There's always a certain joy-popper perspective to these stories, and this one's no exception: author Robert Draper barely mentions the only relevant aspect of libertarian policy, which is the one its super-rich backers are paying for: Removing all restraints and social obligations from the rich. Draper's round-up is mostly about foreign policy, freeing the weed, and other such distractions. A real Libertarian Moment would involve looting the public treasury on a fall-of-Baghdad level, but it's not worth any of Draper's subjects' time to discuss it, for reasons you can guess.
But there are compensations. The segment on "self-identified libertarian" (and me-identified hack) Mollie Hemingway is rich:
When I asked Hemingway what she thought of extending rights to gay couples, she replied carefully: “Well, I have always thought that government should be so small that it doesn’t have a role in giving benefits. It’s interesting to me that libertarians see government redefining the institution as something that will maximize liberty. And I am very skeptical about that.” She added that while “people should be free to organize their own lifestyle,” the state had a unique interest in protecting heterosexual marriage, because it was “the relationship that’s ordered to producing children.”
This was a familiar point — but for social conservatives like Rick Santorum, not for libertarians. When I pressed her on it, Hemingway said: “Do I think the state should change the definition of marriage to allow same-sex couples? I think people should be free to organize their own lives however they wish. I’m skeptical about the way we’re accomplishing this. I don’t know. I feel like I need to think about it more.”Think about it more! This means Hemingway will consult with the Blessed Virgin, who will tell her to keep shoveling.
This is my favorite segment, though, starring Nick Gillespie, whom Draper compares to Lou Reed (congrats Nick, the leather jacket finally paid off!):
Arrayed before Gillespie were several boxes of exotically flavored Pop-Tarts that he had purchased at the Lancaster grocery store. He held them up as evidence that individualism was flourishing and choices were in abundance or, as he put it, “The libertarian moment is now.”Sweet freedom! Wait'll these kids find out how many dollars in scrip it takes to buy a box of Pop-Tarts at the company store.
UPDATE. Just in case you don't get my point about Hemingway, here's something she posted this week:
Kneel Before Zod: On Celebrating Obama’s Birthday
This is really not the biggest deal in the world, but every year on August 4, I’m reminded of something kind of creepy in the Cult of Obama...Also, some people actually put bumper stickers bearing Obama's name on their cars! CHRIST NOT MAN IS KING.
Arrayed before Gillespie were several boxes of exotically flavored Pop-Tarts that he had purchased at the Lancaster grocery store. He held them up as evidence that individualism was flourishing and choices were in abundance or, as he put it, “The libertarian moment is now.”
ReplyDeleteBy extension, the existence of shrimp-flavored potato chips, corn-flavored yogurt and fruit pizza means that the People's Republic of China is the freest, most individualistic place on Earth.
whom Draper compares to Lou Reed (congrats Nick, the leather jacket finally paid off!)
ReplyDeleteI think Lou Reed is a creep!
Arrayed before Gillespie were several boxes of exotically flavored Pop-Tarts that he had purchased at the Lancaster grocery store. He held them up as evidence that individualism was flourishing and choices were in abundance or, as he put it, “The libertarian moment is now.”
ReplyDeleteI always suspected the libertarian moment will lead to Type 2 diabetes.
“people should be free to organize their own lifestyle,” the state had a
ReplyDeleteunique interest in protecting heterosexual marriage, because it was
“the relationship that’s ordered to producing children.”
Good fucking grief, even the Conservatives have given up no that particular bit of bullshit and here's the New Wave of the Future trotting it out.
Every time someone claims gibbertarians are totes different from conservatives, people should be able to point, laugh and break a plate over his head.
In the future, everyone will be free to lose a hand or their eyesight.
ReplyDeleteThis is like "Oh soccer has finally caught on in the U.S." that we hear every four yrs. because World Cup ratings are higher than last time.
