Over at the Washington Examiner, Tim Carney writes that when it comes to abortion, President Barack Obama - and not Mitt Romney - is the true extremist...
Carney notes that even many liberal legal theorists (he quotes once-perennial potential SCOTUS nominee Laurence Tribe) argue that Roe v. Wade is bad law...
Kathleen Parker had a great column in yesterday's Wash Post, where she noted that whatever else you can say about abortion and contraceptives, these are not front-burner elections but rather "the same old culture war" issues that are used to ply dedicated partisans and to spray fog over more central concerns. Interestingly (and accurately), she notes that it was Obama who injected these themes into the campaign by shoving contraceptives down the throats of folks (cough) via his health-care reform...So never mind what Republicans say they'll do about abortion -- there's no way they'll ever accomplish anything except at the state level, where it can't harm you. Meantime there are real threats to your liberty that you should be worrying about -- for example, the jack-booted thugs at the FDA.
This is obviously good news for Mitt Romney, etc. Best part is, it barely touches Reason's reader base, as 90% of them don't have to worry about abortion because they have girlfriends in Canada.
UPDATE. Brad Smith on "Why this libertarian is voting Romney, with enthusiasm":
Libertarians often like to say that there is no difference between the two major parties. But in my lifetime... there have been two Presidents who have substantially reduced income tax rates: Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, both Republicans.And Romney will complete their work of finishing off the American economy. It's win-win!
I have never believed in a “libertarian position” on abortion... A libertarian can come down on either side. I am pro-life, and therefore give a huge advantage to Romney.Also he wants Romney to do the Supreme Court nominations because Tony Scalia and Clarence Thomas are getting old. Oh, and:
Romney may not be a libertarian, yet Romney not infrequently launches wonderful verbal defenses of hard core libertarian views. I can scarcely imagine another major party presidential candidate who would take on leftist hecklers about the rights of individuals organized using the corporate form; or defend the value of being able to fire people for incompetence...This makes perfect sense if "libertarian" is just a synonym for "asshole." And at this point, who knows?
Even if Gillespie figured out just how bloody fucking tiresome he was, it wouldn't deter him.
ReplyDeleteThat's the mark of a true asshole.
Mitt Romney...the true extremist....had...great... issues that....spray....over....Obama who injected...down the throats of....his....form
ReplyDeleteI can't wait till this election is over. I've had just about enough of this Romney/Obama slashfic.
However, I am curious to hear more about Kathleen Parker's take on "front-burner elections"
Crap. Almost all my girlfriends lived in Canada. I must be a geek.
ReplyDelete"it was Obama who injected these themes into the campaign by shoving contraceptives down the throats of folks"
ReplyDeleteDid I miss the campaign's ObamaPill ad?* I live in Illinois, so we don't get any of the good political ads. IMO it pales in comparison to Obama injecting OBL into the campaign by, um, killing him.
*My wife wants to come out with a line of contraceptives called "OvoCop."
"Interestingly (and accurately), she notes that it was Obama who injected these themes into the campaign by shoving contraceptives down the throats of folks (cough) via his health-care reform..."
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's because people see contraceptives as health care? In other words, by adding in a common sense health care provision into a health care reform package, Obama was practically forcing the right wing to call Sandra Fluke a slut.
This is a particularly stupid argument, of course. But then, Gillespie is a fucking whore, utterly unafraid of being stupid on purpose.
Read this: An excerpt from "Assholes: A Theory" by Aaron James. Pretty much spot on.
ReplyDelete"Meantime there are real threats to your liberty that you should be worrying about -- for example, the jack-booted thugs at the FDA."
ReplyDeleteUnbelievable. The corporatist whores at tReason are arguing to remove any health or safety standards for consumables in the name of "Food Freedom in America." IIt's like watching Roman senators arguing for the necessity to sicken themselves with lead pipes because ”Fuck the healthy barbarian ways! We'll stick with tradition and profit!"
When self-poisoning in the name of profits becomes patriotic, you know the Republic is lost.
Using the power of government to deny people the right to eat at your restaurant: freedom!
ReplyDeleteUsing the power of government to force women to have babies: tyranny!
Libertyrranians? Freedumbers? Or just fucking Republicans?
Truly a remarkable take on "liberty" when you think it's just fine for the government to coerce you to do things with your own body, but just beyond the pale if the government wants to protect you from fraud and poison.
