I always regretted not commenting on that article. I wasn't sure what to say but I really felt I should have commented. I still don't know what to say.
That’s all I could feel in response to this article. It was a weird feeling, as I’m sure it is for much of the overwhelming 99% of the left, watching all these verbal and rhetorical missiles and shells flying clear over us to hammer down, endlessly, over and over, on the tiny leftward fringe of the left (and, horseshoe theory being what it is, also a distant fringe of the right) to make the rubble bounce up and down, up and down.
Even the attempts to lump in the broader capitalist critical left in was pathetically feeble. Fran Drescher? Really? Because she is pro union? Please. This is sad even for rightist writing.
There’s an extremist fringe that has shown their posterior on the subject of Hamas. Absolutely. Critique against them is justified and merited but also overwrought. Their influence on culture, on politics on the broader society remains so small it effortlessly rounds to zero. Attempts to lump them in with the broader left, however, is both destructive (it inflates and strengthens the very radicals you critique) and toweringly hypocritical. It is not on the left that the radical inmates are running the asylum. I believe a revered figure to the right said something once about splinters and wooden beams. I refer you back to it.
Well done Brent, this is exactly right. In the wake of 9/11 and the US's response in Afghanistan the Iranians reached out and were very much willing to make a deal and reach an understanding with the United States. Bush the lessers idiotic Axis of Evil decision, followed by his even more colossally idiotic invasion of Iraq and his historically idiotic bungling of the aftermath of said invasion lost that historic opportunity for generations. Quite frankly I struggle to think of any modern President whos administration was more wasteful and ruinous to the United States' interest than that of George W. Bush and I firmly count Trump in that calculation.
It's a weird relief, really, to know that the kooks can't elect a speaker either. But we'll see if it holds- republican "moderates" are a lot more squishy than their rightier brethren.
It looks like Polands Law and Justice party just lost an election and won't form a majority government. This strikes me as both very big and very good news for liberals across the EU. You can bet that Orban is sweating up a storm right now.
The big test, of course, will be to see if the new Polish administration can perform to the Poles satisfaction.
This article made me ponder for a good little bit. Not because I was particularly conflicted- I’m not, I think you’re at least partially wrong, but I had to mull over how/where I think you’re wrong.
What I settled on, finally, was that I think we need to separate the blanket term into two pieces. Libertarian thinkers/elite and the libertarian entertainers, rank and file so to speak. This is necessary because I think your analysis is applicable to one group of libertarians but not the overall movement.
I am not a libertarian myself but I consider my self passingly familiar with libertarian thought. Anyone who argues on behalf on liberals on the internet pretty much needs to be because in our modern history pretty much every non-libertarian right wing though process has atrophied into feeble incoherent glop and it has had to be left to libertarians to hold the line. So most internet liberals and our lefty brethren have often found ourselves tangling with libertarians online because, frankly, everyone else is either easily routed or trolls themselves out of the conversation.
Libertarian thinkers who subscribe to and, to a degree, shape the ideological tenants of libertarianism are, in my opinion, mostly resistant to the phenomena you’re describing. Ideologically absolutely nothing in libertarianism is congenial to the fostering of antisemitism. Ideological libertarians think government is inept and inefficient- not necessarily malevolent except incidentally in its ineptitude and inefficiency. That’s not a mindset that is geared to conspiracy thinking. The idea that government is running a profound and wide spanning conspiracy against the masses is ludicrous to pure libertarian ideologues; the government can’t even efficiently operate the most rudimentary functions in their view. The idea that the state could run, and keep secret, a vast conspiracy is laughable. To think the state is capable of such a thing would, almost necessarily, disqualify one as a libertarian thinker. I would bet good money that any antisemite libertarian would be utterly dismantled in a debate by an actual, serious ideological libertarian.
