Observation: JakeCollins starts out by offering a useful opinion that for liberals to be “persuaded” they need to understand how libertarianism addresses topics that are important to the liberal point of view. I would like to echo that this is an important step, and those who ignored it or belittled it should consider their goals in this discussion.

I have generally identified with the Democrats on social issues, mostly out of a desire not to support the religiously motivated policies often picked up by Republicans on topics such as homosexuality and abortion. I also believe that a meritocratic system, which I think is effectively, although not perfectly, facilitated by capitalism, is, by and large, to be preferred over unearned handouts and a presumed homogeneity of abilities and needs — yet, I feel that it *does happen* that occasionally a person will truly end up screwed, through circumstances that could not have anticipated or properly “saved up for”, and I believe that it is unacceptable (inefficient, at the least) for society to simply leave that person to suffer or die as a result. Thus some kind of safety net is required for dire circumstances.

Finally, I have been largely persuaded that a majority of government “investment” money ends up wasted on poor choices that might have been better made by individuals or smaller, more local communities. Thus, for the programs I am in favor of having government work on, I am leaning more toward government incentives for market or individual behavior over direct investment (e.g., Mill’s idea that the public should fund education, but should not be in the business of running schools).

Does this collection of preferences make me a libertarian? I’m not sure. Maybe some of you are sure — please comment.

But what I’d like to ask is: what book or set of books would you recommend that will help me to (a) place the “current” ideological basis of libertarianism as it exists today and (b) see how that ideology applies to contemporary issues so I can “try it on” and see if I like how it fits?

greenspan/ clinton 1990′s – tech bubble
greenspan/ bush 2000′s – real estate bubble
bernanke/ geitner/ obama- ???? bubble and massive inflation to come

If we are going to have a real conversation about Tax policy then we have to first decide whether we are doing fact-based or dead fundamentalism- based reasoning.

So is your assertion “Taxation weakens economies” fact or zombie economics left over from the early 1970s?. I suspect you are a supply sider and your tax policy is based on supply-side economics.

Jude Wanniski invented the idea ‘supply-side economics’ -it dates back to the 1970s; was taken much further at a famous lunch meeting between Wanniski, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and University of Southern California economist Arthur Laffer] http://zombiecon.wikidot.com/

So, frankly it is not good enough to sharp-shoot liberal economic policy unless you can back up your views with some 21 century facts and arguments. As far as I can tell this recession was stopped by public sector investment [ and other things need to happen, of course]

The day is over when the basic Libertarian strategy was “drain the bathtub” of public policy and the answer to any hard question was “cut taxes”.

Bruce Bartlett who was a Reagan economic advisor disputes your view and actually wants to increase taxes Bruce Bartlet Supply Side Economics RIP
http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1168/supply-side-economics-rip. He says: “I really don’t understand why the Republican Party insists on a one-size-fits-all economic policy consisting of more and bigger tax cuts no matter what the economic circumstances are.”

A group of rich Germans has launched a petition calling for the government to make wealthy people pay higher taxes.
The group say they have more money than they need, and the extra revenue could fund economic and social programmes to aid Germany’s economic recovery. Rich Germans demand higher taxes http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8321967.stm

So, do you have any thing current to say on the subject of tax policy? Do you disagree with Bruce Bartlett? Why? I’m interested in some fresh thinking not warmed over Reagan economics that might have made a difference 30 years ago in a completely different world.

Just to clarify who we are talking about in the USA here is a chart of the “Four Bears” what the economy is doing compared to other bear markets Four bears chart http://dshort.com/charts/bears/four-bears-large.gif

…what I object to is the faux wolf clothing and the perseveration, the argument by worst case wild things not Vic’s fundamental humanity. It is the unending stream of cursing the darkness that I object to not Vic’s basic goodness.

The problem is the “worst cases” that vic mentioned are the end of a continuum that we are traversing now. And many don’t realize that the policies being undertaken and proposed now ensure further travel down that path.

Taxation weakens economies. The current level of taxation cause more than enough stagnation and weakness, higher taxes will only weaken it more and ensure that things will remain depressed for a longer period.