ReplyDeleteUsually it's feet, which would mean libertoonians would have one less target for their Freedom Pistols.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you've ever been to Lancaster -- and you haven't, unless you need to record a deed at the Coos County Registry or are looking for used snowmobile parts -- you'll be amazed that the "Lancaster grocery store" (a Shaws) has anything but Pop-Tarts.
ReplyDeleteHow the gibbering hell does one still have to "think about" marriage equality? Holy shit, what an asshole. Also, I missed Obama's birthday and none of my co-workers took it off. Someone should've said something.
ReplyDeleteThat article was pretty much the most horrifying piece of journalist malpractice ever. Its basic premise was basically is that if you only interview libertarians, all your interviewees will agree that libertarians are the mainstream now, so clearly libertarians are the mainstream, everyone I talked to agrees! . Add some mild torturing of the data (Hillary is beating Rand like a puppy in polls of young voters, but Obama beat her in 2008 so clearly millenials are libertarians who will vote for Rand in 2016), some nice pictures, and a couple of tongue baths and presto, a think piece!
ReplyDeleteAlso, notice that the first paragraph of the story, "Kennedy" is praising Ted Cruz, a super-hawkish theocrat who is opposed to everything on the libertarian agenda besides the bit about raping mother nature for profit, as one of her libertarian lodestars! Ted frigging Cruz!
ReplyDeleteWhat flavor Pop-tarts would GG demand from the Libertarian moment?
ReplyDeleteIn other words, the state has an interest in promoting childbirth because it's good for society.
ReplyDeleteThat's the thing about libertarianism - you don't have to trace the thread of logic too far to find one of those dreaded "greater good" arguments.
I bet he wouldn't be so happy about his plethora of pot-tarts if they were made in factories that could experiment with not following sanitation guidelines.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I'm being cranky, but the thought of some pampered prick claiming Choice = Lots of Pop-Tarts creeps me out. "Who cares about poverty and junk, I got lots of candy!!"
A Kellogg (yes, double "g"=double good) product exemplifies the coming of the Age of Aquarian Liberty according to the man with a box of Pop Tarts™? Hurray for his side.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid he mistakes his ability to choose a snack from among a corporate-limited selection as actual freedom. I wish he had been around when I was selling bridges.
I'll skip the usual "libertarianism is a fraud even on its own terms" and jump right to the bit about how libertarianism's moment in the sun has finally come. Happily for all of us, even the dimmest of bulbs in the great voting masses understand what unbridled capitalism actually means in practice. As the GOP finally noticed at about this time last year, the vast majority of people are employees--they work for other people and for companies.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of removing all restraints of Jon and Jane Galt so they can amass great wealth seems attractive until the next synapse fires and you understand the second part of that equation: They will amass great wealth while impoverishing everyone around them--including their now completely unprotected employees. Most normal folks don't volunteer to be raped and murdered, or turned into chattel slaves.
But, then, libertarians aren't normal folks, are they?
It strikes me as odd that there are adults who let pop tarts near their facehole.
ReplyDelete"Kennedy, a former MTV personality and now a libertarian activist, performs at the annual dinner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Credit: Sarah & Samantha"
ReplyDeleteDig the leg warmers.
http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/08/10/magazine/10libertarians1/mag-10Libertarians-t_CA0-superJumbo.jpg
They don't "volunteer," they have no choice.
ReplyDeleteOr you could go the other way and ask why marriage is needed to promote childbirth? The conservatives regularly gnash their fangs over the frequency of childbirth outside of marriage, so if your goal is More Babies, it still doesn't mean opposite sex marriage has to be protected.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course the reason Cons dropped the marriage = babies argument is judges started using the argument to beat them about the heads and shoulders. "What about infertile couples? Should the state require fertility tests? What about people who don't want children? Or are too old to have children?"
It was one of the rare instances where the humiliation was too much.
"CHRIST! NOT-MAN IS KING!" I'm not sure what it means, but it makes at least as much sense as the other, especially when you think about which arthropods are going to survive the upcoming global climate catastrophe.
ReplyDeleteDING! DING! DING! We have a winner!
ReplyDeleteJust like soccer--but now with leather jackets and food poisoning!
