Atlas exerted himself in a just cause and got a positive result after a whole fuck-ton of work.
Great that Maye's out, but he still had to serve nine years and plead to manslaughter. Horrifying. And good for Balko, but not because he's a libertarian.
I see -- and I say this without a trace of snark or condescension -- a Hollywood film celebrating this story: obsessive blogger saves innocent man from execution.
And good for Balko, but not because he's a libertarian.
Dead right on both counts.
Balko's virtues, given general "libertarian" tendencies, would seem to consist in being himself and despite his being a "libertarian." As is the case with others among the regrettably tiny minority of "libertarians" that actually seem to take civil libertes as seriously as their various right-wing allegiances and inclinations.
They hope the Jones family can get some closure, do they? Mighty white of them.
It really is a remarkable achievement and a good use of this whole "blogging" business. Balko should be proud of this.
Balko's virtues, given general "libertarian" tendencies, would seem to consist in being himself and despite his being a "libertarian."
Agreed. A liberal cause like avoiding unnecessary or unwarranted executions is well served by whoever gets the fucking job done.
and despite his being a "libertarian."
I'm baffled that four people have signed onto this general sentiment (and in only the first seven comments!). I know you all hate libertarians, but--are you nuts? This is a case of a man who shot and killed a cop, thinking he was defending himself and his family against robbers, while they were doing a drug-raid on the wrong house. It hits every libertarian button except taxes--guns, drugs, right to self-defense, police abusing their authority. While left-liberals and libertarians would unite in thinking the death penalty was an outrage in a case like this, I'd actually be surprised if left-liberals would be as unanimous in the judgement that 9+ years in jail was clearly enough/too much as I expect libertarians would be, since fewer of the former would buy into a general right to shoot people you think are invading your house.
What trapnel said. Balko got a result because he was angry and committed enough to put in the work. He was angry and committed enough because he's that kind of guy, which is a good thing. His politics don't really enter into it and trying to make them central is falling into the Baptist Preacher fallacy. Shit, I even know people who vote Tory who would applaud this outcome.
Congratulations to Mr Maye, and thanks to Radley Balko.
I think 9 is agreeing with everyone else and disagreeing with trapnel.
I agree with trapnel. Radley Balko's libertarian beliefs were relevant to his actions in this case. It's possible to dislike an ideology, and still see that it can motivate a person to do good things.
Radley Balko's libertarian beliefs were integral to his awareness, passion, and extraordinary advocacy on this issue.
There are about four libertarians in the world that I respect, and two of them are blood relations (and probably in a sane world would be described left-libertarian-something elses).
But I think it would a profound disservice to Balko to suggest that his political philosophy (which among other things influenced his decision to come up with this map of botched SWAT raids) did not play a significant role in his work on this case.
I've never disputed the assertion that there are some principled 'libertarians'. I've met a few of them, although it has to be said that they often become principled something-elses after not-very-long amongst the schmibs.
I would note that, so far, this case, for which I am doing my small part, has attracted only anarchist and other left-wing radical supporters. And I would not be at all surprised if it stays that way.
If this case could herald a new age in which 'libertarians' worked to advance their ideology through more activism against actual abuse of government authority, I would applaud that sincerely.
'this case' in the third graf referring to Cory Maye, obviously.
he's one of the only libertarians I've ever seen who acknowledge the existence of systemic, pervasive racism in the US. he went to mississippi to report on the case, and he talked to the two black jurors--or at least tried to. one wouldn't say anything, and the other explained she had been non too subtly threatened with loss of her gov't job (come low-level administration in the county) if she voted to acquit. it was kind of hilarious, he came back from mississippi and was like "holy fuck there's systemic racism in america for realz, guys," and every single one of his commenters dissented sharply. most libertarians show a distinct lack of interest in questions like equality of opportunity, or every giving a fuck about poor people.
15: Yes! It's like libertarians take the traditional American bias toward individualism and crank it up about twelve notches.
I can never figure out how you can configure a description of structural or systemic issues in a way that can be heard by people who have such a fanatical devotion* to a lone-actor worldview.
*I don't mean this in an entirely pejorative way, having a few such areas myself.
I've never seen him say so out loud, but isn't Glenn Greenwald exactly this type of principled libertarian?
16.2: My sense is that at least within my work milieu that a fanatical, although selective, devotion to lone-actor worldview has increased over the last several decades. No structural or systemic issues or opportunities for collective improvement need apply. For instance, although folks would grumble at (and the true fanatics dismiss with extreme prejudice) early-90s employer-sponsored attempts at sensitivity/consciousness training, there seemed to be grudging acceptance that real problems did exist. Now, not only are they not offered, I am pretty sure that they would be met with broad hostility.
I see this same dynamic in things like the mainstream media being so blind to the incredibly obvious classism and racism underlying their handling of the Acorn assault. It seems as if internal checks against the manifest (and previously acknowledged) reality of societal and institutional racism etc. have been discarded.
It's possible to dislike an ideology, and still see that it can motivate a person to do good things.
In the case of libertarianism this is like fundy Catholicism. In both cases there is a mix of very admirable and really horrible aspects to the ideology. In both cases, most of the adherents concentrate on pushing the latter, while only paying lip service to the former. However, some do focus on the good aspects and thus have a mainly positive impact on society that is an inverse of most of their co-ideologues but born of the same convictions.
19 may be violating the analogy ban, but I think it's very well put.
18: I'd guess that the lone actor worldview is more prevalent when the economy is bad. See, e.g., the academic job market, where structural problems as simply viewed as additional filters for weeding out the weak and incompetent.
My relief at finding a job outside academia, let me show it to you.
20 I did have a banned tag, but I guess the software assumed it was a bad html tag and disappeared it.
I would note that, so far, this case, for which I am doing my small part, has attracted only anarchist and other left-wing radical supporters.
That case might be a tough sell. I don't know how accurate the media accounts are, but there's multiple articles describing the self defense story as something along of the lines of "I didn't stab him, I was just holding these scissors and he ran into them", which really sounds like the panicked utterance of someone who just stabbed a dude and is realizing that perhaps they don't have a legal justification.
8: I know you all hate libertarians, but--are you nuts?
I'm someone who has seen actual libertarianism in action for many years now. Notice how, despite this case supposedly hitting "every libertarian button except taxes," Balko is not part of a libertarian chorus denouncing it? Wonder why that is? It's because those supposed "libertarian buttons" are, from most claimants, just nonexistent. The rhetoric about "jackbooted thugs" is meant to allow white males to evade the IRS and engage in guilt-free sympathizing with the militia movement, not to allow black males to defend themselves from white cops. It mostly functions -- and is designed to function -- as a very elaborate version of the dog-whistle politics of "small government" in conservatism as a whole, which has never actually been about the size of government.
Of course, there are a minority of people who, encountering the rhetoric, take its surface claims seriously and act on them. These people will of necessity be radically atypical of the "ism" of which they're supposedly a part, for the simple reason that they are defying a routinely-coded and unsystematized politics by trying to turn it into a systematic real-world ethic. Balko is one of these people. "Despite" his being a libertarian may be the wrong way to put it; better to say that, owing to his personal qualities, he happens to be one of those few libertarians who Didn't Get the Memo. So, good for him.
Am I wrong about Greenwald? Or is it just not an interesting question?
26. Interesting question, butI don't think there's a quorum of Americans who would have a clue here at the moment.
</passing through>
25: but what you're missing is the fact that Balko's Cory Maye heroics, in addition to his other anti-jackbooted-thugs work, is all funded by Reason (& Cato? Too tired & drunk to check), which is unquestionably part of institutionalized American libertarianism. Similarly with Greenwald and his occasional work for Cato (and the answer to 26 is yes, I believe). In other words, *embedding ideas within institutions matters*, even if you only intend it to provide cover for neo-feudalism rather than seriously pursue those ideas.
Alternately: E.P. Thompson on "Whigs and Hunters" and the impossibility of a purely instrumental-of-elite-dominance institutionalized liberal ideology.
I demand Americans get up and discuss finetuned political definitions in the early hours of sunday morning, or WHAT IS LIBERTY FOR?
Also: did people ever make version of the "whigs be wearin wigs" joke in the 18th century also, or has humour evolved in leaps and bounds since then?
28: In other words, *embedding ideas within institutions matters*
It sure does. As tokenism.
(and the answer to 26 is yes, I believe)
Tierce is wrong? It is uninteresting?
I'm not clear on the causal link between Mr. Balko's blogging and the Mississippi Supreme Court's decision vacating Maye's prior conviction. Not that cheerleading justice is ever a bad thing. Was his contribution greater than that of Orin Kerr?
I for one find the question whether some writer or another is a libertarian uninteresting. We're all libertarians, if a libertarian is someone who thinks that some things out to be done by government, but that governments are capable of abusing the rights of individuals. And if we're restricting the term to people who don't think government ought to be trying to help the poor. well, I'm happy to make common cause with them on justice issues, as Roosevelt made common cause with Stalin. But don't ask me to approve of anything they do other than kill German soldiers.
25 and 34 get it exactly right.
I see that Kerr did not work on the appeals. But some fine folks from Covington did, and I'd guess they're not 'libertarian' in the restricted sense of the word. The public defender probably isn't a libertarian either.
34: This is not directly on point, but I think that he may have contributed to the demise of that medical examiner Steven Hayne, who still testifies but can't do autopsies any more.
Would Kerr or Covington have heard of the case without Balko's investigation? My impression was no.
I don't know about that. Kerr may have learned of it from Balko, although when he got involved, it was a death penalty conviction, and those are talked about in certain circles. Covington more likely not, I would think.
In any event, public defender and big firm lawyers acting pro bono get conviction reversed because a proposed jury instruction was erroneously rejected by trial judge. That, my friends, is what a victory for process liberalism looks like.
17: isn't Glenn Greenwald exactly this type of principled libertarian?
Is the question whether he's a principled libertarian, or whether he's this type (which type? the Balko type?) of principled libertarian?
If the latter, I'd say no, although I probably don't know enough about Balko to say that with utter confidence. If the former, yes, sort of, I guess. I mean, he's a civil libertarian; he's certainly principled; I don't really think of him as a libertarian in the full sense of the word.
I'm not sure what Trapnel's gesturing toward institutionalized libertarianism has to do with things, unless the suggestion is that if you're institutionally affiliated, you're probably not principled because you necessarily did Get the Memo.
Do poor black guys from Mississippi often get represented by the best law firms in the world? (This is only like 30% of an asshole question - maybe they do in death penalty cases). But if not, then Balko deserves the praise he is getting, even if he is a libertarian.
25
... Notice how, despite this case supposedly hitting "every libertarian button except taxes," Balko is not part of a libertarian chorus denouncing it? ...
This isn't exactly true. See here for Instapundit and I think I remember others.
I think it is true that most libertarians don't feel much connection with black people and hence are not all that outraged about injustices that they suffer.
I would guess that at any given moment, most of the top law firms in the country have someone working on a death penalty case, usually for a poor black guy from the South. I don't know the facts on how they got involved with Maye, but the firm that represented Fred Korematsu doesn't deserve even 10% assholery.
Ah, but are most poor black guys from the south represented by top law firms?
I'm not sure what Trapnel's gesturing toward institutionalized libertarianism has to do with things, unless the suggestion is that if you're institutionally affiliated, you're probably not principled because you necessarily did Get the Memo.
I wasn't very clear on this. What I meant is that, while someone like Jim Henley (another libertarian generally respected in polite left circles) can be written off as No True Scotsman because he's just a guy on the internet, and hence not at all representative of or even necessarily *part of* the libertarian movement, it's a lot harder to say that of someone as institutionally certified as Balko. Whatever memos there are going around, Balko's gotten them. DS' counterpoint about tokenism is well-taken, but A- it still matters for those the tokens tokenly help; and B- having those who hold different views about the proper priorities and concerns of an ideological movement means those tokens are part of a continuing struggle within the movement; there's the chance for their flavor to infect others.
And with 26, oops. I meant to say that my impression was that Greenwald was indeed the good kind of libertarian.
having those who hold different views about the proper priorities and concerns of an ideological movement means those tokens are part of a continuing struggle within the movement
This seems right. I don't read Reason magazine to speak of; all I know is that John Cole is forever ranting against it.
Some time ago I heard a public radio discussion, about what exactly I'm afraid I don't remember, during which I decided that one of the participants seemed quite an informed and articulate fellow, well-versed in relevant studies, arguments and counterarguments, and quite passionate and determined without seeming shrill. Persuasive! Good guy! Near crush material! Turned out at the end to have been Balko -- surprise on my part -- which I must say changed my theretofore received impression of him.
I worked on a death penalty case that got a certain amount of publicity, probably because the incarcerated litigant wasn't African-American and the case wasn't in the South. It was still quite sad.