So the belief that you can take taxes from the economy and then create prosperity by having experts determine where it can be redistributed and reinvested back into the economy – after the usual loss due to government friction, expenses, etc. – is a losing proposition. Businesses and individuals know far better what they need to do to improve their financial picture, the money they earned needs to be left in their hands. The economy right now is a sick mule, taking more of its food and bleeding it isn’t going to make it healthy and get it pulling again.

Mr. America Psukhushka I do not insult you, rather you take up insult yourself. I invite you and Vic to let go of your sniveling complaints, excuses & paranoia and take up the civilizing process with some fresh ideas and some new commitments.

I don’t snivel, I’ll let you know when I start. Don’t hold your breath.

The idea front is complicated. On the macro level, the ideas for having a healthy economy aren’t new – taxation weakens economies, they have to be lowered (and consequently government spending has to be lowered) as much as possible for an economy to recover from a depression and become strong and growing again. I try to share the ideas and principles behind this as much as possible. On an individual level I have plenty of ideas as well. Currently circumstances outside my control prevent me from developing them, hopefully this situation will improve shortly.

There is no ad hominem of Vic by intention: what I object to is the faux wolf clothing and the perseveration, the argument by worst case wild things not Vic’s fundamental humanity. It is the unending stream of cursing the darkness that I object to not Vic’s basic goodness.

Regarding those walking down the road for the last 30 years filled with pretense of Libertarian virtue, espousing various forms of Reganism, Randism, leave-me-alone Gaultism, Greenspanism, Limboism, government-is-the-problemism, I invite you to notice the stink on your shoes where you stepped in it and then do something different than make complain about current circumstances.

Mr. America Psukhushka I do not insult you, rather you take up insult yourself. I invite you and Vic to let go of your sniveling complaints, excuses & paranoia and take up the civilizing process with some fresh ideas and some new commitments.

Maybe Vic will take off his wolf suit, give up the Rumpus perseveration and come home to a late night snack and the civilizing process like Max does in the story. In the event there is a need for a little transformative soteriology, I recommend Matthew Aaron Tennant at the University of Oxford who seems to grasp the redemptive possibilities of of mugged libertarians.

What’s interesting is you claim that vic has “dressed up” libertarian ideas like the boy in the story, when your post is just one long string of ad hominem attacks, albeit dressed up in obnoxious and pretentious dialogue. The idea that libertarians need to be “civilized” is the height of arrogance, especially from those still supporting dangerous economic principles that have resulted in stagnation and far worse time and again.

I have the same wish for reactionaries and revenge makers who were mugged by the last 30 years of Wild Things: Regan/Hayak economics, Christianist polemics and Neocon delusions.

I understand it now. You think the last 30 years have been an expression of “libertarian” economic ideals. You couldn’t be further from the truth. Reagan did cut some taxes and reduce government in some areas, but he dramatically increased defense spending. And since then the size of government and government spending have increased mightily. The Neocons weren’t libertarian at all – they increased spending and increased the size of government. And basically all administrations have let the Federal Reserve devalue the dollar.

Perhaps you should try to actually understand libertarian economics and philosophy before you insultingly infer that libertarians need to be “civilized”.

I don’t think novels – wonderful though they can be – will persuade many [thinking] liberals or conservatives to become libertarians. I realize that, historically, conservatives favor of non-rationalism/sensibilism; still, I think the conservatives whom libertarians would want to win over are more inclined to rationalism. (I do not mean that fiction is always non-rationalist; rather, I mean that persuading someone of the rational cogency of one’s own views probably requires more directly rational means.)

Secondly, as others have noted, I would not select any book or article with a title or thesis that insults the persons I want to persuade; any such work is likely to be of little practical value. If, as Ilya proposes, I were to proffer such a work to a ‘friend,’ I would expect that friend to be offended.

If I wanted to persuade another person/friend of the cogency of my view, I would choose works that (1) lay out the issues as I see them, (2) provide good arguments for my position, and (3) seriously engage counter-arguments. If I were genuinely serious about this effort, I would also look for works that address the specific concerns of those who disagree with me, so that my conception of the important issues is not merely assumed.

Of course, I would not expect any single work to do all this. Perhaps I would throw in a work of fiction that captured the image/feeling if my view. But, on the whole, I would assume that my friends are rational and decent people to whose hearts and minds I want to appeal.

