Letter Author Knocks on Matt Wood

I don't want you to think that I'm against lampooning other people's political views or anything. Political sarcasm and ridicule are a big part of what makes life worth living, especially to us policy and politics geeks at HLS. But Matt Wood's column ["Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places"; October 20, 2000] mocking libertarian personals is just uninformed and gratuitous.

First Wood makes fun of a (presumably libertarian) Christian man looking "for the same in a woman," who has "done many different things" and "like[s] trying new ones." These innocuous sentences give Wood an excuse to launch into an apparently unmotivated tirade against "police departments engaging in racial profiling." I dislike racial profiling too, but what does it have to do with libertarians (who also oppose racial profiling)?

Then he makes fun of an anarcho-capitalist: "What, pray tell, is anarchistic capital? Remember, it's the federal government that prints our money.... So what're we after here? A return to the glory days of state-backed currency? The barter system? What?" If Wood knew anything about anarcho-capitalism, he would know (a) that it's just a fancy word for anarchism (the "-capitalism" is added to distinguish it from the left-wing variants); (b) that anarcho-capitalists oppose government involvement in the monetary system; and (c) that they favor private, competing currencies, and NOT the barter system. There's a lot to criticize -- and even to make fun of! -- in anarcho-capitalism. But wouldn't it be nice to have even the tiniest understanding of a philosophy before mocking an innocent guy trying to find a companion who shares his values?

Wood's column ends with a note on Ayn Rand: "[W]ouldn't it be [nice] to meet something who'd admit that she was wrong?" Since Ayn Rand was primarily a moral philosopher and was low on predictions about the future, "wrong" must mean "in disagreement with my rambling opinions expressed above." So the nicest Randian to meet is one who has renounced all his most deeply held and cherished moral beliefs. No reasons; no arguments; no honest (sarcastic! satirical!) engagement of the serious ideas of Randian philosophy. Just a dismissive, knee-jerk assertion that Ayn Rand was "wrong." Now I'm not a Randian, nor am I a Christian or an anarcho-capitalist (though I have friends in all three categories). But imagine that these were, say, personals for Christians or for blacks, and that we were talking about Jesus or Martin Luther King, Jr., instead of Rand, and maybe you'll get some idea of how offensive that must sound.