Speaking of libertarianism, I visited a fireworks emporium today. It was very depressing. The concept of "discount fireworks" (2 for 1! 3 for 1!) worries me, as did the presence of extremely young children in the company of several shoppers pushing carts full of items boasting 500 grams of explosive, apparently the largest amount permitted.
Well, as others have noted here, the Comments section of Reason Online is a real sewer. At one point I had a free subscription due to being rather inmeshed in the tentacles of the academic-libertarian kraken, and rarely found it a high-priority read, but it makes some very good worok possible.
Do I have to read it in order to grok the worok?
I would guess that at any given moment, most of the top law firms in the country have someone working on a death penalty case, usually for a poor black guy from the South.
What nosflow said.
I don't know the facts on how they got involved with Maye, but the firm that represented Fred Korematsu doesn't deserve even 10% assholery.
I don't mean to belittle the firm at all; obviously those guys deserve a ton of credit. But Radley does, too. According to this, an associate at Covington read about the case in the press after Balko broke the story and contacted him directly about getting the firm involved.
Carp's point is basically right, though. Death penalty appeals (not murder trials) are, believe it or not, in fact often handled by big name firms and very good lawyers. Sometimes not to the client's benefit, as when two unupervised associates left a big firm and almost lost a DP case. Which isn't to take much from Balko did, just to point out that there are a lot of good people out there who don't subscribe to the ideology for pretentious twerps who hate the poor.
46. I think Henley has officially given up on pretending to be a libertarian any more. This may be significant to your point, or may not, since I don't altogether understand it.
but does he still carry ads from the "Center for Union Facts" (motto: as bad as it sounds) ? I googled it, asked him if he had any business taking their money, was told to fuck off, and stopped reading him.
Is there a group blog with a more dramatic awesome-blogger/terrible-blogger combination than Unqualified Offerings?
55. He doesn't seem to have one at the moment. He does carry an invitation to "Advertise on the Libertarian Ad Networks", whatever that is.
I presume it was the Libertarian Ad Network that served them up - it's the skin of BlogAds for glibertarians - and it's in the nature of a dynamic ad serving system that they change. But he didn't have to accept the bloody things.
There's an argument that every dollar of Charles Koch's money that goes to Henno rather than somebody evil is a win, but I find it a little self serving.
55: I routinely take money from the same organization that bombed Cambodia.
53: I don't disagree with that. I guess the attitude of many in this thread just seems off to me - 'Yeah, I guess he may have helped save a man's life and stuff, but let's not forget what's really important here: that his political ideology is markedly inferior to my own."
I got a kick out of this thread. Seems really difficult for you all to wrap your brains around how a libertarian could possibly have done something decent. For the record, both Cato and Reason have been immensely supportive of my work on this case, including paying for multiple trips to Mississippi. Reason.tv did a 25-minute documentary on Cory's case. The libertarian movement in general has also been extremely supportive of Maye's cause.
I don't have time to address all the nonsense in this thread, but this comment in particular was really amusing:
it was kind of hilarious, he came back from mississippi and was like "holy fuck there's systemic racism in america for realz, guys," and every single one of his commenters dissented sharply.
I grew up in a county where the Klan was still active. So the notion that I'd be surprised that there's still racism in America is absurd. You could also, you know, read about half the stuff I write. (Try this: http://reason.com/archives/2008/04/14/guilty-before-proven-innocent)
And I'm not sure how it's possible that "every single one" of my commenters "dissented sharply" on the racism stuff, given my blog didn't accept comments at the time.
http://www.theagitator.com/2006/03/page/3/
What evidence would cause those of you who believe that libertarianism is inherently wrong to change your minds?
If every example that doesn't fit your existing narrative of libertarianism is discarded as anomalous (or automatically seen as "tokenism"), isn't that the same type of dogmatic thinking so many libertarians are (rightly) accused of engaging in?
I was thinking quite well of Balko until I read 61. Now, not really.
Reference point: if unfogged ever runs a thread whose title is "ajay is teh hero", I promise not to turn up in comments and insult everyone.
What evidence would cause those of you who believe that libertarianism is inherently wrong to change your minds?
Do you mean "morally wrong" or "wrong in policy terms"? (It's both, but the answer's different depending.)
Hello, Radley. For what it's worth, a number of people here have been saying in response to the libertarian-bashing, "Whoa, hold up now."
Good work you've done, man.
64: Both, to an extent. More colloquially I mean, what would cause people to stop considering libertarianism "the ideology for pretentious twerps who hate the poor"?
I can't get a grip on the "libertarianism is inherently wrong" thing just because there are so many varieties of libertarianism. E.D. Kain (League of Ordinary Gentlemen, briefly at Balloon Juice, now blogging at Forbes) recently decided to drop his "libertarian" mantle in favor of something he provisionally dubbed "liberaltarianism." Which looks a lot like progressive liberalism, but never mind that: when someone says he or she is a libertarian, I get nowhere without asking, "What kind?"
Economic libertarianism, i.e. objectivism and ultimate power for corporations, is morally wrong, so nothing would change my mind. Balko doesn't draw his principles from the Economics 101 Rational Actor model of human behavior, so he can definitely be a good guy, which he is.
Well, as long as the vast majority of prominent libertarians keep on
a) asserting their own intellectual and moral superiority in an incredibly obnoxious way by writing things like 61
and/or
b) calling for the abolition or reduction of projects that have done a vast amount to help the poor,
that's going to be a really tricky feat to pull off.
A little sensitive, are we, Balko? This thread is absolute jammed with people patting you on the back for the job you did, and you've also managed to spark a debate among a group that's predisposed to dislike your ideology about whether libertarianism might be good for something after all. I count nine comments from regulars who do nothing but praise you without reservation. (For reference, they're 1, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 46, 47, and 52.) Yet, on your own blog, you respond that the people who post on this site are "really only worth ridicule". Seems like a little class would be in order. I've been lurking on this site for years, though I rarely post, and if you think the people here merit only ridicule I'd say that says more about you than about them.
You all are hilarious. Thanks for the chuckles =)
You've also managed to spark a debate among a group that's predisposed to dislike your ideology about whether libertarianism might be good for something after all
You really don't see why he'd find the second half of that insulting?
72 - Sure, if he was expecting everyone to immediately start loving libertarianism because of his win. Instead, he got some people praising him, some people praising him while taking shots at libertarianism, and some other people chiming in to point out that whatever you think of libertarianism in general, this was a win for the good guys, obtained by a committed libertarian backed by a libertarian institution. Seemed like a pretty reasonable discussion considering how people here feel about libertarianism. What got me is the peevishness and hostility of both 61 and Balko's comments on his own blog, which seemed an incongruous response to 50+ comments praising him.
Is there a group blog with a more dramatic awesome-blogger/terrible-blogger combination than Unqualified Offerings?
Just so we're clear, which of us is the terrible-blogger? Usually I'm the guy on the receiving end of the torches and pitchforks, but you guys seem to be upset about the ads, so maybe you're upset at Jim.
67: I agree, there is a wide spectrum of people who identify as libertarians, just as there is of those who identify as liberal or left-wing. Saying that you ask "what kind?" sounds like you might already be at the point I'm arguing for.
68: "Ultimate power of corporations" sounds like a strawman (is anyone for that in those terms?), and Objectivism is a red herring (Rand *hated* libertarians and the editors of Reason take pride in having never finished any of her novels). Econ 101/rational actor model *is* an actual basis for some libertarians, and I assume you disagree with this view based on a preponderance of evidence to the contrary. Fair enough. I think the preponderance of evidence indicates the war on drugs is especially awful to poor people and minorities, but I don't assume every person I meet who doesn't support ending the drug war hates black people. There are tons of other explanations: Not having heard the right arguments yet, not having seen the same evidence, confirmation bias, etc.
69: a) Come on, given the context, you really think Balko's response is so unreasonable? At least respond to his factual claims. And surely we can agree libertarians don't have a monopoly on claiming intellectual or moral superiority on the internet? :)
69 b) That statement is too broad/vague for me to respond to (and I think you might be affirming the consequent, arguing that libertarians don't like the poor by assuming that libertarian policies are necessarily anti-poor).
Come on, given the context, you really think Balko's response is so unreasonable?
See 74, which I agree with.
That statement is too broad/vague for me to respond to (and I think you might be affirming the consequent, arguing that libertarians don't like the poor by assuming that libertarian policies are necessarily anti-poor).
Libertarian policy prescriptions normally include large reductions in the size of government, including large reductions in things like health, education and welfare spending, which would harm the people currently benefitting from this spending, i.e., predominantly, the poor.
I'm surprised that this influx of libertarians didn't come sooner, since the OP does consist largely of an unquestionably unfair generalization about libertarians.
What got me is the peevishness and hostility of both 61 and Balko's comments on his own blog, which seemed an incongruous response to 50+ comments praising him.
Well no, it was ~10 comments praising him mixed with 40+ commenters taking the opportunity to emphasize that his friends, employers, and readers are racist assholes.
70: You've also managed to spark a debate among a group that's predisposed to dislike your ideology about whether libertarianism might be good for something after all.
72: You really don't see why he'd find the second half of that insulting?
You really don't see why the first half of that is a wink and a nod to the fact that this liberal-leaning group here has its own biases?
More seriously, I will say that my biases about libertarians are more heuristics, in the sense that when I encounter someone who identifies him or herself as libertarian, I assume that their worldview is sufficiently far removed from mine that we're unlikely to agree at all on priorities, although we may agree on some aspects of philosophy.
So while we may have some philosophical overlap -- zoning/eminent domain a la Kelo v. New London being the nearest and dearest to my heart -- often, when it gets to practicalities, we split.
Almost exactly a year ago (I just looked it up to check), I got into a debate with Will Wilkinson on his blog about birthright citizenship. If I may (possibly unfairly) summarize his argument, he was in favor of abolishing it as part of a trade to placate Americans who feel that the immigration system is out of control.
Actually, let me just quote him directly:
Anyway, I think Matt [Yglesias] overlooks the degree to which many Americans reasonably find the current system unfair. I think most Americans believe that the immigration rate ought to be under democratic control, and they are frustrated by the fact that it isn't really. I also think most Americans believe that the distribution of citizenship ought to be under democratic control. But under a [birthright] citizenship rule, failure to keep immigration at desired levels necessarily entails a loss of control over the distribution of citizenship. This really drives some people crazy. Here are a bunch of people who have broken the law-who have defied the popular will of the American public-whose American-born kids are nevertheless rewarded with full-fledged citizenship and all the rights and prerogatives thereof. I don't mind this at all. But to lots of folks, it seems like a crazy loophole that puts control over the composition of America's citizenry out of the citizenry's control.
My guess is many Americans would have less of an objection to the presence of Mexican immigrants, authorized or unauthorized, on American soil if that presence did not tend to create so many new citizens and thereby so many new claims. Right-wingers constantly say they wouldn't mind higher levels of immigration if it wasn't for the welfare state. Some of these people are just rationalizing their xenophobia, but I think most of them mean it. I'm just taking the logic of that claim seriously, and I think the experience of other countries shows that there's something to it.
I think Wilkinson was telling the truth here -- he truly did just want to "take the logic of that claim seriously." The problem is that way his political philosophy led him to do that was to suggest abolishing birthright citizenship.
I could sit here all day and list the reasons that I think that is a gravely misordered priority even granting that we are discussing the particular issue of immigration. But my short answer is: If Wilkinson's assumption that it wasn't about xenophobia was true, then people who hate Mexican immigrants' children benefiting from birthright citizenship would not object to Puerto Rican migration. And yet they do -- in my experience, overwhelmingly.
I've been told many times that we should give up something important in order to placate some group of Middle Americans. Often, the person saying that is the least likely to feel any negative consequences of whatever it is we're supposed to give up. My arguments with libertarians generally founder on exactly these grounds, over and over again.
Witt,
I agree re: Will's BC position. In fact, I've written as much on multiple occasions:
http://timothyblee.com/2010/08/10/birthright-citizenship-and-symbolism/
http://timothyblee.com/2010/07/05/the-case-against-the-case-against-birthright-citizenship/
Anyway, the question isn't whether y'all agree with libertarianism. It's whether it's reasonable for Radley to be offended when most of the commenters on a post ostensibly congratulating him use the opportunity to make insulting (and, as he points out, factually inaccurate) comments about his employers, friends, and readers.
I was thinking quite well of Balko until I read 61. Now, not really.
Really? What's so bad about 61? Considering that there's been a lot of unnecessarily qualified praise for him ("good for Balko, but not because he's a libertarian"—why is it necessary to include the proviso at all?).
