Confessions of a reformed liberal – by Tom Knighton
*Reading this reminded me of the conversion stories in If This Goes On. If we could just figure out what causes it…*
I am a libertarian. I wasn’t always one. I used to be a liberal. The story of how that changed is kind of odd, but it also kind of makes some sense that I now find myself among the diehard fans of science fiction.
When I was young, I liked Jimmy Carter because he was from my neck of the woods. Yes, that’s a pathetic reason, but I was still in diapers so please cut me some slack.
As we all know, Carter was replaced by Ronald Reagan, and the country began to improve. I liked Reagan just fine, though I didn’t really consider myself a Republican. Of course, my liberal mother jokingly compared me to Michael J. Fox’s character on Family Ties, Alex P. Keaton, who was a proud Republican.
As I reached high school, I found myself concerned about things like the environment and how the government had treated American Indians through the years. I was drawn to the Democratic Party.
More and more of my teenage years were spent looking at liberal politics as a panacea of solutions to most of the world’s problems. It just seemed to make so much sense. Taking care of the poor was the humane thing to do. Limiting gun rights obviously would reduce crime.
I was a rare creature. I was a liberal who enlisted. This was during the Clinton administration, and boot camp in Great Lakes Recruit Training Command had a fair amount of my Company Commander belittling our Commander in Chief. I said nothing though, not wanting to rock the boat.
For years, I continued to support liberal ideology. Ironically, it was possibly the most unabashedly liberal television shows in history that started my slide.
The show was The West Wing, which told the tale of the White House staff of a Democrat administration. As a counter point, they included a character named Ainsley Hayes. The character of Hayes was hired after she schooled Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn on a talk show.
In one episode, an argument outside the Chief of Staff’s office has Sam Seaborn berating Hayes for her party’s alleged belief that there was only the Second Amendment. She immediately countered as to how Democrats think there are only nine amendments in the Bill of Rights.
I was struck. She had a hell of a point. After all, there are ten amendments there, and if I wanted to protect some of them, I needed to protect all of them. At that point, I was a pro-Second Amendment Democrat.
That continued on for quite some time. It was comfortable and I knew it well. I was the outlier for the Second Amendment crowd, but I was fine with that.
One day, while looking for something to read, someone on a gun board suggested I read Atlas Shrugged. “Why not?” I thought. I ran to the bookstore and bought a copy.
I devoured the book. Seriously. I read it from cover to cover in a week, though I admit to skipping most of John Galt’s speech. It truly was a life changing book.
However, it wasn’t the final straw. You see, Ayn Rand showed me the flaws of my thinking. She showed me how people react to handouts and talked sense in that way. However, she didn’t show me how we could replace it.
Even Galt’s Gulch was a poor example. After all, the inhabitants of Galt’s Gulch were handpicked by Galt. If you pick the right people for a small scale community, any system can be made to work.
It was shortly after that when someone suggested I read Freehold by Michael Z. Williamson. Where Rand warned of what would happen with handouts, Williamson showed what a libertarian society might look like.
That was the moment when I became a libertarian. Gone was the idea that people should be free so long as they wanted to make good decisions. In its place was the understanding that while people will occasionally use their freedom to be colossally stupid, it was their God given right to be colossally stupid if they chose.
I’m not the flavor of libertarian who simply believes that if we would embrace libertarianism as a nation, everyone’s world would be all puppies and daisies. It won’t. For some people, especially at first, there will be a high price to pay.
However, the end result is that people will be free to make or break their own lives. If someone fails, they fail. If they succeed, they succeed. It’s not anyone else’s responsibility either way.
Being a libertarian has lead to some pretty awesome things. I started blogging about politics. That lead to some local coverage, including apparently being the first blogger to ever buy a newspaper. It didn’t work out so well, but it’s still something no one else had ever done. I was quoted by Judge Andrew Napolitano, who I’m a big fan of. I contributed to TheBlaze. All cool stuff.
Now, I turn my attention toward fiction. Maybe I’ll make something of myself there as well. Maybe not. While a certain amount of that may depend on other people (editors, publishers, etc.), it’s still ultimately on me. All those other people can do is say “no”. It’s up to me to actually take that and accept it on face value.
Of course, the old me didn’t realize it. I’d have been convinced it was all on them. Honestly, this feels so much more empowering.
According To Hoyt 
‘Met’ you yesterday. Tom. I am leaning more the libertarian way myself. I say leaning, because I really can’t find a political party that matches my insides. I had been Republican and Democrat, and in fact am subscribed to emails from both parties (which shows me the total craziness of both parties at the top). I have worked in social services and been in the Army. I have friends on both ends of the spectrum, which sometimes causes me to have to bite my tongue. But, having grown up with guns, and really enjoying shooting, I am a really strong second amendment type of guy. In the past I have voted for what I thought was the lesser of two evils. Now, in good conscience, I can’t vote for either of them, and will probably vote libertarian in the next election, not because I agree with them 100 percent, but because I agree with more of their platform than either the socialists or the oligarchs.
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Don’t feel bad, Doug. I’ve been an officer in the Libertarian Party, and I don’t agree with them 100 percent either. They’re just the closest thing to what I believe.
Too bad the party seems to be as dysfunctional as a meditation moment for ADHD children.
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” meditation moment for ADHD children”
Oh, that’s a great one!
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As an ADHD adult, I know of what I speak.
But I’m pretty proud of that one.
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I’ve never been diagnosed, but both my boys have, and I have a lot of the indicators. That was why I liked it so much.
Oh, I liked your story, too.
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I think a diagnosis of ADHD translates as “Oh, a boy”.
I’m personally more concerned with my CRS.
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While it’s over diagnosed these days, ADHD is very real and much more than just “being a boy”.
Believe me, it’s a certain kind of hell that just can’t be turned off.
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Unfortunately too many many behavior problems are called ADHD which makes it hard for the people who really are ADHD to get taken seriously and get the right sort of help.
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And some of those behavior problems are just plain bad parenting.
You’re absolutely right about how all of that makes it difficult for those of us who really have it. Luckily for me, I don’t ask for a damn thing because of mine so it doesn’t really matter if anyone believes it or not. :)
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The sad thing is once they start drugging the boy, both parents and teachers will report that his studies have improved. If you go and track their actual studies, no, they haven’t. They’re just glad to have calmed him down and like to think it has spill over effect.
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Yep.
When I went on Ritalin, there was a marked improvement in my grades. At least a letter grade in each subject. However, I’ve seen other kids who went on the meds and actually did worse and then they told me about how their parents were so happy about their grades improving.
I was like, WTF?
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Yes, it’s quite a bit more than just “being a boy”. Unfortunately, it’s one of those things that you almost have to have experienced yourself to understand.
This is one of the best explanations I have seen:
http://www.tickld.com/x/if-your-friends-ever-say-they-have-adhd-just-show-them-this
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Didn’t mean to demean your situation – I’m sure the real thing is a bitch. Over-diagnosed may not adequately describe the extent to which mostly young males are being diagnosed and treated these days. I-phone and videogame suckage probably contributes a lot, but there’s big money to be made in pharmaceuticals. Treating attention deficit with amphetamines seems illogical – we used to call it “speed” for good reason.
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Younger son has been studying the whys and wherefores of amphetamines helping the situation, and once you know how it works, it’s not so illogical.
Apparently, ADHD is caused by imbalances in the Dopamine and Serotonin in the brain, and amphetamines alter this by preventing the neurons from reabsorbing them. In normal people, this results in higher brain activity and increased metabolism, but in the ADHD sufferer, it causes their brain activity to level out and stop being so chaotic.
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Grr, got it backwards. The Dopamine and Serotonin reuptake inhibitors are the anti-depressant. The amphetamine causes a release of norepinephrine.