Freedom from choice
ReplyDeleteIs what you want
See also cosmetics. L'oreal Group owns the vast majority of products people use to make themselves pretty and smell all nice and flowery. They even own Sephora, which is a department store for cosmetics, including the Sephora's brand, which is kind of meta.
ReplyDeleteGallagher was already booked.
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/dVGINIsLnqU
ReplyDeleteGlass. "Now with real shards!"
ReplyDeleteWell, she's at least one decade ahead of Gillespie, fashion-wise.
ReplyDeleteTheir diet matches their personality defect: Emotionally stuck between the ages of 12 and 14, they consume juvenile comfort foods.
ReplyDeleteAnd window glazing for icing?
ReplyDeleteThe limited choices made by the corporate gatekeepers are theirs and not ours. At best we get sloppy seconds when it comes to choices.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, this is kind of sad. On the other, she's deluding countless old farts (who likely still think MTV shows videos) into thinking she's rad and groovy and will be great bait for The Youth. So rock on. Or let it burn. Whatever they say.
ReplyDelete"“Let’s say Ron Paul is Nirvana,” said Kennedy, the television personality and former MTV host, by way of explaining the sort of politician who excites libertarians like herself. “Like, the coolest, most amazing thing to come along in years, and the songs are nebulous but somehow meaningful, and the lead singer kills himself to preserve the band’s legacy.
ReplyDelete“Then Rand Paul — he’s Pearl Jam. Comes from the same place, the songs are really catchy, can really pack the stadiums, though it’s not quite Nirvana.
“Ted Cruz? He’s Stone Temple Pilots. Tries really hard to sound like Pearl Jam, never gonna sound like Nirvana. Really good voice, great staying power — but the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts.”
Does she have her finger on the pulse or what?
That's not her pulse...
ReplyDelete~
Public school graduate? Probably. Jesus.
ReplyDeleteSo the libertarian moment was 1992? Did she tell Lou Reed?
ReplyDeleteIt's a little bit that and a little bit trying to convince these dudes that they still are The Youth.
ReplyDelete"Pot"-Tarts? You're onto something there.
ReplyDeleteThe glibertarians will eat 'em up.
several boxes of exotically flavored Pop-Tarts that he had purchased at
ReplyDeletethe Lancaster grocery store. He held them up as evidence that
individualism was flourishing and choices were in abundance
That's choice? A plethora of crap so similar you probably couldn't tell the difference without peeking at the box? Sure you can't buy food AND medicine this month, but hey, mass-produced pastries exist so all is right with the world.
JUST LIKE LOU REED MAAAAN
ReplyDeleteSomewhere Kurt Cobain is shooting himself in the head again.
ReplyDeleteIf they just keep fucking that chicken, someday they'll get a pony... at the very least an unholy chicken/human hybrid.
ReplyDeleteWasn't offering a wide variety of dry pastry-like cards packed with flavors not known to nature and not nameable by the psyche always the point of PopTarts?
ReplyDeleteNick Gillespie spills EctoCooler on the carpet and sees Hayek's face in the stain.
Lou's drug choices were a little more exotic, but probably not as unhealthy.
ReplyDeleteFreedom's just another word for corporate crap to choose.
ReplyDeleteHemmingway:
ReplyDeleteBut that’s it. You have to be the Queen, a tyrannical dictator, or George Washington for the people in your country to get all celebratory about the occasion of your birth, mmm-kay?
New Berlin – Governor Scott Walker celebrated the anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s 103rd birthday today at Ronald Reagan Elementary School. Governor Walker greeted the 5th grade class and talked about President Reagan’s life.