ReplyDeleteThey're willing to die from botulism or E. Coli to protect your freedom to eat whatever you want, trex--yet you mock their selflessness.
ReplyDeleteNick Gillespie is, of course, a moron; he doesn't acknowledge that outside of the core of "absolutists" are a large halo of fundamentalists and conservatives who are dedicated to making abortions as humiliating and inconvenient, if not downright terrifying, as possible, but not absolutely illegal. Nick doesn't care if someone has to have a phallic wand shoved up her hoo-hah, because he doesn't have one (at least not a real one).
ReplyDeleteSo libertarians are against state coercion against doing cocaine, but for state coercion against taking birth control. Got it.
ReplyDeleteJust another data point showing that libertarians are at least as "statist" as they accuse anyone else of being.
To riff on the old line about priests and abortion, if libertarians could get pregnant, abortion would be an axiom.
ReplyDeleteI hear there's some real bargains out there in steroid shots for back pain. Maybe Nick should scoop some of those up.
ReplyDeleteApparently they aren't aware that at least 25 people have died recently and many more are sick with meningitis from a contaminated antibiotic. The ambulance on fire may be the best symbol for libertarianism.
ReplyDeleteThat's just the upraised middle finger of the Free Market, you commie.
ReplyDelete"Kathleen Parker had a great column in yesterday's Wash Post,
ReplyDeletewhere she noted that whatever else you can say about abortion and
contraceptives, these are not front-burner elections but rather "the
same old culture war" issues that are used to ply dedicated partisans
and to spray fog over more central concerns."
You know, it's really difficult to prove a negative, so I was wondering how I was going to prove there was no such thing as a female libertarian. Thanks, Nick!
The Fonzie of Freedom is never afraid to jump the shark of gormlessness.
ReplyDeleteLet's play Spot the Extremist. One candidate thinks that contraception and abortion rights are settled law, that health insurance plans should be nondiscriminatory, and that Planned Parenthood is a private-sector provider of health care services for women. The other candidate has declared his willingness to see Roe overturned, that employers should have the right to deny health care coverage on any whim, and that Planned Parenthood is a sinister conspiracy to be stripped of all its government funding. Which one is the extremist?
ReplyDelete... If you guessed "the member of a polytheistic babymaking cult who won a far-right Republican primary," you're wrong. It's the centrist black Democrat. But thanks for joining us for another round of "Stupid Right-wing Pigs' Assholes Doing Their Best to Destroy the Nation."
Nick Gillespie is one of the dudes in the 90s that I respected and enjoyed (when he wrote for Suck) like Penn Jillette and Dennis Miller, who now just make me shake my head. But you gotta understand! Back in the dotcom era everyone was a tech-libertarian! It was just the default political stance to take! "socially liberal and fiscally conservative", that was me and all my friends! Only somewhere along the line it turned into "socially conservative and fiscally conservative" for a good chunk of them, as 9/11 sorted out the wingnuts. And I read a few more books that weren't about freakonomics or the Dow at 50,000 or cluetrains.
ReplyDeleteStatism for thee, but not for me.
ReplyDeleteSo, what was Fonzi von Freimarkt saying back when Sandra Fluke was being called a slut, and worse?
ReplyDelete"See, liberals do it too! So there!"
He only believes in "freedom of speech" when he's talking.
"Ask your (Republican) senator if OvoCop is right for you."
ReplyDeleteIf anyone else is intrigued by the title - that link is very much worth your time to read.
ReplyDeleteyou missed your saving throw there, sir.
ReplyDeletewhy do all these women keep shoving things down my galt pipe?
ReplyDeleteAh, the Cluetrain Manifesto. Even then I was shitting the punchbowl.
ReplyDeleteReason Magazine's libertarianism only makes sense if you assume that a) all libertarians are guys and b) they think that birth control, like infrastructure/roads/bridges and all of society will basically be supplied for free by someone else when you need them.
ReplyDelete"member of a polytheistic babymaking cult"
ReplyDeleteJFK was one of those as well.
"This makes perfect sense if "libertarian" is just a synonym for "asshole." And at this point, who knows?"
ReplyDeleteThe Urban Dictionary http://www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=SteveBob+McJohnson
Dude, Trinity. Which obviously made JFK monotheistic, since as Ambrose of Milan demonstrated ... Hey, is that Justin Bieber trying to chat up one of your Canadian girlfriends?
ReplyDelete[Runs for exit]
Justin's welcome to chat up any of my exes, as long as it's not on my lawn. And fuck Ambrose. Probably an Inter supporter.
