I hinted at this in a couple of other threads, but I wanted to get your opinion on the matter. If you had a choice between conservatives or liberals, which one is more bothersome to you and why? Policy-wise, attitude-wise, whichever one you choose to focus on.
Conservatives annoy me more. If it wasn’t for the “focus on the family” crowd, or the neo-cons, I’d probably reverse that position. Also, I’m not entirely convinced that voluntary collectivist communities couldn’t succeed.
I agree that communal societies could succeed. If there is demand, it will form in some shape or fashion. If a group of people clearly value communal organizations, they’ll prefer being in a communal organnization than living by themselves for themselves.
Monks do it, right?
I think it’s the “true believers” from either side of the aisle that irritate me. The people who write things like this and then, to make matters worse, have such a lack of self-awareness as to actually fancy themselves intellectuals. As Napoleon Dynamite would say, “GAHD!!!”
Clayton -
To be as broad as and informal I can be: The left annoys me more (as it is more fashionable, almost for the sake of being fashionable), but to be honest I think the aspects of awful policy that can be put into effect, the right is the most vicious (war for the fuck of it, an insane view on family values, theocracy, corporatism of the worst kind) and most retarded (creationism, etc). Fortunatly the bad aspects of the right are pretty much out in the open.
i’m with clayton. “true believers” of most any philosophical strip rub me the wrong way. i am particularly annoyed whenever someone confidently proclaims this or that position without paying due attn to the 101 reasons they might be wrong (if you cant see a reason why you’re wrong, you’re not thinking hard enough).
i personally doubt almost all philosophical and political positions that i nominally believe in.
I would say that conservatives have a destructive social policy (wars, prohibition), while new liberals have a destructive economic policy (regulation, redistribution). It comes down to which axis (social or economic) that you value more.
I find myself agreeing with conservatives more, but I mostly debate economics now.
Social-Democrats or “Progressives.”
“But that’s what we have, so it must be the best, right?”
Most people just root for the status quo and take up popular opinions. Some of them are smart on the surface, and can win arguments while being wrong all at the same time. They tend to have trouble with Arrow’s impossibility theorem and subjective value. It’s as if they can’t understand these concepts or their implications.
Political philosophy isn’t really for those who choose to be weak-at-mind. Oh well.
That’s why I tend to like the right -because it is easy to see the excess in right-wing ideas. For instance the campus radical would wear a “Fight Fascism” tee-shirt or a historian could write volumes on child-labor in the industrial revolution or even more still, the average joe could see the unfairness in autocratic rule vs popular rule. No one trusts rightist politicians.
Unfortunately the excess of the left (which is an excess of the love of liberty) is harder to understand as an excess. I would theorize that this is because of the appeal to the passions which tend to be easier to follow than the right and its emphasis on putting limits to passion. For instance certain philosophers want to make all men equal to each other in every respect and even to eliminate the biological differences between men and women -thereby pleasing people by putting nothing beyond their will. In the meantime rightists would write things like “egalitarianism as a revolt against nature” (which puts a limit on how far freedom can be taken and consequently proves offensive to man’s desires), and “democrcacy: the God that failed” or even more “the syllabus of errors”. All these latter works can be taken to glorify limitation and if I were a liberal -it would bespeak a certain stinginess and pessimism that could not possibly be the ideal of man.
environmentalist progressive leftists
and neocons
Liberals, and I consider myself on the social/ordoliberal end of the libertarian movement. Liberals in general usually have a contempt for economic sciences, viewing them as tools for the hegemony of all things violent and exploitive about the capitalist system.
I understand that protest, but you’re doing it wrong. Way wrong. Like, super wrong.
Neither of those groups bother me. They are both fundamentally full of crap and don’t really know what they believe. It’s mostly mindless nationalism, sloganeering and jingoism.
What I really dislike are these middle way quasi-libertarians who are as “squishy” (in the words of Gary North) as Hayek. The ones who tell you they are for markets, but we need government. The ones who tell you they are real libertarian, but that a free society is a pipe dream because it either (1) cannot work, (2) has never worked or (3) is actually undesireable since their libertarianism is shallow or a fashion statement. The latter reason is quite honest, and thus the hardest one to get people to own up to.
I am ok with people being pro-state. I don’t agree with it, but they are entitled to that opinion. What they are not entitled to, is to be pro-state, then turn around and claim to be pro-market. You’re either pro-market or not. Mises understood this even if he didn’t take it to the logical end Rothbard did. To be fair, Mises got close, and in many cases, a damn sight closer than a lot of these squishy libertarians who claim to be as Austrian or libertarian as the next guy.
If you’re a statist, be the best statist you can be. If you’re libertarian, be the best libertarian you can be. Whatever you do, don’t be dishonest.
Holier than thou Statist.
The blatant racism of some neocons piss me off. As a group, they seem to be the most ignorant. Plus, they are weak on their pro-market ideas and make us look really bad. I’m okay with a lot of liberals. Just because I can always find something I agree with them with. But for some reason I really enjoy making liberals look really stupid in debates, it’s much more satisfying, because they seem to have a monopoly on loving liberty or being progressive.
Ouch. I take it that was directed at me, Liberty. I do not reject the dichotomy you put forward, but I feel as if it’s alright for libertarians to be statists in the instance of ordoliberalism. I believe this namely because I rely on another belief, that the evolution of society is a gradual one towards anarchy. I believe people need to be culturally-ingrained with moral libertarianism and a pro-market worldview before the State ceases to exist.
Not at all. Or at least, I don’t know enough about you to say that it would apply.
Well, what do you make of my assertions, in any case?
What I really dislike are these middle way quasi-libertarians who are as “squishy” (in the words of Gary North) as Hayek. The ones who tell you they are for markets, but we need government.
um, does this mean miniarchists are middle of the road, squishy quasi-libertarians? and does that imply only anarcho-capitalists are “true” libertarians?