Since The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has been listed, I’ll toss in Fallen Angels, Niven, Pournelle, and Flynn.

Then a minor cheat, a video. Other Peoples’ Money. The free market “bad guy” Danny DeVito flat sneaks up on you.

Goldberg starts the book by reviewing definitions of fascism. He runs through a good number although ignores what I would see as being the most relevant – that of Trotsky, whose work on the united front to fight German fascism has remained required reading for those opposing the modern day far right although of course he was quite unable to achieve it in Germany in the 1930s.

and thus my trotsky quote

This is hardly what i would consider an unbiased review
readers can judge for themselves.

also consider
massive bailouts of monopolistic finance capitalists who are political insiders- Goldman Sachs ( direct bailouts along with counter party money from the AIG bailout).
the questionable practices involved in the sale of troubled assets backed by the US govt. – i forgot the acronym of the program
Goldman guys everywhere
too big to fail get bigger
plus
the attempts at muzzling what is about the only media outlet opposing administration policies- see fox
the street goons made of lumpem elements – see acorn/ black panthers
the cult of personality around O
threats- see protests at the houses of AIG executives
threats – see GM / chrysler bond holders

i could go on
but at least to me in my paranoid delusional way the patterns while not fully formed are inescapable.

Loki13:
the reason for darwin/pinker is that even though they are NOT libertarian books. if you just look at the data presented without their ( esp dawkins) unsupported conclusions, ie make some cohesive conclusions of your own, it makes what i would call a biologic/ evolutionary case for free markets. The manner in which free markets self correct and amplify is in many ways analogous to the evolutionary process.
de Tocqueville is a good choice

2 books:

The Little Red Hen

I Had Trouble Getting To Solla Sollew, by Dr. Suess

simple straight forward.

Twirlip: .That’s pretty poor quality guilt by association, as the Saudis are not fascists. Maybe you’re prefer to “state unequivocally” that GWB is a monarchist.Of course then you’d have to explain Obama’s groveling bow to the Saudi king.

Twirlip,

I recommend getting your humor module checked out. I was alluding to the similarity to truthers in particular (and conspiracy theorists in general) who can always bend any particular historical fact to match their a priori conclusions.

Like how you managed to put Obama in there. Clever! It’s almost like you look… for… every…. opportunity to slam him. Whereas I was making fun of people tying GWB into 9/11….

*sigh*

BTW, my contributions to the list would be as follows:
1. Some Friedman. (Perhaps Free to Choose- it’s readable)
2. Wealth of Nations (of course)
3. Dawkins/Pinker (great books, recommend them, not sure how libertarian they are).
4. Hoest Graft (a little dated, but it might give big government types an idea of how decisions are really made)
5. de Tocqueville
6. The Federalist Papers (just in general)
7. The Problem of Social Cost & Wealth and Welfare (compare and contrast)

I think the key would be getting the person to understand why free markets are a good thing to begin with; once that is established, the quibling about market failures and normative goals can be more contained.

We don’t consider inequality to be non-negotiable–but it’s hard for any democratic polity to maintain cohesion if there is gross inequality. The burden on libertarians would be to show that historically libertarianism doesn’t result in gross inequality

And yet if we look around at the real world we find that the greatest inequality occurs in places which are bastions of left-liberal thought, such as NYC, which have income inequalty comparable to Third-World banana republics. You belief system is a failure not only by libertarian terms, but even by its own. Make that “especially by its own”.

Vi’c's attempt to convince un-repentant liberals of the viability of libertarianism is based on a convincing recitation of “Wild Things” decked out in colorful costumes worthy or Maurice Sendak’s children’s story and now movie. [See Vic's list of wild things below].