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Believe it or not, the amphetamines actually do work for a lot of folks. Yes, it sounds illogical, but it does work. I’ve had an MD tell me that amphetamines work differently on me. In the Navy, during pharmacy tech school, they told me that it essentially over stimulates the brain.
Regardless of how it works, it really does.
Now, none of that changes the fact that there are a lot of kids put on these meds that have nothing wrong with them. They don’t pay attention to their parents because they have all these distractions, and the parents don’t really try to change it. (For the record, mine did everything they could, including borderline abuse from my father, so it wasn’t a lack of discipline in my house)
So, you end up with these parents that aren’t doing crap, and they tell the doctor that they’ve done everything they can to make Junior behave. Doctors have no choice but to take them at their word, so they diagnose Junior as ADHD and write a script. General practitioners really shouldn’t be doing this, but they do it all the time.
Meanwhile, there are tests that can actually be run that diagnose ADHD. Too many of these kids never go through them, but get diagnosed anyway.
As for you “demeaning” my situation, no worries. I’ve dealt with it for years, and I like to make sure people understand that it’s a real condition, despite all the damage bad parents and irresponsible doctors have done.
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Oh it’s a real condition, but 90-95% of those “claimed” to be ADD/ADHD are normal (or as surfer said, boys) their parents/teachers would just rather have them be like 10% of kids that don’t have enough energy to blink if you throw dirt in their eyes. Because they are less headache that way, they’re also worthless as tits on a boar, but hey as long as they aren’t a problem now, by the time they are adults they will be somebody else’s problem.
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Not arguing that, bearcat.
And honestly, it’s piss poor parenting at best. At worst, it’s a form of abuse.
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My problem with over diagnosing boys because they are boys– (not to disparage those of you who have children with real ADHD) is that when they become adults and the meds are cutoff, and then they go on drugs like meth. It is a real problem here with the 18-25 crowd.
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That, unfortunately, does seem to happen as well.
However, there is no requirement to cut off the meds when someone with ADHD becomes an adult.
Of course, there is also a very high rate of drug abuse among untreated ADHD teens and adults. Not apropos of anything, just an interesting fact. :D
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Also high rate of drug abuse amongst undiagnosed mental illness as well– ;-) (got some schizophrenics in the fam. btw– and bipolar types)
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True. :)
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There might be some cause and effect there– raising the risk, basically. I know a lot of the schizophrenic family-of-a-friend-of-a-friend folks I hear about are no prior history, used drugs, now hear voices types.
I’ve got relatives with history of mental illness (besides basic things like depression– Irish, remember? I’m starting to think it’s a genetic default.), and to the best of my knowledge only one child of theirs has used drugs, and only one (different) has had mental issues. (fatally, and out of the blue, God rest her soul)
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Yea– I think mental issues are genetic as well– sadly. One of my cousins (only one out of twenty-four had a break when she was in her early twenties. Only one so far. and it was out of the blue and almost fatal. Thankfully she was caught by family and helped … on meds now.
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I have what I have decided to call Early Onset Geezerhood. I realized I had it when I had a job in a mall. I realized that I was looking at the little teenyboppers rippling past in their “hey, I’m female!” outfits and thinking “Yeah, but she’d want to talk afterwards, and she’s 16. She has nothing to say.”
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Snort.
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I didn’t express it to myself in so many words, but I’ve had that reaction to them since I turned about 30. Maybe earlier.
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Tom,
What kind of Libertarian are you? I ask this question for you to answer for yourself, because you’ll get a thousand different people telling you’re not a true Libertarian if… Do what I do tell them to F’off. For a group that supossedly for the individual I run into a lot of people trying to stick people into a mold of what they think Libertarianism is.
Hell if you want to call yourself a Democrat or a Republican more power to you. It’s not what you call yourself that matters but what you believe.
;-)
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A few years ago, I wrote a blog post on libertarian purity. It got instalanched. My first one.
Yeah, I’m not nearly as radical a libertarian as some folks. For better or worse, I don’t see government going away under any circumstance short of Armageddon. I just want to minimize government’s involvement in people’s day to day life.
Of course, I’m willing to compromise so long as it moves the needle a bit more toward liberty. Moving it the other way? Not so much.
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I want to second this comment in its entirety.
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The way our electoral system is set up either the Republican or Democrat will win. It’s a mathematical certainty. If you look at the party history of the US, we’ve only had one or two major parties at any one time. The last time a new party made it to the majors was after the Whig party had imploded in the mid 19th century. Since then the introduction of the primary system and the end of the “smoke-filled room” has locked the parties into place. Any time one of the two parties starts losing significantly, the primary system allows its persona to shift to reflect the popular consensus.
All that is prefatory to my main point. You don’t vote for anyone, you’re voting AGAINST his opponent. Not voting, or voting for a third party can send a message, but you’re one of many dissatisfied voices and there’s no guarantee that either of the parties will be interested in chasing your vote at the expense of someone else’s. It’s far better to get involved in the party at a local level if you want to shape the direction of the nation.
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Yes, definitely. Get involved at the local level, and get involved EARLY. We’re still in the middle of primaries for a number of places, and involvement now can help you get a candidate closer to your personal views. Plus, fewer people vote in the primary, so if you and some of your like-minded friends and neighbors were to get together and go through some candidates, you might have more of an influence than you thought possible.
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Certainly more influence that if you stayed at home.
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And this will be true until a third party manages to elect enough congress critters to have a presence in Washington D.C.. If a third party candidate DID get elected President, he would accomplish next to nothing, because he would have no allies in Congress. In a sense that’s what happened to Jimmy Carter; he was a compromise candidate and too many Democrats in Congress viewed him as an interloper who had taken the prize that SHOULD have gone to their faction.
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That’s the point though. A third party cannot get a significant number of Congressmen elected. Long before it starts winning elections, a third party will preferentially draw votes from one of the major parties (historically, generally the Republican Party), which will cause the major party to start losing elections. That party will then modify its postion to draw voters back into the major party.
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That has been the traditional purposes of third parties in this country.
Everyone remember what Buckley said would be the first thing he would do, were he elected mayor of NYC on a Conservative Party ticket?
“Demand a recount.”
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It seems to me that the only realistic way to get a third party to reach the level where they can be a real influence is to start at the local level and get people elected there, then work up to getting people into the State government, and finally hit the national elections. Once there are enough National offices filled, THEN they can run a Presidential candidate, but until then, they have to support their the party who is the most like them, or else it will all fall apart.
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They might be able to get some local offices filled (and I think the Libertarian Party has done that) but that will prompt the state party to shift platforms, which will in turn put pressure on the national party.
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Tom — enjoyed your story–
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Thanks Cyn, I appreciate that :)
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I was a born-n-bred Democrat until Reagan’s administration. I’ll admit to being a little strange in the humor department, but you have to respect a person who will joke with his surgeon after suffering a gunshot wound.i didn’t become a Republican then – more of a Reaganite. But the process of change started. Then I was. Now – I’d have to say I’m a Libertarian leaning Conservative. Living in Texas, you vote either R or D in the primaries, so I do. But I still vote by conviction instead of partyline.
I can’t say I’m libertarian because that party is trying to be the Big Tent both Republicans and Democrats have been in the past. And it won’t work this time either.
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You won’t see me doing a lot of defending of the LP lately. It’s completely dysfunctional on multiple levels.
Libertarianism, however, is more about the idea than any party, and that is far more important IMHO than the welfare of any party.
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The distinction I’ve seen Sarah draw on multiple occasions is to differentiate between big “L” and small “l” Libertarians. The former mostly follow the Libertarian party line while for the later it’s more of a philosophical attitude.
For myself small “l” comes closest to the mix of fiscal and military conservatism while still being somewhat socially liberal.
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There is a reason the Libertarian Party is dysfunctional (even moreso than the repubs and dems) that is because the libertarian political philosophy is basically at odds with having a party structure. I mean the people that want more freedom and a small, weak, very uncontrolling government don’t lend themselves to building a strong cohesive party powerful enough to cause those changes.
