I micro-burst or sorts blew through here these past couple of days, in the post below entitled “A Fun Week“. Dave Budge and “Black Flag” had a discussion going on over at Electric City Weblog and it spilled over here. It reminded me of the closing scenes of Blazing Saddles, and Harvey Korman’s words to the cab driver: “Get me out of this movie“.
But it was interesting and I presume nothing. These are two men representing strains of the libertarian ideology, which is well-grounded and with which I am wholly at odds. I believe in human freedom, and that without government, we cannot be free. That, to the libertarian, if I may so presume, is contradictory, as government itself holds in its hands the chains by which we enslave ourselves.
So Dave and Black Flag fought it out, and were at the boundaries of polite restraint, and did not cross it. Here are some notable snippets from the post below – they are not at all linked -just things that made me go “Hmm” as I read through the exchange. Each one could lead to another micro-burst.
Wisdom is the understanding of one’s own ignorance. (DB, citing Socrates)
Man’s fatal flaw is imposing his assumptions on his fellow men. (Black Flag)
You fall into the trap of many libertarian ideologues that ideological purity holds primacy over politics. Fine, but what we have is politics to deal with. (Budge)
Absolutely – randomness does not defile consistency. Do you think a dice is consistent? Does it not provide an ‘answer’ with a range? Every time? Today as it did yesterday, and will tomorrow? (BF)
Yes, but you see Dave, I’m chatting with you, not them – because they’re dead, and hopefully, you’re not. BF
Ayn Rand said that there were no contradictions in nature, and that apparent contradictions could be resolved by changing underlying thought assumptions. I’ve been troubled by one of very large implications for many years now. It was called the “Kirkpatrick Doctrine” and was used as justification for U.S. support of right wing dictatorships. In essence, Ambassador Kirkpatrick said that oppressive left wing regimes like the Soviet Union could not be dislodged because they owned the minds of their subjects by means of indoctrination and thought control. Right wing totalitarian states merely acted to control behavior, and could easily be replaced by democratic societies.
My only problem is this: The leadership of the Soviet Union gave up power without bloodshed.
Piece of Mindful 
Not that I want to open up the debate again but let me say that a range of 2 – 12 (dice) is much different than a range of zero to infinity (or maybe even negative infinity to positive infinity.) Making an argument about randomness while putting a mathematical constraint on it seems rather silly when looking at the “laws of the universe.” N’est pas?
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Yeah – I thought that was an odd statement – limiting the range of possibilities in which randomness can occur seems like a contradiction.
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No, it’s really not a contradiction if one can define the range. In the context of dice he’s correct.
I’m still waiting for his real name and location (although I have narrowed the latter down, I think.) I’m almost to the point where I will no longer respond to anonymous comments. I can understand why someone would wish to remain anonymous but I can’t understand how those who wish to change the world can hide behind a curtain – an open display of pusillanimity.
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Dave,
My right to privacy is my right, and I hope you respect it.
What name I have or where I live is totally irrelevant – it has nothing to do with reason or logic.
When I chose, if I chose, to change the world, I will chose the manner, the time, the place, and the cause to do so.
But until then, its not yours to demand.
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I never said it wasn’t. But I’ll not respond to you again until you do. B’bye.
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Your choice…
C’est la vie!
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Dave,
“Mathematical constraint” – Math is the language of the universe, not its constraint. We use math to listen to what the Universe.
Randomness is a component of probability – the Universe is probabilistic in its nature. We are still discovering the layers of that probabilistic nature.
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It’s not so unusual for these two from the libertarian-right to be arguing over varying degrees of indivudual liberty and how far right is right. There’s nothing there for anyone left of center to really connect with, except perhaps a common interest in indivudual liberty. Contrary to conventional political categorization, the libertarian-left could find common interest in dumping our authoritarian-right government. I’d start with dumping the Federal Reserve, where libertarians of all stripes seem to agree. Then move on to bringing home most of our overseas troops. After that it might be tougher to find common ground. Hey, but that’s huge if the left and right issues could be put on hold for common libertarian objectives. And maybe that’s somewhere between 2 and 12?