Like Max who was mugged by his mother in the story, Vic has been mugged by history, apparently, and left home to become king of the Rumpus where the “Wild Things Are”. Maybe Vic will take off his wolf suit, give up the Rumpus perseveration and come home to a late night snack and the civilizing process like Max does in the story. In the event there is a need for a little transformative soteriology, I recommend Matthew Aaron Tennant at the University of Oxford who seems to grasp the redemptive possibilities of of mugged libertarians.

http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:Er_XHl76TYkJ:users.ox.ac.uk/~rege0695/tillich_wildthings.pdf+existential+ontological+soteriological&hl=en&sig=AFQjCNG_IoS7_Atl7NYhhIpiyYB1H3_nKQ

Vic buddy, if you decide to give up the Rumpus may you be safe. May you be happy. May you be content with your neighbors and return to the civilizing process. I have the same wish for reactionaries and revenge makers who were mugged by the last 30 years of Wild Things: Regan/Hayak economics, Christianist polemics and Neocon delusions.

—

The Wild Things in Vic’s Rumpus

science research, evolutionary psychology, sexual selection & human history

evaluation of circumstances relative to neighbors

zero sum games

greed envy & hate for the resourceful

industrial revolution

free market capitalism

industrializing economies

Underprivileged under classes

comparisons to Spitzer, Sanford unfettered access to procreative partners

kwashiorkor, marasmus & obesity

blind following of atavistic evolutionary behavioral impulses

unrepentant Trotskyites

after victorious fascism as in Goldman Saks Obama nexus

vic: loki… in a criticism of liberal fascism linked to a review which he thought was authoritative.

Hmmm… it’s interesting. I posted a link that I said was “much more measured” than I thought it shoulf be. Suddenly, it gets transmorgified into an “authoritative” review. I thought it was fair, and had links to a number of other (pro- and anti-) reviews, and made the following observation without going into ad hominem:

“So while many academics may well stick to the prudent technique of rather understating findings and avoiding inferences to what cannot strictly be held up by empirical evidence, Mr Goldberg uses the opposite method of rather exaggerating the points he has to make. I say this because Mr Goldberg does have some useful historical points to make in the book but they are probably not the ones that scream at us when we see the title ‘Liberal Fascism’.”

That is much more fair than what I would say. In fact, the penultimate paragraph of the review is:

“Nevertheless Jonah Goldberg’s book is an entertaining read, even if it tends towards the intellectually sloppy, and perhaps should not to be taken too seriously. It would for example be to accord the arguments put forward in the book a gravity that they do not deserve to suggest that it is a work of historical revisionism trying to airbrush the dreadful realities of fascism out of history. It is polemic not revisionism. As a sympathetic review in the Daily Telegraph noted it is an ‘entertaining political romp’”

But, of course, anything that does not accord this book absolute fawning raves is suspect, and causes the usual “foam at the mouth brigade” to attack.

This, of course, is fascinating. Instead of posting one of the many “take-down” reviews, I posted a rather thoughtful, not completely negative review and the Usual Suspects(tm) immediately attack the messenger. Perhaps this is why you cannot understand that this is a poor book to convince people that disagree with you; since you are already right about everything, what reason is there to disagree or, for that matter, to engage with those who disagree?

Liberalism is fascism. War is peace. Lies are truth. And so on. Words can mean whatever you want, if you just define them correctly.

In other news, it’s a fact that 9/11 was predominantly carried out by Saudi nationals. It’s also a fact that GWB has significant ties to the Saud family. My extensive research allows me to state unequivocally that GWB is a fascist. Um, or something. See, it’s fun, the guilt by association

.

That’s pretty poor quality guilt by association, as the Saudis are not fascists. Maybe you’re prefer to “state unequivocally” that GWB is a monarchist.

Of course then you’d have to explain Obama’s groveling bow to the Saudi king.

Are there libertarian books that document historical cases where states have followed libertarian or quasi-libertarian policies and have achieved low poverty and inequality, universal health care, low levels of discrimination against minorities and women, and a clean environment?

Yes and no. There is an abundance of libertarian literature on how following libertarian ideas has achieved low poverty. Of course, achieving low poverty means dispensing with certain other liberal ideas, such as the neccessity for government provided health-care and and goodness of “non-discrimination”.

the books i would recommend are:
1. dawkins: the selfish gene—-a left liberal
2. Pinker: the blank slate—another liberal
and
3. Sir meghnath desai: marx’s revenge – former marxist economist

and yes, they and this asertation is essentially correct.
why?
the answer may lie in evolutionary psychology and sexual selection

most of human history ( and of course the history of our predecessors)was characterized by two things
1. a constant struggle for resources and survival
2. whoever accumulated more resources,had greater access to partners and therefore more likely to leave behind progeny.

a zero sum game from both perspectives

the evolutionarily derived behavioural consequence of these were:
a. the greed/ aquistive/ power impulse
b. envy and hate towards the more resourceful, as either I or you could have the harem, not both.