Balko's 61 is completely understandable. Certainly if alameida's 15 was completely wrong in an insulting way, then Balko had every right to show up and take issue in whatever way he chose.
why is it necessary to include the proviso at all
Because, despite being willing to praise him, it's vanishingly unlikely that much or any good work, including good work for poor criminal defendants (the overwhelming majority of which is done by people who are not criminal defendants) will be done by committed "libertarians" (in the Reason/Cato sense, the term is capacious) who have and because the consequences of giving this tiny minority actual power would be disastrous? It's a little uncharitable towards Balko, surely, but so what? A lot of super conservative, deeply homophobic Christian fundamentalists have done good work on helping to prevent prison rape, but it would seem odd to read a post praising those folks here without some kind of proviso.
77: Libertarian policy prescriptions also normally include: ending the bombing and invasion of other countries; stopping the war on drugs and the death penalty and their patently unequal enforcement; keeping governments and corporations from taking poor people's homes; breaking up cartels that keep African hair-braiders from earning a living; protecting free speech; immigration policies that would greatly benefit poor people; voucher programs (while somewhat flawed) that make the lives of at least some poor children less awful; a host of criminal justice issues that would disproportionately help minorities; support for gay rights; etc, etc.
And yes, in general, we support a set of economic policies aimed at growing the pie, even if that means increased inequality, because we genuinely believe it's better than the alternatives we've seen so far.
In any case, despite what the above might suggest, I'm not trying to turn you into a libertarian, or get you to agree with all/any libertarian positions, or even claim that all libertarians are good people.
All I'm asking is that you not automatically ascribe nefarious motivations to libertarians, and leave your mind open to the fact that reasonable people can want many of the same things you want, and arrive at radically different policy prescriptions without being crazy/bigoted/whatever. And that when you're presented with evidence in support of this (as is the case with Radley's work) to let that update your worldview and not dismiss it as an outlier.
Happy Fourth!
Wow, that was posted WAY too soon. Anyhow, I won't bother to edit that mess above, but what poor criminal defendants who are railroaded by the system need most is money and resources -- lawyers, investigators who work with public defender offices, etc. When libertarians support fully funded state and federal public defender offices with adequate resources to conduct investigations, giving government money to legal services organizations for impact litigation in things like prison reform, providing adequate social services to keep people out of the criminal system in the first place, and adequately funded prisons that provide humane treatment and focus on rehabilitation, and also support raising sufficient taxes to pay for all of that, then I'll be on board with their agenda. Until then, it's nice help in individual cases like this but basically so much window dressing. Which isn't to take away from some nice work by Balko here, so congratulations, but in a limited way.
Because, despite being willing to praise him, it's vanishingly unlikely that much or any good work, including good work for poor criminal defendants (the overwhelming majority of which is done by people who are not criminal defendants) will be done by committed "libertarians" (in the Reason/Cato sense, the term is capacious) who have and because the consequences of giving this tiny minority actual power would be disastrous?
So, what, by praising Balko, you're automatically praising other libertarians, or asserting that other libertarians should have actual power, or what? I don't see why you can't just praise Balko himself, like, directly.
I dunno, it's not like I'm a personal friend of the guy. I agree it's a little rude to take on other ideological issues when a guy has just done a good thing, but in this kind of a forum, so what?
I'd also like to add that although Balko's response in 61 was sharp, it also added some substantive details pertinent to the question of how much Balko's (universally agreed to be good) priorities were institutionally supported, and corrected what appeared to be a mistaken matter of fact. I don't see how the single line "Seems really difficult for you all to wrap your brains around how a libertarian could possibly have done something decent." qualifies it as "peevish and hostile" enough for Ajay & Anthropod's responses.
87: I'm not going to speak for anyone else on this thread, but often when I qualify some praise I am giving it is because I do not want other people to feel underbusthrown, as I believe it was once described here.
Issuing unqualified praise for a person who is allied with a philosophy that (when enacted) has brutal consequences for people you care about is a pretty strong signal to those people that you don't actually care about them very much.
(If I'm understanding the libertarians on this thread correctly, they're arguing that their proposed policies wouldn't have unacceptably brutal consequences. Obviously, in many cases, I disagree.)
Nos, I think RH wants to guard against the notion that a well intentioned private individual effort, commendable though it might be, is an adequate substitute for a fully funded state.
From 85a, it's clear enough that there's plenty of room for common cause between liberalism and libertarianism. Except that in US politics, there are only two coalitions, and to effectively work together, the libertarians would have to drop out of the cut-taxes/starve the state/don't regulate pollution coalition.
I think that's what all the slagging on libertarianism is about: they talk a great game on justice issues (and Mr. Balko has walked a great walk) but when push come to shove, their votes and voices are with those who would dismantle safety nets of various kinds. It's their choice to make.
#13
I was looking at your link about the case of CeCe McDonald. I don't see any aspect of that case that would keep libertarians from supporting ( if you think most of the same libertarians who Cory Maye would be turned off by the gender aspect, I think you'd be wrong.). However, one of the biggest reasons Cory Maye got support among libertarians is we knew the facts of the case, and Radley investigated and got to the bottom of things. We libertarians were not afraid to take a principled stand and most of us really didn't care about pissing off criminals in police uniforms. On the CeCe site, most of the posts go out of their way to discourage anything that might upset police and at least one of the posts said that the facts of the case are not important. I don't see any details of what actually happened, at all. So it's hard to really get a lot of support from people who are willing to go all out for a cause as long as they are informed and able to make a rational decision. It seems to be more of general "let's stick up for trans" persons deal, which is great. It's just a little bit different than being passionate about the case of a specific individual because you know that person was wronged. FWIW, libertarians ( which includes many anarchists) ARE liberals, and I would say in general much more radically liberal than many wishy-washy "liberals" who are unwilling to do anything to upset their government masters.
There do indeed appear to be significant public policy differences among libertarians* and liberals**, but yes, Halford does point to something important in 86. 91.last reiterates it.
* What kind?
** What kind?
I will assume henceforth that these asterisked caveats are understood.
I think that's what all the slagging on libertarianism is about: they talk a great game on justice issues (and Mr. Balko has walked a great walk) but when push come to shove, their votes and voices are with those who would dismantle safety nets of various kinds. It's their choice to make.
This sounds like a dressed up version of "libertarians are just Republicans who smoke pot."
My question is, how can you possible know this? You're assuming that, contrary to what we say, write, and do, we don't really support these things, because everyone knows libertarians secretly only care about money.
Was I dreaming through the Bush years while Cato consistently opposed his expansions of executive power and foreign policy? When IJ defends poor immigrants or homeowners? When Reason dedicates a double-issue to criminal justice issues last month? When Cato files amicus briefs supporting free speech or a host of other non-economic policies? When much of Reason voted for Obama (http://reason.com/archives/2008/10/29/whos-getting-your-vote)?
How many Radley Balkos (or Tim Lees) would it take for you to change your opinion?
Depends. What do our government masters think?
#86
Public defenders work for the state. Their allegiance is to the state and state agents ( like corrupt cops, for example). They don't work for the defendants. Bob Evans lost his job as a public defender because he was helping a wrongly convicted man. I really agree with what you are saying for the need for resources to help. However, I see no way possible that will ever be helped through state funding alone..unless the entire system is changed (I'm on board) . Cory Maye is free because private individuals cared enough to spend the time and resources. The state doesnt give a fuck, and that applies regardless of what political party or ideology is in control. Throwing money at state public defenders offices, would probably just help legitimize the whole process while not helping anyone.
All I'm asking is that you ... leave your mind open to the fact that reasonable people can want many of the same things you want, and arrive at radically different policy prescriptions without being crazy/bigoted/whatever
On the one hand, this seems like a basic and minimal aspect of civic decency. On the other, it's also psychologically exhausting and demoralizing, and difficult to couple with a life committed to action towards implementing the policy prescriptions you hold (not that my own life involves action of any sort, of course).
It's important to build into one's life some sort of structured reflection and stock-taking, yes. But radically questioning one's commitments every week would make it hard to go about that strong and slow boring of hard boards so crucial to actually accomplishing anything. Or so I'd imagine, never having either bored the boards or accomplished anything.
If public defenders are corrupt, perhaps the solution is to give defendants enough money to hire a good private attorney. Or something else. In any case, I'm on board with more funding to ensure that every criminal defendant has a skilled advocate with sufficient resources to mount a vigorous defense.
And I consider my self a libertarian:
http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2010/05/30/11157
I'm not saying you don't support those things. I'm saying that ime when it comes to taking part in coalition politics, you folks seem to choose, often, the one that's more about money and unregulated industry than the one that's trying to improve the lives of people.
Cato has done some good work on some things, and I'm sure plenty of people at Reason have reasonable positions on plenty of things. Where were they on the stimulus? Health care reform? Financial regulation? Extending the Bush tax cuts? Corporate personhood?
Now, obviously, I don't know you Nick and you don't know me. Maybe you've held your nose all these years, voting Dem and hoping to move that coalition in a better direction. Maybe you're a precinct committeeman, or whatever they're called where you live.
My question is, how can you possible know this?
This is not the first rodeo for any of us.
96 pretty much captures the point of difference I'd have, I guess. I don't tend to think that the state is necessarily and unavoidably corrupt. I'm kind of a fan of what's dismissed as the welfare state, actually. I don't think that private entities can do nearly as good a job at protecting the well-being of the less well-off, and I think it's rather daft to believe so. There are outlying cases, sure.
It would appear from the thread over at theagitator that its commenters have a complaint about what they don't name as, but think of as, identity politics.
92: On the CeCe site, most of the posts go out of their way to discourage anything that might upset police and at least one of the posts said that the facts of the case are not important. I don't see any details of what actually happened, at all. So it's hard to really get a lot of support from people who are willing to go all out for a cause as long as they are informed and able to make a rational decision.
I share your concerns here. There are a number of issues at play, some of which I can comment on here, and some of which I (as a member of the community of supporters) have been asked not to comment on.
The main thing right now is that it is still early days for Ms. McDonald's case. We don't have access to most of the evidence that has been collected, we have had very minimal access to McDonald herself, and there's still a lot of potential for people to say stupid things that might make it into the trial.
In terms of not taking a position on McDonald's guilt or innocence, part of what's going on is a sensitivity to the community that the fellow who died was part of, part of it is a reluctance to overreach ourselves when so few facts are established, and part of it is, I think, a desire to leave the support network as open as possible to people who may be skeptical about McDonald's role in the altercation, but could still feel motivated to help her, given the very real prejudice that transgendered people and people of color face in the court system.
I'm glad that you took a look at the link, and I hope you will keep informed about the progress of the case. I'm sorry you took offense at my skepticism about whether enough support could be built up. Frankly, I didn't expect a whole lot of 'libertarians' to show up on this thread, so I was mainly thinking about mainstream liberal Democrats when I wrote those lines.
If this is a story that moves you to action, I hope you will share it with your friends of a similar ideological bent.
89 - I thought that line was obnoxious, but what really got me going were Balko's comments in the comments section of his own blog, which I actually read before reading this thread - I've been a regular reader of his blog for a while as well He characterized all of Unfogged as not worth trying to build bridges with and worthy only of ridicule. (Only slight paraphrases there.) I thought that was so far off base that my take on Balko went from "substantial respect" to "F that guy" in about 3 seconds.
I have to say that I do appreciate 85. Nick, maybe we can build some bridges. Just don't tell Radley...
I'm not saying you don't support those things. I'm saying that ime when it comes to taking part in coalition politics, you folks seem to choose, often, the one that's more about money and unregulated industry than the one that's trying to improve the lives of people.
I'll grant you that, especially in the 80s and 90s, fusionism (siding with right-wingers to oppose communism and promote free markets) was the dominant strategy of many libertarians. However: That connection was never exclusive, and it has broken down *substantially* over the past decade. (And back in the 70s, libertarians were more in line with the liberals who deregulated the airline and microbrew industries.)
Also, I obviously take issue with the juxtaposition of "trying to improve the lives of people" and our economic policies. My whole point is that we believe our policies do actually improve people's lives.
Cato has done some good work on some things, and I'm sure plenty of people at Reason have reasonable positions on plenty of things. Where were they on the stimulus? Health care reform? Financial regulation? Extending the Bush tax cuts? Corporate personhood?
I'm not arguing that libertarians and liberals agree on everything. I'd guess that Cato took positions you'd disagree with on most of the things you list. I don't think that makes them evil. Reasonable people can disagree on which financial regulations are worthwhile and which aren't, and reasonable people can disagree on extending rights to associations of individuals (aka corporations).
Now, obviously, I don't know you Nick and you don't know me. Maybe you've held your nose all these years, voting Dem and hoping to move that coalition in a better direction. Maybe you're a precinct committeeman, or whatever they're called where you live.
I've voted Dem plenty of times, but know how much bearing that has on anything (never been a precinct committee-member, but I have been a ballot-watcher).
This is not the first rodeo for any of us.