President Reagan is a legend whose no-nonsense common sense approach inspired a nation and led us back to the path to prosperity. His timeless ideas continue to influence political thought and governance. Our country is better today, because President Reagan had the conviction to make the prudent decisions that needed to be made. ~Governor Scott Walker
http://walker.wi.gov/newsroom/press-release/governor-scott-walker-celebrates-ronald-reagan%E2%80%99s-birthday
His Reagan fixation is creepy: It was reported long ago that Walker first spoke of blowing up public sector union rights at an Executive Residence staff dinner. Walker writes in the book how he wanted a “Braveheart” moment, so he talked about how President Reagan had crushed (he termed it “took action against”) the air traffic controllers union during his first year in office, and that somehow helped lead to the end of the Cold War. Um, sure.
The book also describes how he and wife, Tonette, host an annual party on Reagan’s birthday in which they serve Reagan’s favorite foods — “macaroni and cheese casserole, and red, white and blue Jelly Belly jelly beans — and have musicians perform patriotic songs and Irish music.” Tonette, noting that Reagan’s birthday is the same date as their wedding anniversary, says she knows her husband will not forget the anniversary.
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/writers/paul_fanlund/paul-fanlund-three-themes-jump-out-from-scott-walker-s/article_16465c06-2ca3-5dae-875b-e2fcb8fbea18.html
the lead singer kills himself to preserve the band’s legacy
ReplyDeleteWe'd better get to work convincing the bandleaders & singers of Libertaria to preserve their legacies now!
a libertarian activist, performs at the annual dinner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute
ReplyDeleteSo "activism" = niche entertainer? I suppose it keeps her off the street, and lets the CEI lobbyists think of themselves as cool & edgy.
'Pulse' in the sense of 'bean'.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't stand any of those bands- they were all humorless rip-offs of the Pixies.
ReplyDeleteTrue freedom is where oncologists, snake-oil grifters, and crystal vibrational harmony scammers can all advertise their cancer therapies on an equal playing-field.
ReplyDeleteBecause CHOICE.
I'm glad Ms Hemingway has pointed out that no POTUS has ever had his birthday celebrated. We should tell her we made an exception for Barry. Because socialism.
ReplyDeleteLast good band to come out of the Northwest were The Mentors. Before that, the Sonics.
ReplyDeleteHer head?
ReplyDeleteNo, that's her noodle. She has her finger on the bean, if you know what I mean.
ReplyDeleteYOU ARE A HORRIBLE PERSON.
ReplyDeleteWhat's this one: 'spring surprise'?
ReplyDeleteAh - now, that's our speciality - covered with darkest creamy chocolate. When you pop it into your mouth steel bolts spring out and plunge straight through both cheeks.
Non-libertarians don't object to free market capitalism providing lots of choices of pop tarts. Maybe not even Marx. It's the attempt to shoehorn their ideology into health care, education, etc. that makes them look ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteImagine being the house kook at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. It's like being the Philly Phanatic, except without the redeeming entertainment value, and for an audience of the worst people in the world.
ReplyDeleteThey're especially upset about the Kenyan Usurper using his time machine to travel back to have Marilyn Monroe serenade him.
ReplyDeleteOh, perfidious Obama, subverting the very flower of white female sexuality!
For our Brit and other foreign friends:
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/ocnz3n3
I need to stop thinking about the whole "variety in consumer products is what FREEDOM is all about" thing before I grind my teeth to nubs.
ReplyDeleteYou do not want to know about my Post-&-Lentil construction methods.
ReplyDelete"Most normal folks don't volunteer to be raped and murdered, or turned into chattel slaves."
ReplyDeleteWell, no.
But, once they understand they're being raped, murdered and treated like chattel in the advancement of megasuperfantasticaltechnologicalsingularityfreedom + bong hits they'll all be super-awesome down with it.
It's all in the sell.
They had me at leathers and leg warmers.
When I lived in the Lehigh Valley in PA, on snow days they'd announce school closings, and every time the announcer would say, "Christ The King School is closed" I would say, "And fuck, the Queen School is, too."
ReplyDeleteNo need, there's a wide variety of caps and other dental devices.
ReplyDeleteI find myself paralyzed in the bakery aisle.
ReplyDeleteThat'll be the MPTP contaminant in the icing.
In the case of Ron Paul, his ideas on "preserving the legacy" can be found in his racist newsletters.
