I saw Glenn Beck’s interview with Ron Paul – ick! Beck played super-nice, super-friendly, while at the same time wasting time on internet death threats he’s gotten from Paul supporters (the internet is full of loonies of every stripe – why is this Paul’s problem? I’m sure Paul has gotten death threats from Beck’s ilk as well) and trying to trick Paul into saying he believed in conspiracies (“you say you don’t, but gosh, don’t these people seem deliberately evil?”) and in a 9/11 conspiracy in particular (“and if you deny it, well, I have people who say that’s exactly the lie you’re going to tell, but of course I believe you”). Then he ends by asking Paul if it was a fair interview, so if anyone criticizes him later he can say “see, Paul himself said it was fair.” Beck sounded like an Ayn Rand villain!
Tag Archives | Left-Libertarian
People Who Live in Glass Steakhouses …
At Geno’s Steakhouse in Philadelphia, a sign with a big American eagle says:
This Is AMERICA
Please WHEN ORDERING
“SPEAK ENGLISH”
The Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations calls the sign intimidating and discriminatory, and wants to force the owner, Joey Vento, to take it down. Vento’s lawyer says the sign expresses concern for the plight of immigrants and that Vento is trying to help them by encouraging them to learn English.
Okay, two easy questions and one harder one:
1. Is Vento’s sign obnoxious, nationalistic, and bigoted? Yes, of course. (I mean, just look at it. Concern for immigrants, my ass.)
2. Is Vento nevertheless within his rights to post the sign? Yes, of course.
Those were the easy questions. Now the hard one:
3. Why is “SPEAK ENGLISH” in quotation marks?
Perhaps Vento’s grasp of correct English usage isn’t as strong as he supposes – which suggests he may not be ideally positioned to be lecturing others on correct linguistic behaviour.
To Paul Or Not To Paul
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
In case you’ve missed it, my friends David Gordon and Charles Johnson have been debating the left-libertarian basis for opposing Ron Paul’s candidacy. Check out David’s initial post, Charles’ reply, and David’s counter-reply.
I have plenty to say about this exchange, but it’ll have to wait till later, since exam week is starting and I’m pressed for time. So for now I merely link to it.
A Question for Critics of Ron Paul’s Critics
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
Most of my libertarian comrades seem to think that Ron Paul is either a) the Second Coming, or b) the Apocalypse. (The former viewpoint dominates at LewRockwell.com, while the latter dominates, with some exceptions, at LeftLibertarian.org. See also, of course, the L & P exchange – 86 posts and counting – here.) I’m somewhere in between: I have a lot of serious problems with his candidacy, but I admit I’m also gratified every time I see his poll numbers rising.
But there’s one argument that the (a) group offers the (b) group that I find very puzzling. This is an argument directed primarily to those members of group B who oppose Paul’s candidacy because of his stands on some particular issues (e.g., immigration, abortion, gay rights, constitutionalism), as opposed to those who oppose his candidacy on the basis of a rejection of electoral politics in general – i.e., it’s directed toward those who would be open in principle to supporting a political candidate and just have problems with this one.
The argument goes like this: “Even if you think Paul is wrong on some particular issues, he’s still far, far more libertarian than any of the other candidates, so why not support him?”
The reason I find this argument puzzling is that those who make it would not, I suspect, find it plausible in most other contexts.
Imagine, for example, that instead of Ron Paul it’s Randy Barnett who’s running for President. Paul and Barnett have a lot in common; they’re both fairly thoroughgoing libertarians, they’re both enthusiasts for the Constitution, and they both take some positions that many libertarians regard as deviations.
I suspect that a Barnett candidacy would be far less popular among Group A folks than a Paul candidacy. Barnett’s two major deviations, from their point of view (and mine too, for that matter), would be his support for the war and his insufficiently decentralist approach to federalism. Yet the argument that they have offered on behalf of Paul would seem to apply equally well to Barnett: “Even if you think Barnett is wrong on some particular issues, he’s still far, far more libertarian than any of the other candidates, so why not support him?”
Now maybe that would be a good argument and maybe it would be a bad argument, but whichever it is, it seems like an exactly analogous argument. So if, as I bet, most members of Group A would resist the pro-Barnett argument (I base my guess on Group A’s furious reaction to Barnett’s Wall Street Journal article), why should they expect Group B folks to accept the analogous pro-Paul argument?