And no matter how many you've been to, you should remain open to seeing something new (if that extension of the metaphor makes any sense at all).
To the 'libertarians': Perhaps it was not clear from my comment, but there are certainly several issues (drugs, the court system, certain aspects of house-as-castle property rights debates, abortion, gay rights) where I find myself guardedly in agreement with many of your positions. My critique is not from the position of someone who things the government can solve everything, far from it. Rather, I'm dismayed that this essentially right-wing ideology which has been misnamed 'libertarianism' continues to befuddle so many people by calling for freedom while advocating ideas and policies that will advance the domination of capitalism over all of our lives. Believe me, I'm 100% with you on your distrust of public defenders as a class, and your concern with the degree to which government control of daily life continues to expand. I'm arguing, however, that without economic liberation, via an economic system which does not permit the control of large amounts of capital by individuals, or the elevation of one class or group among others, any political liberation is going to be, at best, a matter of allowing us the choice of which rope we shall purchase for our own hangings.
OK, just for kicks I went and read the Libertarian Party platform for PA.
Let me stipulate that I have been a registered nonpartisan for all but five months of my voting life, and that I have no doubt that I could find objectionable parts of any political party's platform.
That said:
If violence, theft, or fraud has been initiated, the government has the task of proving it and coercing criminals to make restitution to victims. The state should not be involved in activity that coerces individuals other than criminals. Thus, the state should not be involved in the health, education, social development, economic development, transportation, or recreation of individuals.
Each individual should be entitled to liberty of action, belief, and communication, and should be held responsible for the consequences of his actions. The state should not constrain peaceful acts of individuals.... Individuals must not be forced to participate in a jury or other agency of the state.All non-violent drug "offenders" should be pardoned and be immediately released from prison; all property taken under so-called "asset forfeiture" laws should be returned to their rightful owner. We favor privatizing the state liquor store system and abolishing the pharmaceutical assistance fund. Money from the tobacco master settlement should go just to those individuals who can prove the tobacco companies defrauded them.We advocate the repeal of all laws regarding consensual sex, including prostitution, strip club lap dancing and massage, and homosexual relations. We support an end to all subsidies for or against child-bearing built into our present laws. Since we believe in free choice, we advocate that each independent school have the right to offer or not to offer sex education courses. The government shall not sponsor or support abortion or abortion education.Repeal all laws that impede the ability of a person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws, so-called protective legislation for women and children, equal opportunity legislation, and restrictions on private day care centers.All government welfare, relief projects, and "aid to the poor" programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper sources of help for the unemployed, the young, and the old are the individual's family and private charitable institutions, such as those funded by United Way.Mixed among all of the above are policy gestures and even directions that I -- and probably many of you -- agree with. But what strikes me about the platform overall is how quick it is to emphasize "freedom from" and how generally "freedom to" gets ignored; how much sleight of hand is involved in removing a decision from federal or state government and passing it along to a lower level ("each independent school"); and how decisively it ignores both history and future. We've tried private charity as a solution to poverty; it was a horrific failure.
Like all humans everywhere, libertarians are subject to self-contradictory political beliefs. But taken as a whole, the party platform outlined above is a document that shows contempt for any recognizable definition of the social contract.
Actually-existing individual libertarians may or may not be allies in political struggles. The actually-existing Libertarian Party in my state is one I want no part of.
Huh, I completely missed the direction this thread took until now.
I've been on the internet for a very long time now, well before the advent of the World Wide Web. And this time didn't teach me much, but it did teach me one thing -- by and large, libertarians are assholes. There are exceptions, of course, but God, if you're out there, give me back the years of my life I have spent listening to libertarians.
105. Thank you. I can now conscientiously discard the comment I've been trying to frame for the last hour, because you say it better.
This:
I'm arguing, however, that without economic liberation, via an economic system which does not permit the control of large amounts of capital by individuals, or the elevation of one class or group among others, any political liberation is going to be, at best, a matter of allowing us the choice of which rope we shall purchase for our own hangings.is why, while I entirely support principled libertarian capitalists on a large number of social issues, we are ultimately on opposite sides of the barricades.
First, Witt, if you spent more time around people who apply the "libertarian" label to themselves, you'd learn that most of them consider the Libertarian Party a joke, and frequently disagree with the LP on all sorts of things.
Second, I'd appreciate if all of you could take a look at this video, because the guy in there is convinced that the real problem with libertarians is that we're a bunch of lefties. We need to get this straightened out one way or the other.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvYDC32IrdU
If nothing else, I think you'll agree with him when he says:
"This idea that libertarians can fix America is like saying you can fix bad breath with a urinal cake."
Their allegiance is to the state and state agents ( like corrupt cops, for example).
This doesn't at all jibe with the views of any public defender I've ever known or talked to.
109: Yes, well, Strasmangelo Jones and Bob McManus think everyone here is a sniveling corporate tool and apologist for fascist capitalist oligarchy, so we must be on the right track too. Just like Dana Milbank and David Brooks. Ho ho, they get criticized from both sides, so they know they're on to something.
Sigh. I kind of miss Stras.
Carry on.
Huh, go away for the weekend and come back to having started a blogwar. For the record, I think it's very clear that Balko's politics motivated what he did to publicize Maye's case, so if we're going to be crediting ideologies with stuff, libertarianism gets this one. And I think this was kind of a tacky thread to go all "Sure, but fundamentally, libertarians really do suck" in.
OTOH, as an ideology distinguishable from liberalism with a civil liberties focus, libertarianism never made much sense to me either
Semi relevant: I was just reading a student paper arguing for the sale of organs. Now this is a view that people can come to from many perspectives, so I was wondering if she was motivated by libertarian ideology or some other factor.
Then she started talking about how great a futures market for kidneys would be.
Also: anyone know anything about the legal market for kidneys in Iran besides what comes up quickly on Google? (so far I've checked out this BMJ article)
Also also: has anyone read Red Market?
And I think this was kind of a tacky thread to go all "Sure, but fundamentally, libertarians really do suck" in.
Its like someone rescued a baby from a burning building and the immediate response is "yeah, but they're still a homophobe."
114: You might enjoy this piece from Kerry Howley, who (IIRC) has described herself as a left-libertarian/individualist feminist: http://reason.com/archives/2007/02/07/who-owns-your-body-parts
I will say this: of the two concurrent threads, I feel confident that ours will be the first to descend into handwringing and Selbstkritik.
Did it take anyone else a while to distinguish Nick from NickS? I was all, wow, I really didn't think that NickS was hiding a passionate political obscurantism behind his love of folk-musicky bygones.
Then she started talking about how great a futures market for kidneys would be.
I'm pretty sure that a futures market for kidneys would be a terrible idea. Futures markets work best when the underlying is something like, say, frozen orange juice or US government bonds - a very liquid market trading lots of essentially identical things all the time. Kidneys aren't commoditised; because you have to deal with histocompatibility issues, a kidney that's worth $20,000 to one person is worthless to another. And they're not on sale that often - there are only about 10 transplants per million people per year, which isn't that many transactions. It'd be more like having a residential house price futures market - you'd need to create some sort of Kidney Price Index for it even to have a chance of working.
Also, who are the natural buyers and sellers here? There aren't any mass-producers or consumers of kidneys.
Yes, especially since 99 was the first comment I read on returning to the thread after an absence. Can NickS sue for defamation?
120: I think you're missing the point. The real winners would be the traders, not the donor or recipient of a particular kidney. It would be incredibly complex to set up a kidney futures market, necessitating lots of billable hours for lawyers, lots of dedicated quants, many VPs to revision their teams -- in short, many people on Wall Street would make a lot of money. And as an added benefit, the cost of raw kidneys would fall to the point where lots of people could get a spare one.
The funny thing is that it confused me. I looked at the sidebar and thought, "that's funnya, I don't remember commenting on that thread. What did I say?"
Off to a barbeque.
First, Witt, if you spent more time around people who apply the "libertarian" label to themselves, you'd learn that most of them consider the Libertarian Party a joke, and frequently disagree with the LP on all sorts of things.
Well, except for all the ones who have applied the label "libertarian" to themselves by joining the Libertarian Party, presumably.
And as an added benefit, the cost of raw kidneys would fall to the point where lots of people could get a spare one.
Natilo's desires are generally modest, but he has always dreamed of having more than the average number of kidneys.
"What would you do if you had a thousand pounds?"
"I'd buy a little kidney of my own."
"What would you do if you had, say, a million pounds?"
"Oh, that's different. I'd buy a great big kidney in the country."
85: All I'm asking is that you not automatically ascribe nefarious motivations to libertarians, and leave your mind open to the fact that reasonable people can want many of the same things you want, and arrive at radically different policy prescriptions without being crazy/bigoted/whatever.
Just don't leave it so open that your brain falls out. Because as nice as it is to think the best of people, sometimes the other guy really is crazy/bigoted/whatever. As contemporary American politics has demonstrated exhaustively.
Well, except for all the ones who have applied the label "libertarian" to themselves by joining the Libertarian Party, presumably.
Yep, that's right, except for them. Not sure what that has to do with Witt's point.
118: I will say this: of the two concurrent threads, I feel confident that ours will be the first to descend into handwringing and Selbstkritik.
This made me laugh. I haven't seen any handwringing, though, now that you mention it.
#86
I generally support all of those policies, as do many libertarians. If the government is going to try to take away your freedom, it is obligated to give you a fair trial. That means providing you with a defense that is adequately staffed and funded. I'd even support a 1:1 spending ratio between defense and prosecution.
That said, I also think we need correct the incentive problems in the criminal justice system. Which is why I advocate policies like this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/14/the-case-for-private-crime-labs_n_876963.html
I'd disagree with you on the need for more prison funding, mostly because I think we should have far, far fewer prisons.
I'd disagree with you on the need for more prison funding, mostly because I think we should have far, far fewer prisons.
I don't think you'll get any argument on that hereabouts. Where you'll lose people is the sense that "starve the beast" politics will lead to better conditions for prisoners, or even fewer of them, before it leads to evisceration of rehabilitation or even basic human standards.
But this, at least, is an argument we can have.
We could have more prison funding and fewer prisons, if the "more funding" went to things like mitigating the horrible conditions that currently reign in our prisons, or providing for actual rehabilitative measures, etc.
Apropos this thread, members of the Unfogged Flickr pool may be entertained to view this clothing item, purchased lo these several years ago in support of The Agitator.
Is it not the case that a number of prison systems have been privatized? I'd have to do research on the figures, but last I heard that move did not seem to have improved matters much, and in a number of cases, worsened them. Perhaps the most bewildering thing to me about some of the views espoused over on Radley's blog, at least in the thread on all of this, is the contention that if only government got out of the way, all would be well. Really? That just seems insupportable.
Notwithstanding my disagreements with libertarianism as an established ism, Balko's work for Mayes has been heroic and bravo!
132: Come on, even the fucking Attorney General is a fan of The Wire. (We have the complete series, but haven't set aside time to watch it yet.)
Are we not all fans of The Wire?
Is this where I admit that I haven't seen a single episode? I *am* reading The Corner right now, though.
But I'm not even reading The Corner. (I'm writing patches for python which will be ignored forever.)
Talk about meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
I've seen both series, intended to read a couple of books, got a few chapters into Homicide, have not read The Corner.
131
I don't think you'll get any argument on that hereabouts. ...
Personally I think we need more prisons. At least assuming executions remain rare.
143: Personally I think we need more prisons.
Wow. I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you. I just didn't see that coming, no sir.
Well, he's right if you assume that laws and sentencing will remain constant - a lot of US prisons are overcrowded so ceteris paribus the US needs more prisons. But its not the ideal solution.
Their allegiance is to the state and state agents ( like corrupt cops, for example).
This doesn't at all jibe with the views of any public defender I've ever known or talked to.
Word. This is a pretty shitty accusation to be chucking around. I have yet to meet a public defender who thought we were on the same side.
All of this 'libertarians don't care about poor people' by liberals is definitely a pot:kettle thing. Liberals support inflationary monetary policy. Hey! let's steal money, disproportionately from poor people and give it to wealthy banks and politically-connected cronies. But it's all in the name of 'stability. Or sovereign debt. Hey, let's steal money from the children of the future, who can't possibly vote on what we use the money for. But it's okay! Unaccountable bureaucrats know how to distribute social welfare better than private charities.
And to pat themselves on the back they support progressive taxation. Which ultimately winds up screwing poor people when bracket creep starts kicking in.
Liberals support inflationary monetary policy. Hey! let's steal money, disproportionately from poor people and give it to wealthy banks and politically-connected cronies.
OK, stop me if I'm going too fast for you, but inflation doesn't disproportionately harm poor people because what inflation does is decrease the real value of money, and poor people tend not to have money. That's why they're, to use the technical term, "poor". In some cases, inflation actually helps them, because poor people tend to be net debtors, and inflation reduces the real value of their debts.