As a consequence of the industrial revolution and free market capitalism, productivity increased to the point that condition 1. above, no longer applies, at least in the post industrial developed countries, and perhaps soon in the rapidly industrialising economies like china and india (consequent, perhaps, to the essentially free market policies that they had begun to adopt in the 70′s and the 90′s respectively).

So what happened to condition 2.
well, surprisingly, the underpriviledged underclasses, while having access to less material resources, have ssentially much more unfetterrd access to procreative partners and a higher fecundity esp in comparison to the elites ( the travails of spitzer, sanford etc etc )

so one could make a convincing argument that as aconsequence of free market capitalism, both of the historical conditions above have been overturned.

But not so fast,
evolutionarily derived behaviors in an atavistic way outlast the conditions that made them adaptive.
Thus, while the condions 1 and 2 no longer apply
the behaviors a and b consequent to them still do.

thein lies the knee jerk response of liberals like jake and loki, where they would trade off abundance and inequality for penury and ” equality”

The liberal nonsense is couched in words that express concern for the poor etc etc. However, two factoids make these claims hollow
1. through human history, poverty has been associated with malnutrion- kwashiorkor and marasmus if you will, NOT obesity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marasmus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwashiorkor
I didnt grow up in america, and was exposed to the sight of poverty – i mean real grinding third world poverty, and consequently flirted for a couple of years with radical socialism until i saw the light. let me just say for the record, their is NO poverty in america, none nada. most middle class people where i grew up would exchange their lots for the american urban underclasses in a jiffy.

so what problem does this somewhat blindly following of our atavistic evolutionary derived behavioral impulses lead to:
libralism to intellectual decadence to civillizational collapse, with the chinese waiting in the wings to fill up the hegemonic vacuum. And if jake and loki think that the world with the west in decline and a chinese hegemonic power would be preferable, well…. words fail me.

on an aside
loki… in a criticism of liberal fascism linked to a review which he thought was authoritative.
i followed the link, the review was by an unrepentant trotskyite and fairly unsubstantive, more concerned with the reviewrs own scholarship than anything else, however there was a reference to trotsky on fascism
so i googled.

here is an exerpt from trotesky on fascism:

“After fascism is victorious, finance capital
directly and immediately gathers into its hands, as in a vise of steel,
all the organs and institutions of sovereignty, the executive
administrative, and educational powers of the state: the entire state
apparatus together with the army, the municipalities, the universities,
the schools, the press, the trade unions, and the co-operatives.”

sounds familliar anybody!!
as in the goldman saks – obama nexus.

loki13: ChrisTS,I think the battle was lost about two comments in when Glenn Bowen, in what I can only believe was all seriousness, posited that “Liberal Fascism” was the book that he would recommend to persuade non-libertarians.*ahem*

(_!_)

I support the death penalty, and would nevertheless recommend this book — especially to those who agree with me.

low poverty and inequality

Equality of outcomes is not a great goal, because you could have everyone equal in a state of relative poverty, as what happens when true socialism and communism are tried.(Except for a small, very wealthy political elite in communist/socialist regimes. So even in those “equal” societies you have startling inequality.)

Instead, what should be aimed for is a relatively high and increasing standard of living. For example even some of the lower socio-economic strata in the US would be considered middle class by third world standards.(Not that conditions in third world countries are great, the goal should be for increased standards of living there as well. Same for everywhere else.)

The problem is that to have a high and increasing standard of living value creators must be rewarded. The rewards have to be there or they will go elsewhere, possibly shut down, spend time on other things, etc. So in order to have the minimum amount of poverty possible – have a high and increasing standard of living – there is going to be some inequality as those that create the most value collect the most rewards. Note this is morally correct under natural law arguments as well – the person who writes and then sells the most books because they are the most entertaining should collect more profits because they are creating the most value.

universal health care

The first problem is that our current healthcare system is not a “free market” system. It is much more expensive than it should be because of distortions due to government intervention on behalf of various corporate and other special interest groups. See here:
http://mises.org/story/3793

So if favorable economic policies were adopted:

- The price of healthcare would go down across the board as the government intervention/distortion and cronyism was done away with.

