The difference, to me, seems to be more that when each looks at an unhappy person, the liberal's first thought is "who did this to you?" while the libertarian's first thought is "what did you do that got you here?"
"Will someone please expand on how Libertarians might address the problem of poverty?"
Get a job. And if there isn't one, then make one. And if you can't make one, then we don't need you around, because when someone loses weight we don't cry for all the lipids.
"Educational and economic opportunities denied them, the poor will resort to crime. Not Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread, but a hardened gang banger: the abused become the abuser."
So you're saying that helping poverty is neither empathy nor charity, but more like the deal that Aethelred made with Tryggvason? Interesting. And if that's your attitude then you're not thinking economically; a .44 Magnum round costs less than a cheeseburger and you only need one.
I'd rather have no regulations at all than regulations that only some people followed.
If there are no rules, then there are no rules. But if there's rules that you can get an advantage by breaking, then you're encouraging people to break the rules. And that's not going to stop with the piddly silly useless rules that nobody would ever enforce.
"Is the “regulatory structure” really to be so radically different under a President Romney than a President Obama? Sure, the zeal with which it’s enforced may be noticeably different — but the structure itself?"
Why does the "chilling effect" only apply to speech? Why should I hire an employee when I might--or might not--be suddenly required to pay three times as much for the cost of their health insurance? Why should I do the research to develop a new product when the government might, despite my protests to the contrary, decide that it's a children's product and subject to lead-content restrictions? Why should I spend fifty million dollars building a new airplane factory?
Even negative, punitive acts are better than uncertainty. If I know that I'm always going to have to add a 100% premium on my development costs to perform enough testing that the CPSC feels happy, then I can budget for that. How am I supposed to budget for a regulatory burden that might exist, particularly when I don't know the size until it's dropped on me?
"Oh, just budget for the worst case!" Um...this is why children don't walk to school, and students get expelled for having pocketknives in their car, and that sort of thing. "budget for the worst case" generally results in "don't do it at all".
To some extent the guy sounds like Reagan. We're in the last battles of the last war of humanity, and it's important to keep our faith strong because a literal deus ex machina is going to save us all.
There's also the old joke about how economists don't hunt elephants because they believe that if you just paid the elephants enough they'd hunt themselves.
Argh. I'd swear that this quote was from "The X-Files", but the only place I can find it on the Internet is somewhere else that I posted it and said that I thought it was from "The X-Files".
Anyway. Discussing Fox Mulder: "He's one of the most dangerous men in the world. Not because he's doing what he thinks is right, but because he's doing what he thinks is the only thing fate has left for him to do."
I know that I'm poking a can of worms with a stick, here, but I think it's worth pointing out that the definition of "child" in the study is "as young as twelve". Which is, in general, the onset of sexual maturity.
And yes, I know that physical maturity generally predates mental maturity, but I think that "child" in most people's minds implies "presexual human". If the term were "teenage prostitutes" it would be more accurate, but it's easier to convince people to give you money if you've got pathos on your side.
This whole line of thought is very much at odds with your later comment about the tautological reasoning behind "the law is the law because it's the law".
"It fixed racial segregation in schools. It fixed them imperfectly and impermanently and it fixed them in a non-immediate fashion."
...so it didn't actually fix the problems at all. It was associated with the fix, in the temporal sense of "Brown v. BoE happened before these things did".
"You would deny objectively better conditions, and significantly better at that, to black people if white people aren’t ready for it."
My assertion is that made by Andrew Jackson, that it's one thing for a judge to make a decision but another thing entirely for them to enforce it. It doesn't matter how eloquently the opinions were written in Brown vs. Board of Education if it still took armed guards to let a black girl walk into a school.
So, yes, you've mischaracterized my position. You're assuming that a realistic take on societal attitudes vs. judicial decisions is evidence of racism.
"I’m pretty sure it’s a better world that black students didn’t have to wait until the mid-80?s to have access to equitable access to public institutions in much of the South."
But--I keep coming back to this--according to a great many people THEY DON'T HAVE EQUITABLE ACCESS TO THOSE INSTITUTIONS EVEN NOW.