ReplyDeleteI thought the drug causing meningitis was an antibiotic. Duh. Though I still think a burning fire truck is a good symbol for Libertarianism.
ReplyDeleteSide effects include paranoia, flop sweat, hallucinations, and tourette's syndrome.
ReplyDeleteFreedom for bosses matters more than freedom for employees because Freedom Units are counted in dollars.
ReplyDeleteI worked at a place that was relentless in pushing the Cluetrain stuff, while at the same time not paying any attention to either government rules or what their employees thought. Now it is gone, flattened by a cluetrain coming from another direction.
ReplyDeletey'know... Fonzi may not HAVE a vagina, but damn, you'd think he might KNOW a few Americans who have one. They've obviously not let him touch one in quite some time...
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, if the Pugs DO manage to slither into total power, the rest of us will find out how fast those issues can vault to that front burner.
ReplyDeleteJust about everyone starts out a libertarian these days. It's in your standard packet if you become a wonk before 21.
ReplyDeleteI have never believed in a “libertarian position” on abortion... A libertarian can come down on either side.
ReplyDeleteYour commitment to individual freedom is awesome.
"individuals organized using the corporate form"
ReplyDeleteThat has got to be the greatest example of Newspeak since George Orwell laid down his pen. This idiot couldn't care less if ACTUAL individuals got mowed down by corporations. If he has a job, I hope the most Satanic "Human Capital Management" drone on earth decides to downsize his ass and do it with the same kind of meaningless drivel he's producing.
A pro-life libertarian. Haw haw, that's rich, etc. And I'm a carnivorous vegan.
ReplyDeleteI keep feeling like I'm on the verge of coming up with an all-encompassing analysis of these clowns, like, "yes, they're intellectually adequate, but they're EMOTIONALLY un-intelligent..." That's true enough, but it doesn't encompass their full inanity. What am I missing? It can't just be "wingnut-welfare boilerplate" or "yearning for tribal membership." Can it?
I think a coin-operated fire truck would be pretty good too.
ReplyDeleteYes, it can.
ReplyDelete"You have twenty seconds to fertilize."
ReplyDelete"I can scarcely imagine another major party presidential candidate who would take on leftist hecklers about the rights of individuals organized using the corporate form;"
ReplyDeleteThe corporate form of organization is made possible by government, is wholly defined by the legal benefits it offers to natural people. Rights? Citizens have a full complement of rights prior to and during incorporation. People incorporate to secure further legal protections, not the fulfillment of rights. Obviously. I can't take this Brad Smith fellow seriously.
You really, really need to read Cyberselfish by Paula Borsook.
ReplyDeleteThis has been happening in Australia recently where many many male journalists are lecturing the (female) PM that there is a) no sexism b) she should toughen up about it and c) if there was any sexism, surely they'd know about it, being men and all. Optional d) men are the real victims of sexism. Bizarrely, even on posts about it on overseas sites (eg Pharyngula) Australian men will still journey across to reassure Americans that Julia Gillard was over-reacting and the Opposition Leader's actions weren't really misogynist (and then trying the old dictionary definition trick).
ReplyDeleteI just am struggling to understand how people who are obviously not unintelligent can be not only stupid, but utterly unaware of how obvious there stupidity is to others. Presumably Nick Gillespie must share a Y chromosome or something.
Republicans who think they're too clever to be Republicans.
ReplyDelete...why would he want to waste time having sex with anyone except that one special person who loves him the most, his soulmate, his nearest and dearest, the one person who's always there after a long day of fighting the moochers and losers?
ReplyDeleteTangentially related, I just saw a newborn born to parents who are Ayn Rand fans, all the way down to the kid's name (no breaking of confidentiality, but the baby and the baby's sibling are named after characters in Rand novels). Need I point out that the children are on MediCal?
ReplyDeleteThis makes perfect sense if "libertarian" is just a synonym for "asshole."
ReplyDeleteIf?
The libertarians I have known are almost all guys who are so geeky that they have about as much chance of getting their hands on a woman as they do of finding Captain Blackbeard's treasure in their basement, next to their emergency Cheeto rations. That, and the fact that "libertarian" is wingnut speak for "greedy, self absorbed son of a bitch," explains their lack of concern for women's rights.
