Dear Mr. Weisberg, Please STFU
[T]he libertarian apologetics fall wildly short of providing any convincing explanation for what went wrong. The argument as a whole is reminiscent of wearying dorm-room debates that took place circa 1989 about whether the fall of the Soviet bloc demonstrated the failure of communism. Academic Marxists were never going to be convinced that anything that happened in the real world could invalidate their belief system. Utopians of the right, libertarians are just as convinced that their ideas have yet to be tried, and that they would work beautifully if we could only just have a do-over of human history. Like all true ideologues, they find a way to interpret mounting evidence of error as proof that they were right all along.
Libertarians who are smarter than me were quick to respond to your post. Reason's Matt Welch wrote "I just think that, all things being equal, capitalism is vastly superior to socialism, government is by definition inefficient, and would be much better off focused on essential tasks." Other libertarians weighed in with similarly well-reasoned responses. Brink Lindsey at Cato stressed that it will be a long time before anyone knows exactly what caused the meltdown, just as it took several decades to trace the causes of the '29 crash. The Agitator's Radley Balko brought up the very good point that the Bush Administration has been vehemently anti-libertarian in regards to social, economic, and foreign policy (so was Bill Clinton, for that matter). And Will Wilkinson observed that your post equated to a game of "Smear the libertarian queer."
But after reading various responses, I was left with the feeling that my colleagues failed to call you on a very important aspect of your bullshit: There's more to libertarianism than economic policy, and more often than not, we're pushing for things that Democrats wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole--but should.
The majority of libertarians opposed the Iraq War--which you and a number of high-profile Democrats idiotically supported. The majority of libertarians support gay marriage--the Democratic Party, at least at the national level--does not. Nor does your party--at least at the national level--support an end to the drug war, farm subsidies, or freedom from domestic spying.
In short, the majority of libertarians are willing to support civil liberties when the Democratic Party will not. Celebrating a successful smear campaign against deregulation (and doing so without any research), is not only misguided, but downright shameful.
In short, please shut the fuck up and stick to your areas of expertise.
Sincerely,
Mike Riggs
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Linked From: October 22nd, 2008Washington City Paper: City Desk - Weisberg Redux
3:03 pm[...] David Quinn had a few problems with my response to David Weisberg, and I thought I’d address his points [...]
4:40 pm
Your blog has worked a fury within me.
How does "I just think that capitalism is better than socialism" add up to a "well reasoned response"? I think socialism is better than capitalism and just said it; does that count as well-reasoned too, or do you think it's asinine because it doesn't support your insane beliefs?
Point is, you can say all these things are well-reasoned until your face is blue, but that doesn't make it so. Nowhere in the article do you ever address the fact that libertarian economic policy (i.e., deregulation) is responsible for the current financial crisis. Changing the subject to talk about social policy still ignores the failures of libertarian economic policy (which is a fairly major part of libertarianism, otherwise you idiots would just be normal lefties).
Also, you get on Weisberg for "smearing" libertarians (I don't really understand how stating your moronic ideology is a smear, but whatever), but you're smearing liberals just as much by conflating all liberals with the Democratic Party, which is far from the case.
Maybe instead of acting all hurt and offended by Weisberg's "downright shameful" attacks on your bullshit philosophy and invoking some "well reasoned" responses by libertarian assholes, you should try and move beyond minor league pissant self-referential blogging and actually try and explain why deregulation didn't cause the financial crisis and why libertarianism isn't a philosophy for the sociopathic, the too-wealthy, and the disembrained. Actually, on second thought, I won't ask you to do the impossible.
5:08 pm
His name is Brink Lindsey, just so you know.
5:41 pm
Adam L: Thanks for pointing that out--typed too fast and didn't check.
David: If you'll check back tonight or tomorrow, I'll have a good (polite) response for you.
7:35 pm
One must have the patience of an angel, or at least a Gandhi to put up with Riggs' puerile crap.
Riggs, read the original article carefully. I stress 'carefully' because I fear your brains may dribble out of his [donkey]. Secondly, you seem to be laboring under misconception that the number of citizens who give a flying [kitten whisker] about your beliefs, opinions, lifestyle and haircuts is greater than [1 million]. [keep going].
7:37 pm
Rough day, Ernest?
8:22 pm
Ernest has a point. Riggs stinks like a toilet would. I think I'll switch to Krauthammer.
8:46 pm
Right you are, my friend. Who needs a toilet when Riggs is around.
9:06 pm
I'd like to strap Riggs on sometime. Will it be rough? You betcha. Imagine the shrieks.
10:07 pm
"Nowhere in the article do you ever address the fact that libertarian economic policy (i.e., deregulation) is responsible for the current financial crisis."
Oh, it's a fact? Facts can be proven. So prove it.
Prove, while you're at it, that libertarianism (unregulation) is the same thing as the instance of "deregulation" in a regulated market.
Or maybe even merely prove that "libertarian economic policy" isn't an oxymoron.
12:16 pm
Obviously the national democratic party cannot be as liberal as many of it's individual voters are. They are focused on getting elected, which is not much of a problem for Libertarians (and Green Party, etc). Looking at the platform and record of the party in more democratic states (California, say) reflects a bit better where they stand. And the fact that the gov is a republican just better proves that one cannot simply run on the extreme positions of one's party. Most democrats aren't big fans of wars (be they drug or Iraq), and so we vote for the party that is MORE LIKELY to at least not expand them. The world isn't perfect, but hey, you've always got Canada, right?
I'll conceed that the democrats caved on the Iraq war, but that's about it.
9:51 pm
Libertarians change their definition of libertarianism to fit their argument. I have found that in almost every argument I have with them, there comes a time where I somehow, 28 years after I first learned about libertarianism in the 1980 election, that I "don't know what libertarians believe." Actually, Libertarians pretty much use their minor league groupthink theology as nothing greater than devil's advocacy. They argue that things would be better under their system, but refuse to be pinned down on what that is and regularly argue against historical straw men like communism. Chris, at 10:07 above just points the finger elsewhere, asking other people to define his beliefs he doesn't understand himself.
"The government that governs best, governs least" was proven wrong in 08. Keynes wins, Austria loses. Don't be a crybaby about it.