Or as Sarah would say, “the individualists failed to organize.”
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This is, unfortunately, true.
It’s also the reason Larry Correia’s Sad Puppies campaign was so impressive. :D
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Libertarians might better be organized as a caucus instead of as an actual party. Party organization politics attract the sort of people that crave control, and libertarians can’t stand that sort. I would consider it to be akin to running the capitalist soviet, or the Saturn Division of GM. Eventually everything will be betrayed and the good stuff appropriated for the good of the collective, with the principals jettisoned as an “impedance” to effective governance.
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Iguess I should have read down a little farther before giving my littl speach.
:-)
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No worries here. :D
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While I was never a full-bore Liberal, I was certainly far more liberal-leaning when I was younger. I didn’t have any identifiable moments where I changed. It was just a gradual shifting to the point where I’m somewhere in the conservative/libertarian spectrum.
That shift came mostly from a combination of studying psychology, observing how the long-term recipients of liberal-inspired benefits act, and reading and listening how liberals react when someone disagrees with them. Conservatives and Libertarians have their idiots, too, but you’re FAR more likely to find people on their own side pointing out what idiots they are than all falling in lockstep to defend their idiocy.
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I’ve pointed out a LOT of libertarian stupidity, so you’re right about that one.
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College “Libertarians” are always good for that. (Force sterilizations only reversed by getting a license, anyone? But they’re ‘Libertarians,’ because pot and sex are good….. Wish I was joking.)
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Yeah, there are two kinds of Big-L Libertarians. The gun-crazed, Cabin in the woods anti-government types, and the Potheads who like Libertarianism because they can get stoned on anything with them. If pushed, you can guess which of the two main parties they’d vote for in a pinch.
College libertarians who are so enamored by the extreme and shocking extremes of freedom it enables try to make shocking arguments for it “I own my body, I should be able to inject anything into it, even bleach if I wanted” which is hardly a compelling argument for a soundly reasoned political philosophy.
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I’ve never seen the fundamental argument against that strain of soi-disant libertarianism put better than by C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity:
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How true.
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I guess what bugs me is that they believe in “I want to do what I want– and anybody else can do what I want. And I get to decide who is a body, too.”
So they decide at what age someone is a person (and able to make all adult choices), what disabled folks aren’t people (usually, if you can’t take care of yourself without aid) and what agreements people can make that don’t involve the ‘Libertarian’ at all. (Which, to be fair, is found in some non-College Libertarians who recognize their personal theory wouldn’t work if people could make their own binding contracts… and that it doesn’t slap them awake is something I do not understand.)
I’ve got strong philosophical disagreements with hardline Libertarians, but the rational ones can at least be spoken to– it’s like a bunch of good faith liberals trying to reverse engineer conservatism. What I call ‘College libertarians’? It’s a bunch of BAD faith liberals with a different name that don’t want to help people with other folks’ money…..
Obviously, I say only because this is the internet, not all libertarian leaning folks in college are CL’s.
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The simplest way of putting my objections to libertarianism is that it would work fine for a race of sterile immortals.
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I should add that when libertarians talk about children, I often am lead to the conclusion that no libertarian society would last two generations, because the adult libertarians would not be willing to make the necessary sacrifices to ensure their children grew up to be libertarian.
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Most of the libertarians (notice the small l) I know tend to have large families, and while discipline varies greatly, as does their moral teachings (most religious libertarians tend to believe: you have the right to live your life however you choose, but while you’re under my roof you’ll live how I see fit. An attitude I agree with, by the way) the vast majority of them tend to have their children shoulder much more responsibility than kids in general pop do.
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You just described my family. Only two kids, but my son does a lot more than most 12 year olds his age do. I’m one of those religious libertarians and you summed up my argument very easily.
I also note that while outside of my house, you have a right to live how you wish, but that doesn’t mean I have to condone it either.
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Well, there’s those that do it, and those that talk about it. 0:)
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I have recently read a comment about being a small-l libertarian but he did think that at some point you do have enough and so you will be forced to give away anything more than his appointed level or have it taken.
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Sounds like he’s libertarian in the same way Stalin was.
What they apparently disagree on are matters of degrees.
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You can have Social Anarchist and Anarcho-Capitalist, pretty diametrically opposed points of view, both calling themselves libertarians.
So someone calling themselves a libertarian tells me nothing about what they believe other than they don’t identafy themselves as libral or conservative.
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Enjoyed reading your commentary. I grew up politically naive. Didn’t think politically at all until Goldwater ran against Johnson. I had just got out of the Navy at the time and I knew Viet Nam would be a mistake. Everyone was saying Goldwater was going to send troops there. For some unexplained reason I just couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think Johnson would either though he had increased the amount somewhat- 500 increased to 10K I think. Johnson knocked my socks off when four months later, sent 300K. I went back in for two more years, found that the service still was not my thing and got out and started college. Got married and someone mentioned Goldwater. That led me to the new Libertarian party in 71-72. Read the ‘Amazing Bread Machine’ and began the learning journey. I guess one would call me a little ‘l’ Libertarian. Everyone knows I’m one but I don’t push, do defend Ron Paul though. I have been a member of the party since just after the founding. But have been dissatisfied for years and thought of dropping out for years but ‘at least they are saying something’ then recently I started listening. Hold it, you just want MJ legalized, you don’t want to fix our stupid ‘real drug law problems’ Where the government is trying to take control over every pill, every prescription, where if a doctor gives you enough pain killer to block the pain, he/she is over prescribing and other things that come between the doctor and his patient. There’s more but, I thought Libertarianism meant having a clean, small responsible government that didn’t interfere with the citizens anymore than absolutely necessary. I haven’t sent in my resignation yet but, when I can speak rationally to the sellouts instead of ranting, I shall.
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I’ll be honest, if Barry Goldwater was running for president next time around, I wouldn’t even think about looking at the LP candidate.
You’re right about much of the LP’s focus. To make matter worse, legalization is a strategy that just makes the LP look like a bunch of kooks. Sure there’s been some victories on that front for libertarians, but there’s a lot more at stake right now that just pot.
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Short Version: I was a communist in my teens, a liberal in my 20s, a sort-of conservative in my 30s, and now a sort-of libertarian in my 40s. I don’t even want to think what my 50s might bring.
Longer Version: I can remember three things really changing my views politically. The Iron Curtain fell, and I got to talk to people who had actually lived under Communism. The licensing, regulations, and taxes in the City of Philadelphia were a dead fish of reality smacked right into my face when I started my first small business. And a very elderly, retired steelworker giving me the tale of how he had watched his union change over the decades from an absolute necessity to protect him and his coworkers from dangerous working conditions to the very thing that protected the jobs of dangerously inept coworkers, simply because they were union members.
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Interesting, Tom.
My parents and grandparents were Republicans. Imagine that in the Texas of the 20’s and 30’s. I guess what we really were were contrarians. Mom and Dad supported Nixon in 1960, probably not knowing much about him. They did know what skunk LBJ was, though.
They were really enthusiastic about Goldwater in 64. Later they admitted that he was too honest to get elected. And that is the problem… Goldwater was basically a libertarian. But when he promised to get rid of the TVA, people were scared to vote for him for fear of losing their TVs. Really. When he refused the 64 civil rights bill because he felt it unconstitutional, sit-in protesters at the 64 convention labeled him a racist and a bigot, even though he had supported all the previous bills that had been derailed or defeated by Democrats and LBJ.
So the problem with politics is choosing the lesser or two evils. Libertarians offer another choice, I suppose, but a futile one. This demonstrates the truth of what a wise observer of human affairs observed centuries before: “All of this I have seen, and I applied my heart to every work that has been done under the sun, during the time that man has dominated man to his harm.”—Ecclesiastes 8:9.