ReplyDeleteWhat really gets me is that those contraceptives were/are part of the employee's benefit package. Those benefits, along with salary, compensate you for the time you spend laboring on your employer's behalf. Birth control, accupuncture, psychotherapy, meds (or not) for your back pain....it's the employee's goddamn money, and he or she gets to decide what to do with it.* If you employer can dictate your health care options because it's "their" money, why can't they dictate how you spend what's in your paycheck, too? No alcohol if you work for a strict Muslim. No trips to nightclubs and that sinful dancing if you work for a hardcore Baptist. No cameras if they take that thing about graven images seriously. No Orthodox Jewish dollars spent on bacon.
ReplyDeleteThe religious argument is bullshit, and always has been. The principle that's at stake, and that Gillespie is arguing for, is this: You'll do what you're told to.
Which should tell you how seriously you can take his opinions on freedom and individual rights. Or any other topic, really.
*Given the constraints of our fucked-up health care system, of course.
Nothing more libertarian than spying on everybody without warrants.
ReplyDeleteBoth of our major party libertarians agree on this point.
~
Wait, doesn't that one special person usually bring her four daughters with her?
ReplyDeleteThis makes perfect sense if "libertarian" is just a synonym for "asshole."
ReplyDeleteWell, let's see: Brad Smith is a self-identified libertarian. Brad Smith apparently defines "libertarian" as "Tax-cut fetishizing Republican who's also a reactionary authoritarian on social issues." "Tax-cut fetishizing Republican who's also a reactionary authoritarian on social issues" is presently a synonym for "Republican." Republicans are assholes. Ergo, "libertarian" is just a synonym for "asshole." QED. You're welcome.
Reason....objectively pro-bacterial meningitis!!!
ReplyDeletewait who is being forced to take contraceptives now???
ReplyDeleteSome corroboration: Here's my story. It has been a whirlwind last 5 years in my life. I
ReplyDeletestarted out my journey as the antithesis of a politician. As a small
businessman, home-school dad, Las Vegas oddsmaker, and political
newcomer running for the Libertarian Presidential nomination in 2007,
you couldn't find more of an anti-politician in all of politics.
But in America anything is possible. In this great country, never
discount a long shot. I was elected the Libertarian Vice Presidential
nominee in 2008. The Bob Barr/Wayne Root Presidential ticket went on to
garner the second highest vote total in Libertarian history. I was then
elected Chairman of the Libertarian National Campaign Committee, and
became the #1 vote-getter in the country for election to the Libertarian
National Committee. Media across the country called me “Mr.
Libertarian” in my 4000 media appearances since 2008.
Today, after giving this many months of thought, I'm announcing the
most important decision of my political career. I am stepping down from
my roles in the Libertarian party, to endorse Mitt Romney as President
of the United States, and to rejoin the Republican Party.
Here's a thought: Nick Gilespie and Brad Smith are both speaking in the context of the 2012 Presidential election. Here's Smith:
ReplyDeleteI am pro-life, and therefore give a huge advantage to Romney. But note that even for pro-choice libertarians, the major issues actually on the table in the next years cut in favor of Romney.
I mean, what's a Libertarian supposed to do? Abandon the Republicans and vote for Obama (And a third party vote counts as a vote for Obama), because even though he's a worse Libertarian than Romney in almost every way he's better on this one issue?
I seem to remember reading some blogger somewhere who was incredibly annoyed by arguments like that a few months back.
He wasn't at all convinced that one issue, even one of life and death for hundreds of thousands, could overcome a candidate's other massive advantages. I wonder what he'd have to say about Gillespie and Smith?
I'm not harshing on Smith because he's not voting for Gary Johnson or Obama. I'm harshing on him because he's full of shit. His positions as he describes them are straight-up conservative, with some free-market gibberish thrown in for dressing. It's like if I said I was a monarchist but until someone came up with a really monarchistic platform I was voting for Obama because he's the closest thing to a king we have.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you tell us how you're going to defend "the life and death for hundreds of thousands" with your vote?
even for pro-choice libertarians, the major issues actually on the table in the next years cut in favor of Romney.
ReplyDelete...why I am not (within a mile of being) a libertarian. What's a Libertarian supposed to do? - suck it up
LIBERTY: NOT FOR CHIX!!!
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you tell us how you're going to defend "the life and death for hundreds of thousands" with your vote?
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm not, so I won't.
Anyway, I'm not sure that I'm entirely convinced. On the one hand, yes, they both argue much more badly than you do, in the sense that their arguments for libertarianism really are gibberish.
