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A lot of libertarians just are more comfortable socially with liberals than with traditional conservatives. They enjoy the same sushi bars, drink the same lattes, and feel at home together mocking people who take things like church seriously. Unfortunately for liberaltarians, the liberals as a class share maybe 10% of the economic and freedom agenda of liberals -- free availability of abortion, maybe gay marriage, and non-intervention in other countries when Republicans are in charge (and you'd be surprised how many conservatives out in the sticks don't much care about gay marriage). Once you get beyond making fun of Sarah Palin, there isn't much for movement libertarians and liberals to agree on.
The whole liberaltarian effort looks like an attempt to fit in at the liberal cocktail party without selling out. Will talks about it as a "social" effort. The irreconcilable conflict between the smothering nanny state and a freedom agenda will prevent it from amounting to much more.
The real friends of the libertarians are in the pews and out in the sticks. The only people with remotely libertarian views on economics and the role of the state who actually run governments are in the counties, small towns, and red-state statehouses. It's sad how many libertarians want to mock these people as "anti-intellectual" when they hold compatible intellectual views in so many ways. If you socialize with them, I'm sure they won't speak in tongues to you.
Wow. Just like "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously". A sentence whose grammar is correct, but whose meaning is nonsensical.
I am imagining every high school nerd that ever fed a revenge fantasy off of _Atlas Shrugged_, standing up and running into the beckoning arms of rural Southern Baptists. Feel the love...
Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.
I do however, equate creationism and global warming denialism with anti-intellectualism. I don't know if Will does.
But whether whatever philosophical overlap exists between us and them can translate into a real working relationship with leftist elites is not at all clear, even if all you're looking for is, say, a sweet social network or book parties.
To me the non-theoretical parts of this project (whatever they are) are like a Dungeons and Dragons geek approaching a popular jock and saying, "let's put our differences aside. After all, those band dorks are enemies of us both and together we can defeat them." Of course, the popular jock doesn't need the D+D geek's help to defeat the band dork. So why would he want to compromise or inconvenience himself when he can just defeat the band dork by himself?
I can see why some people might not want to define that as a success (especially in the sense that big government that is more efficient might be more popular), but some libertarians would differ.
I would suggest....yes. If the smart people are liberal, does that not say anything to you. I would go as far as to suggest libertarians are by far the most "intellectual" of any political belief structure. Go out in the real world and most religous/social conservatives just simply go with I want my taxes low ideology and vote accordingly. The same as liberals who don't want their abortions and gay marriages interrupted just simply hook up with liberal thought on taxes and spending......meanwhile in between somewhere is a group who thinks through the benefits of each and realize the best of both worlds......and I'm a proud liberal.
Those who can't do, teach.
Anything citing "their IQ scores"? I know facts are hard and all.
I went to a top 20 school and often had fairly intelligent professors, but I purposefully avoided the boatload of morons. This was at one of the "better" schools. Academia, from professors down to students, isn't all that brilliant as many people like to claim it is.
That makes middling professors at middling schools more "intellectual" than all the people responsible for Republican recruiting this decade, and however much Libertarian intellectual purity stands up to weaselly liberalism, Libertarians haven't quite understood human problems and suffering aren't solved by a shouting match.
You might have done well to immerse yourself in the thinking of a boatload of morons.
If you honestly don't think Republicans read, then maybe you need to get out more and meet a few of them. I don't think many college professors are "intellectual" because very few of them question the dogma they hear and spread on a consistent basis.
Settle down there, Sparky. More Americans vote for the next American Idol than vote. I doubt you could find tens of millions of Americans who could _parse_ those words, much less endorse them.
It made sense to focus on tax rates then. Now, the focus should be more on the composition of spending.
Or perhaps the target should be the burden of regulation.
I have always wondered why so many are pro-regulation when the "powerful actors" that are the target of regulation, so often co-opt the regulations to protect themselves.
Either way, government most often works at cross purposes to the claims of the instigators.
Why should a libertarian care about that? It's not that we want the Bible or Das Kapital in schools, we're opposed to public education!
Sure, maybe libertarians want to help make policy with liberals, is there any indication that the feeling is reciprocal?
I've had problems with numerous liberal friends because they are so close-minded and won't even talk to people who don't think in lock-step with them. I do know a few open-minded liberals, but I tend to find conservatives and libertarians that I meet to be more open-minded.
How about just telling them they should be more open-minded? I'm sure you'll get an open-minded response with that suggestion.
Did you miss this whole statement? Ross' point is that if all the libertarian intellectuals join forces with the D's instead of the R's, not only will the R's do a bunch of damage when they do win, but all the rest of the time when the D's are in power they will be ineffective and corrupt. You won't GET your better regulatory and tax policy outcomes.
