like wiggling your toes around and thinking, “I have no dog poop between them!” Just Wonderful.
Now, I suppose the response to the above may be read to describe one specific person involved in one specific interaction at one specific point in time.
It would not be inappropriate to include indicators were that the case.
For all the world, it appears as a general characterization of “the hater who’s on the right” as a bigot (as well as mischaracterizing “verbal aggression” and “hostility”). There’s more, but it really isn’t worth going in to.
Then, in a consecutive comment, I am told I am laughable due to my perceived lack of intellectual rigor in seeking out office hour discussions with my PoliSci prof.
And this is definitely verbal aggression:
I can just chuckle. That’s not something I’d break off a friendship over. I might think a little less of the person’s intellectual rigor, but that’s about it.
That is directed toward a person rather than the acts of a person; i.e., verbal aggression.
The reason I did not respond in kind is because I see it as a tactic rather than describing something valid about me, personally.
Actually, the concept of giving someone a big hug at the doorway, saying, “Welcome, racist homophobe bigot,” strikes me as a bit humorous.
So, no, I don’t believe I was out of line.
But thank you for your valued input.
On occasion, we have differing opinions, and this happens to be one of them.Report
@will-h The problem with “oh well we have differing opinions” is that I’m the moderator and I told you to stand down on this argument. Not “let me engage with you” or “I think what you don’t realize is…” but “stand down”.
Next time you respond to “stand down” with a very long comment explaining why you think I’m wrong (which I still don’t agree with) and reiterating the thing I told you to stand down about, at greater length, I’ll end up taking action.
(Yes, I’m aware that I”m being verbally aggressive. Part of the moderator’s job, for better or worse.)Report
I see.
I was unclear on that point.
In that case, I believe the action was premature, considering the nature of the engagement.
If action need be taken, I prefer to do so of my own accord.
I wish you well.Report
You were out of line to @will-hReport
The social skills help you realize what game is being played in the first place.
If I had good social skills, I would not have read “I just do not get the haterade towards libertarians from certain corners of the left” as an opportunity to explain the haterade towards libertarians from certain corners of the left but, instead, read it as a different conversation entirely.Report
Oftentimes, social sequences will demonstrate notable overlap.
Many of the same motions made in giving a kick in the nuts may also be observed in walking across the street.
Issues of frequency here as well.
Different ways of dealing with the bait-and-switch, but, generally, calling it for what it is yields the most favorable results.
However, in your case, it is practically certain at least one response would be, “Now you’re going for the “Call it a bait-and-switch” approach,” to which you would then say, “I’m “calling it a bait-and-switch” because it’s a bait-and-switch,” and then be met with, “So, now you’re going to act like you’re calling it a bait-and-switch because it’s a bait-and switch? You always go for the low-lying fruit!” to which you then say . . .
It would be so much easier to just assign that sequential exchange a Greek letter by which it might be referred to as.
That inner-drive-toward-optimal-efficiency in me likes the idea.Report
This brings up an interesting but somewhat unrelated thought I had early today. The original and most common definition of a nerd is a very intelligent young person without social skills. I was wondering if nerdy behavior isn’t really more of a failed attempt of very intelligent people to be more sociable approachable.
We know that many very intelligent and well-read people often have a difficult time relating to the less well read. I saw this myself when a friend of mine who is really into Antiquity announced with pride that his young daughter asked to be referred to as Persephone. This lead to a bunch of joking comments about Greek mythology. A person who was less well versed in Greek mythology felt the need to make a comment about the daughter in question being beautiful so that person could contribute something to the conversation rather than be left out.
This disconnect between the well-read and educated often leads to feelings of social isolation if they can’t find other people who similarly well-read and educated to interact with. This brings me back to my thesis. Nerds and geeks stereotypically like to go off on their interests with great passion and enthusiasm even though others might not be interested. This is seen as an inability to engage in polite small talk. What I’m wondering is if this childhood enthusiasm is really a way that well educated/read people are trying to show that they are socially approachable and don’t look down upon the less well-educated. Its more like “hey, look at this cool fun thing I’m trying to share with you.”Report
There’s the whole “on the spectrum” thing that gets dismissed by the more ableist out there who scream about just not being so weird in a vaguely unhelpful way. (Seriously: “Just be less sad! Get out of the house!” is not helpful to people who suffer from depression.)