ReplyDeleteFREEDOM!
ReplyDeleteDo you have to rub it in?
ReplyDeleteAaaaaaaagh Nick Gillespie is so goddamn lame. That gets me every time, how a movement that sees itself as, if nothing else, hipper and trendier than their opponents has such an overgrown teacher's pet as their frontman.
ReplyDeleteNick should go up to someone who lost a home or job and hand them a box of kiwi-flavored pop tarts and just stand there, waiting for their praise. That would be fun.
Now in ECONOMY SIZE!
ReplyDeleteSo TedCruz is a drunken asshole who helped kill (or at least severely commodify and cheapen) the 'movement' that the media crowned him the heir apparent to? I'll buy that.
ReplyDeleteWatching the recipient kick Nick in the nuts--THAT would be fun!
ReplyDeleteYou may choose from their selections, or select from their choices. If that doesn't exemplify freedom, I don't know what does.
ReplyDeleteAlso, he's doing the next Bond theme.
ReplyDeleteThat's NOT icing.
ReplyDeleteTo quote the other great libertarian band, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
ReplyDeleteHey, if some politico or their creature speaking to the media wants to appeal to me by name-checking a musical act: Suicide with Martin Rev and Allan Vega or GTFO.
ReplyDeleteOK, she's just taking the piss.
ReplyDeleteRand Paul would certainly endorse this idea. He, after all, decided that getting certified by the real medical board like all the other doctors was just not gonna cut it for his bad self. So he created his very own board to certify himself. (How that's legal is beyond me. And how he's not ended up stripped of every asset he ever owned or will own due to malpractice suits is also beyond me.)
ReplyDeleteBut they will always have egg on their faces. And other body areas, as well.
ReplyDeleteThe comments at the Zod link are something
ReplyDelete"They modeled their personas after the Huxtables, as originally created by Alvin Poussaint and Bill Cosby. It was important to the ultimate purpose of The Cosby Show to show affluent black Americans living an affluent lifestyle. The Huxtables not only had elegant "date nights," but were also intimately acquainted with famous African-American entertainers (mostly classic jazz and blues artists, along with, towards the end of the series, a handful of prominent civil rights activists).
Poussaint and Cosby, while still friendly with the Obama Administration, obviously have no ongoing control of the personas nor the scripts.
What's obviously missing is the middle class humility the Huxtables were careful to cultivate in their family, and the strong work ethic they exhibited--for instance by Cliff being called out in the middle of the night to deliver babies, and the long hours Clair worked when she was involved in an important legal case.
These are some serious holes in the personas, obviously.
Certainly the thought must have been that they could use these personas as far more wholesome and hopefully convincing replacements to the ridiculous (and dark, fantastically evil) cult of personality so evident in the
North Korean model.
Who wouldn't want to help celebrate Cliff Huxable's birthday?
Well, about 60% of the country today, evidently. Barack ain't no Bill Cosby,
and his performance wore thin about 6 commercial breaks ago.
Barack couldn't even sell us a 79¢ cup of Jello at this point. "
There need to be a special entry in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to cover this flavor of crazy. Any suggestions?
Gah, you can picture the comb-over and baldy-tail brigade making themselves a nuisance to college kids. "Hey, you'll never guess who I met." [Smirks, leans close] "Kennedy. From MTV. You know ... music videos ... ?"
ReplyDeleteYou do understand that Janis is going to beat you senseless in the afterlife for this?
ReplyDeleteNeil Peart made a full recovery.
ReplyDeleteI, for one, welcome our formican overlords.
ReplyDeleteSo, 'social engineering' is good now?
ReplyDeleteHoly shit, is that for real? That is just fucking pitiful and screams "poser" so loud, 16-year-old boys across the country just sneered in sympathy. And Kurt Cobain killed himself because he had severe mental wellness issues and a heavy drug problems and because no one was there with him to remind him that one time, not to preserve any band's legacy, you gaping asshole. Finally, what does Kennedy "preform"? Did she say inane things while playing my college radio station's playlist?
