James Naughtie talks with the Tea Party people, then travels to NY to talk to people about the Tea Party people.
9/7/2010
7/13/2010
Harumph
After reading, a few months ago, that one of the hallmarks of fascism is the rendering of politics as an aesthetic event, I have found myself unable to get energized about American politics anymore.
It’s just too goddamned depressing.
5/24/2010
On The Impractical
In the wake of the Rand Paul self-immolation, I’ve had several conversations lately about libertarianism with folks whose opinions I value highly. While I think that some of my friends are absolutely correct that the modern iteration of libertarianism suffers from some definitional slippage, I’ve been arguing consistently for a while now that libertarianism (and especially those free market people) is a completely impractical thing. I hesitate to call it an ideology, because it seems to be nothing more than a utopian idea that’s been masquerading as a coherent ideology—when people talk to me about free markets and freedom, I always have to bite my tongue to keep from saying something like “That is no different that saying ‘Puppies are good!’”
It was nice, then, to read Julian Sanchez in Newsweek:
In a free society, Americans have long believed, even people with repulsive views have a right to express them, and to join with like-minded bigots in private clubs and informal gatherings. It is not crazy to imagine that in a more just world, an ideally just world, respect for that freedom would lead us to countenance—legally, if not personally—the few cranks who sought to congregate in their monochrome cafés and diners.Yet that’s precisely why Paul’s 1.0 argument breaks down on its own terms: at the scene of a four-century crime against humanity—the kidnap, torture, enslavement, and legal oppression of African-Americans—ideal theory fails. We libertarians, never burdened with an excess of governing power, have always had a utopian streak, a penchant for imagining what rich organic order would bubble up from the choices of free and equal citizens governed by a lean state enforcing a few simple rules. We tend to envision societies that, if not perfect, are at least consistently libertarian.
Unfortunately, history happened. Rules for utopia can deal with individual crimes—the mugger and the killer and the vandal—but they stumble in the face of societywide injustice. They tell us the state shouldn’t sanction the brutal enslavement or humiliating legal subordination of a people; they have less to say about what to do once we have. They tell us to respect the sanctity of the property rights that would arise as free people tamed the wilderness in John Locke’s state of nature. They have less to say about the sanctity of property built on generations of slave sweat and blood.
Nice to see this finally being admitted.
Last semester, I had a student who is a staunch libertarian. He goes on rants about freedom (always friendly), and we exchange jabs back and forth in a fun way. One day, last term, the snow had covered the lines in the parking lot, and he came in complaining that he was the only person who had parked in an actual parking spot instead of just finding a place and making do. I said “That, right there, is why your political philosophy doesn’t work.”
5/21/2010
Yup
Marc Bousquet fisks McArdle, who deserves it.
5/8/2010
It Begins
Bob Bennett lost in the primary. I keep thinking about Obama’s comment at the GOP retreat in Baltimore:
So all I’m saying is, we’ve got to close the gap a little bit between the rhetoric and the reality. I’m not suggesting that we’re going to agree on everything, whether it’s on health care or energy or what have you, but if the way these issues are being presented by the Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys then don’t have a lot of room to negotiate with me.
The GOP has a generation of politicians who believe in their bones that you win elections by going to the right, and so the emergence* of the Tea Party shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. But now they’re taking out their own, like Bennett, in favor of vastly more conservative folks.
If this keeps up, the rump of the party will drive the party off the cliff and firmly cement the GOP as a regional party carried on by nothing but inertia—and will clearly reveal that Howard Dean’s strategy to box the GOP into the South was spot on.**
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* Don’t misunderstand me. I am pretty sure that the Tea Party people are the same folks who hounded Clinton in the 90s. This isn’t an insurgent movement. This is the rump of the rump of the rump.
** To which I should add: it’s not like Utah (or Oklahoma) is a particular surprising place for this to happen, and so there wasn’t much risk here for the Tea Party or the GOP. It will, however, be interesting to see if the Tea Party does what the Dems have been unable to do: defeat moderate republicans in the primary in favor of more easily beatable wingnuts. The Dems have been targeting Specter for ages now. Regardless, a party of 18% of the electorate that refuses to compromise on anything, ever, will be an interesting thing to see.