Note: this isn’t to excuse being an asshole or being a sexist jerk or being a racist or any of that crap.
But there are people who come across as “off” because they have this weird “on the spectrum” thing going on. I don’t know if this is just due to the circles that I run in or not but there seems to be a bit of a correlation between certain sub-flavors of “on the spectrum” and certain sub-categories of “intelligence”.
(Insert paragraph here about how IQ doesn’t exist)
These certain sub-flavors of “on the spectrum” have different ideas about what is protocol and what is signal and have a lot less patience/aptitude at common protocols but they seem to do really well when they bundle together. They notice “hey, these people share my protocols and we can jump immediately into *SIGNAL*!” and they’re off to the races making puns that riff on both Greek Mythology and Battlestar Gallactica in the same breath.
“My People” is one of the jokes that people make about finding a group where everyone shares similar protocol.
And it’s always a drag to have to go back out into the real world.Report
I sometimes wonder what people on the autism spectrum were treated before people were aware that the spectrum exists. It overlaps with my interest in the pre-history of nerds, whether nerdy behavior pre-dated nerd culture or was nerdy behavior more of a result of nerd culture. Old movie show that the stereotype of socially unaware/awkward eggheads and eccentric scientists existed but these were all grown men and not young people. Other old media shows that scientists weren’t necessarily seen as socially hopeless and the idea of suave scientists existed.
Nerdy behavior has to come from somewhere. Where does it come from? If it pre-exists mass education and fandom, what were nerds like in the past.Report
LeeEsq,
Borderline, ObsessiveCompulsive, Neurotic Anxiety.
This is what you get when simply saying to a person “Kirk was the best Star Trek Captain” gets you a screaming faceful of rage.
Of course, nerdy behavior is a type of classification that we have societally created. Unlike The Great Autism Epidemic, it could very well be something new, that didn’t actually have people doing it beforehand.
I mean, seriously, Luther Burbank was one of those pretty crazy people. So was Chapman (Johnny Appleseed). If you want nerdy behavior before you had nerds, well, pull your agronomists.
But, and seriously, humans are mostly software.Report
Read Mendel the Bibliophile by Stefan Zweig. The character description and traits of Mendel sure sound like somone who is “on the spectrum.”Report
One of the actors on the American version of the Office comes from a rural background in Washington State. In a documentary on nerds or something he remarked that when he looks back on photos of his pioneer farmer ancestors they look more like weird nerds than salt of the earth, common sense farmers. This suggests that nerdy behavior can exist without a lot of formal education.Report
I’m well aware of what coming off is like. I know that I come across as slightly off to many people in real life, behavior very close to normal but not quite normal. The slightly off are disconcerting to people than they very off at times because they can’t quite place what is causing the off feeling. A lot of fights tend to be on who has the right to be off and not suffer social consequences and who should get subjected to the full force of social pressure to conform. I think a lot of young men got drawn to the Alt-Right because it seemed that they were being told that as cis-gendered heterosexual men, society had a right to enforce conformity on them.Report
Honestly, this site was the first place on the Internet where there have been libertartians that didn’t fall into the stereotype of “right winger who doesn’t mind gay people and wants to smoke pot, but cares about low taxes above all else” and I did plenty of arguing with libertarians on other places on the Internet.Report
I”ve said this before but i originally hooked onto this place many years ago because there were libertarians here. At least they, at the time, knew what socialism was as opposed to just about every conservative. So even if there were disagreements there was at least some understanding of the basic concepts and the political spectrum.Report
… or enduring arguments about the gold standard, or the only valid reason for taxation is to sustain a military, ad nauseum.Report
Couple aspects Oscar.
First off, most people and certainly lots of leftists don’t know real libertarians; they know glibertarians or republitarians. If 2016 showed anything beyond that people really don’t like HRC it’s that there’re way more glibertarians and republitarians out there than true libertarians but they’re calling themselves libertarian.