- Rising standards of living would allow more and more people to afford the cheaper medical care.

- A growing economy and decreased tax load would free up more private charity resources to help anyone left.

Would it be “universal”. Not quite, but basically. Just like there will never be a poverty rate of zero there would always a percentage – hopefully the smallest percentages possible – relying on private charitable resources.

low levels of discrimination against minorities and women

I’m not sure where you’re coming from here, perhaps you think libertarians are racist or chauvinist or something. There likely are some racist or chauvinist libertarians, just like there are racist or chauvinist liberals and conservatives. Personally I don’t encounter that many, and I am not racist or chauvinist myself. Generally, libertarians support equal protection of rights, equality before the law, and the like.

If you notice libertarians mainly have a problem with some of the speech infringements – like the “hate speech” legislation. Not because they think it is necessarily a good idea to verbally abuse various groups, but because they suspect that it will eventually be abused by the government and other groups to silence politically and intellectually important speech. Much like provisions of the Patriot Act that were only going to be used in terrorism cases are magically being used in drug cases and the like.

clean environment

Not sure what you’re getting at here. If a libertarian dream society were created tomorrow:

- There would still be criminal and civil laws against pollution, illegal dumping, etc. There would be reduced government enforcement of those laws in the favor of private enforcement of those laws. Libertarians like clean water too.

- There would still be private conservation and environmentally conscious charities and action groups. If you notice a lot of the environmental litigation that you see is private charities like the World Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club, etc. suing various parties.(Including the government.) These would still exist, and indeed there would likely be more funding for groups like this because there would be a healthy and growing economy and a much lighter tax load.

Ak Mike: Here’s the thing. To the extent that liberals see economic equality as non-negotiable, there is no real point in trying to persuade them to be libertarians. On the other hand, if it is persuasive to show that allowing inequality in fact makes everyone better off (which it certainly does), then maybe liberals can see that equality as a goal is not that compelling.

Actually, this resembles a perverse version of Rawls’s argument in A Theory of Justice, which is a defense of the social democratic welfare state. Roughly speaking, Rawls acknowledges that allowing inequality can make the poor better off, and should therefore be accepted for that purpose. To Rawls, inequality beyond what makes the poor better off is not acceptable. In policy terms, this is something like what American liberals believe: radical egalitarianism is not desirable, but more moderated egalitarianism is. If you’re going to convince liberals that we shouldn’t care about inequality you need to find something stronger than “complete equality would be a bad idea.”

“They [liberals] do not seem to be impressed with historical evidence, the track records of different economic policies or reasoned philosophical arguments.”

One might consider neocon Goldberg’s, the Bush administration’s, and others’ track records; pretty bad. So far no one has identified any example of leaders or states following libertarian policies to successful results. Where is this historical record? Witness Rand’s defender du jour, Mark Sanford.

JakeCollins: @ AK Mike.
We don’t consider inequality to be non-negotiable–but it’s hard for any democratic polity to maintain cohesion if there is gross inequality. The burden on libertarians would be to show that historically libertarianism doesn’t result in gross inequality–a fuzzy and perhaps moving target, but still an important issue for liberals.
An expansion of Medicaid would solve part of the problem of health care, but wouldn’t solve for middle class people that have pre-existing conditions. Health care is a great example of the failure of the market

Except that the “health-care system” that we have today is not, in actual historical fact, the result of the free market. It is quite common for critics of “the free market” to conflate “the free market” with “the status quo”, that is, to assume that the state of affairs we have to live with today is the result of the free market — even when a brief look at the relevant history would show that it is, rather, the product of careful and deliberate regulation.

Why do we have the insurance bureaucracies we do? We have them for the specific reason that employers have a significant tax incentive to offer group health plans as part of the compensation package for employees. It is substantially more expensive to pay your employees $5,000 more each than to buy them $5,000 in health insurance, since the former hits you with payroll tax and hits your employees with increased withholding, while the latter does not.