ReplyDeleteSo rock on. Or let it burn. Whatever they say.
ReplyDeleteHanging on the flippity-flop
Um, no. Humorless maybe, but Coban spent far too much time listening to the Melvins to rip off the Pixies.
ReplyDeleteSo on the beach you're strollin real high rollin
ReplyDeleteEverything you have is yours and not stolen
A girl runs up with somethin to prove
So don't just stand there bust a Union.
Is this Objective Morrissey being channeled?
ReplyDeleteKris Kristofferson. Janis'll just be holding BBBB's arms back.
ReplyDeleteSo which one is Jesus?
ReplyDeleteObjectivist Janet!
ReplyDeleteI was kinda wondering. . . Are most millennials going to even know who Kennedy is/was?
ReplyDeleteKennedy? She's the Butthole Surfers. Inane, and let's face it, pretty much impossible to listen to after two minutes.
ReplyDeleteA slightly less developed version of whatever illness people who mimeograph long screeds about the C.I.A. being after them & paste them on traffic control boxes have?
ReplyDeleteThat the typist seems literate & can punctuate is what's most unnerving. Probably able to function in the real world & all, & hard to get on the couch for serious head-candling.
Gullible to Outrageous Propaganda Disorder?
Spending the first third of the article with MTV's Kennedy was the part that got me. Yeah, this is a movement that's really going places, one of its highest-profile public faces is someone who was a VJ 20 years ago and who currently has a show on the Fox Business Network (a cable channel which often posts a 0.0 share). That sure shows how tapped-in to the youth of today this collection of 40- and 50-year olds is.
ReplyDeleteThe best part is that I'll be reading this article again in another decade, when the winding down of Hillary's second term leads Nick Gillespie to again tell the NYT or WaPo that the youth of today are looking for a change, for something different than the hidebound two-party system and Libertarianism is really catching on, boy I'll tell ya.
Stupidest reaction (as of this typing) from the right is this: Did the New York Times Place Crosshairs on Rand Paul’s Photo?
ReplyDeleteYou tell me. I think "normal people" would recognize that the "distressed" image is supposed to have been folded in quarters.
Fucking straw-grasping morons.
I like the presumption that a black couple has to model themselves after a fictional black couple in order to behave - as though there were no such actual examples existing, nor that the Obamas, as a couple of lawyers in executive positions (State Senator and Health Care Administrator) were unfamiliar with such a lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteAnd that they're saying the guy who's been on call 24/7 for going on 6 years lacks a work ethic.
Whoa, now that's Zod-like. Every year they eat mac and cheese and red, white and blue Jelly Bellies in St. Ronnie's name?
ReplyDeleteThey hide a little Jelly Belly in the mac and cheese casserole (as in a King Cake), only whoever finds it gets stoned to death (like in The Lottery)
ReplyDeleteLittle fuckers have survived everything else, why not this?
ReplyDelete"Just the way you like it" ism is the cornerstone of capitalism.
ReplyDeleteHe's there in the mac and cheese. If you squint, you can see him.
ReplyDeleteI now know more than any human should about Kennedy, who latest scam is a three-days-a-wk. gig on FOXBUSINESS: The AristocratsIndependents. Of course the millenials know about her, she's nation-wide!
ReplyDeleteTune in tomorrow:And Justice for Some! We're taking a look at the criminal justice system. Does it need to be reformed and if so, how? We're joined by drug kingpin Rick Ross, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Lis Wiehl, Sheriff Arpaio, and more.
And she has Dreher's Disease.
Looks like pyramid power was introduced about 40 years too soon.
ReplyDeletePoop-Tarts?
ReplyDelete*sorry*
Yeah, like they're going to align the cross-hairs so you might singe a few hairs rather than putting them right between the eyes like any normal psychopath would.
ReplyDeleteNo (Helios) Creed?
ReplyDeletePop-Tarts are perilously close in character to the cans of "Food" in "Repo Man." So, it's reasonable to contemplate the character of someone who sees a variety of artificially flavored goo wrapped up in GMO wheat dough as somehow liberating.