Hey, let's steal money from the children of the future, who can't possibly vote on what we use the money for.
Look, we make decisions all the time that will affect future generations who don't have the opportunity to vote on them. This is a silly argument.
148: You realize that your argument is the exact opposite of the historical record, right? Historically in the US, inflation goes with increasing real incomes, while deflation goes with decreasing real incomes. It's because the only way to control inflation is to throw people out of work. That's how it worked in the gold standard era, and that's how it works now.
And to pat themselves on the back they support progressive taxation. Which ultimately winds up screwing poor people
Non-progressive taxation raising the same total revenue, of course, screws poor people even more.
Why doesn't 148 mention that job-killing leftover from the medieval days of crude social engineering, the minimum wage?
I am really glad that Balko has a blog. He deserves lots of credit in this case. As an aside, one of the defense forensic people involved in the post-conviction proceedings is a friend of mine.
Look, we make decisions all the time that will affect future generations who don't have the opportunity to vote on them. This is a silly argument.
If we're talking about borrowing to pay for consumption, as opposed to investments that might not help in the future, I don't think this is a silly argument.
I'm not saying it is right, because the specifics matter, but I'm not willing to dismiss it.
120 gets it right.
I'm all for letting sick people buy life saving medicine, and I'm all for letting desperately poor people sell anything they care to in order to get something they need (though it would be better still if we'd just give them the money without demanding a kidney in return, and on the other hand it would probably be better if more people gave kidneys freely).
And I understand that futures markets play a valuable role in revealing, through the price, information known to individual traders, which helps people (for example, in this case hospitals) better predict and plan for future plenitude or scarcity.
But it seems like a futures market for kidneys would create some bad incentives (relative to a simple market). What if someone finds themselves suddenly short by 1,000 kidneys? I would want some very strict oversight as to how kidneys were obtained to satisfy these futures contracts. Probably the expense of the oversight would be more than the value obtained by a futures market.
OTOH a prediction market for kidney prices would not have all the same problems, but would retain the same advantages.
114: You should give your student an F for not considering the obvious less risky alternative of prediction markets.
120: Though assuming a spot market in kidneys (which would be a precondition for a futures market in kidneys, I should think), mightn't hospitals be natural mass-sellers and mass-buyers?
Actually, the best argument I've seen for kidney sales has a single buyer, the government, which then distributes on the basis of need and other strictly medical criteria, resorting to first come-first serve when the medical criteria run out. I assume since the author was British that the single buyer she had in mind was the NHS.
The Iranians have a two part system for kidneys, with cadaveric donation working basically the way organ donation in the US works, and live donation working as a government-mediated market. Basically, people who can't afford a kidney get thrown in the cadaveric system. The waiting list in the cadaveric system is about 300 people, and there is no wait for a live kidney. The waiting list for kidneys is about 4,000 people in the US, but we are a much larger nation.
assuming a spot market in kidneys (which would be a precondition for a futures market in kidneys, I should think), mightn't hospitals be natural mass-sellers and mass-buyers?
Not mass sellers, because - I assume - a person's kidney would belong to them, or to their heirs, not to the hospital.
And not mass buyers because kidneys are not fungible. A hospital can't just say "we conduct 52 transplants a year, please supply us with 52 kidneys in 2014, delivery every Monday" - there's the histocompatibility issue. They don't need "a kidney" every week, they need a kidney that fits Mr Smith one week and a kidney that fits Ms Jones the next week. If you had a really, really big hospital, they could probably rely on getting a patient for every kidney that came in the door, but how many are there like that? Except for the NHS, I suppose.
Is someone trying to lure Kieran back into commenting?
146: Well, he's right if you assume that laws and sentencing will remain constant
Which given the rise of the for-profit penal system and introduction of the profit motive into sentencing is exactly what you can't assume. But that's never stopped Shearer before.
161: Those fucks still aren't in prison the last I heard, though one has been convicted now. They used a plea bargin to delay and then failed to admit guilt.
163: Disappointing but not surprising. If anyone's ideally placed to know how to work the system, it would have to be a judge.
You want to hear something also disappointing. The district attorney for my county is the brother of the owner* of that prison.
*who has not been implicated in the bribery.
148 is so perfect that I accuse someone of making it up. I'm just going to say it was, hmmm, Kraab. Good one, Kraab!
159 strengthens the case against a kidney futures market. As ajay points out, kidneys are not fungible.
Kidney beans are lunchable. I'm having some today (this recipe)
Dogs love kidneys 'cause they're crazy sniffable
(this recipe)
I made my first recipe from SmittenKitchen yesterday, and it turned out fantastic -- this cake, and if you scroll to the very bottom of the comments there I describe the modifications I made.
I have to wonder if Radley Balko will come back with a cake recipe.
Libertarians use self-rising flour.
First, Witt, if you spent more time around people who apply the "libertarian" label to themselves, you'd learn that most of them consider the Libertarian Party a joke, and frequently disagree with the LP on all sorts of things.
This is "No True Scotsman" carried to new heights. No True Libertarian takes the Libertarian Party seriously.
This is a pretty shitty accusation to be chucking around. I have yet to meet a public defender who thought we were on the same side.
For the record, nobody is worried about nice state agents like you, gswift.
Semi OT: Everyone should read this article about the remarkable pro-corporate season at the Supreme Court. I practice generally in these areas and endorse every word in that article.
That is what realistic libertarianism looks like in the American context, and what the results are.
174: The claim is not that No True Scotsman does X, it's that many True Scotsmen do not do X.
Semi OT: Everyone should read this article about the remarkable pro-corporate season at the Supreme Court.
I am now officially depressed. I knew about most of those decisions already, but they're still terrible, and the one decision I hadn't heard of, Janus Capital Group, Inc. v. First Derivative Traders, looks completely nuts.
178: If you're going to be that literal, then it's actually "most true Scotsmen."
179: I found that one the worst also and I'd never heard of it.
179: Don't be depressed. If you think of these decisions as setting the stage for the Vile Offspring, they're exciting in a scify way.
Those Supreme Court cases are kinda bad, but then again, weren't companies basically always able to force you to sign away a lot of your rights? Adding the right to a class-action lawsuit to this heap is not much of a sea change, although it is aggravating that there currently appears to be no way to hold AT&T accountable for false advertising.
The cutout shell company giving the false prospectus is problematic but could probably be fixed by Congress (when monkeys fly out of my butt). The speechwriter analogy is an interesting one, though. I wonder if Larry Summers could've used that argument when he got in trouble for that speech about girls being bad at math.
could probably be fixed by Congress (when monkeys fly out of my butt)
All three decisions could be fixed by Congress, if it wanted to. However, and while I don't know your butt that well, your qualifier is right.
Although perhaps after our ongoing libertarian-sponsored ass raping by corporate capitalism, all of our butts will be wide enough for squadrons of flying monkeys to come out of.
180: True, but still a more meaningful and justified position to maintain than an actual No True Scotsman argument
Witt made the claim that quality A is representative of class B.
Thoreau countered that in his experience most members of class B are not members of the subclass B' that has quality A.
Now, class B' has the term "B" in its name, which is more than zero evidence that B' represents B. But it's not nearly demonstrative on its own. I don't think many self-identified liberals feel well-represented by New York's Liberal Party. And yes I am using a stronger case to shed light on a weaker one, discount accordingly.
I'm going to put on my libertarian hat and say that the people who got suckered by AT&T may have been harmed by regulatory overreach. Specifically, regulation of the word "free," which obviously can only appear in California advertisements under strict conditions, and thus it appears in California advertisements quite rarely and, when it does, it's usually true. But look again: Why is the state of California trying to ensure that advertisements are scrupulously honest rather than just broadly truthful? All advertising is essentially founded on lies, and none of you smart people should doubt that something advertised as "free" is going to cost you money, due to the TANSTAAFL principle (in this case, AT&T is going to recoup the cost of the phone in subscription fees and everyone knows it). Were consumers more likely to bite on that AT&T ad because the state's regulations conditioned them to believe what they see advertised? How many would have asked and learned about the sales tax thing?
I know this is not at all respectful of our community, but honestly 186 is too stupid to respond to. Broadly speaking, the impact of the decision has nothing to do with the specific facts of the case.
Also, TANSTAAFL is not a principle of law, and I'm sure companies will be pleased with a world in which they can lie to consumers, so long as everyone somehow should have known they were lying.
And with that I'm off!
Yes, I'm sorry, if it wasn't clear (and I thought it was) that was an analysis of the case's underlying merits, and not the decision or any factors that should've lead to it.
TANSTAAFL isn't a legal principle, it's more important than that, it's practically a survival skill. (I don't think it applies to the AT&T customers, all of whom presumably knew they were entering into multi-year financial agreements and not just ganking a free phone.)
Obligatory covering my ass: it's a travesty that the outcome is that AT&T can steal money from a class and can only be forced to reimburse them on a case-by-case basis. It's unfortunate that this eviscerated a reasonable California law about the limits of contracts, instead of the questionable (IMO) law about the limits of advertising which stirred up the hornets' nest in the first place.
I don't know that I'd have said it like that, but I've got to admit that I'm also boggling at "Why is the state of California trying to ensure that advertisements are scrupulously honest rather than just broadly truthful?" What would you suggest that the state of California do to assure broad truthfulness that wouldn't also require scrupulous honesty?
TANSTAAFL isn't a legal principle, it's more important than that, it's practically a survival skill.
Treating it as a law of nature isn't necessarily all that bright. There really are positive sum situations, where a deal that looks good is good, because the benefit to you isn't offset by an equal detriment to the other party.
For example, take literal free lunches -- bars used to offer fairly substantial free food. Food's cheap compared to alcohol, so the bar is better off if free food attracts customers, even without hiking the price of the drinks. The customers are better off both simply, because they get the free food and drinks that probably aren't more expensive, and also because you're better off if you eat something while you're drinking. So if a drinker on a tight budget chooses between a bar that doesn't have free lunch and one that does on the basis of the free lunch, and she would have spent all her money on drinking in the absence of a free lunch option, everyone's better off. Sometimes the lunch really is free.
(I recall reading somewhere, but have been unable to find again to confirm, that temperance activists worked to ban free lunches because they made taverns too attractive.)
I wouldn't be surprised if the bars didn't get together to ban free food so they didn't have to compete with each other.
Don't think so, because they're not just competing with each other, they're competing with not being in a bar. If a bar is where you go for lunch every day because the food's free, you're going to spend more on beer than you would if bars generally didn't feed you, so all the bars benefit.
And while I remembered having trouble finding support for the bit about the temperance activists the last time I looked, now it's right there in the wikipedia article.
Lunch is born free, but everywhere it is in chain restaurants.
OK. I should be more trusting of bars and less trusting of cell phone plans.
I don't know that I chose the words "scrupulously honest" correctly, but the point is, advertising and any other sort of persuading is going to skew away from honesty wherever it's required. False advertising laws fundamentally make sense basically for this reason, and because most words and claims used in advertisements are demonstrably true or false.
"Free" seems particularly problematic. In this context the people were entering into a contract with AT&T where they'd pay AT&T some thousands of dollars over some period of months, in exchange for a new phone and service. There are infinite ways to describe this agreement, but AT&T chose to describe it as "free phone" and this was found to be false because the consumer had to pay the tax on the phone. But, of course, AT&T is making a profit on the deal; they're recouping the costs of the phone in the monthly fees, so in that sense the phone isn't free anyway. I think it's overstepping to restrict the word "free" in advertising, since it's always a rhetorical trick, in the same way that you restrict words like "cheese."
In the case at issue, AT&T offered customers a free cell phone in exchange for signing up for a contract for cell phone service. They then charged customers sales tax based on the retail cost of the phone, an amount totalling (IIRC) $30. I don't think, personally, I would have expected to be charged for sales tax at full retail value on that purportedly "free" phone; nor, I think, would most other reasonable consumers. I am really failing to see what principle of liberty you're hoping to protect by allowing companies like AT&T to engage in scams like that.
Similarly, people who get salmonella are victims of regulatory overreach, because if the FDA wasn't inspecting meat they might have been more careful. Also, everyone who just read this is a victim of the analogy ban.
I was actually going to post something differentiating a free lunch from a positive-sum deal, but I guess that's been done already.
"This goes too far; school lunch programs substantially burden the speech of privately financed students and independent food-selling groups without serving a compelling state interest."
200: No it hasn't. The opposite has been done.
Not so much that you should be trusting, but TANSTAAFL isn't a law of thermodynamics. If you understand a deal fully, and it's a good deal for you, that doesn't rule out the possibility that it's a good deal for the other participant. Not all deals have a sucker.