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It seems to me that “the left” (and I use the term reluctantly) has a habit of dismissing the libertarian constructs of individual liberty simply because of the association with libertarianism. We are usually described as “right” when, in fact, that’s pretty hard to say inasmuch as we agree with the “left” about as much as we agree with the “right.”
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The problem as I see it is irreconcilable. Libertarians regard economic freedom as an essential part of the existence of a free human being. I sympathize with that ideal, but realize that in practice, economics is a tool of oppression. People who have collected a large sum of money use that money to control the lives of others, rake off a good portion of their wealth creation to accumulate yet more – in the end, we have masters and slaves – and don’t kid yourself that slavery is not rampant throughout the world.
From my point of view, all other freedoms are enhanced if economic freedom is limited. That screams in the face of libertarian philosophy. We cannot now or ever be friends.
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My point in your words. False choice, Mark.
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I don’t get where the choice is false, unless you are saying that it is oppressive rule to even allow that choice, that is, to let wealth coagulate like it does on the Monopoly board game, or to continually break up the coagulations.
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I’m saying that the issue goes much further than economic freedom and you’re – and you ilk – thinking it is presents a false choice. For example, most libertarians think we should either vastly reduce or even eliminate our overseas military basis. Most libertarians think that “terrorists” should be afforded full constitutional rights. Most libertarians are against corporate welfare. But pug-nosed thinkers get hung up on issues that are either unrelated or only tangentially related.
On the political real why do you think the “right” has an advantage in getting libertarian sympathies on a partisan basis? The reason is that they tolerated (or ignored, perhaps) libertarian positions on social issues. Not because libertarians and conservatives are cut of the same cloth.
But the fact of the matter is that, on a issue to issue basis, libertarians are the only ideological cohort where you could actually “split the baby.” And if you’d make the case that, for example, closing down our foreign military bases produced a greater economic reward than, say, reducing marginal tax rates by a few inches(which I think it would) the left to have a left-libertarian coalition – at least from time to time.
And that’s what ladybug is saying and it’s been said in the libertarian camp for decades. The “left”, however, is more hung up than the “right.’ So, the “right” wins.
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Economic freedom is hardly a tangential issue! It is at the center of my rejection of your philosophy. It’s the theme music to Free To Choose.
Regarding military bases, that’s a corporate function – the military is an appendage of the corporate state. Terrorism is pure state propaganda to get us too support military basing and aggression. That we agree on that is fine … are you seeing that your attitude about wealth is the primary difference?
Anyway, you can have the right. It’s a center-right country, and there is wide agreement on foreign and domestic policy between the two parties, with libertarians and leftists out in the cold. I feel your pain.
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You’re the same as Black Flag.
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I guess I am dense here, as I am not getting you at all. I don’t understand why you hold special vitriol for the left, which I have felt in spades from you over the years, other than this condescending kind of patronage that we don’t ‘get’ you, that we are of a weak strain of humanity that can’t compete, or that we possess smarmy attitudes about community and the commonwealth that you find offensive.
All of this beckons back to a select phrase I have used to describe your ‘ilk’, which I won’t repeat, which is that you don’t ‘get’ things on a very high level. You are blind to very basic things are you are deeply studied in things that have no real import on terra firma.
Ladybug wants to make common ground with you – LB – you will find in the end that he is so contemptuous of the left that his natural falling-in is with the right. Dave – you take this to mean that they are more accepting of you – I take the opposite conclusion – that you are more sympathetic with them. You are a libertarian, call it minarchism if you want to distinguish yourself. You are an intellectual right winger.
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Mark, don’t confuse my contempt for you for my contempt for the left. There are many people of the left I greatly admire for various reasons even if I disagree with them. For example, if you spend any time studying Mill you’ll find out that he is a left-libertarian. He had a serious underlying egalitarian posture on labor – which is not so far from yours in fact. I don’t embrace it but Mill is in my top five list of philosophical influence. I also greatly admire John Rawls because his ethical construct of economic equity is perhaps the most defensible argument for the social safety net I have ever read. I have not been persuaded by him in his argument for Distributive Justice but not because it lacks reason but because it lacks proof.