Libertarian rank and file, and especially libertarians who’re not so much thinkers as, well, entertainers who’re in it for the money. Now this bunch is the kind of libertarians who’d be entirely susceptible to what you’re talking about in this article. Some are in it to trigger the leftists, some to have fun, some because they vaguely approve of libertarian nostrums, etc… and the libertarian entertainers who’re looking for money over all (a laudable goal from a libertarian point of view) likely find it lamentably easy to make some ducats from the passionate and highly engaged ranks of antisemites.
Now this may come as me giving libertarians an easy out but I don’t think I am. Libertarianism is constitutionally uneasy about policing discourse and regulating, well, anything. When you combine this dislike of regulation with several other truisms about modern organizing what it amounts to is that the prospects of libertarianism ever becoming a mass movement strikes me as vanishingly remote. Someone, somewhere, once wittily stated that if your forum moderators have excessive tolerance for nazi’s in a forum then you will shortly find themselves with a forum full of nazi’s and no one else. I’ve been unable to find the original author- just know it’s not my idea. It’s highly applicable to Libertarians as a political movement. First because it’s a very small movement in terms of actual voter support (miniscule in fact) so it’s incredibly easy to hijack. You just need to have a charismatic voice and some deep pocketed supporters and you’re off to the races. We’ve seen this repeatedly over my own adult lifetime as libertarians ended up hijacked over and over. In the early aughts they got hijacked by social cons and neocons after 9/11. For my entire adult life it’s been unambiguous that the wealthy “cut taxes, nothing else matters” crowd has had a strong hand on the libertarian tiller and now, in these weary modern days, it seems the anti-feminists, anti-liberals and antisemites are having a turn at the wheel. I am dubious that this is a curable defect in libertarianism and it’s why I do not think libertarianism will ever graduate from much more than they are now.
For me libertarianism will always be a useful mental razor or null hypothesis to measure my own liberalism against and I’ve known and profoundly respected many libertarians and libertarian thinkers but I honestly don’t believe there’s much “more” for libertarianism in the future and that’s a little sad really.
The various powers that students actually, truly, give a fish about- employers and peers, are making it clear that being unabashedly and publicly pro-Hamas is not the hallmarks of an employable or popular future employee. I suspect you're going to see campus' get a lot more sedate on the subject. I also suspect that university admins are going to suddenly "remember" that they can manage this kind of behavior when it suddenly becomes fiscally and reputationally negative to not do so.
As for the Israelis and Hamas, I think your think your summation is probably more correct than not. Lord(Lady?) knows the Israelis have a suboptimal administration in place to manage the situation. But perhaps Bibi will agree to a unity government. They'd have to go pretty far for it to be too far, but they certainly could do it.
I agree that it isn't fixable but is arguably manageable. I suspect, though, that if the GOP goes through with nominating Trump that age may not be a serious factor. Trump is three years younger than Biden but he raves like a man a decade his senior. His devotees may love it but I don't think the undecided voters will be enamored with that verbal manner from Trump.
Approval ratings this far out basically compare an actual incumbent with an imaginary ideal in voters heads and the real incumbent always suffers from this comparison. Once the election draws near imaginary Jonny Unbeatable is replaced with a real live challenger and the entire dynamic changes.
Even in your, lamentably plausible, scenario it isn't the Gazans actions that threaten the actual survival of Israel, it's the Israeli's actions (having a lil nip of that genocide coffee). And the Gazans are succeeding in provoking this much only because of a preceding Israeli action (pulling security off the border of Gaza so they can try and land grab in the West Bank) so, again, it's the Israeli's actions that are threatening their survival. Gaza- disengaged from and distinct, isn't capable of presenting a mortal threat to the state by itself. The West Bank, intertangled with increasing numbers of Israeli settlers and deeply entrenched Israeli occupation, is quite the opposite.
If Israel dragged their settlers out and withdrew from the West Bank maybe we'd see the blooming of a flourishing civilized state, maybe we'd see a repeat of what happened in Gaza, maybe they'd start eating the pavement and shooting babies from catapults at the Israeli border. From the standpoint of the Israeli's survival It. Wouldn't. Matter.