Come to think, I've been kind of irritated by people who toss around TANSTAAFL in the past, but hadn't quite thought it through from this angle: The basic premise of the market economy is that market exchanges can make both the buyer and the seller better off -- that there's a real increase in value when goods move from a seller to a buyer at a fair price (and the literal 'free lunch' situation is just a slightly more complex market transaction, that looks weird in isolation, but makes sense in context). Someone who really believes there isn't any such thing as a free lunch should be very very suspicious of markets.
Basically, I think when people see something advertised as "free" they should think "what's the catch?" (because, of course, they want to know if it's a positive-sum deal or not). If California places restrictions on the use of the word "free" in advertising, it causes people to trust ads that say "free" more, and this is a bad thing because, well, look at this AT&T thing for instance.
I think what AT&T did was a dick move (gee, a cellphone company doing something unscrupulous) and dumb business sense, but I also think it was less a case of false advertising and more a case of dumb billing practices (really? a cellphone company?). They could've tacked an extra buck onto the monthly subscription fee, paid for the sales tax that way, and then everyone would be happy.
(This would be different if AT&T had provided people with detailed documents enumerating all costs and fees, and the sales tax wasn't on there, but I've gotten a cellphone before, so I'm pretty sure they didn't do this. And if they did, then again the word "free" isn't the issue).
204.1: Prudentially yes, in many cases; legally companies are (or at least should be) required to fairly disclose whether there's a catch, and if they haven't cannot (or should not be able to) hide behind "well, they should have known we were trying to screw them when they saw the word 'free.'" This doesn't seem either hard to grasp or worth quibbling about.
I used to get free lunch once a week, but a bunch of administrators got worried about the drug companies giving us lunch. I see that might be a problem for doctors, but I can't prescribe anything.
The "catch" was that you were signing up for, and locked into, AT&T's cell phone service. In exchange, AT&T promised them a phone free of charge. Only they were then billed for sales tax on the phone that purportedly came free of charge in the deal.
DS: Good point. Well, they're not the same thing.
If you understand a deal fully, and it's a good deal for you, that doesn't rule out the possibility that it's a good deal for the other participant.
If it's a good deal for the other participant, it's not a free lunch, it's a positive-sum game.
It's only within the context of a market economy, of course, that there's no such thing as a free lunch, because in Marketland nobody does anything without an incentive, so if somebody is giving you lunch and not asking for money, they're benefiting in some other way. Irrational actors, though, can and do give free lunches.
Is neil a werewolf or not? I'm seriously confused by all the nicks and neils running around this place.
I don't 'know' neil, but I'm pretty sure he's not NeilTEW.
If it's a good deal for the other participant, it's not a free lunch, it's a positive-sum game.
So, all TANSTAAFL means is that if something seems to be a real free lunch, we're going to call it a positive sum game rather than a free lunch. (And, oddly, that literal free lunches weren't 'free lunches'.) At that point, what information does TANSTAAFL provide beyond a nonspecific 'be wary about deals that look good, some of them aren't'?
It's only within the context of a market economy, of course, that there's no such thing as a free lunch, because in Marketland nobody does anything without an incentive, so if somebody is giving you lunch and not asking for money, they're benefiting in some other way.
You're still not getting it. In Marketland, if someone's offering you something for free, they're benefiting in some way rather than just being beneficent, because Homo Economicus doesn't do beneficence. That's absolutely true. But it's also true that their benefit is not necessarily your, or anyone's detriment -- even dealing with Homo Economicus, the lunch can be free to you.
It usually isn't going to be, lots of deals aren't as good as they look. But writing the possibility out of the class of things you're willing to consider is just as goofy as being straightforwardly gullible.
I got a little deeper in the weeds and was not surprised to find that California tax law is at the root of this case: cellular handsets sold at a discount have to be taxed at their sticker price.
As long as we're talking truth in advertising, why on earth are advertisers allowed to advertise prices without sales tax included? It seems like an outright lie to say a product costs $0.99 when you need more than a dollar to buy it -- or that a phone costs $0 when the tax is $30.
State by state variability? Controlling ads across state lines would be tough.
I think leaving off sales tax in labels falls in the category of things where the truth is so commonly understood that it's not a lie even from a moral point of view. It likely does give retailers a hidden subsidy, though, as people tend to make buying decisions based on the label.
213: But lots of advertising laws vary by state, surely.
what information does TANSTAAFL provide beyond a nonspecific 'be wary about deals that look good, some of them aren't'?
Specifically, I think it's meant as "if someone is offering you something for free, they actually want something from you." Also somewhat related to the Spanish proverb lo barato sale caro -- "cheap things will cost you."
I'll put my libertarian hat on again, briefly, and say that that California tax rule is really ridiculous and is a much better example of unintended consequences of over-regulation than those I was grasping at earlier. AT&T were predictably dickish about it, they wanted to make it very explicit that increasing the taxes on bundled handset was going to increase the consumers' costs, and that's why they put the tax payment right on the statement instead of hiding it in the service fees. If they'd done that they would have prevented a Supreme Court case... but I guess they're glad they didn't.
Okay, I'll buy the state-by-state thing with respect to national advertising (although, does that usually mention prices? do national chains have totally uniform pricing), but it's unconscionable when it comes to in-store pricing. Everyone pays sales tax, nobody is going to walk out of the door with that $0.99 item without paying more than a dollar, so why on earth are they allowed to label the product as $0.99? This also applies to the AT&T cellphone for sale in California too, naturally.
Specifically, I think it's meant as "if someone is offering you something for free, they actually want something from you." Also somewhat related to the Spanish proverb lo barato sale caro -- "cheap things will cost you."
Like microchips?
I hadn't thought about it, but in light of this thread, TANSTAAFL seems Heinleinian in the worst way.
That's good, Minivet, try to appeal to the libertarian-hatted through their innate love of science fiction.
Yeah, if you buy cheap microchips made of sticks and glue, you'll end up spending more money in the long run than if you just buy the fancy imported microchips.
"Yeah, they say they're twice the processing power as what I got five years ago for the same price, but fuck that - TANSTAAFL."
The tax rule is to prevent an obvious tax avoidance strategy -- build the giveaway phone into the package and voila, you can reduce cost and avoid sales tax completely.
You are completely missing the basic dynamic, however, which is that AT&T offered a free phone in exchange for signing a contract for service at a certain price. They then included a hidden fee in a manner that (unlike the inclusion of state sales tax in standard retail prices) would not have been reasonably anticipated by the ordinary consumer. There's a word for that, and it's called fraud. Indeed, I hate to say this, because I never like to pass up an opportunity to slag libertarians, but I believe you are slandering libertarians by implication -- if I understand correctly, most libertarians are on board with permitting tort suits in cases of fraud.
And here I thought surely TANSTAAFL must be a legal term of art. But no, it's just a stupid acronym for a questionable aphorism. Internet, you disappoint me.
Specifically, I think it's meant as "if someone is offering you something for free, they actually want something from you." Also somewhat related to the Spanish proverb lo barato sale caro -- "cheap things will cost you."
Shifting it from "You are not getting something for free, even if you think you are" (the situation with the AT&T fraud) to "You may be getting something for free, but they want something from you" is a pretty major leap. The latter sounds more like behavioral psychology or salesmanship (make the customer feel indebted by giving a cheap gift, some of them will walk away but some of them will now want to make you happy by buying the appliance).
I'm not all that certain that the offense rose to the level of fraud (rather than just extreme dickishness). After all, the phone was free; it's not AT&T's fault that California charges sales tax on a free phone, and (as I was just complaining) in America it's firmly established that retailers have no responsibility to inform you about taxes until they bill you. Unfortunately, to get the free(?) phone the Concepciones had to waive their right to sue, so we'll never know if it was fraud or not; just that AT&T got away with it. It's not hard to put some boilerplate in a contract saying that state and local taxes may apply, anyway.
Shifting it from "You are not getting something for free, even if you think you are" (the situation with the AT&T fraud) to "You may be getting something for free, but they want something from you" is a pretty major leap
I didn't ever say anyone was getting anything for free; I said if they offer you something for free, it's because they want something from you (or someone else, but since I'm wearing my libertarian hat, I'm trying to simplify as much as possible).
I don't think most consumers would reasonably have expected a sales tax bill after being offered a phone for free, in exchange for signing up for a contract to pay for service. I certainly wouldn't have. I think that it's overwhelmingly likely that AT&T knew this and used that gap in knowledge to have a lower advertised price on their contracts for cell phone service.
(I believe that in this case there was likely boilerplate buried deep in the contract, which is why California puts rules on what you can and can't advertise as free. Which is killing off the liberty of people to grow strong in their understanding that there's no free lunch, or something).
Neil: take off your libertarian hat and put on one that has a brain inside of it.
There are lots of articles available from the 2000s complaining about this taxing-discounted-phones-at-full-price thing in California, actually. It doesn't just apply to free phones; so if you got a $350 phone discounted to $50 you'd end up paying 50% in sales tax. But there, I guess people grumbled and paid and got on with it, since everyone knows you have to pay more than $50 to get something that's advertised as $50, anyway.
Actually, beyond in-store sticker prices, it seems customary to inform the consumer of looming sales taxes. Airline ticket prices, for example. I'm sure there are thousands of other examples, as there are thousands of things being offered for a price that does not include applicable taxes at this very moment. I just checked a Vons weekly ad for southern California and the fine print says that customers are responsible for tax on free items.
Which makes me wonder - did AT&T not put that in the fine print? I'm not actually going to look this up right now, but maybe someone knows.
Just because I'm closing up my tabs... apparently there was another class-action suit about the free cellphone tax, which the plaintiff lost:
Yabsley v. Cingular. Cingular successfully claimed that the state tax regulations gave them safe harbor, even though they didn't inform the customers in advance about the sales tax. So I guess it isn't fraud after all and California retailers are free to call things free even if they're not free.
231: That URL sort of addresses the question (it was actually Cingular, which was later swallowed up by AT&T, legal liability and all) -- they apparently didn't put it in the small print in that case, but they won anyway, because the law containing the free cellphone tax states that it can be passed on directly to consumers, so Cingular couldn't be made liable for doing so. (I think? Lawyers?)
I believe that the facts are different in the two cases. In the ATT case, the purchasers entered into a contract which was advertised as having free phones, and then were subsequently billed. In the Yabsley case you cite, the sales tax was shown on the receipt at the time of purchase, at which point the purchase could have been refused. In other words, in one case you had disclosure of the tax prior to the purchase becoming final; in the other case, at least as alleged in the plaintiffs' complaint, you did not. That difference is crucial to the law of fraud and goes to the degree of hiddeness of the available fees.
In any event, the analysis does not hinge, even in part, on your ludicrous argument that somehow there is a liberty interest involved in protecting non-truthful advertising so that people are encouraged to believe that there is "no free lunch."
Wow, that speechwriter thing in the Janus case is nutterball.
OT at this point: People, just tell me in no uncertain terms that I should not comment further in the thread over at Balko's place.
Seriously.
237: You should create a subsidiary of parsimon inc. to create your comments for you.
OT at this point: People, just tell me in no uncertain terms that I should not comment further in the thread over at Balko's place.
Don't do it parsimon. Don't comment over there, it isn't worth it.
238: Well, yeah but, yeah but.
Honestly. However. I really don't know how to respond to some of those comments; some of them raise interesting questions, but it's clear that attempting to answer them would become mired in confusion pretty damn quick, and I find it disturbing to even consider replying. I mean, it's a dead thread anyway, so that's good.
I will say this: I know more about (certain kinds of) libertarians than I did before.
On preview: Thanks, NickS. You are right.
I'm not dead. I think I'll go for a walk.
In the ATT case, the purchasers entered into a contract which was advertised as having free phones, and then were subsequently billed. In the Yabsley case you cite, the sales tax was shown on the receipt at the time of purchase, at which point the purchase could have been refused.
As far as I can tell, this is exactly right. Of course, people were undergoing the Concepcion treatment at the same time as Yabsley was getting jerked around. This doesn't make it right, but it might make it legal. We'll never find out; instead, we've found out that class action lawsuits are essentially not allowed under Federal law.
234
I believe that the facts are different in the two cases. In the ATT case, the purchasers entered into a contract which was advertised as having free phones, and then were subsequently billed. In the Yabsley case you cite, the sales tax was shown on the receipt at the time of purchase, at which point the purchase could have been refused. In other words, in one case you had disclosure of the tax prior to the purchase becoming final; in the other case, at least as alleged in the plaintiffs' complaint, you did not. That difference is crucial to the law of fraud and goes to the degree of hiddeness of the available fees.
You have managed to convince me that the entire case was BS. Sales tax is almost never included in the advertised price. If in fact California is charging sales tax on free phones this isn't ATT's fault. Do businesses have an obligation to give you tax advice?