Whether chosen by a free vote, or any other means, people who get in power are still people. It would be nice if they would just leave us alone, but we now that won’t ever happen. So instead of diving in to the cesspool of politics, I recommend the words at the end of Ecclesiastes, “The conclusion of the matter, everything having been heard, is: Fear the true God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole obligation of man.” After all, the bad guys will soon bite the dust.
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I grew up conservative and was old enough to vote for Reagan the first time I could vote. Then after a few years of other stuff (I kept running into people who hated Reagan in the military, etc). Plus I had to hide my light in my English Lit classes. Some of my writings at that time lean-left. I did a course correction around the time of my illness. It was then we moved back to the States after spending fifteen plus years following the military. It was a shock to me how eroded our constitutional freedoms had become in at least fifteen years.
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oops — in fifteen to twenty years.
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. It was a shock to me how eroded our constitutional freedoms had become in at least fifteen years.
I’ve always been conservative, but I’m getting a flash of this– from the EPA taking away a couple’s house because they have mud puddles when it rains or put decorative ponds in (“navigable waters”) to sending armed teams to enforce their rulings to funding people suing them and not fighting the lawsuit if they want to do what it would “force” them to do, etc– all this junk is what I GREW UP hearing about from my parents, because we were ranchers. About two hours from Bundy’s area, IIRC.*
So, basically, NOW it’s suddenly a problem that people living in town get hurt? Or is it because they work in offices? It sure wasn’t an issue thirty years ago, when the little desk-dictators could’ve been stopped.
I’m no where near going to say “well, piss on you guys who didn’t do anything” or something similar, but I AM going to point out that the “kooks” from the “boonies” were correct.
* First, he didn’t say anything that’d make it OK to kill him and take his stuff. Second, though, I’m familiar with the context of similar observations– it’s not about “black people,” it’s about those poor dead-ended wards of the state. Trayvon Martin or any of a thousand other young thugs, not Herman Cain. I’d also argue they are better off, because the only thing holding them down is their own dependence– but I can also see how a guy growing up in that area would know how hard it is to pull out of a bad system. Definitely not a topic that anybody sensible is going to discuss with that starting point, especially not when a sizable part of one of the major parties DEPENDS on that dependence.
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Foxfier– I grew up near ranchers and that stuff did start in the mid-70s. But IT is 100 times worse now. It’s not one or two cases… it is every State and every community. Much worse– and yes, I have been ringing the bell about it for a long time… but when I was in the military many of those from Eastern States (most of them) thought I was either lying or didn’t understand the “full” story.
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BTW– the US government has never (I did say that word) considered Western States as independent from the FEDS.
Let’s talk about nuclear testing and the people who died from weird cancers because of the fallout in Nevada, Utah, and surrounding areas. And yes, we are now at eroded and even NO freedom now because the West except for California has been treated NOT as independent states. The only thing that saved us for so many years is that we haven’t had a huge population and could disappear (plus Sheriffs had the power and used it … and threw feds out of their counties).
But we are now being drowned in California liberal ideas that are taking away the voices of many of the people who have lived in these areas for over a century.
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I am the wrong person to be yelled at–
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*grin* I know, Me-In-A-Different-Time-and-Place.
I just get so annoyed by the big so-and-sos getting excited about it now.
Your shock after being gone 15 years just reminded me of the shock when I figured out that the Back East and Town Kids really didn’t have a clue what was going on.
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Yep– me too. and they didn’t care either.
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THIS.
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My introduction to libertarian thought wasn’t Rand or really any of the great thinkers, it was L. Neil Smith discussion’s books that were about what sort of controls are being put on our lives through regulations that were not on our grandparents, and what burdens continual inflation and taxation at every step in our economic lives. Prior to that I figured Libertarians were the loons that wanted to smoke dope in the woods and not fulfill their obligations to support others through taxation – Like I was taught.
My head works funny, though. When you say that something once worked but it won’t work now, I want to find out what has changed, and what was lost. That made me think, read and research to figure out the what and the why. I still can’t make it through Rand, but I have had some fun with such wide-apart thinkers like Bastiat and Malthus. And the Hard-currency folks. And I will commend Williamson to anybody.
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L.Neil Smith’s fiction is a total gas. The “Probability Broach” convinced me that the U.S. went off the tracks when the Articles of Confederation were ditched for the Constitution. Washington was a traitor, Hamilton even worse.
Rand is a bit turgid, but Atlas can be read as a big novel, ignoring some of the more extended screeds.
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I guess I grew up semi-conservative, and college (the first time) pushed me farther that way just out of spite. And then working for a living shoved me firmly into the “why am I paying for that?” category when I saw what taxes were and where they went. Interestingly, my first political memories are Camp David and the 1980s farm loan interest rate mess.
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Related to a common pattern I’ve observed– are you married with kids, yet?
And no, you don’t have to answer, and I won’t go digging. :D
You didn’t mention it, so either you aren’t, you don’t want to talk about it, or it just wasn’t relevant. TWO of those are reasons to not even respond.
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Yep, married with two kids. One about to be 13, another just turned 2.
Didn’t figure it was relevant, but not hiding it either. Proud of both of my wonderful kids :D
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Some folks are worried, and for good reason– especially in places where folks like to get personal, like politics!
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Somewhat surprisingly (to me, darn it, to ME) is that the most, ummm, “vociferous” libertarian advocates I know off-line either have no children (and do not ever expect to have them) or have been through very inimical divorces / break-ups (again, most without children — although pets may have been a factor).
To weigh in on the wider “where did HE come from” scale: Grandad on one side was third signature on the papers filed to certify the petroleum workers union in Oklahoma — no, I don’t know which one, only found out that little gem during the prep for his funeral. He and Granny were staunch Democrats. Other side of the family was farming, neither particularly political or religious, but solid Carter supporters. (Eh, family connection: my Panamanian-born aunt worked at the Carter foundation[s] as an interpreter, eldest cousin on that side was an interpreter for the State Department…) My own parents were mostly Democrats while I was growing up, but we mostly Did Not Discuss politics among the family.
Me, personally, those around me probably could get by through describing as a conservative liberal with highly-independent opinions. It is my considered opinion that MOST long-term solutions to the problems we’ve dug ourselves into will require breaking things much more badly than they already have been / are being broken.
That, and trees / nature. We need more trees, and nature — but NOT at the expense of Humanity.
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I know quite a few libertarians just like that. Luckily, I know some really solid libertarians with families who, I believe, help overcome the image of libertarians being like that.
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I balance out as a moderate. Fiscal conservative, social liberal, constitutionalist and anti-big government. I like science, but sneer at the continuing failures of AGW, think evolution explains a lot and has held up to rigorous tests. I think abortion is a bad idea, and contraceptives a really, really great thing.
Meh. Extremes in any direction are bad. But to the left you get the welfare state and taken too far, mass graves. So I don’t think I’ve ever tipped very far that direction.
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YES, what Pam said works for me!
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I started leaning libertarian the old fashioned way. I read Atlas Shrugged as a teenager. (I too skimmed John Galt’s speech.) I still differ on some foreign policy issues and a few others.
Since I was a teenager I have remained a social conservative. As a teenager I didn’t understand why being libertarian meant not caring about adultery. I still don’t. (Of course I knew why the government shouldn’t care.)
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There are people who believe libertarian and libertine are synonyms, when they’re most certainly not. Not even close.
As a part of society, I don’t want government involved in anything regarding adultery. As a human being, that’s a whole other matter.
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I started from the other end, a hardcore Republican, turned Conservative, now small “l” Libertarian with a strong flavoring of Constitutionalist. I left my Republican affiliation when I accepted the conclusion that a sizable part of what the Democrats have always said about the GOP is indeed true. They are the party of the rich industrialists, they do indeed snap tall and fall in line when their corporate sponsors give orders, and for all their talk about supporting the small businessman and the middle class working American, it’s depressingly obvious that the establishment Republican Party is every bit as inbred, corrupt, condescending, and unresponsive as the Democrats — and just as willing to take taxpayer cash when they can get away with it (which is most of the time).