A positive outcome would be nice. But even if the Palestinians attacked or shot missiles the Israelis could do just about anything short of re-occupying the West Bank to respond and the world would be fine with whatever it was. The Israeli state would be secured in both the short and long term. Eventually the Palestinians would either come to terms with that or not but the Jewish state would survive (and likely thrive) regardless of whether the Palestinians did or not.
Yup, I agree. Looking back in time from the present my mind reels at how shocked my younger self was at Sharon's actions. His unilateral withdrawal without negotiation or agreement to impose final boundaries on the Gazans seemed astonishingly right wing at the time. Now? My goodness how the changing of times changes perspectives!
Fatah and Hamas are very different birds. But the West Bank is the only region that presents an actual mortal threat to the Israeli state. What we saw come out of Gaza was abhorrent, granted, but was it an actual threat to the survival of Israel? No. Heck, it was only even as terrible as it managed to be because Bibi basically left the Israelis pants down due to internal politics.
On “Understanding Libertarianism in the Current Moment”
It's weird, I feel like Hamas leadership hiding in luxury in Qatar was always well known. *shrugs*
"
I always regretted not commenting on that article. I wasn't sure what to say but I really felt I should have commented. I still don't know what to say.
On “Crossing the Jordan”
I mean the situation begs for it.
On “Of Course They Cheered The Murders”
Yes, and?
That’s all I could feel in response to this article. It was a weird feeling, as I’m sure it is for much of the overwhelming 99% of the left, watching all these verbal and rhetorical missiles and shells flying clear over us to hammer down, endlessly, over and over, on the tiny leftward fringe of the left (and, horseshoe theory being what it is, also a distant fringe of the right) to make the rubble bounce up and down, up and down.
Even the attempts to lump in the broader capitalist critical left in was pathetically feeble. Fran Drescher? Really? Because she is pro union? Please. This is sad even for rightist writing.
There’s an extremist fringe that has shown their posterior on the subject of Hamas. Absolutely. Critique against them is justified and merited but also overwrought. Their influence on culture, on politics on the broader society remains so small it effortlessly rounds to zero. Attempts to lump them in with the broader left, however, is both destructive (it inflates and strengthens the very radicals you critique) and toweringly hypocritical. It is not on the left that the radical inmates are running the asylum. I believe a revered figure to the right said something once about splinters and wooden beams. I refer you back to it.
On “The Axis of Evil Redux”
Well done Brent, this is exactly right. In the wake of 9/11 and the US's response in Afghanistan the Iranians reached out and were very much willing to make a deal and reach an understanding with the United States. Bush the lessers idiotic Axis of Evil decision, followed by his even more colossally idiotic invasion of Iraq and his historically idiotic bungling of the aftermath of said invasion lost that historic opportunity for generations. Quite frankly I struggle to think of any modern President whos administration was more wasteful and ruinous to the United States' interest than that of George W. Bush and I firmly count Trump in that calculation.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/16/2023”
Well his MO has been to put each one up on right wing media for ten minute hates until they fold. We'll see if he can do this for the holdouts.
"
It's a weird relief, really, to know that the kooks can't elect a speaker either. But we'll see if it holds- republican "moderates" are a lot more squishy than their rightier brethren.
On “Auribus Teneo Lupum: Holding a Wolf by its Ears”
It does exist just like the Green New Deal exists. Probably has as much odds of passing too- well, once the House picks a Speaker that is.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/16/2023”
It looks like Polands Law and Justice party just lost an election and won't form a majority government. This strikes me as both very big and very good news for liberals across the EU. You can bet that Orban is sweating up a storm right now.
The big test, of course, will be to see if the new Polish administration can perform to the Poles satisfaction.