You, on the other hand seem to have a much greater proclivity to assign “guilt by association” and avoid the underlying tenets of reason that allow us to take a single subject and consider it on its merits. I think, although I could be wrong, that this comes from your priorities. And you’re priority seems to be one of singularly economic “justice.”
Now, you having accused me of making the assumption that I suppose man is an economic being first (which I do not) it begs the question that, if you’re unwilling to embrace any part of the libertarian community because of our posture on economic liberty, it’s you who is has the greater assumption that we are economic beings first. If labels are your cup of tea – as you are so quick to use them – you fit nicely into the definition of ideologue.
I have consistently asserted that you’re closed minded. I stand by that.
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Interesting that we just traded the same slur – me saying that you are supremely stupid, you that I have a closed mind.
You’re not going to convince someone with a closed mind that he has a closed mind. And there are certain overriding beleifs that I have arrived at that would be very hard to dislodge – I have seen no evidence and have no reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and I have seen no evidence and have no reason to beleive that libertarian economics, without a heavy offset of government oversight, works. Moderation in everything seems to be key, which is why I view Northern Europe as having presented us with the most workable system.
Your comment that you greatly admire some on the left reminds me of Stephen Colbert and his black friend. He takes great self satisfaction in even having one. Too much, in fact.
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Great, I make the argument that libertarianism isn’t a pure economic construct and you tell me you reject it because of it is.
You’re like debating an adolescent.
And don’t give me that Colbert crap just because you can’t debate real philosophical constructs beyond your personal observations. It’s not good enough to simply “feel” something is right.
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Libertarianism is a pure economic construct. Are you daft? You have rejected it. You’re a “minarchist”, or a libertarian who has glimpsed at least part of the real world. It’s like being somewhat a Christian, however.
The “Colbert crap” hit the mark – you were praising yourself for being open-minded in saying there were certain people on the left that you admired. That is nothing more than a giant ego at work, underlying what I have long suspected is social insecurity.
Observing the results of certain behaviors to be tragic is not quite the same as “feeling” something to be wrong. Inability to see the tragedy that naturally follows the philosophy you no longer believe in goes to deeper human psychic functions.
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No, Mark, libertarianism is not a pure economic construct and if you’d actually bother to know what you’re talking about before you exercise jaw you’d understand that. So until I see some proof that you’ve actually taken any time to understand that I’ll just dismiss you since, obviously, you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.
And observing tragedy is far removed from figuring out its cure. You assume that the Northern European model is better but that’s purely subjective and you boil it down to one or two metrics – which is sophist nonsense. Yet you never even address with any substance the ethics of your opinion. You’re an intellectual air-hole with a big mouth.
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Dave, Dave,
Don’t get angry. Mark is exposing the ‘lefts’ thinking quite well.
Mark,
Libertarians, mini-anarchists, anarchists etc. do seem to address freedom within an economic context.
I do see man as an economic being – economics is the science of human action.
So if we say “man is a being who acts”, then we are saying he is an economic being.
He can be other things too – being this ‘thing’ does not exclude other things.
So, Mark, your complaint – to me – that is seems that it is always using ‘economic’ arguments probably has validity – but I think its more that we have developed a strong language set inside economics that explains human actions, and not so much in the ‘other’ things.
As Dave said, the airy notion of ‘justice’ – is highly subjective. How do you measure it? Is the measure valid? Is that measure the same for everyone, or unique for everyone?
It appears there simply isn’t a robust set of language or tools to create a mutual, agreed base.
Also, many people seem to think freedom is a place – when it is a verb.
Because of that mistake, people attempt to institutionalize freedom, like they did with religion – and call it the “State”.
But with institutionalization, hierarchies are created, and a “us vs them” attitude and levels of power. Soon the top of the hierarchy loses their purpose and turns the institution into a mechanism of control of people to enrich and self-aggrandizing the top.
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You do this – you become hostile and look for deeper and deeper insults with each exchange. You and Wulfgar come to blows and it becomes a obscene pissing match. It’s disgraceful.
If you did not start off as such a condescending ass, you would not set people off like you do. Oh, you’re courteous too those who pay some homage – don’t get me wrong. Your friends, some of the best of whom are black, love you.