Do you have anything to say other than snarking about the Civil War? Any response to the idea that maybe, just maybe, unilaterial authoritarian decisions don't do much to change social attitudes, and that when it comes to society the ends are seldom what was expected from the means?
And for fuck's sake, HTML isn't that hard, and neither is "it's/its".
oog. "respect rules whatever they may be"? Like the rules about how black people have to sit in the back of the bus. Or the rule that the telephone company has total control over what you send through its wires. Or the rule that you aren't allowed to take pictures of police officers. Yeah, those are some great rules that we should totally respect!
"Are you saying that blacks would have been better off if the courts would have let segregation continue? "
If you insist on putting it in that language, then yes. I think that it would have been better for the elected legislators (and society in general) to have dealt with racism in their own time, rather than having it rammed down their throats. The fact that babies must be born to grow into adults doesn't mean that we should induce labor at 72 weeks, even if the mother is fed up with being pregnant.
Do you think that we'd see such widespread social acceptance of homosexuality if a judge back in 1968 had said "homosexual marriage is legal everywhere because fuck you bigots"?
On “Libertarianism & Power”
The difference, to me, seems to be more that when each looks at an unhappy person, the liberal's first thought is "who did this to you?" while the libertarian's first thought is "what did you do that got you here?"
"
"Will someone please expand on how Libertarians might address the problem of poverty?"
Get a job. And if there isn't one, then make one. And if you can't make one, then we don't need you around, because when someone loses weight we don't cry for all the lipids.
"Educational and economic opportunities denied them, the poor will resort to crime. Not Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread, but a hardened gang banger: the abused become the abuser."
So you're saying that helping poverty is neither empathy nor charity, but more like the deal that Aethelred made with Tryggvason? Interesting. And if that's your attitude then you're not thinking economically; a .44 Magnum round costs less than a cheeseburger and you only need one.
"
I'd rather have no regulations at all than regulations that only some people followed.
If there are no rules, then there are no rules. But if there's rules that you can get an advantage by breaking, then you're encouraging people to break the rules. And that's not going to stop with the piddly silly useless rules that nobody would ever enforce.
On “Homer without the Gods (or, the Nihilism of Cormac McCarthy)”
Cool, thanks! It's a good quote and I'm glad to have a source for it.
It's also interesting to learn that it's got some precedent in classical Greek fiction.
On “Quick question…”
Congratulations, you've invented the stock market.
"
"Is the “regulatory structure” really to be so radically different under a President Romney than a President Obama? Sure, the zeal with which it’s enforced may be noticeably different — but the structure itself?"
Why does the "chilling effect" only apply to speech? Why should I hire an employee when I might--or might not--be suddenly required to pay three times as much for the cost of their health insurance? Why should I do the research to develop a new product when the government might, despite my protests to the contrary, decide that it's a children's product and subject to lead-content restrictions? Why should I spend fifty million dollars building a new airplane factory?
Even negative, punitive acts are better than uncertainty. If I know that I'm always going to have to add a 100% premium on my development costs to perform enough testing that the CPSC feels happy, then I can budget for that. How am I supposed to budget for a regulatory burden that might exist, particularly when I don't know the size until it's dropped on me?
"Oh, just budget for the worst case!" Um...this is why children don't walk to school, and students get expelled for having pocketknives in their car, and that sort of thing. "budget for the worst case" generally results in "don't do it at all".
On “Reading Gingrich in D.C.”
To some extent the guy sounds like Reagan. We're in the last battles of the last war of humanity, and it's important to keep our faith strong because a literal deus ex machina is going to save us all.
On “Why I Hunt”
There's also the old joke about how economists don't hunt elephants because they believe that if you just paid the elephants enough they'd hunt themselves.
On “Homer without the Gods (or, the Nihilism of Cormac McCarthy)”
Argh. I'd swear that this quote was from "The X-Files", but the only place I can find it on the Internet is somewhere else that I posted it and said that I thought it was from "The X-Files".
Anyway. Discussing Fox Mulder: "He's one of the most dangerous men in the world. Not because he's doing what he thinks is right, but because he's doing what he thinks is the only thing fate has left for him to do."
On “Gold and Bacon and Libertarians Oh My!”