On “Understanding Libertarianism in the Current Moment”
This article made me ponder for a good little bit. Not because I was particularly conflicted- I’m not, I think you’re at least partially wrong, but I had to mull over how/where I think you’re wrong.
What I settled on, finally, was that I think we need to separate the blanket term into two pieces. Libertarian thinkers/elite and the libertarian entertainers, rank and file so to speak. This is necessary because I think your analysis is applicable to one group of libertarians but not the overall movement.
I am not a libertarian myself but I consider my self passingly familiar with libertarian thought. Anyone who argues on behalf on liberals on the internet pretty much needs to be because in our modern history pretty much every non-libertarian right wing though process has atrophied into feeble incoherent glop and it has had to be left to libertarians to hold the line. So most internet liberals and our lefty brethren have often found ourselves tangling with libertarians online because, frankly, everyone else is either easily routed or trolls themselves out of the conversation.
Libertarian thinkers who subscribe to and, to a degree, shape the ideological tenants of libertarianism are, in my opinion, mostly resistant to the phenomena you’re describing. Ideologically absolutely nothing in libertarianism is congenial to the fostering of antisemitism. Ideological libertarians think government is inept and inefficient- not necessarily malevolent except incidentally in its ineptitude and inefficiency. That’s not a mindset that is geared to conspiracy thinking. The idea that government is running a profound and wide spanning conspiracy against the masses is ludicrous to pure libertarian ideologues; the government can’t even efficiently operate the most rudimentary functions in their view. The idea that the state could run, and keep secret, a vast conspiracy is laughable. To think the state is capable of such a thing would, almost necessarily, disqualify one as a libertarian thinker. I would bet good money that any antisemite libertarian would be utterly dismantled in a debate by an actual, serious ideological libertarian.
Libertarian rank and file, and especially libertarians who’re not so much thinkers as, well, entertainers who’re in it for the money. Now this bunch is the kind of libertarians who’d be entirely susceptible to what you’re talking about in this article. Some are in it to trigger the leftists, some to have fun, some because they vaguely approve of libertarian nostrums, etc… and the libertarian entertainers who’re looking for money over all (a laudable goal from a libertarian point of view) likely find it lamentably easy to make some ducats from the passionate and highly engaged ranks of antisemites.
Now this may come as me giving libertarians an easy out but I don’t think I am. Libertarianism is constitutionally uneasy about policing discourse and regulating, well, anything. When you combine this dislike of regulation with several other truisms about modern organizing what it amounts to is that the prospects of libertarianism ever becoming a mass movement strikes me as vanishingly remote. Someone, somewhere, once wittily stated that if your forum moderators have excessive tolerance for nazi’s in a forum then you will shortly find themselves with a forum full of nazi’s and no one else. I’ve been unable to find the original author- just know it’s not my idea. It’s highly applicable to Libertarians as a political movement. First because it’s a very small movement in terms of actual voter support (miniscule in fact) so it’s incredibly easy to hijack. You just need to have a charismatic voice and some deep pocketed supporters and you’re off to the races. We’ve seen this repeatedly over my own adult lifetime as libertarians ended up hijacked over and over. In the early aughts they got hijacked by social cons and neocons after 9/11. For my entire adult life it’s been unambiguous that the wealthy “cut taxes, nothing else matters” crowd has had a strong hand on the libertarian tiller and now, in these weary modern days, it seems the anti-feminists, anti-liberals and antisemites are having a turn at the wheel. I am dubious that this is a curable defect in libertarianism and it’s why I do not think libertarianism will ever graduate from much more than they are now.
For me libertarianism will always be a useful mental razor or null hypothesis to measure my own liberalism against and I’ve known and profoundly respected many libertarians and libertarian thinkers but I honestly don’t believe there’s much “more” for libertarianism in the future and that’s a little sad really.
On “Auribus Teneo Lupum: Holding a Wolf by its Ears”
Heh, I disagree somewhat.