On the other hand this
It's like if I said I was a monarchist but until someone came up with a really monarchistic platform I was voting for Obama because he's the closest thing to a king we have.
Is literally what you said you were doing WRT Obama. It's not "As if" you said you'd do that, you are explicitly voting for the candidate who shares an acceptable number of your views because there isn't a better option.
I mean, unless you're much more in favor of drone warfare than you come off here and you're voting for him because you like assassination lists.
You can't rag on Greenwald for his excessive purity and then rag on libertarians for their lack of it.
I see I haven't made myself clear. I understand why a liberal would vote for a candidate who is less than a perfect liberal dream. And I can understand the same of conservatives. Libertarians, however, make a big deal about their genuine honest-to-gosh third way while always supporting Republicans -- even on issues where you'd think they'd back Democrats, e.g. abortion.
ReplyDeleteThis is where my analogy comes from. I'm as much a monarchist as, well, this asshole's a libertarian. I am in fact a Democrat who is voting Democratic -- which you seem to consider hypocritical for some reason.
Peak Wingnut was a lie.
ReplyDeleteI mean, what's a Libertarian supposed to do? Abandon the Republicans ...
ReplyDeleteSee, we can stop right there and declare your goddamn stupid false equivalence sophistry quota (GSFESQ) already filled. "Abandon the Republicans." If their default state is always "Support the Republicans," why the hell are they constantly prancing about declaring themselves libertarians in the first place? As this post demonstrates, plenty of them love Republican economic policy and are apparently unlikely to have any real problem with Republican social policy. Hence, the default usage of "libertarian" has been defined clear down to "asshole." (I continue to hold that virtually none of these people are real libertarians anyway, but the hijacking of the term has been so thorough as to render that moot.)
So come back when you have either (1) documentary evidence that Edroso is a loud-and-proud hardcore Green Party member who has nevertheless enthusiastically and unreservedly endorsed Obama; or (2) an argument from Brad Smith in which he declares that he's "holding his nose" and voting for Romney, because, although he's actually bad-to-worse on a number of individual liberty issues, he's nevertheless the lesser of the right-schmibertarian evils on enough of them, and we live in a de facto two-party system. (And if that argument were to rely on "stopping socialism" or the like, we'd make fun of how stupid Smith was about that, too.)
I am in fact a Democrat who is voting Democratic -- which you seem to consider hypocritical for some reason.
ReplyDeleteI certainly don't consider that hypocritical.
What I do consider mildly hyocritical is that you attacked Glenn Greenwald for praising Ron Paul on the one issue he's stronger than Obama on, without then immediately talking about how awful he is on every other issue. Glenn's too pure.
Meanwhile, when Gillespie et al respond to the abortion issue by immediately talking about the other ways Obama's worse than Romney, you're mad that they aren't pure enough.
You can't have it both ways; You're voting for a guy who's going to kill a lot of civilians with bombs, but that doesn't mean you're suddenly pro-bomb. If that's true, which I think we both agree it is, you can't tar libertarians as pro-abortion just because they reliably vote Republican.
Of course, the difference is that both these guys are yahoos, and unlike you, their mental defense towards voting for a candidate as anti-libertarian as Romney is to just declare that abortion's not really that important anyway.
I think Obama did it because it was a quick political fight he thought he'd win, and then he got surprised by how aggressively the right-wingers stuck their feet into their mouths and then shot them.
ReplyDeleteAnd I didn't hear either major party asking why contraceptives cost enough money for it to matter, as opposed to being $4/month generics at Walmart like my blood pressure medicine or a couple hundred other common drugs. The Pill has been around for 50 years, and I doubt they've done much except adjust doses of the same ingredients in the last 20 years (so the patents would have run out), except for the fancy versions for women who don't want monthly periods or the more complex types for women who need them for specific medical conditions as opposed to just preventing pregnancy.
Sorry if this breaks your assumptions, but the woman who started "Libertarians for Life" is an atheist Jewish former Ayn Rand follower, who believes that human fetuses are actually human and therefore have rights also, and that there's a legitimate conflict of rights between the baby and the mother, though she thinks that abortion to protect the health of the mother is legitimate self-defense. (And back when I was more active in the party, which was before the recent crowd of Republicans had moved in, most of the LFL were from the anarchist side of the party; just because they think abortion is murder doesn't mean that they necessarily think that government can actually help the problem by meddling in it.)
ReplyDelete