Second off, the GOP has been using libertarianism as a “hat” for most of the new millennium and almost exclusively since the rise of the Tea Party when Bush W’s Compassionate Conservatism imploded in a geyser of deficit spending and war. They’re not libertarians (see point 1) but they use the name. So libertarian makes people think about Paul Ryan more than any genuine libertarian figure you can name. Libertarian=GOP to a lot of people and they don’t like the GOP.
Third off, what genuine libertarians there are remain allied to the right and the GOP. Yeah they’ll write arguments against war and drug prohibition but if you want to see them get really excited talk about tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks. The major libertarian organs also march along with the rest of the right more often than not.
Finally, because of all the above, the vitriol naturally flows from libertarians to lefties and vice versa. Just like environmentalists or commies tend to castigate conservatives or socialcons even though conservatives/socialcons and environmentalists or commies share some policy interests and ideals. You dance with the group that brang you.Report
It isn’t criticism I object to. FSM knows there are plenty of libertarian ideas/ideals that deserve to be criticized. It’s the degree of vitriol that certain parts of the left* seems to reserve for libertarians that they don’t have for straight up conservatives.
*I really want to stress that it’s not the left in general. Most of the liberals I know hereabouts and IRL are perfectly respectful toward me and my politics, and we have lovely conversations. But some of them just have a real nasty streak that they can’t let go of. The kind of bitterness people reserve for someone who has done them a great wrong.Report
As a former single dude, you find that bitterness in a LOT of women. Add that to the bitterness of being divorced, or being 40 and not having a family, whooo boy!
Probably with the dudes too you’d find it, but I don’t date dudes.Report
I’ve seen this pattern too. My offhand theory is that it’s because social conservatives present themselves as being more holy than liberals, but (certain) libertarians present themselves as being smarter/more perceptive than liberals, and the latter is much more likely to be personally aggravating to the average liberal than the former.Report
I think this is correct. Most liberals really don’t care about being holy but many of us do see ourselves as smart and perceptive and don’t like being characterized as dumb. Many libertarians do portray liberals as dumb for not totally getting free market economics and why government is always a problem and never a solution. Libertarians can come across as arrogant to many liberals and they respond accordingly.Report
@leeesq @kenb I’ve had a similar theory at times about the other direction – that libertarians actually resent liberals more because of being condescended to and/or intellectual arrogance (on the part of certain liberals, obviously, not all of them) than because of policy disagreements. It makes sense, I suppose, that it would go both ways. And it going both ways leads to a positive feedback loop of … uh… haterade.
Not sure I’m on board with the theory at the moment but it does feel plausible.Report
It is as if libertarians and liberals tend to be fighting for the same brass ring — that of the most intellectual approach — and therefore they come into more direct conflict.
Conservative: “It’s the moral thing to do!”
Liberal: “Yea, you do that.”
Libertarian: “Yea, good luck with that.”
Liberal: “Maybe we should try logic.”
Libertarian: “Yea, logic is the way to go.”
Liberal: “OUR logic, of course.”
Libertarian: “Um… what?”Report
There is liberal condescension towards libertarians. It usually takes the form of what well people did above or treats them as fedora-wearing neckbeards who live in their parent’s basements and are Nice Guys.Report
Generally, yes, Liberals are more condescending. The whole nudge thing and that passive aggressive paternalism that makes me retch. But that aside, both the left and right engage similarly. They both glory in the use of gov’t to achieve their ends, those ends only differ. The Dems claim to be more moderate to blunt their far left supports and the Repubs claim to be the party of “freedom, fiscal sanity, etc.” but in reality neither party gives a damn about what they purport to support, unless it gets them power and re-election.
I can grudgingly have a modicum of respect someone who lies to me stabs me in the back but I’ll be damned if I’ll respect someone who does the same to me while claiming that it was done “for your own good”.Report
Me1- Doesn’t seem that Infowars doesn’t respect anyone’s online publishing copyright. But RT should appreciate ‘the exposure’.
Me4 – And I’m not going to take anything RT publishes at face value. Even more so when its self-serving.
I get where reason is coming from (of course) and agree with most of that piece, but I don’t think it’s necesary to point out the specific hypocricy of the US govt vis a vis other nations’ elections.