This article reminds me of the posts about "Texas Is A Welfare State" that showed up here a while back.
On “Same-Sex Marriage in New York”
"Jesse, you don’t think that there might be a difference in climate if such a ruling were reached with popular support than without it?"
And here we return to my argument regarding Brown vs. BoE.
On “Well Intentioned Hysteria”
I know that I'm poking a can of worms with a stick, here, but I think it's worth pointing out that the definition of "child" in the study is "as young as twelve". Which is, in general, the onset of sexual maturity.
And yes, I know that physical maturity generally predates mental maturity, but I think that "child" in most people's minds implies "presexual human". If the term were "teenage prostitutes" it would be more accurate, but it's easier to convince people to give you money if you've got pathos on your side.
On “Same-Sex Marriage in New York”
You're right, if black people didn't like the laws of the society they lived in then they should have moved elsewhere and formed their own community.
"
This whole line of thought is very much at odds with your later comment about the tautological reasoning behind "the law is the law because it's the law".
"It fixed racial segregation in schools. It fixed them imperfectly and impermanently and it fixed them in a non-immediate fashion."
...so it didn't actually fix the problems at all. It was associated with the fix, in the temporal sense of "Brown v. BoE happened before these things did".
"
"You would deny objectively better conditions, and significantly better at that, to black people if white people aren’t ready for it."
My assertion is that made by Andrew Jackson, that it's one thing for a judge to make a decision but another thing entirely for them to enforce it. It doesn't matter how eloquently the opinions were written in Brown vs. Board of Education if it still took armed guards to let a black girl walk into a school.
So, yes, you've mischaracterized my position. You're assuming that a realistic take on societal attitudes vs. judicial decisions is evidence of racism.
"
What, the ad hom? I gave it exactly as much response as it was worth.
"
"I love grammar nazi fails."
What fail? Read the comment I'm replying to.
"
"I’m pretty sure it’s a better world that black students didn’t have to wait until the mid-80?s to have access to equitable access to public institutions in much of the South."
But--I keep coming back to this--according to a great many people THEY DON'T HAVE EQUITABLE ACCESS TO THOSE INSTITUTIONS EVEN NOW.
Do you have anything to say other than snarking about the Civil War? Any response to the idea that maybe, just maybe, unilaterial authoritarian decisions don't do much to change social attitudes, and that when it comes to society the ends are seldom what was expected from the means?
And for fuck's sake, HTML isn't that hard, and neither is "it's/its".
"
Ah-heh. Because, as we all know, politics is all about Teams, and if you aren't all-the-way on one team then you're all-the-way on the other.
On “Because you said so”
I think my comment is lost in mod-land because of a link, but The Last Psychiatrist has a post on this article at his site.
"
oog. "respect rules whatever they may be"? Like the rules about how black people have to sit in the back of the bus. Or the rule that the telephone company has total control over what you send through its wires. Or the rule that you aren't allowed to take pictures of police officers. Yeah, those are some great rules that we should totally respect!
On “Same-Sex Marriage in New York”
"It’s a tired and evil claim, that Doing Nothing would somehow have led to better results, with no loss of speed."
So a shitty half-assed solution right now is better than a good solution that takes longer?
Patience is a virtue. An adult virtue.
"
"Are you saying that blacks would have been better off if the courts would have let segregation continue? "
If you insist on putting it in that language, then yes. I think that it would have been better for the elected legislators (and society in general) to have dealt with racism in their own time, rather than having it rammed down their throats. The fact that babies must be born to grow into adults doesn't mean that we should induce labor at 72 weeks, even if the mother is fed up with being pregnant.
Do you think that we'd see such widespread social acceptance of homosexuality if a judge back in 1968 had said "homosexual marriage is legal everywhere because fuck you bigots"?
"
"If Brown v. Board had never happened, what would those states be like today?"
Who knows?
But apparently Brown v. Board didn't actually fix anything.
Unless you're claiming that the South isn't a festering pool of bigotry.
(And note that I'm not advancing an opinion on that question; I'm asking what yours is.)
On “Immigration, Inequality and Pie”
There is, of course, the old joke about the doc who didn't speak Spanish and guessed that the word for "push" was "puta"...
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.