ReplyDeleteGillespie is suddenly free! The market has finally delivered him from the shackles of nutrition! Monsanto as savior. General Mills as disciple. Gillespie as grateful recipient of the market's graces.
What a tool.
Fortunately for them, no.
ReplyDeleteIt would almost be enough to make me stop laughing about Paul Ryan's sad, old dude iPod.
ReplyDeleteWell, as long as it supports the markets, and more children is good for growth, y'know. There's bound to be some glibertarians out there who see it as a market imperative to outbreed China.
ReplyDeleteHere's a favorite. What do all these brands have in common:
ReplyDeleteArnold
Ball Park Buns
Boboli
Brownberry
Earthgrains
Entenmann's
Francisco
Freihofer's
Marinela
Mrs Baird's
Oroweat
Sara Lee
Stroehmann
Thomas' (English Muffins, etc)
Tia Rosa
Old Country
Weber's
They are all manufactured by Bimbo Bakeries USA, owned by Grupo Bimbo, the largest Mexican baking company.
Lefty pinko from way back, but I don't remember ever seeing a 7,000-word puff piece in the Times Magazine on the "Lefty Pinko Moment." Did I miss it? Is it because I haven't spent the last 20 years making six figures at a tax exempt non-profit magazine whose life in the actual free market would be measured in seconds?
ReplyDeleteI'm at a loss to explain it.
Of course, there was no mention that the Libertarian Party consistently manages to capture, decade in, decade out, roughly one to one and a half percent of the vote in general elections. The percentage of people willing to vote their obsession has remained remarkably stable over time. And, the last time I looked, one percent does not a majority make (which may be why so many goofy fuck glibertarians are now saying that democracy and libertarianism are incompatible).
ReplyDeleteIn my lil' industry we have two software suppliers. One is lousy, the other is the pits. Thank you for this reminder my situation is actually pretty common.
ReplyDeleteHome-schooled, fer sure.
ReplyDeleteAll that's missing are an astrologer, Imelda Marcos and a few thousand pairs of shoes.
ReplyDeleteLike any other superman, he's got a weak point. Graze the toupe and he's back to selling reading glasses.
ReplyDeleteI was never very interested in any of them, not that my musical taste is great or anything. I just remember thinking of Pearl Jam as "that 90s band that it's OK for Boomers to like, for some reason."
ReplyDeleteYou young punks keep up this chatter & you won't be around long enough for the youth of the future to mock you.
ReplyDeleteThey still got nothin' on Japanese Kit-Kats.
ReplyDeleteSomebody get Kennedy an app. Pearl Jam formed a quarter of a century ago. Vedder's turning 50. Cobain shot himself in the head 4 years before Rand Paul invented his own private ophthalmology certification board. STP spent more time on hiatus than Cruz has spent in the Senate.
ReplyDeleteWell, she does have a pink Republic elephant tattooed on her thigh. Can't get more rad and groovy than that.
ReplyDeleteWho needs math when you can haz FREEDUMZ!
ReplyDelete"Tonette?" Walker's married to a small plastic flute?
ReplyDeleteTonette:
ReplyDeleteWell, on that one, Draper has a point. No doubt there are many more libertarians than there are Libertarian party voters, if only because a significant portion of libertarians in the US are actually neo-confederates.
ReplyDeleteNO. Obviously, they made a cross come from his mouth to show he speaks for Jesus.
ReplyDeleteChock Full O'Nutty?
ReplyDeleteHe is George Washington, Tyrant Queen.
ReplyDeleteNah, Objective Morrissey goes like this:
ReplyDeleteif a ten ton truck
smashes into us
it will likely be carrying a virtually endless variety of consumer goods
and the pleasure, the privilege will be ours.
Yeah, it just seems to make choice something so puny and meaningless. Oh well, I guess miniaturization is still a big thing. So to speak.