Rather, it’s suffient to note that if US government forces Twitter, Facebook et al to start policing content agressively, it will provide both the precedent and technical means for every authoritarian regime to do the same with much more swiftness and surety. Remember how the Tahrir Square uprising against Mubarak was mostly organized on social media? (and I think Twitter specifically?). That Egyptian government may have been able to survive if they were able to shut down Twitter (or even, or maybe especially, certain key accounts)
Me5 – the rise of Sinclair broadcasting has been a bugbear among the ‘media watchdogs’ (of the left) for a couple of years now. I’m not that concerned with their rise
The market for *profit making* propoganda is already saturated. Outfits like Bannon’s require a sugar daddy (or now, mamma) willing to spend money on a hobby to keep them financially afloat. I’m pretty sure the Sinclair guys still want to make money, and they need to do it in a medium where entertainment is king, local news content is the crown prince, and talent to give a sellable right wing spin on things has been heavily dilluted.
Me8 – I always though the branding of Teen Vogue as the Voice of the #Resistance was way overblown at the begining of this year. The articles they published were almost entirely just rewritten (but also linked to) Huffington Post pieces which it turn were summaries of (but also linked to) New York Times and Washington Post articles.
I’m sort of surprised that alt-weeklies aren’t able to maintain a physical paper presence. One curious thing the Washington Post started a few years ago was a print “Washington Post Express” given out for free (by human workers) at many Metrorail stops, plus some newspaper boxes here an there. I don’t know how much money it makes for them, but they’re still doing it. (the conservative Washington Examiner did the same thing simulatenously for a few years, but ceased probably around 2 years ago now)Report
Me9- The wife and I were talking about Union Certification just the other night, albeit academia, not media.
There are some very interesting rules governing who can say what at what time that isn’t well known outside of anyone going through the process. Once an official, legal declaration of intent to form a union has been made, the company (or uni) can’t say anything about consequences of the action. In other words, they can’t say that there will be no raises, the job site will close, the employees will be managed to the letter of the contract, etc. They have to shut there mouths until the vote happens, which is when the company can say “this is what you had someone negotiate for you, so we are going to follow it, To The Letter Of The Law.”
In other words, the company can then just close up shop if they want to. Or, as when I was point man with a company going through this, I was told to hold the employees to the letter of the contract, meaning I couldn’t give someone extra work one day to let him leave early the next (he was a musician.)
Bigger thing though, they all thought they were getting a raise, as that is what the Teamster organizing the change told them. In the end, they lost money due to union dues. They decertified a year later.Report
[Me3]
“We don’t know what happened to Rand Paul, he started open carrying a rifle with a loaded magazine and built a wall around his property, how illiberal of him.”Report
Me4:
We’ve been in a similar place, back in the era of yellow journalism.
Of course no one alive can remember, but there was a time when there really wasn’t any such thing as “objective” journalism. Most newspapers were openly and proudly biased and partisan.
Modern norms about what constitutes respectable and trustworthy journalism had to be developed and nurtured. I’m not sure how we could go about reconstituting new norms.
I suspect it has to do with cultural stability and trust where everyone cna look at a NY Times headline and say, “yeah, that is true, even if i hate it.”Report
Yeah I really do suspect we’re returning to the yellow journalism model. I don’t know what it’s going to look like but it’s the ur-state of opinion broadcasting from which the old model arose and it makes intuitive sense that with the new medium dissolving the old models that we’d regress to that mean.Report
[M5] It’s embedded in the culture. Left-wing sources are surprisingly Right-wing as well.
“Tough on crime” comes to mind. The concept that police officers are inherently decent and valuable members of society, when manipulation of asymmetry of information is the primary “crime-fighting” tool in contemporary usage (aka trickery, deception, deceit, “pulling a fast one,” “playing one for a sucker,” etc.). “Victims’ groups” organized as front organizations to perform political activities for police unions are a good example. Thanks, ABC, CBS, NBC, for contributing to the greatest humanitarian crisis of our generation, the mass incarceration* of such a broad swath of people across the American public.
The real news here is how this has not been news for so long, even though it has been steadily going on right under our noses.**
________________
* When a place like Columbia Law School starts running clinics to address “mass incarceration,” it’s pretty much a thing.
** Gen X’er here. Go figure.Report