Libertarianism is centered around individual liberty – I get that. But where is that liberty infrineged? Only by government. That’s a huge blind spot. How does government infringe on liberty? In many ways, we agree, but at the center of it all is regulation of financial activities and taxation beyond services received in return, aka”theft”.
The rest of it reasonable people are in agreement on – personal freedom is important to most of us, though frightened people are not really free. I think that if we so choose, we should be able to smoke dope, sleep with anyone we choose, have an abortion, to carry stupid signs and sign petitions and blah blah blah.
At the heart of it, however, is money. For everything else, your philosophy has wide appeal – libertarians are basically republicans who want to smoke dope and get laid.
You’re not that fucking complicated.
Re Northern Europe – I’m sure you’d do a hit job on them given enough time. Just a few things: Tax rates are very high, standard of living is very high, birth rate is low, happiness quotient as objectively measured is very high, poverty is marginal at best, income equality is much more prevalent than here, health care and education are financed by taxes and available to all.
A few more things. They do just about everything better than we do. And they have freedom – to move, think, participate in government, associate freely, worship – they are free of the fear that illness will bankrupt them, can change jobs without jeopardizing that care, can form unions, are entitled to a high minimum wage.
Idiots.
By the way, even if we process information in a different manner, it does not logically follow that we arrive at faulty conclusions. This is your fatal flaw – to presume that pure reason leads naturally to truth. People process information differently, whether by reference to emotion or reason. It is the end result that matters. Your philosophy leads to bad outcomes, and therefore cannot possibly be a net social good.
That I process information through an emotional filter? That I cannot process Smith or Marx or Locke? My bad, I guess. But I don’t see where I am hurt if I can observe what works, and go with it.
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I think we’re making progress here. Mark’s concern for economic oppression might be solved, at one source in the U.S. by at least, by joining
together libertarians of the right, center and left, to tackle the Federal Reserve Bank. As long as interest rates are 0-.25% small
and micro-business is in a holding pattern, at best. Want jobs? That’s the sector that needs to move forward, not big conglomerate
banks with solvency problems. How about a banks and bases strategy to upend our two-party/one-party authoritarian-right government
controlled by multi-nationals?
Authoritarian (right or left) controls have not led to economic freedom. A robust libertarian-left approach is at least
worth closer examination. The problem as I see it is that too many in our pop culture are co-dependent on government, willful slaves.
It will be hard to wean those who don’t evern know what bootstraps are.
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Ladybug,
We have to start at the beginning and not the middle.
What is the basic, immutable, principle that we should hold as the measure for our society?
I believe it is freedom – because before you can do anything else, you have to be free to do it.
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“My only problem is this: The leadership of the Soviet Union gave up power without bloodshed.”
I think this is more because of the man, not the philosophy. The world got lucky, IMO.
However, Mark, it presents a scary scenario for me.
As the fascist/socialist West begins to implode – as it was doomed to do – will the West be as gentle as Gorbachev?
I think he took away that option – the West will not do what the East does (or did) – and the East went (relatively) peacefully, the West may chose the opposite.
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Re USSR: I don’t think this is a very enlightening explanation – “the man” in a large organization is more a passenger than a captain. For instance, Obama is having a very difficult time making any substantive changes.
I think you are missing a great deal here, and I am not holding out the answer. I don’t have it. I am just saying that it bears more thought than this. It could well be that we in the west were up to our navels in propaganda about them in the east.
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Soviet Russia was very different then here – man at the top was the power.
http://www.ericmargolis.com/political_commentaries/a-day-that-shook-the-world.aspx
Cheers!
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Your credibility is at stake here- please explain how one man can bring down a giant empire.
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No, no, no.
Didn’t say he brought down the Empire… that was out of his control…
What he did was to do nothing to stop it. That was in his control.
He could have sent 3 million troops into Poland and East Germany, and started a blood bath – with the result being tens of thousands of dead, and the end to Soviet Empire anyway.
He chose to let it fall without sending in the troops. That was his decision.