The first signal was the way the e-GOP quietly abandoned the genuine Conservative Joe Miller in Alaska in favor of the utterly corrupt Lisa Murkowski, but the snarking and backstabbing that was unleashed on Sarah soon made the point even more clearly. There is a ruling class in America today, and the leadership of both parties are members.
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Welcome to the Dark Side! We have cookies, our costumes are cooler, and no one but the peasants with the pitchforks mind the doomsday weapons in the background. >:D
I came from the other side of things. My parents are probably on the conservative end of things. The other sort of conservatism that you would never know exists from just about any work of culture: pragmatic, technophile old-school rust belt industrialists. How often culture screams at us that we’re all a bunch of unwashed uneducated hicks …
I sort of went conservative ->squishy (I read limits to growth and was alarmed at the possibilities, then I realized the due dates on their projections and how they were wildly off, then I read about nuclear physics, nuclear energy (which more or less fixes their problems) and the environmentalist’s relationship with fission power)-> conservative again -> libertarian -> more libertarian. There is a bit of a difference in worldview between this and the various flavors of conservatism. I suspect there might be a difference in temperament as well. (Though nothing so great that it would drive me to do something desperate and (unfortunately, IMO) counterproductive like vote 3rd party.) It still pales in comparison to the difference I have always had with the leftists (and though it is a semantic battle I suspect has been lost before I was born to the Newspeak, I cringe whenever people describe modern-day fascism as ‘liberalism’. A conservative should remember what ‘liberalism’ originally meant, and be unwilling to cede the title to authoritarian socialists!)
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PS Ayn Rand was a bit of a gateway-drug to libertarianism for myself. I devoured her stuff in college, and while other people can perhaps justifiably criticize her on technical grounds as a novelist, it was like water in the desert of modern culture to people like me. Someone who actually seems to understand and sympathise with some of the motives of highly individualist scientist/engineer types like myself. In just about everything else I could find to read at the time we were cartoon supervillians, or poorly understood and deeply flawed “soulless” types.
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By “industrialist”, I don’t mean 1%er capitalist either. My parents are machinists. My grandfather was an engineer/inventor.
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PS – on an unrelated apolitical topic: Has anyone seen this?
http://mailview.custombriefings.com/mailview.aspx?m=2014041801aiaa&r=3611533-1b12
The information obtained by the Kepler mission has been, IMO, some of the most interesting astronomy news the past few years. It’s a pity that the pointing control (reaction wheels) on the vehicle failed. Launching another mission of this type, especially if the integration time allows for inspection of further-orbiting planets, would be very interesting.
Another interesting thing are these M-type red-dwarf stars – they are far more plentiful than the hotter G and K stars similar to our sun, and it was thought they were too cold to have much chance of supporting habitable planets. As it turns out, these low-mass stars seem to have planetary systems that are very close-packed compared with our solar system, and several seem to have had candidates within the habitable band of their star (which is much closer than the habitable band of hotter stars).
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As a matter of fact I have seen it. An issue that will need to be resolved is are these planets tidally locked or in sort of a synchronous rotation like Mercury. From Wikipedia, “As seen relative to the fixed stars, it rotates exactly three times for every two revolutions it makes around its orbit. As seen from the Sun, in a frame of reference that rotates with the orbital motion, it appears to rotate only once every two Mercurian years. An observer on Mercury would therefore see only one day every two years.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(planet)
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“Somewhat surprisingly (to me, darn it, to ME) is that the most, ummm, “vociferous” libertarian advocates I know off-line either have no children (and do not ever expect to have them) or have been through very inimical divorces / break-ups (again, most without children — although pets may have been a factor). ”
Hmmm :/ . This has been something I have been wondering about more often these days myself. I’m still unmarried and have never been very interested. It would explain, in a Darwinian sense, why we are always so few and far between. :/
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Intended to be a response to KiheBard
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I gotta say that Freehold strikes me as a dystopia, albeit a fairly pleasant one as these things go. It’s a college peer pressure society turned up to 11, or maybe even 17.
Also, it’s disturbing that his high-G brassiere discussion perpetuates the myth that straps are what hold up the works. It’s the band that does the work. If your bra straps are loadbearing, your bra doesn’t fit.
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Well, folks get different things out of fiction. To me, it sounded more like Utopia.
Never gonna happen, except in fiction, but it was enough to get my gears turning.
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Yep, unrealistic, but then Utopias generally are, that’s why we’ve never had one here on Earth.
I don’t recall the high-grav bra discussion, but then I don’t have a need for bras, I do recall the discussion of better quality boots/shoes designed for wearing in high-grav, but then good quality boots that hold up, are comfortable, give proper support, are something I am always using and looking for better versions of here at 1 G.
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So, assuming you haven’t, what keeps you from harming or killing those people that annoy you everyday ?
Do you talk with your mouth full at the dinner table? If not, why not.
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Assuming that wasn’t a mis-response….
She’s Catholic. A real one, at that. And probably fully capable of doing a post on acting out of love instead of the college kid fear of embarassment society.
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Nope wasn’t a miss reply.
Being a doing good works as an answer. Most people being and doing good is enough they don’t need an out side force to keep them from harming or cheating others. Some need a little social preasure to keep them inline. And a very small percentage there’s no helping.
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Nope wasn’t a miss reply.
Kind of guessed that from later responses.
Might want to stop taking the jerk pills, you’re over-dosed on them; my internet time isn’t so flushed that I can waste time on someone who makes nasty, ignorant accusations against nice ladies, gets pissed off when someone points out what he means, and then applies equivocation that either assumes the person he’s talking to is an idiot or is attempting to score slight-of-hand “points.”
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Firefox,
What…. “makes nasty, ignorant accusations against nice ladies?”
Is this in reference to the, “assuming you haven’t” comment? I did assume that she had not.
I asked two questions for clarification. Because I don’t assume to know what is in another person head. Or that I was aware that she is Catholic. If I’m confused I ask questions. (FYI: Still don ‘t know what her answer to the questions are. All I know is what you FireFox believe her as would be.)
Plus the questions were up to anyone not just suburbanbanshee.
“…dystopia, albeit a fairly pleasant one as these things go.” – suburbanbanshee
dys·to·pi·a
disˈtōpēə/
noun
noun: dystopia; plural noun: dystopias
1.
an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one.
Tom addressed this, so I didn’t. I just moved on to asking the questions for clarification.
Because, I was wondering in a Free-society with out a state (Force in the form of threat of death or imprissonment) what did she think would be a motivational force keeping people from each others throats. There are three practical reasons and one SciFi trope as to why people don’t harm their fellow man.
1. Being nice works.
2. People fear being rejected from the group.
3. They feel someone will harm them in return.
4. The forth would be some form of mind control.
If option one doesn’t work in a stated society we jump to level 3 because we think option 3 is some how more preferential than option 2 of peer pressure. That hurt feeling are more harmful than loss of life or liberty.
This just seems backasswards to me.
Fox, Just because you take what I say to mean something, doesn’t mean that was my intent in saying it.
I’m going to end with this quote:
– Robert Higgs
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Well I’ve never seen that #2 works for practically anything except possibly family, in limited circumstances, and we all know #1 doesn’t work. So we are left with #3, which has been proven to work so well that most governments (both good and bad ones) are based on it, because it is all that really works.
Yeah I’m confused as to why Suburbanbanshee views Freehold as a dystopia (other than the fact she wouldn’t want to live there) but a lot less confused by that than how her believing it is a dystopia relates to your questions of her.