Not that I think this is a terribly sensical way to choose sides, I just wanted to make his point clearer.
I've certainly given up "waiting" since then. I just call myself centrist or independent.
Isn't this rather directly reversing cause and effect? Libertarians got fed up and left because the GOP became a right-wing populist party.
Yes. At least, their partisanship makes them say stupid things, which is close enough for pundit work.
LOL! That's a good one!
I guess I'd understand the discussion better if I felt constantly wooed by the Democrats. I don't.
The opinion forming elite's understanding of nuance doesn't seem to "trickle down."
both sides are telling libertarians to shove it.
Too late, it's happening already. If you're watching Chris Matthews tonite, you just saw a GOP House member blame the financial crisis on Chuck Schumer and George Soros. . . a.k.a. "The Jews Did It."
I guess that passes for intelligence in your neck of the liberal woods.
I agree fully about the Bush admin. of course.
On the other hand, I don't think it's wise to align with the right much either (and be rendered irrelevant while the left has more power). And, they have their own set of coercive interferences they'd like to impose.
I think the best we can hope for is to try to remain an intellectual check against the worst of both sides. This may help us stave off either sort of tyranny until the singularity arrives and our robot overlords take over.
I believe in this scenario the best job training for the future will be yoga teacher, or any mind/body therapy - that way you can specialize in helping emulated digital peopleminds learn to "drive" the more advanced features of their new modelbodies smoothly. Think like, racecar instructor but for your pelvis. Srsly, boyfriend, srlsly!
I'm sure there'll be a time when it'll just be human augmentation and friendly AI.
But, eventually they'll advance and then meet some of the real idiots among us. And then we'll be fighting Terminators all day. So, maybe we should bone up on urban warfare as well as yoga.
I spend a lot of time around liberals, and, apart from their narrow area of expertise, they are not that well-informed. In fact, they often haven't read even the most elementary arguments of those with whom they disagree.
And they are most emphatically not open to real or classical liberalism.
I don't know many intellectual conservatives. When I come across them, scratch the surface a bit, out pops someone who is better described as a libertarian rather than a conservative.
There is a relevant distinction that isn't often made between a political morality and the institutions that you endorse. You can be a) libertarian on the former and therefore libertarian on the latter. b) something else on the former and a libertarian on the latter. and c) something else on the former and something else on the latter.
This makes it possible for someone to endorse social conservatism as a culture, while insisting on all the same, or roughly similar, institutions that libertarians do. I meet *plenty* of intellectual "conservatives" in this sense. But I'm inclined to focus on the institutions, rather than on the reasons why people endorse those institutions, including empirical beliefs about what, in fact, will happen should we slash taxes, uphold freedom of speech, end the drug war, and so on, when assessing someone as either libertarian or not.
I care not a whit, when categorizing people as libertarian or not, whether or not they are fundamentally utilitarian, welfarist, Rawlsian, liberal, social conservative, contractarian, Kantian, natural rightists, Randians or, etc. in their moral outlook. Jesus could have had a chat with them late one night and told them that eminent domain is bad for all I care. What matters is what institutions these people endorse, for purposes of political categorization.
This is why Objectivists count as libertarians, even if they stomp their feet real hard and insist that they're not (damnit), why Milton Friedman counts as a libertarian, why the J.S. Mill of "On Liberty" does too, and so on.
But maybe a few examples of intellectual conservatives who endorse political institutions that would keep teh gays from having an equal shot at divorce as teh straights, who insist on upping the drug war, who think we need to have certain decency laws and so on, might help me get over thinking that The Meme is The Truth.
Contempt (overt or otherwise) of the general populace will not help either party. So four years ago Thomas Frank got to rag on the folks in Kansas and now this year several conservative/libertarians pile on. Is this about the intellectual strength of a party or the electoral strength?
PS Why must it a bipolar?
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/02/two-prog...
It seems to me that there are lots of Democratic party partisans and lots of anti-market leftists, but very few liberals.
Just as there are lots of Republican party partisans and lots of traditionalists, but very few real pro-market conservatives.
Libertarians need to reach out the few like minded in both camps, because there are not enough of any one of us.
Philosophy and activism don't mix very well. Even those rare people who do both don't do both at the same time. If you are trying to make a point about philosophy as an activity to a bunch of politicdal activists, you shouldn't be surprised you can't get to first base.
I suggest you leave it at "People should pursue philosophy, without regard to acquisition of political power, and in that pursuit they should seek out others with the same desire, regardess of political affiliation."
If you can get enough people doing that, good things might happen in the political arena. But that's not why you do it, is it?