So we do not have a market situation, where consumers of a service (health care) are making the choices about it. We have, rather, a sort of feudal, precapitalist situation: not the consumer, but the consumer’s employer — typically at the large corporate level, an impersonal HR department — is choosing insurance providers. Thus, the providers that succeed are not the ones that best serve the consumer, but the ones that are the best at playing the “working with other big organizations” game.

Health insurance is only slightly more free-market than, say, military contracting. Our current system is not the result of market processes, but rather of tailored tax incentives which take health-insurance choices away from the consumer and put them in the hands of employers … and thereby take health care choices away from the consumer and provider, and put them in the hands of insurance-company bureaucracies.

I’d recommend reading the post…. um…. directly above yours. Might do wonders for your reading comprehension. Might also address your claims about:

1. Having read the book (yes, I did try, for I am a voracious reader, but…. damn….).

2. What other reviewers have said. The link I provided not only has a review, but has links to (gasp) other reviews. In addition, the post I made (directly above yours) deals with the claim, “but goshdarn there’s accurate stuff in it!”.

For the people following along, just because you reference a true fact does not make your assertion correct. For example, if I say that 1 is odd, and -1 is odd (both true!), and therefore say 0 is odd because 0 is really close to (and, in fact, in between!) two odd numbers, people might have a problem with my final assertion *despite* my impeccable math research previous to that.

IOW, if you don’t settle on a definition of fascism, then cherry pick a few examples of it, then conveniently ignore any examples of the right associating with fascism (no small trick, that), than tar by association, VOILA!… it all fits together.

In other news, it’s a fact that 9/11 was predominantly carried out by Saudi nationals. It’s also a fact that GWB has significant ties to the Saud family. My extensive research allows me to state unequivocally that GWB is a fascist. Um, or something. See, it’s fun, the guilt by association.

Kindly Inquisitors by Rauch. It was given to me this past summer, and required reading while I was interning at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and suggested by University of Wisconsin Professor Donald Downs.

Downs and I disagreed on some pretty serious subjects, but I’m forever indebted to him for suggesting this book to my colleges and me.

Cornellian: I can’t take anything Sowell says seriously after a particularly moronic article he wrote about the job of a Supreme Court justice.He claimed the problem with the Supreme Court was that the justices were too smart, that Supreme Court cases were easy and so what we needed was dumber Supreme Court justices who wouldn’t expend so much brain power thinking about them.Based on that assertion, I think Sowell is dumb enough to qualify for a position on his ideal Supreme Court.

I have found that Sowell’s books are quite good… and his columns are quite bad. So bad — and of so much lower quality than his long-form writing — that I wonder if he writes them himself, or if he has an intern paste them together from the conservative-talking-points-of-the-week press release.

if this is really what you think liberalism is, the only thing that you are going to convince a liberal of is that you do not know what liberalism is.

Granted, I indulged him in “debate” (which, you are correct, I should not have) where I stated:

“They weren’t against eugenics when it was popular. Give them what they think is a good reason to start banning books (say, someone wrote a racist book perceived as “hate speech” for example) and the banning might come right back on. The very fact that people who call themselves liberal had to be convinced in the first place is the problem.”

Snarky, yes. Unnecessary, probably. Ahistorical, I think not. But, I did not “raise[] the claim of liberals being in favor of eugenics and book banning.” It was SuperSkepticJakeCollins. I merely ran with it.

I did read them in real time.

Look, you do not owe me an apology, sweet though it is of you to do so.

One of the many things I like about VC is the opportunity to have reasonable conversations with people who are not just like me politically. There are plenty of blogs where no one who differs from the meme would dare to raise their heads.

Anyhow. Good night, All.

My apologies to hallj.

Oh, and now I see you already posted on this. Oh well. Again, I do apologize.

ChrisTS: Jake Collins made two more on-topic comments, and then hallj wrote that liberals favor eugenics and banning books. Only after that did he become testy.

I’d just like to point out that I am not the one who said that. I like a good flamewar as much as the next guy, but I generally avoid statements that I think will actively incite them.