The various powers that students actually, truly, give a fish about- employers and peers, are making it clear that being unabashedly and publicly pro-Hamas is not the hallmarks of an employable or popular future employee. I suspect you're going to see campus' get a lot more sedate on the subject. I also suspect that university admins are going to suddenly "remember" that they can manage this kind of behavior when it suddenly becomes fiscally and reputationally negative to not do so.
As for the Israelis and Hamas, I think your think your summation is probably more correct than not. Lord(Lady?) knows the Israelis have a suboptimal administration in place to manage the situation. But perhaps Bibi will agree to a unity government. They'd have to go pretty far for it to be too far, but they certainly could do it.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/16/2023”
This is a perfect encapsulation, well done.
On “An Anxious Man’s Advice to Dems: Don’t Psych Yourself Out”
There is a cure for old age. It's called death. Not much help here though.
"
You and I both.
"
I agree that it isn't fixable but is arguably manageable. I suspect, though, that if the GOP goes through with nominating Trump that age may not be a serious factor. Trump is three years younger than Biden but he raves like a man a decade his senior. His devotees may love it but I don't think the undecided voters will be enamored with that verbal manner from Trump.
Approval ratings this far out basically compare an actual incumbent with an imaginary ideal in voters heads and the real incumbent always suffers from this comparison. Once the election draws near imaginary Jonny Unbeatable is replaced with a real live challenger and the entire dynamic changes.
On “Auribus Teneo Lupum: Holding a Wolf by its Ears”
Very kind of you.
"
The underpants gnome strategy of Palestinian liberation.
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Yes! Maybe a near perfect contrasting example.
"
Even in your, lamentably plausible, scenario it isn't the Gazans actions that threaten the actual survival of Israel, it's the Israeli's actions (having a lil nip of that genocide coffee). And the Gazans are succeeding in provoking this much only because of a preceding Israeli action (pulling security off the border of Gaza so they can try and land grab in the West Bank) so, again, it's the Israeli's actions that are threatening their survival. Gaza- disengaged from and distinct, isn't capable of presenting a mortal threat to the state by itself. The West Bank, intertangled with increasing numbers of Israeli settlers and deeply entrenched Israeli occupation, is quite the opposite.
"
Hmmm on further thought maybe Sharon, being so close in with the Israeli right, could see where his own side was headed and tried to head that off.
"
Sure, but nothing the Gazans do can threaten the actual survival of the state of Israel. Nothing.
It is quite the reverse in the West Bank.
"
Indeed Sharon clearly had a particularly prescient vision. I never liked him but in hindsight I cannot help but respect the man.
Agreed entirely. Israel has functional dominance and thus the preponderance of the moral and practical need to act falls on their shoulders.
"
If Israel dragged their settlers out and withdrew from the West Bank maybe we'd see the blooming of a flourishing civilized state, maybe we'd see a repeat of what happened in Gaza, maybe they'd start eating the pavement and shooting babies from catapults at the Israeli border. From the standpoint of the Israeli's survival It. Wouldn't. Matter.
A positive outcome would be nice. But even if the Palestinians attacked or shot missiles the Israelis could do just about anything short of re-occupying the West Bank to respond and the world would be fine with whatever it was. The Israeli state would be secured in both the short and long term. Eventually the Palestinians would either come to terms with that or not but the Jewish state would survive (and likely thrive) regardless of whether the Palestinians did or not.
"
Yup, I agree. Looking back in time from the present my mind reels at how shocked my younger self was at Sharon's actions. His unilateral withdrawal without negotiation or agreement to impose final boundaries on the Gazans seemed astonishingly right wing at the time. Now? My goodness how the changing of times changes perspectives!
"
Fatah and Hamas are very different birds. But the West Bank is the only region that presents an actual mortal threat to the Israeli state. What we saw come out of Gaza was abhorrent, granted, but was it an actual threat to the survival of Israel? No. Heck, it was only even as terrible as it managed to be because Bibi basically left the Israelis pants down due to internal politics.