That's where I'm at, and it's left me as an outwardly pleasant cynic who likes to go to "cocktail parties", i.e. techno clubs, occasionally shock liberals (I'm in the bay area - where are the conservatives anyway?) by defending well my libertarian ideas, and perhaps get laid by doing so too.
The reason Republicans are viewed as more anti-intellectual is that their leading politicians have assumed a strident no-nothing posture. Recent examples are all things Sarah Palin and John McCain ridiculing the study of grizzly bear DNA. Sure grizzly bear DNA research probably shouldn't be funded by the federal government and certainly not by earmarks if it is, but the idea of this type of research is not absurd on its face. McCain using this as a laugh line is a compact example the new no-nothing Republicans.
Hey! How about we stop passing so many laws?
I think you're missing Ross's point. I similarly argued that pragmatically speaking, those of us who are supportive of the liberaltarian project are going to have to choose between one of two mutually exlcusive options:
1) The ideal liberal state, where both major parties are under the influence of those with some sort of liberal value set. This is sort of what it's like in New England (especialy MA) where you basically get to choose from progressives who occasionally trend too authoritarian and libertarians.
2) The practical shot term option, where we line up in one party against social conservatism.
2) seems to be the short term goal but I worry that it might, in principle hinder 1) because for 1) to exist we need to marginalize social conservatism, and letting them occupy the other "spot" in our two-party system is doing exactly the opposite of that.
Still, when the 'GOP' makes its come-back, it will be about numbers-game politics. White working class women are the future of the Republican Party and policies that appeal to them will be on the menu then. Libertarians will always be the Republican Party's Casandras on a good day and it's Andrew Sullivans on a bad one.
I do not always agree with Krauthammer or Hanson, but their partisanship is as reasoned as many on the left (Krugman) and they make many good points. Pundits do tend to have an affiliation or a bent, be it Liberal or Conservative.
Seems to me you guys arguing for this weird liberaltarian fusion have simply decided that being anti-religion and anti-social conservative is all you care about and you've worked yourself up to a good hate against religious and/or socially conservative types who agree with you on all the economic and governance issues you used to care about.
Good for you.
Doesn't make you smarter.
Meanwhile, religious and socially conservative types are diversifying at light speed. A phenomenon you've evidently missed.
Oh, one more thing. Two maybe (depending how you count). I've read a lot of the crap that passes for "intellectualism" in colleges these days and it's nonsense on stilts. And seeing through that is not anti-intellectualism by a long shot.
Got bored in high school dropped out and joined the Army. Aborted my attempt at the college thing when a “professor” in a History of Ancient Mesopotamia class blew off timeframes and geography so she could spend a week on medieval witch hunts. She put men on one side of the class, women on the other and then told the guys "You burned us." I decided if that’s what passed for education I’d handle it myself. Guess that makes me anti-intellectual.
I just recently discovered your blog and vids at bloggingheads and was delighted to find another source of interesting info and commentary. Unfortunately you and your followers tend toward the same caricaturing of people you disagree with as damn near everyone else on the Internet.
I played the True Believer and sacrificed my vote on Barr. I am awed by McCain's POW story but I didn't vote for him. I admire Palin's trajectory of accomplishment but I was never going to vote for her. But I just don’t get the Palin hatred.
People are people are people. Everyone regardless of IQ, belief system or the bumper stickers on their fucking cars has biases and petty hatreds roiling within. It's funny watching those who seem to think themselves more evolved than the unwashed masses rationalize their own.
Spot on…
If so, I'd love to hear Will's analysis of the bigorty of one of the most fag bashing groups in the U.S., i.e. black Americans.
Stick around!
I have in my mind a sea of old white people at the Republican convention laughing as Guiliani described Obama's community organizer days, the Republican rallies the last two weeks of the campaign, the angry white crowd booing during McCain's concession speech. This is the 2009 Republican party.
Steve: You're the perfect picture of the leftist who labels himself a libertarian so he'll feel good about himself. Your cartoon image of the Republican Party tells us everything we need to know about you. Out of all the current emphases among conservative Republicans, why do you make anti-gay-marriage activism (which is actually pro-tradition-definition-of-marriage) your picture of the Republican Party? And " the constant signaling that backwaters are the 'real America'"? C'mon, dude, you know full well it's blowback against your effete, pseudo-intellectual snobbism. And what exactly is wrong with drawing from all our positive historical roots, including those of small-town America? Yes, there are ignorant bigots there. But there's a raft of 'em in the left blogosphere as well—and the libertarian. YOU're certainly no paragon of intellectual enlightenment or clear-eyed argumentation, no matter HOW much you delude yourself. (I especially love the part where you use the quintessential urban social liberal Republican as your poster boy for rustic Republican right-wingerism—ignoring the fact that Giuliani brought more positive change to the social fabric of New York City than Obama ever dreamed of doing for Chicago.)