Perhaps the reply will be that Paul’s deviations, if such they be, are still consistent with libertarianism, while Barnett’s are not. But if “consistent with libertarianism” means “consistent with libertarian principle properly understood,” then to call something a deviation is precisely to say that it is not consistent with libertarianism. On the other hand, if “consistent with libertarianism” means “consistent with the proponent’s still counting as a libertarian,” then it seems to me that both Paul’s and Barnett’s deviations are consistent with libertarianism in that sense. (If Ludwig von Mises – advocate of conscription and the Cold War, and admirer of Abraham Lincoln – counts as a libertarian, how could Barnett fail to do so?)
Or perhaps the reply will be that Barnett’s deviations are important and fundamental, while Paul’s, if any, are minor and peripheral. But of course Group B folks are not likely to agree that Paul’s deviations are minor and peripheral. Consider the case of immigration (since that’s an area where Paul explicitly favours federal enforcement rather than merely turning things back to the states). Now libertarians disagree over immigration; some see a difference between keeping people inside one’s borders and keeping them out, while for others there’s no difference. I think the second position is the right one (if the party doing the enforcing doesn’t own the land on either side of the border, then it doesn’t make much moral difference whether the enforcing party itself is located on the territory being migrated to or the territory being migrated from); but whether it’s the right one or whether it isn’t, it at least seems clear that it’s no surprise that those who do find the two policies precisely analogous are going to find Paul’s immigration policy non-trivially objectionable, since they’ll see it as on a par with supporting the Berlin Wall. Now maybe there’s still a good case for supporting generally libertarian candidates whose stands on some particular issues you find horrifically anti-liberty; I can see arguments pro and con on that. But those in group A who would not support a Barnett candidacy owe Group B an explanation of why the two cases differ. (Of course any member of Group A who would support a Barnett candidacy is exempt from the charge of inconsistency.)
Quoth the Traven
As journalist John Chamberlain was a prominent figure on the libertarian right, and novelist B. Traven an important writer of the libertarian left, it’s of some interest to see what the former thought of the latter. Hence this excerpt from Chamberlain’s 1935 review of Traven’s novels The Death Ship and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre:
“The Death Ship,” a sea story that came not from a Conradian aristocrat of the deep but from the depths of the forecastle …. was shot through with the corrosive and bitter cynicism that is the surest sign of an underlying affection for a humanity which alternately betrays itself and permits itself to be betrayed. B. Traven is, at heart, a philosophical anarchist; he would approve of Professor Giddings’s definition of the origin of government, as quoted recently by Charles A. Beard: “Government originated with the first successful getaway.” One of the most wryly hilarious parts of “The Death Ship” was a comedy of the man who, after being shunted across border after border, began to doubt his own identity and even his existence. No more devastating arraignment of Red Tape and legal interference with the freedom of personality and movement has ever been written. …
“The Treasure [of the Sierra Madre]” proves to be a philosophical anarchist’s commentary on greed for possessions. … Until they find the gold, Dobbs and Curtin have the cynical wisdom of the uncorrupted underdog, the straight vision of men who, having nothing to defend, no property, no traditional conception of themselves, are not bought by their own money. …
Unlike most thrillers, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” has its social and political inferences. … When the Indians and mestizos of the story turn bandit … Traven always manages to have a character on hand with a deep sense of poetic justice to point the moral …. that a man who has been taught to expect violence and injustice will not scruple to use his opponent’s choice of weapons.
Underneath it all there beats the outraged heart of a man who cannot believe the evidence of his senses that the human race is only human when it can afford to be. B. Traven’s sense of outrage, which is rigidly controlled in the interests of formal story-telling, is what gives “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” its fine moral power.
(John Chamberlain, “Books of the Times,” New York Times, 11 June 1935.)
Is Chamberlain making a pun on “betrays … betrayed … B. Traven” in the first paragraph?
A Side Worth Considering, Part Duh
After I posted that last pic of Darkseid for President, it occurred to me that I hadn’t specified a running-mate.
Then I thought it would have to be one of Darkseid’s two chief henchbeings – either the ruthless tyrant Granny Goodness or the master torturer Desaad.
And then it occurred to me that our two current front runners look a hell of a lot like Granny Goodness and Desaad already:
Be afraid. Be very afraid.