245: none of that actually had anything to do with the case, as 187 pointed out. The Supremes decided that, whether or not Cingular/ATT committed fraud, they are not exposed to a class action for that fraud/non-fraud action.
237
OT at this point: People, just tell me in no uncertain terms that I should not comment further in the thread over at Balko's place.
Stay here parsimon in your safe liberal bubble. There is no point in discussing things with people with different views.
245: However, per 187.1 that is not the relevant aspect of the case. Apparently if a company rips off* thousands of people $20 at a time and had the "foresight" to include an arbitration clause then those thousands of people can get their $20 back one at a time even if your state legislature had the foresight to pass a law heading this off at the pass. (On preview 246.)
*Independent of whether *this* instance was a "rip off."
I say, "Sign this contract with me and I'll give you a free phone." Sales tax doesn't occur to you because you don't think of it as a sale ("free phone") and anyway, x% of $0 is $0. On the other hand, I'm quite sophisticated and have hoards of tax lawyers working for me, and I know you'll have to pay sales tax even though you're paying $0 for the phone. I nevertheless choose not to tell you you'll be liable for $30.22 in tax. You sign the contract and take the phone home with you. Later on, I bill you for the sales tax.
This sounds shady to me. Not surprised that a court would find it fraudulent, especially if it's repeated over and over as a marketing strategy.
247: There is no point in discussing things with people with different views.
Especially when the "different views" are about as interesting as the Flat Earth Society's take on cosmology.
Oh, DS: so close-minded!
(Me, I'm off to argue the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception with the Southern Baptist Convention...)
253.1: Well, true. But in my defense, I have sold out to Philip Morris International. Tomorrow I'm giving a seminar entitled "Smoking: It's Just What the Doctor Ordered!" That's pretty open-minded, right?
The beauty part is if anybody tells me I'm full of shit from a medical standpoint, all I have to say is it's a "different view" and refer them to the great philosopher and polymath James B. Shearer. Boom! Problem solved!
Visiting from Radley's blog. Parsimon, I didn't see anyone over at the Agitator asking you to stop commenting. One poster confused you with anothers comments but that was a mistake. Personally I enjoyed your comments, both there and here. Thanks for visiting, and hope you come back.
What a coincidence! I'm going with "Smoking: It's What's For Dinner", myself.
I just had a whole pack of cigarettes for dinner. They go great with hot sauce.
Replace "libertarian" with "negro" in this thread and it's really fun.
When you are one word from sounding like a Klansman, you should really examine your worldview.
258: "try to appeal to the negro-hatted through their innate love of science fiction"
Even Klansmen make more sense than that.
Speaking of [negro]ism, I visited a fireworks emporium today. It was very depressing. The concept of "discount fireworks" (2 for 1! 3 for 1!) worries me, as did the presence of extremely young children in the company of several shoppers pushing carts full of items boasting 500 grams of explosive, apparently the largest amount permitted.
Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 07- 3-11 11:48 AM
49
Well, as others have noted here, the Comments section of Reason Online is a real sewer. At one point I had a free subscription due to being rather inmeshed in the tentacles of the academic-[negro] kraken,
Ooh, you were right. That is fun. I especially like the academic-negro kraken.
Oh, hey, if this thread is still alive I'll take the opportunity to post an extremely tenuous analogy.
I've been thinking about Nick's comment (and, I'm happy to say that Nick was quite reasonable in this thread):
This sounds like a dressed up version of "libertarians are just Republicans who smoke pot."
It is difficult for me to get past that caricature, and I've decided that the basic reason for that is that if anybody wants to be an anti-war, anti-Drug War, anti-police state, pro-civil liberties Liberal they will have plenty of company (at least as much company as position on the margins of American political discourse). So I have to wonder, why does anybody bother to identify as Libertarian rather than the blah, blah, blah liberal described above. My assumption is that it represents a decision to put a high priority on their opposition to economic and business regulations.
I'm sure there are other reasons but, talking about my prejudices here, that's why I gravitate to the "Republicans who smoke pot" description.
Which brings me to my tenuous analogy.
Libertarians are very good at seeing why it's a dodge for people who want to make it easier for agents of the state to invade people's privacy to say, "why do you care if you don't have anything to hide?"
I wonder if they're putting themselves in the similar position on debates about economic justice -- saying, essentially, "why should you care about the way in which the free market system systematically strips rights from people who lack resources, as long as you have sufficient abilities to be able to acquire resources in the system."
Not an observation which is original to me (and I'll second chris y's appreciation for 105), but it's been rattling around my head.
I think the standard Negro line about economic justice is, basically, nothing can stop the fact that the rich have more resources and more opportunities than the poor, and when the state tries to compensate for this fact, it often makes things worse, because pretty much any change will benefit the rich more than it does the poor (or harm the rich less than it harms the poor), even changes that are intended to do the reverse, for the above reason. This is why Negroes like to bring up Harrison Bergeron so much, I think. Sure, "the free market system systematically strips rights from people who lack resources," they say, but this is a fact of life as unalterable as the fact that, say, the university system systematically rejects people who aren't smart.
Whoever is impersonating neil in 264 by writing that glib parody of libertarianism, knock it off already.
Oh, wait...
because pretty much any change will benefit the rich more than it does the poor (or harm the rich less than it harms the poor), even changes that are intended to do the reverse, for the above reason
See neil, this is why your line of reasoning gets no respect around these parts: it's based on positing things as true that aren't and then citing the truth of them as evidence for their truth. You see how easy it is to recognize that as circular bullshit? Now, as others have said, if you want to pull the James Scott move and note that even well-intentioned state programs quite often have unintended negative consequences, you'll have little argument. But saying that state interventions always hurt poor people is just false and ahistorical.
A program that benefits the rich more than it benefits the poor still benefits the poor more than a program that benefits nobody. Or isn't undertaken.
Harrison Bergeron apricots are so good because the chains they wear leads to highly concentrated sugars.
Hang on. I thought neil's 264 intended to spell out the libertarian line of reasoning about this, not his own.
Or has neil said, in his own voice, similar things in the past? I confess I'm perpetually distracted when neil comments, because I keep initially thinking he's Neil the Ethical Werewolf. (He's not, right?)
Being a statist, I prefer Diana Prune Glampers.
We forge the chains we wear in life.
More weight for you, snarkout, if that is your real name.
It wasn't circular logic; I don't think I was using one to prove the other, I was just referring back to it.
And "state interventions always hurt poor people" is not what I said, even if Negroes often say that. What I said is that pretty much any change the government makes, whether or not it's directed towards economic justice, will benefit the rich at least as much as it benefits the poor, or harm the poor at least as much as it harms the rich. This is often called unintended negative consequences, I guess, but it's also often not mentioned at all.
Since I'm no kind of capital-N Negro I couldn't begin to make an argument about how food stamps fit that bill, and there are surely other counterexamples too. Progressive taxation does an admirable job of mitigating the effect, but nonetheless anybody would rather be in the highest tax bracket than in the lowest one. And so forth.
All right, I guess I'm really risking doing some damage to Neil the Ethical Werewolf's good name at this point, so I'll just switch to my middle name instead, which I don't think is currently being used by any more prominent blogosphericans.
So you're saying that in order to end the tyranny of the rich we should smash the capitalist system and forge the new people's democracy together? Done and done.
A program that benefits the rich more than it benefits the poor still benefits the poor more than a program that benefits nobody. Or isn't undertaken.
If it didn't come through clearly enough in my post, this is absolutely right. Social Security is one of the greatest examples of this, I think, since as everyone knows, rich people get more money from Social Security, while needing it less; but I don't think any social program has helped the poor so much in the US.
But who wants to add means-testing to Social Security? Not liberals. Not people who care about economic justice.
abhisaha at 255 upthread: I didn't see anyone over at the Agitator asking you to stop commenting. One poster confused you with anothers comments but that was a mistake. Personally I enjoyed your comments, both there and here. Thanks for visiting, and hope you come back.
If abhisaha stops by here again: I appreciate that. If I recall, you were among those at The Agitator suggesting a building of bridges between left/liberals and libertarians.
I didn't think anyone was asking me to stop commenting there, for what it's worth; I just can't be a one-person defender of progressive liberalism (or democratic socialism, or whatever) over against a house full of libertarians. It became fairly clear in the course of that thread that there are fundamental differences in priorities, style of argumentation, dimensions of relevant issues that are adduced, and so on, and I myself would want to start talking political theory, which is how I roll. We would have a long way to go.
264 intended to spell out the libertarian line of reasoning about this, not his own.
Mostly. I would never call myself a libertarian, because I have no interest in being part of that granfaloon.
But some years ago, I moved from the U.S. to a country with way, way fewer rules, and it has been educational. Pretty much whenever I see someone doing something that would be illegal in the U.S. (usually some kind of commercial activity), a poor person doing it, and s/he's benefiting from it.
So it really is all about the class struggle at bottom. 275 is right on.
But who wants to add means-testing to Social Security? Not liberals. Not people who care about economic justice.
Only people who want to destroy the program.
The liquor store gives me a means test me if I don't pay cash or debit. I want to destroy the liquor store. But I wouldn't say one caused the other. I just don't like the crappy one by my house.
Simply because the wealthy get more money from SS doesn't mean they benefit more.
Marginal utility -- rich people may get more than poor people from SS, but it matters a lot more for poor people than rich people, and is effectively a social insurance program for the poor and middle class with a rich person buy-in.
That's why we give rich people more SS. So everybody gets the same utility from it.
Well, no (I'm not sure if 206 is serious or not). First, the system is capped at $100k or so in income, and pays out only on that much so that rich people don't break its financing. Second, the marginal utility gained by a rich person who earns marginally more in SS benefits (subject to the $100k cap) isn't close to the many, many people who rely on SS for basic necessities like food.
285: That's what I thought. I was having trouble catching the tone of Eggplant's comment: was this for or against what neil eliot has been saying? Sorry. It seems so daft on one level to say that more money is not more benefit.
You all have seen this, suggesting that SS cuts may be on the table in debt-ceiling talks, in the form of adjusting the way COLAs are calculated? Hm. It is just a rumor at the moment.
Ooh, you were right. That is fun. I especially like the academic-negro kraken.
Heh. Oh, that reminds me--the intersection of Unfogged commenters, Game of Throne fans, and conspiracy-theorists may be limited to Bob, but just in case: two "House Koch" heraldry t-shirt designs, based on the Greyjoy kraken and words.
I'm told that Game of Thrones is worthwhile, and I should, like, Netflix [this is a verb now] the first season. Yeah?
Also, sorry to carry on, but I've become somewhat fascinated by this libertarian thing. I have looked at Reason magazine. I find an article subtitled "How libertarianism can fix what's wrong with America". It says, among other things:
It's very different outside of government where--from culture to retail stores to the Internet--there's been an explosion of choice. "(Y)ou were lucky ... 20 years ago (if) you would see one eggplant in an exotic store," Welch continued. "Now in the crappiest supermarket in America you'll see four or five or six varieties of eggplant
NO YOU WON'T. HAVE YOU BEEN IN A CRAPPIEST SUPERMARKET?
Ahem.
I was trying, I really was, to think there was some sense lurking in the shadows in all this.
I was trying, I really was, to think there was some sense lurking in the shadows in all this.
Like you, parsi, I attended college before the libertarian bubble, and thus didn't know many people with these beliefs. That said, some of my libertarian students come to talk to me about how awful Lincoln was -- because of the expansion of the federal apparatus on his watch -- and I smile politely and then kill myself when they leave. Anyway, that's just a long way of say, no, there is no sense lurking in the shadows, no sense but nonsense.
280: whenever I see someone doing something that would be illegal in the U.S. (usually some kind of commercial activity), a poor person doing it, and s/he's benefiting from it
If they're benefiting from it so much, why are they still poor?
291 is correct. Seriously, that's ridiculous. I am not sure I could find more than three varieties of eggplant at any grocery store I've ever been to.
But, as others have noted, if libertarians want fewer wars (including wanting to end the cursed drug war), and if people like Radley Balko will fight to free indigent convicts, bully for them.
fewer wars
Just one: all against all.
290: I can't really judge the HBO show except as an adaptation of a series that's been a favorite since I first read it in high school, and I can't really judge the books fairly, either, for the same reason. But lots of people who haven't read the books seem to like the show, and lots of people who aren't fanboys like me seem to like the books, too. There's definitely some truth to calling it a fantasy version of "The Wire," although it emphasizes the political theory aspect more, and the organizational sociology less.
. I am not sure I could find more than three varieties of eggplant at any grocery store I've ever been to.
The store with the greatest variety of eggplant locally is a somewhat nondescript Asian grocery market. I didn't even know that there were that many varieties of eggplant before going in there.
I wonder if Sean Bean hasn't worn a sword for more of his professional life than anybody else since the invention of cheap automatic rifles.