She is one of the nicest and mildest mannered posters on here (I realize that isn’t saying much, but she really is mild mannered and polite, honest) and a professing and from all indications, devout Catholic. Facts that you have been around here plenty long enough to know if you pull your head out and actually read what others write instead beating the stuffing out of your favorite strawmen.
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Bearcat,
So, the only reason we don’t murder those that annoy us is we fear being caught and punished by the state?
To point 1. Mostly people are good people they don’t need laws to inform their morality.
If point 2 doesn’t work how does calling someone a Racist shut down conversation if peer or societal presure doesn’t work?
“…assuming you haven’t…” Yes I assumed that suburbanbanshee is not the type to go around killing those people that annoy her. According to you, Bearcat, it’s because she fears retribution from the state, not because she’s a nice person.
You yourself said point 1 & 2 don’t work.
It’s nice that you and others are coming to her defense. I guess asking questions just unacceptable behaviour, and there must be a Huns rule of don’t mess with us’ to force you to come to her defense, because it can’t be because you guys are nice people or anything. :-)
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Yup.
We can tell this works because the crime decreases for every increase in state control.
Even in a tyranny, the tyrant has a powerful interest in ensuring that only he oppresses us;.
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What?
What country has the largest Incarcerated/Criminal/Prison population?
In Connecticut there is ruffly a couple hundrad thousand new criminals created with the passing of a new law and their refusal to follow it.
And in way you are right though with tyranies because you outlaw things like free speech or doing things they don’t like like protesting, or being a certain race (Jewish) or type of person (gay) and then kill them. I guess I never would have though of genocide as effective crime prevention.
I’m going to paraphrase Emerson, “Good men should not obay the law to well.”
If a mugger tries to mug me I at least have a chance of fighting back.
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” there must be a Huns rule of don’t mess with us’ to force you to come to her defense, ”
Nah, we just saw a new chew toy.
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” there must be a Huns rule of don’t mess with us’ to force you to come to her defense, ”
Nah, we just saw a new chew toy.
And, as already stated– nice lady unjustly attacked, in a rather obvious manner.
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Foxfier,
I’m still fuzy on how asking two question can be viewed as unjustly attacking someone?
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“Most people are nice people”.
True to a degree. However, the larger the society the more “rogues” there are. The problem with “Voluntary Societies” is that the informal/social (such as peer/societal pressure) means of dealing with rogues become less workable, the larger the society becomes. Thus there is a need for an acknowledged (by the society) group that has the authority/responsibility to deal with the rogues (both internal and rogues).
As for how AccordingToHoyt operates in dealing with “possible” or actual rogues, we are a small group (counting regulars) and thus the informal/social means work for the most part.
Of course, Sarah (or those she authorizes) have a Ban Hammer to deal with individuals that informal means can’t handle.
No system is perfect but while “Voluntary Societies” can work for small groups, humans have learned that larger societies require a group acknowledged to have authority to use the appropriate means for dealing with rogues.
Oh, I don’t count you as a rogue. You just have a slightly annoying utopian belief about how societies can operate. [Smile]
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Maybe I wasn’t clear, point 1 & 2 don’t for a society as a whole. In point of fact 3 doesn’t totally work either, even if we had the death penalty or worse for absolutely every crime, we still would have crime, we just wouldn’t have any repeat offenders. But point 3 works much, much better than 1 & 2.
Being a nice person is a good thing, generally a large portion of any society are considered “nice people” by those in that society. But being a nice person does absolutely nothing to stop those “not nice” people. “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
Naw, there ain’t a rule against asking questions, I just find you annoying in the same way that many claim to find Vox Day annoying. We probably agree 80+% of the time; you just find the most irritatingly obnoxious way possible to mostly agree.
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Continuing after successfully averting burning my breakfast:
You just appear to look until you find anything you disagree with, or possibly can misconstrue the meaning of to disagree with and then pound on it.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like to argue, I’ve even found things to butt heads with Foxfier on a couple of times (which usually results in an unending wall of text until Sarah or someone tells us to shut up, since we both tend to be slightly hard headed). She just doesn’t irritate me the way you do, so I tend to be more polite.
The fact that you have been on here for a couple of years, as has suburbanbanshee, is what makes your statements obnoxious and irritating, because we all know that either a) you are intentionally misconstrueing her, or b) you haven’t paid a single bit of attention to the countless posts she has made since you have been on here. With either scenario, what are the chances of you paying any attention to any reply she makes?
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Slightly hard head = Could use your heads to cut diamonds?
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Only if I get a percentage of the gems.
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Bearcat,
““People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
I sleep peaceably at night because I stand ready to defend myself.
There I go mostly agreeing again. ;-)
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Well, here’s the proof: Anarchy came first. The state came after. Unless you are going to argue that we’re blithering idiots who voluntarily adopted a worse condition, the state is better.
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‘ Unless you are going to argue that we’re blithering idiots who voluntarily adopted a worse condition, the state is better.”
Many days I would find that a valid argument.
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Above a certain population size, some sort of a state is a necessity but sometimes the society doesn’t select (or get) a good state. [Sad Smile]
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Paul,
Understood, but under the theretical Freehold model of Citizen Mediators, where do you think the flaw is or why it would not work to deal with rouges?
Bearcat,
Put into context of I should have known better I can see how that could be considered rude or an attack, but I have been following the comments all that closely sinse the last time Foxfier and I had pur dust up. And to be honest I haven’t put any effort into memorizing any names, remember or plasing rembered personal information with them.
I honestly didn’t any disrespect by asking the questions. Thanks for shedding some light on this, I was perplexed as to were Foxfier was coming from. Foxfier thinks the worst of me and atributes bad intensions moditives to my actions. Deservedly or not that is the reality.
Oh well. I’ll try not to annoy her or anyone by doing what I was doing reading the post and ignoring the comments.
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It’s been a while since I read Mad Mike’s Freehold so I don’t remember the details of the “Citizens Mediators”.
However, IIRC Freehold did have a government with limited powers.
In general, things like Mediators/Arbitrators work when all sides in an argument acknowledge the authority of the Mediators and put themselves under the authority of the Mediators/Arbitrators.
If you file a suit against me with a Mediator/Arbitrator, then by my understanding of them they have no authority over me unless I chose to place myself under their authority.
While a Mediator/Arbitrator might find against me if I don’t put myself under their authority, does the society accept that they have legitimate authority to take actions against me?
In general, only Governmental Judges have authority over the individual without the individual accepting the authority and can take legitimate action against the individual.
That’s the major flaw of “Voluntary Societies”.
IE the rogues are free to not accept the authority of “Voluntary Mediators/Arbitrators” and the society (or other individuals within the society) would acknowledge that (if they’re honest).
The Mediator/Arbitrator could hire “private cops” to go after the rogue but by the standards of the “Voluntary Society”, the rogue could hire “private cops” (or just get a bunch of his friends) to legitimately fight the Mediator/Arbitrator’s private cops.
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Paul,
First, I’m all for leaders and Government, what I am against is State assumed Monopolies on the use force.
Second, how are you going to fund/pay for or attract these other cops to yourside if (1) the cops themselves think you are in the wrong and (2) you no longer can afford them because noone else in the comunity is willing to do business with you.
There is great motivation to stay within good standing with your community, if no other reason than you need them to stay in business.
There is this great musconcetion that Anarchy is about lawlessness and everyone being able to do what ever they want without consequense.
For a longer more detailed answer (my opinion) you can go here: jim.com/anarchy/
A little sample from:
Do all that call themselve Anarchist believe this? No. This is why Anarchy has become sononomus with lawlessness and chaos.
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IMO you’re assuming that “society” would consider me in the wrong or that a portion of society wouldn’t support me.
It is not a matter of “government having a monopoly on the use of force”.
It’s a matter of “government having the acknowledged authority by the society to enforce the society’s standards”.
It’s not only a matter of “rogues” but it also a matter of disagreements between different factions within a society.