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Well, some ascribe to the ‘great man’ idea -that history is the product of the efforts of a few. I think there are indeed great humans who have made much difference, but that most of whom we perceive to be leading or causing things to happen are merely riding waves. The CIA predicted the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1970’s, I read – it was bankrupt and held afloat by oil prices, which crashed in 1985. After that it was a matter of time before the old guard stepped out of the way. It was inevitable, and no more the product of one or two men than Neal Armstrong being responsible for the moon landing.
That’s my view, anyway. I like to think that things are bigger than our minds, and we reduce them by various means, great men being one.
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Re: Doctrines.
Eisenhower – following Truman – began a doctrine that still echos today – heck, it’s been repeated.
“You’re either with us or against us”.
The fear of Communist spread made the US policy that if you weren’t pro-USA, you were pro-USSR.
The impact of this badly argued position is that indigenous political movements – which almost always had the goal of independence and not some alignment with super-powers, was seen to be an act against America.
Thus, the US overthrew many democracies – which often were merely independence movements – to install dictators beholden to the USA, because
“…you’re either with us or against us…”
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“We have to start at the beginning and not the middle.”
BF,
…have to? That’s not very libertarian of you, it’s authoritarian. And your oversimplifications get us nowhwere.
There’s nothing simple about democracy, or independence, or freedom. It’s messy, complicated business, which requires some amount of give and take for it to work. Try it sometime.
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The “have to” was not to force, but to guide.
If we do not start with an moral immutable base, all we end up doing is making decisions by pragmatism and not by principle – ending up in a horrific mess.
If the foundations are strong, the odds the structure will be strong too.
Democracy is the worse form of government of them all – it marries diffuse responsibility with unlimited justification – and will be regarded in future historical examination as the greatest tyranny.
Complicated is nothing more than something that hasn’t been reduced to a piece small enough to understand.
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Above you lament “…the US overthrew many democracies – which often were merely independence movements…”
Now you thow democracy under the bus, calling it “…the worst form of government of all…”
You go in circles, predict the future, and atomize “complicated” as if in doing so one could engineer or design better societies by simply rearranging pieces like auto parts. Way too wierd to follow!
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Re: Democracy.
I do so by reason – not emotion, Ladybug.
One simply has to look at the mechanics of power.
One thing that stays the hand of regular people’s action is “consequence”. I’m sure you’d burn the candle at both ends, if there was no consequence.
If a political action has no consequence, it is very likely the action that will be undertaken.
By eliminating consequences in and across all political power, any action can be undertaken without fear.
Responsibility appoints consequences. If you had no responsibility regarding anything you did, would be limited in what you would do.
Justification. If you could justify any action you undertook, is there any action that could not be justified? Obviously, no.
So, when you look at Democracy what do you see.
“Diffuse responsibility” – Hey! It was me, it was the majority! No responsibility for any action, hence no fear of direct consequences – hence, no brake on any actions.
“Unlimited Justification” – Majority rules! What ever the majority says, goes and everyone else needs to accept it. Thus, any action that the majority agrees, becomes justified.
Unlimited Justifications with Diffuse Responsibility. It’s worse than giving a teenage boy cars to a Ferrari packed with beer.
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Argg no editor
…”It WASN’T me, it was the majority!
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I think you nailed it here, LB, in saying that “…democracy, or independence, or freedom. It’s messy, complicated business, which requires some amount of give and take for it to work…”.
More than give and take, it also requires and educated and well-informed populace, freedom of the press and quality education being at the heart of it.
I won’t go into journalism, but one of many places where I depart from the Democrats is in support of our current public education system. It is not getting the job done. I realize that the charter crowd is loaded with profit-seekers, but also think they hold great promise for lifting us out of the doldrums.
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Life is messy – but even more so if we hold pragmatism as our underlying moral base.
With no immutable principle – pragmatists seize what ever happens to be the flavor of the day w – replacing long term, sustainable situations with short term, unsustainable situations.
“Moral Hazard” is a disease of pragmatism.
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Formal “pragmatism” died around the time of World War II – a lot of people were set on their heels by that event. That would have been Dewey, Peirce, Holmes, James … that much I remember from college.
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Then support homeschooling, Mark!
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Absolutely, I support it. I do wish that it was less for purposes of religious indoctrination and more for empowering kids with critical thinking skills, however.
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