I have more on this here:
http://chaspublic.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/the-...
Ah, yes, of course. Because, obvious contempt for religious liberty and democratic action concerning the definition of "marriage" is so self-evidently part of a libertarian or classically liberal philosophy, no Will? Thanks for reminding me why I'm so easily unimpressed with you every time the Corner (or at least Goldberg) keeps telling me how I just must read Will's reasonable thoughts on this or reasonable thoughts on that.
Where do you dig this stuff up?
A "set of policies and ideas that have been tried and failed"? When did this take place?
"Popular mores"? THIS is your concept of what "highly educated management/professional economic conservatives" care about?
What's hilarious is that you probably think you're intelligent and well-informed…
You show by your comments, including this "rejoinder," that you don't know the difference between the conservative movement and the Republican Party. Nor do you know the difference between the various kinds of conservatives within the movement, many of whom are very libertarian, a surprising number of whom are social libertarians, not to mention a growing number of cultural/religious conservatives (like me), who are nonetheless quite comfortable leaving people's moral choices up to them.
Clearly you are unaware of just how poorly academia is doing in actually educating young adults and preparing them for anything other than left-wing, postmodern uselessness. We slam the academy, not because we're anti-intellectual, but because we long for the restoration of academic vigor and integrity, which is sorely missing in today's America. Your appeal to that authority is ludicrous to anyone who knows how to read and think for himself.
Just as clearly you are a pro at building straw men and then cherry-picking to support your "case."
You will get respect when you get off your high horse and a) demonstrate that you are familiar with the people and movements you criticize and b) quit speaking to very intelligent, well-educated people as if they just crawled out of the swamp.
I delight in de-gassifying the deluded condescensions of leftist blowhards like you.
And—my friend—as harsh and personal as this comment is toward you, there is not a bit of ad hominem anywhere in it.
"At dinner, I would rather discuss issues of philosophy and economics with liberals like Akerlof and Shiller than with non-libertarian conservatives. But the political arena is different. Think of it as a Thanksgiving meal. At the conservatives' table, I feel like an uninvited guest. At the liberals' table, I feel like the turkey."
"Detached from its moral grounding by its intellectual paradigms, the West has become increasingly and intractably secular. We now look to science for all answers about life; we have experts for everything; the new creation of Christianity has devolved into the evolutionary hopelessness and purposelessness of survival-of-the-fittest reductionism. We have become no more than random chance, with no purpose higher than our survival in this life, and no meaning beyond genetics or neurotransmitters or selfish genes. Morality, ethics, self-restraint are but social constructs convenient to our survival — and eminently disposable when the need arises.
The consequences of this imperceptible but profound change in worldview, centuries in the making, have brought us to our current state. We no longer trust the individual, based on the inculcation of moral and ethical values through family and cultural tradition, but instead trust no one, multiplying laws, rules, and regulations to micromanage behavior no longer restrained by the inner moral compass and now-discarded social mores. We no longer look to the individual, and family, the community, the church, to be the prime movers of support or those who fall by life’s wayside, in poverty, ill health, economic or social misfortune. We have outsourced our hearts, contracting with those most ill-suited to the task of compassion: those who by our own appointment or their own unbridled ambition have become our leaders in government."
To repeat a part of the above, "we no longer trust the individual, based on the inculcation of moral and ethical values through family and cultural tradition." Libertarianism unmoored by a Judeo-Christian understanding of and appreciation of the individual's responsibility to conduct himself or herself within a framework of moral and ethical constraints is a very great weakness and a reason why its doctrinaire proponents, such a Wilkinson, have never and will never play a practical role in national politics. Oh, and please, this chimera of the "threat" from the so-called religious right is risible. Their agenda is basically to prevent their taxpayer monies from being used for what they consider morally and ethically questionable activities, to say nothing of patently unconstitutional ones. None but the fringe elements push for any legal constraints on private activity.
Really, if your priorities are such that you endorse what Obama and his Chicago Boys are implementing, manipulated census data, a Civilian Expeditionary Workforce to suppress internal dissent, the Fairness Doctrine, the prohibition of voluntary, private sectarian activities on university campuses, ACORN funding to facilitate voter fraud, a new Smoot-Hawley protectionism, and probably hundreds of other hidden gems in the "pork"ulus bill, I say go ahead, break bread with the Democrats. Oh, and I'm sure you're all in favor of that no-loose foreign policy of talking the NoKos, Iranians, Chavistas, Hamas/Hezbollah out of hating us. That should work.