For example, I’m a member of the Howard faction and you’re a member of the Kruschke faction.
We have a disagreement and neither of us can agree on which Mediators/Arbitrators to decide our “case”.
If the disagreement is strong enough, our factions may be in a near-state of war.
Obviously, the other factions would be worried about actual shooting taking place between us.
How do the other factions settle the matter?
If the other factions gather together and decide to impose a solution with the implied or open threat of force against us if we don’t accept it, how does that differ from a government?
Especially if society in general considers a decision by the majority of factions to be binding on all members of the society.
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Pual,
Ah, you think a states job is to prevent war, and that is understandable seeing as the State tells you that it’s job is to provide security.
Under an AC society small scale war will happen from time to time (you are correct) , but small scale is the key.
Ask yourself , “Would you rather see small scale wars pop up at the small comunity level involving thousands maybe million in a really big reginal dispute vs War at a State level involving millions if not billions.
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You’re completely missing my points. Good Bye.
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Paul,
I did not miss your point, I just did not agree with the premise that it seemed to be based on.
Good day, and Take Care.
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Addendum for clearity:
Frédéric Bastiat was refering to State run governments not organization that we join. If a government gets it’s authority from the Governed how can it have extra authority that “We the People” do not posses?
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Paul, you said,
“It’s a matter of “government having the acknowledged authority by the society to enforce the society’s standards”.”
My response; I call that the nation of busybody argument, and will counter with this is to quote from Frédéric Bastiat, “Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”
And by asking this question, What is the purpose of ‘The Law’?
Another question, what happens when “We the People” with draw that authority?
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Foxfier,
Sorry!
Stupid brain. Firefox???? I don’t even know why try to comunicate in the written word, I guess I’m to dumb to quit.
Sorry!
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No worries, happens a lot.
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PS Sorry about the textwalls. I do tend to ramble a bit.
Actually, I am wondering now about the prose format, and how many parenthesis, commas, colons my thoughts tend to grow as I type. If there were a more convenient way to express a thought so that you could keep sticking branches on it – a tree rather than linear structure – it would be less awkward. (For me to write, perhaps not for other people to read. :-P )
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Sounds good. Why don’t you invent one, and then tell me how it works? :-)
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Please nominate a June theme here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1800032-june-2014-theme
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We will, of course, start reading Life at the Bottom on Thursday.
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The first libertarian I knew was a guy who lived near my parent’s summer home in British Columbia. He was a middle-aged guy who dumped his wife and kids to live in the woods with a younger woman to grow pot. Needless to say, he gave me a rather negative view of the philosophy for quite some time.
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FYI:
I was raised a Jeffersonian Classic Liberal, but I did not know it as my dad and granddad did not talk in labels but in ideas and principles.
It was until going on 9 years ago when I started putting my thoughts and what I believe into words that I ran into a problem.
Nothing quite fit and if you call yourself something other people will try to put you into the box pf what they think that label means to them. They build these great strawmen arguments against what they think you believe. (I’ve done it too.)
This why I gave up arguing with people on the internetz, resently, just got so tiring.
Nothing good comes from using a label or putting one on someone. All it is is practicing othering.
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Nothing good comes from using a label or putting one on someone. All it is is practicing othering.
Right, we should never use labels for any purpose. This is why language is evil, and why we should never say anything to one another but ‘ungh ugh ugh ungh unngh’.
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Tom Simon,
“This is why language is evil, and why we should never say anything to one another but ‘ungh ugh ugh ungh unngh’.”
This is what the fuck I was talking about. Strawman. I was talk about labeling people, classes and such. At what point did I talk about language or classifying things other than people? I didn’t.
All liberals are hippy flower children. All conservitives hate the poor. All libertarians are big selfish jerkfaces. Now I don’t actually get to know the people around me and treat them as unique individuals. I can just make ass-umptions about them.
Thanks Tom for freeing me from the burden of actually thinking. The last sentence of, “All it is is praticing Othering.” should have been your clue that what I was talking about was labaling people nothing good comes of it.
This not to say you shouldn’t judge someones actions as being bad or evil by all means go a head, but labels are a poor judge of people character. You can call yourself what ever you want that doesn’t that you actual are that.
I’m reminded of Nancy Peloci going off on the reportets for calling the ACA Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act; like it’s then name that will make the reality. They do it all the time in government. Patriot Act anyone.
Tom Simon I can label/call you an idiot, but if I do that I’m going to stop paying attension to anything ypu have to say.
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This is what the fuck I was talking about. Strawman.
No straw man. I merely pointed out what your words actually mean. If you didn’t mean them, you should not have said what you said.
I was talk about labeling people, classes and such. At what point did I talk about language or classifying things other than people? I didn’t.
Words are words. If you can’t label people, you can’t even label them with the word ‘people’. That’s ‘othering’, if you please, because of the clear implicature that there is a class of things that are not people. Any word that is used to refer to some people and not others is ‘othering’ by definition. So I’ll accept your correction: You are merely saying that we should never use language to refer to people. Gotcha.
All liberals are hippy flower children. All conservitives hate the poor. All libertarians are big selfish jerkfaces. Now I don’t actually get to know the people around me and treat them as unique individuals. I can just make ass-umptions about them.
Now you’re the one who is employing straw men. You are taking a certain very limited class of utterances about people, and saying either (a) that all utterances which attach labels (a.k.a. names or descriptions) to people are of this class, or (b) that this particular class of utterances are so insupportable and so devoutly to be avoided, that all other classes of utterances which attach labels to people must be avoided in the interest of purity. Either way, you are saying that we must never describe people in language because the benefit of not ‘othering’ people exceeds the total loss of utility that would occur if we had no form of language with which to talk about people at all.
My own position is diametrically opposed to all this, and is summed up in the phrase, Abusus non tollit usum.
Thanks Tom for freeing me from the burden of actually thinking.
You’re welcome; since you seem to be having trouble with it.
The last sentence of, “All it is is praticing Othering.” should have been your clue that what I was talking about was labaling people nothing good comes of it.
‘Othering’ is neo-Marxist jargon. It doesn’t really mean anything, except to say, ‘This is a form of drawing distinctions between things which I maximally disapprove of, because CRIMETHINK!’ It was a word coined to elicit a canned emotional response, and not to contribute to rational discourse. So yes, that was a clue, but it wasn’t the clue you thought you were leaving.
When you call yourself ‘Josh A. Kruschke’, that is a label. When you call me an idiot, that is a label. When you say, ‘All conservatives hate the poor,’ you are attaching an unfounded generalization to a label. The problem is not in the act of using labels, but in the content of those labels, which must be assessed by the reason and evaluated case by case. A blanket statement that ‘all labelling is bad’ is indeed no more than a ticket to excuse oneself from the difficult labour of thinking.
This not to say you shouldn’t judge someones actions as being bad or evil by all means go a head, but labels are a poor judge of people character.
Labels are not judges; only people are judges. It is foolish to say that labels are poor judges when they cannot be judges at all; as foolish as to say that a jelly doughnut is a poor artillery piece.
You can call yourself what ever you want that doesn’t that you actual are that.
Right: because one of the uses to which labels can be put is to tell lies. But that is one of the uses to which all forms of language can be put. If this is an objection to what you call labels, it is an objection to all forms of language whatsoever: which is the point of my earlier response to you.
I’m reminded of Nancy Peloci going off on the reportets for calling the ACA Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act; like it’s then name that will make the reality. They do it all the time in government. Patriot Act anyone.