292: I attended college before the libertarian bubble
I didn't realize there'd been a libertarian bubble.
I noticed that Peter Suderman is writing for Reason magazine. Did the libertarian bubble occur among people who are now in their mid-thirties or so? Graduated college in the mid-1990s, then? Or early 90s, just coming out of the Reagan years and moving into the Clinton administration?
I'd have said there was libertarian bubble around, I don't know, Alan Greenspan's time, but it hadn't occurred to me that there'd been a bubble2. Makes sense.
285 is the correct translation of my comment into standard English. I also would like to note that if someone were really concerned with the regressive aspects of a government program like Social Security, they would focus on, you know, the regressive aspect of the program, taxes. My impression is there is very little enthusiasm for progressive taxation among libertarians.
298: emphasizes the political theory aspect more
In a very crude way in the HBO series. Protip: secure the loyalties of the nearest people with swords and axes.
Decent maps, though--although the geomorphology is bad in predictably Tolkienesque juvenile wish fulfillment ways. The cocksucking Mountains of the Moon/Eyrie/Vale of Arryn complex is like the Steven Seagal of fantasy landscapes, and the big river complex in the middle is pretty lame as well. Not that I don't appreciate the gesture of drawing it all up.
I really enjoyed the HBO series, to the point where I just ordered the first book, and I normally hate sword and dragon and magic fantasy whatever. It helps that I am totally a lookalike for Kal Drogo.
305: Despite my criticisms. I too will probably get around to reading the series.
It helps that I am totally a lookalike for K[h]al Drogo.
Holy shit. This may be what finally convinces me to get on the caveman diet and do that bootcamp-whatever thing.
And speaking of TV recommendations: I just watched the first episode of Luther with my roommate, and have totally fallen in love with the redhead sociopath serial killer. Mmmm.
The store with the greatest variety of eggplant locally is a somewhat nondescript Asian grocery market. I didn't even know that there were that many varieties of eggplant before going in there.
Well this is it. If you want a range of eggplant you go to a shop run by Middle Eastern or South Asian folk. But it won't be a supermaret by most definitions, and you certainly won't see any libertarian students there.
and you certainly won't see any libertarian students there.
Why would you think this? Why would they be any less likely than other people to be into middle eastern and south asian food, or to supply themselves at such grocery stores?
Well, unless American students are substantially different from the British breed, they don't know how to cook. You can see students in supermarkets over here filling their trolleys with a week's supply of ready cooked meals at a $5-10 a pop and whining the while about how they don't know how they're going to service their loans.
You don't see libertarian students in local shops because you don't see any students there.
re: 310
I haven't seen the first series, but we just watched the second, which finished on Tuesday, and enjoyed it a lot. A bit preposterous but the central performance is great.
re: 313
Yeah, I expect it's worse now, but when I first moved into student accommodation I was shocked by how little my flatmates knew how to do. There was basically a divide between a few of us -- me, a Basque girl, and a Scottish/Chinese girl whose parents ran a chinese restaurant -- who could cook a lot, and everybody else, who (literally) couldn't boil an egg. To be fair, most of them made the effort, though, and could cook at least something after a while.
When I later moved into an all-male flat* in the same complex, the aggregate level of cooking knowledge was higher.
* not through choice, randomly allocated
I may have mentioned before that a friend of mine had one such callow youth move into her house back in the day. After a couple of weeks she announced, "OK, callow youth, your turn to cook tomorrow."
"But I don't know how..."
So she took him into the kitchen and pointed: "Cooker. Saucepan. Recipe book. Your turn tomorrow."
Within 6 months he was throwing dinner parties for twelve. The trouble with the present crop is that they don't have that kind of mentor around.
My impression is there is very little enthusiasm for progressive taxation among libertarians.
I believe the libertarian response to progressive taxation is "Good luck taxing rich people, suckers, they're savvy and will hide their money somewhere. Don't even bother."
I suppose I acted slightly as that sort of mentor in those student flats, as I had things like proper knives they could borrow, cookbooks they could read, and they saw me eating things that, while in retrospect were pretty basic,* were nicer than what they were having.
I could cook because my parents made me, ditto some of my friends from immigrant backgrounds. I remember being quite shocked when I moved in with a girlfriend that not only could she not cook, her mum basically couldn't, either.
* simple curries, spag bol, quite a lot of chinese food, soups, etc.
That being a subspecies of the generalized libertarian response to every government policy, which is "The Law Of Unintended Consequences means this will do more harm than good."
I remember being quite shocked when I moved in with a girlfriend that not only could she not cook, her mum basically couldn't, either.
Although, I suppose, this being the west coast of Scotland, I probably shouldn't have been surprised.
'You'll be wanting more watery mince with these tatties, Matthew?'
my sister moved in with some girls in a shared apartment in florence and found out that one of them had never eaten fish other than tuna from a can. ever. she also thought you didn't need to wash the post after boiling pasta in it because, you know, boiling. I cooked a lot for my college friends because I felt sorry for the poor couldn't-cook-for-shit motherfuckers. at the moment I have a little alcoholic/drug addict pigeon who not only can't cook, she doesn't know how to work the washing machine. she's 26. it's not like I need another mission in life but jesus I want to teach her how to do normal things.
also, I apologize to radley since I was obviously wrong about his commenters when he didn't allow comments. I do stand by his being really struck by how bad systemic racism in rural mississippi was, though. not necessarily in the sense that he didn't already know racism existed, rather that he never thought it was as bad as that. also, I think he is teh hero, and really unusual in the world of blogs by ever actually massively bettering people's lives and the justice system by blogging. it ain't like unfogged ever saved anyone's life; we couldn't even get teo laid.
321. al, what happened with the kid who had the acetominophen accident?
322.last: teo's fault; he didn't take our advice about laundry rooms, etc.
||
Most recent death: One of the barflies at my local, 40 y.o., had been to the hospital awhile back when his leg swelled up so that he couldn't walk. Of unknown natural causes. Found on Tuesday after having passed out in his car at a different bar (where he went to drink because he was ashamed of drinking in front of his friends at his usual spot) on Thursday night. The bartenders and manager of our shared watering hole are trying to figure out what to do with his cats, as he had no one else he was close to who could help.
Pretty fucking depressing.
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321: I sometimes don't wash the pot after boiling eggs. Is that wrong?
287
... First, the system is capped at $100k or so in income, and pays out only on that much so that rich people don't break its financing. ...
This is wrong, raising the cap would improve the financing as the marginal benefit earned is much lower for high earners.
326: When the super-germ that will kill the human race rises, it will have a name: Benquo's Pot Pox.
Who's down with BPP?
Every last homie.
293: I think it's because rich people have to pay taxes.
OT: I'm surprised Bob hasn't linked this yet.
I believe the libertarian response to progressive taxation is "Good luck taxing rich people, suckers, they're savvy and will hide their money somewhere. Don't even bother."
Progressive taxation punishes success, and disincentivizes the achievers. To the extent that the wealthy are able to evade taxes, that's good for society.
333: There's also "If taxes are progressive the poor will vote to give themselves lavish benefits funded exclusively by stealing from the powerless well-to-do.".
325: Oh, man, Natilo. Hang in there.
@149
"OK, stop me if I'm going too fast for you, but inflation doesn't disproportionately harm poor people because what inflation does is decrease the real value of money, and poor people tend not to have money. That's why they're, to use the technical term, "poor". In some cases, inflation actually helps them, because poor people tend to be net debtors, and inflation reduces the real value of their debts. "
Wrong. You idiots will probably tl;dr this but fuck it:
Let's consider a poor person with lots of debt and a rich person with some debt. Say the poor person is spending 50% of their income on day to day costs and the rich person is spending 20% of their income on day to day costs. the poor person is spending 40% on debt service and the rich person is spending 10% on debt service. To make the math easier, Let's say we have 10% inflation.
now the poor person is spending 55% on day to day + 40% on debt service = 95% of their income. The rich person is spending 22% on day to day + 10% on debt service = 32%. The poor person has seen a 50% reduction in their savings/investment/discretionary spending versus the rich person who has seen a
Even if you are *not in debt* inflation hurts you if you are poor. Let's say you're spending 95% of your income on day to day costs. And NO DEBT. If there's 10% inflation, then you are now spending 104% of your income on day to day costs.
Inflation hurts you more if you are poor. Period.
Then, you have to consider the mechanism by which inflation happens - by extending first-shot at low interest rates to banks, which is effectively corporate welfare for banks - or by QE, which goes to pay for things like corporate bailouts, and happens by handing over the money to the banks first anyway. Inflation also forces the middle class to invest to protect their savings, often by holding stocks (incentivised by IRAs and 401ks) which basically is another form of corporate welfare.
Have you met neb nosflow? You're going to have to do better than that to get us to tldr something.
I actually think we had a whole post on this last year -- maybe LB posted it? about explaining the mechanism by which inflation helps the poor.
Say the poor person is spending 50% of their income on day to day costs
Let me stop you right there. If that's a poor person, I wish I was poor.
(Whoa. I thought this thread had died out back at the kidney talk. It's probably dead for real now, but just in case...)
I've been thinking about Nick's comment (and, I'm happyto say that Nick was quite reasonable in this thread):
Thank you.
So I have to wonder, why does anybody bother to identify as Libertarian rather than the blah, blah, blah liberal described above. My assumption is that it represents a decision to put a high priority on their opposition to economic and business regulations.
I used to identify as the type of liberal you describe. When I started identifying as a libertarian, it wasn't because I decided "economic" issues mattered more than "social" ones, it was because I began to see less of a clear distinction between the two, and I had changed my positions on a number of issues and no longer agreed with the traditional liberal positions on them.
I'm sure there are other reasons but, talking about my prejudices here, that's why I gravitate to the "Republicans who smoke pot" description.
There are plenty of libertarians that justifiably deserve that label. But there are also plenty of liberals that could be fairly described as "rich people who just want to feel like they're helping the disadvantaged but don't care if they do." That doesn't mean that's a fair portrayal of liberalism, because it neither accurately reflects the egalitarian values at the heart of liberalism nor accounts for the liberals who genuinely care about and live by them.
I don't think "Republican who wants to smoke pot" accurately describes the ideas behind libertarianism (for one thing, libertarianism is fundamentally about tolerance and change, which are largely at odds with conservatism). If you accept that, the only reason left to think this is if you don't believe any libertarians actually value the things they claim to; that is, if you think you know my motivations better than I do.
If you do, well, we can't reasonably have a discussion, because it's an implicit assumption that I'm lying (or delusional), and if you think that's the case, there's no value in talking to me. But I hope you don't think that.
(If you're thinking, "hey, he's cheating! The question isn't if there are *any* honest libertarians, it's if libertarians in general are honest!" Consider this: Do you think the liberals here are representative of the people who identify as liberals in this country? I doubt many of you would think favorably of liberalism if you judged it strictly on the majority of its supposed adherents, rather than its values, results and best proponents. Why should you treat libertarianism differently?)
Libertarians are very good at seeing why it's a dodge for people who want to make it easier for agents of the state to invade people's privacy to say, "why do you care if you don't have anything to hide?"
I wonder if they're putting themselves in the similar position on debates about economic justice -- saying, essentially, "why should you care about the way in which the free market system systematically strips rights from people who lack resources, as long as you have sufficient abilities to be able to acquire resources in the system."
I'm having trouble understanding this analogy. Could you elaborate or rephrase it?
I don't recall having had the experience of being embarrassed by someone's self-identification as a liberal. Probably just a memory problem.
I don't use the Republicans who smoke pot formulation. Too cartoon like. But a "libertarian" who makes excuses for state sanctioned torture, hardly deserves respect. Ditto those who constantly label efforts to improve the lives of individual humans as statist tyranny. I don't respect anyone who can't tell the difference between LBJ's Great Society and Stalinist Russia.
I'd be happy to have libertarians in my coalition, trying to guard against, and mitigate, unintended consequences. I have no interest in bogus economics: whether Lafferism or less developed types.
It's not that all libertarians are selfish assholes. They clearly aren't. Selfish assholes, though, find libertarianism more comfortable that other ideologies. Hence, a bunch of folks waving your flag on the internet not worth talking to.
I don't respect anyone who can't tell the difference between LBJ's Great Society and Stalinist Russia.
This.
Frankly, I don't believe in "Reason, Egoism, and Capitalism," to refer back to the [ahem] hallowed source (I can't imagine a better cover for Strongman Rule, really, or for rule by a mob or a mafiosi); but if libertarians object to certain apparent caricatures of their positions, they should, imho, stop endorsing cheesey slogans which are strongly suggestive of social pathology, and which seem deliberately designed to substitute feel-good selfishness (it's all about you and me! and mostly me!!) for actual thought.
337: inflation affects wages as well as prices. That single fact destroys your example.