But when you attribute to ‘labels’ such evil powers as to say that they must never be used, it is you, in fact, who are making the error of thinking that the name makes the reality. Ms. Pelosi, I can assure you, made no such error. She is an accomplished propagandist, and wanted people to refer to the A.C.A. by its official, euphemistic title, because ‘affordable’ and ‘care’ are words with a high positive connotation index. She wanted to retain the power of saying, ‘If you oppose Obamacare, you are against affordable care – you evil monster!’ In the end she lost that point. Now, ‘Obamacare’ is a label, and ‘Affordable Care Act’ is a label, but one of them is a more or less neutral (if not entirely respectful) name, and the other is a wilful application of doublethink. Again, it is not the act of labelling, but the purpose for which it is done, that has a moral valence.
Tom Simon I can label/call you an idiot, but if I do that I’m going to stop paying attension to anything ypu have to say.
That, in this particular instance, would be your loss; not because of any merit of mine, but because I am the only person present who happens to be reminding you of things that you need to know but would rather not hear. However, you can go ahead and call me an idiot if it makes you feel better. I’ve been called far worse things, and by experts, too, and despite their very best efforts, they haven’t killed me with their mouths yet. You see, unlike you, I know that labels are a tool, and I can make the distinction between a label and a lie.
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Agree.
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Thank you. I’m glad someone does.
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Tom Simon,
Would we be having this discussion if I had sad never substitute or confuse a label with reason or judgement?
I’m glad you know what is in my mind better than me.
When you said this, “But when you attribute to ‘labels’ such evil powers as to say that they must never be used, it is you, in fact, who are making the error of thinking that the name makes the reality.”
I going to point out very clearly, I did not say or use the word never, that is something you read into what I said.
I find what you wrote to be very ironic, as all I was trying to point out is how people confuse the label with the thing. Or that if we use the same label or word we don’t always use it the same way or give it the same meaning. That a lot of the time we use labels to divide us humans into groups (othering), and also an aside you can call a dog a person but that doesn’t make it so.
This all started when I said this:
“Nothing quite fit and if you call yourself something other people will try to put you into the box [o]f what they think that label means to them. They build these great strawmen arguments against what they think you believe. (I’ve done it too.)”
The following referred to the above paragraph.
“Nothing good comes from using a label [yourself] or putting one on someone [else]. All it is is practicing othering.”
The fallacy in your argument is that I was trying to imply or say that you should never use labels, classify or make judgments about things in general ever. You can take my word that was not my intent or you can continue to believe you know my mind better than me after reading one comment. I will admit that I could have been clearer in my writing, but the false assumption is on you.
You made a very strong case against a position I never took.
I said, “This not to say you shouldn’t judge someones actions as being bad or evil by all means go a head, but labels are a poor judge of people character.”
The subject of this sentence is “You” but let me fix it, “This not to say you shouldn’t judge someones actions as being bad or evil by all means go a head, but reling on labels is poor way to judge the character of someone.”
Better?
I can call myself a libertarian, but that doesn’t tell you what I believe. My understanding of what libertarian means can quite different than your own.
Onto this:
“‘Othering’ is neo-Marxist jargon. It doesn’t really mean anything, except to say, ‘This is a form of drawing distinctions between things which I maximally disapprove of, because CRIMETHINK!’ It was a word coined to elicit a canned emotional response, and not to contribute to rational discourse. So yes, that was a clue, but it wasn’t the clue you thought you were leaving.”
You assumed that I was using the word the same way you would use it.
Just dismissing what someones says because you don’t like the word now that going to lead to rational discourse. CRIMETHINK! how about DOUBLETHINK!
How about a difinition of Othering I’m mire familiar with : A a process by which we distance ourselve from those we see as different than ourselves or our group resulting in a lack of respect shown or empathy felt.
Your right though your understanding of ‘Othering’ is the only one that counts. *Sigh* We wouldn’t want to try to understand where the other guys coming from when we can just assume that we know and treat it as a fact.
:-)
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“Would we be having this discussion if I had sad never substitute or confuse a label with reason or judgement?”
Of course not. Because in that case you would have said something sensible, and therefore he would not have had to point out how stupid the thing you actually said was.
I notice that only on your third try did you come up with this.
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“You assumed that I was using the word the same way you would use it.”
Well, yes. Because he was using its standard meaning. There is no point in using a nonstandard meaning in a context where the standard meaning would be assumed, because it fails in the most basic purpose of language: communication.
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When I use a word, it means what I want it to…. – Humpty Dumpty, paraphrased.
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Just make sure you pay it extra . . .
On Mon, Apr 28, 2014 at 1:43 PM, According To Hoyt wrote:
> Foxfier commented: “When I use a word, it means what I want it to…. > – Humpty Dumpty, paraphrased.” >
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Please explain how this:
“Nothing quite fit and if you call yourself something other people will try to put you into the box [o]f what they think that label means to them. They build these great strawmen arguments against what they think you believe. (I’ve done it too.)”
& this:
“Nothing good comes from using a label [yourself] or putting one on someone [else]. All it is is practicing othering.”
turns into this:
“This is why language is evil, and why we should never say anything to one another but ‘ungh ugh ugh ungh unngh’.”
Othering:
rationalwiki.org/wiki/Other
Actually the standard definition of othering is found in context if how it is used. (FYI : I first came a cross the term othering in regards to Self-Defense and Military discustions. So, It not the standard definition or usage in the circles I hang around.) So, again you might not want to ass-u-me that every one has the same background or familiarity with the english language as you.
Othering predates Marx. But is the bases for Saul Alinsky rules for radicals.
I’m talking about putting people in boxes according to a label. It’s ‘logical’ that I was only using it to elicit an emotional response not use as a descriptor of I was trying to describe.
:-)
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You were the one to start throwing about the term. It was YOUR job to write clearly enough to make what you meant to mean clear.
That “othering” predates Marx does not mean it’s not Marxist now.
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So we can apropriate ideas from past generations and claim them as our own.
Hmmm…. Good to know.
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Marxism was the poisonous fruit of a poisonous philosophy. That it exemplified it means that what it brought to perfection is its
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Yes I used the term and I was mistaken that it’s use was clear from context. But when I tried to clearfy my meaning all I get is that is not what you meant. Like you guys know what is in my head.
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applauds
An excellent argument! A pity that its target can not bring himself to see how accurate it is.
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“as foolish as to say that a jelly doughnut is a poor artillery piece”
Having spent time in the military and been exposed to some decent artillery pieces, well, a jelly donut SUCKS as an artillery piece.
Just sayin’.
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Now back to Tom Simon,
– You quoting me.
It kind of makes sense, if you accept that equivocation is allowable.
Since I don’t, and I seem to recall you don’t, it’s not sensible. A label is just a description, and if there’s a disagreement about what it means it needs to be defined.
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Sorry this was suposed to go here:
con·text
ˈkänˌtekst/
noun
noun: context; plural noun: contexts
1.
the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.
“the decision was taken within the context of planned cuts in spending”
synonyms: circumstances, conditions, factors, state of affairs, situation, background, scene, setting More
frame of reference, contextual relationship;
text, subject, theme, topic
the parts of something written or spoken that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning.
“word processing is affected by the context in which words appear”
Addendum:
Agreed, and most of the people I hang around ask for a clarification if the are unsure of how someone is using a word. Before the go onto build an arguement around a possible false premise.
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Your usage was perfectly clear. It was used exactly as it often is. You should try to make your usage unsure if you want people to think it might not mean the standard usage.
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Point taken.
And if I had thought the context was unclear I would have.
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con·text
ˈkänˌtekst/
noun
noun: context; plural noun: contexts
1.
the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.
“the decision was taken within the context of planned cuts in spending”
synonyms: circumstances, conditions, factors, state of affairs, situation, background, scene, setting More
frame of reference, contextual relationship;
text, subject, theme, topic
the parts of something written or spoken that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning.
“word processing is affected by the context in which words appear”
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This might help people understand me, if anyone cares. On the Myres-Briggs personality types I’m an INTJ/P Depending on how they ask the questions can move into INTP/J. It’s usualy within 10% either way.
I’m kind of wondering if anyone alse has taken it and wondering what their results are.
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