ReplyDeleteActually, i'd say it's not even that; it's the fact that so many Libertarians see Libertarianism as an offshoot of American Republican politics.
ReplyDeleteI mean, there's basically no ideologically coherent Libertarian reason to be against gay marriage. There's just not; The idea that consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't hurt anybody is textbook Libertarianism. The idea of a massive government social engineering program to encourage people to adopt the forms of marriage that the government prefers is at best going to be highly suspect from a coherently Libertarian point of view (At worst, it will be actively pernicious).
But Libertarians feel like they have to be against gay marriage because Republicans don't like it and Libertarianism is a right-wing point of view.
Conversely, Democrats who actively support limiting government power in areas like the war on drugs or the war on terror actively recoil from Libertarian rhetoric, because it's just seen as a rightwing smoke-screen. Democrats who will compromise with a lesser evil like Obama won't consider compromise with, say, Rand Paul on issues both he and they agree with because libertarianism is seen, often quite rightly, as a vaguely cooler wrapper for bog standard American Republican politics.
Since Paul vacated the Capitol, the libertarian movement’s latest
ReplyDeleteRepublican congressional hero has been Justin Amash, a 34-year-old
Arab-American and two-term House member from Grand Rapids, Mich., whose
office wall sports adjoining posters of Ayn Rand and Mickey Mouse.
And... scene.
What does it mean to compromise with rand paul? He has never introduced any significant legislation while in the senate. He doesnt do any actual legislative work to --say--end the drug war. He's all hat and no cattle. Its not because he's a libertarian its because he's a lying, lazy, poseur that no one is " compromising" with him.
ReplyDeleteAnts are descended from wasps. With what we're about to do to this planet's climate, I'd definitely have my money on those mean little bastards.
ReplyDeleteThe difference is this: while both excelled at extracting money from impressionable youths, Mickey delivered on his promises.
ReplyDeleteLibtards for the lib'ty of everyone to be a tranny if he/she/it wants to, arise!
ReplyDeleteDirty Racist Barfbag is not a mental illness.
ReplyDeleteHe'd steal Gillespie's wallet, and then go buy the drugs he really wanted.
ReplyDeleteBeats working for a living. I guess.
ReplyDeleteIf assume he did his internship under an approved program and even under his own board he maintains continuing medical education and all that junk, otherwise the state wouldn't allow him to practice.
ReplyDeleteAs with Kool-Aid and Jell-O, "red" is apparently a flavor.
ReplyDelete♫there is a blue-light special that never goes out♪
ReplyDeleteHis equation is so Goldbergian, it makes you wonder if he and Doughy aren't dating.
ReplyDeleteP.S.
FAAAAARRRT
My god, she's so dated she makes me feel hip.
ReplyDeleteomg...
ReplyDelete/cry
We've got an infestation of eastern yellowjackets in the eaves of our house. I discovered this when I was stripping old paint off with a heat gun. I broke down and bought some wasp spray, because I was in a hurry to get this project done.
ReplyDeleteFuckers love that spray. I'm going to have to wait for them to die a natural death before I can paint that part of the house.
Cicada-killers are another of summer's delights around here.
ReplyDeleteI miss Bloom County something fierce. Also The Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes.
ReplyDeleteUbi sunt the great comics of yesteryear? Wherefore are we cursed with Mallard Fillmore?
I ate a Poptart back in, oh, 2007 I think. First time in decades (and that's the scariest part. This tasteless food simulation has been around this long? Egad...) Dunno which one I picked, other than it wasn't any of the "chocolate" ones. Just the thought of a "Chocolate" "Raspberry" Poptart is barfalicious. My niece's pantry was full of these things, for obvious reasons: She has 4 kids, and parents end up buying a lot of crap because the kids gotta have it. I suppose when I was a kid I wanted 'em too, because they were new, like everybody else, and they were sweet and chewy, and who gave a shit if they were really food? I don't recall ever actually purchasing any as an adult, though. I mean, face it, these practically tasteless, ever-so-convenient, last-forever in their foil pouch, not-quite candy, not-quite pastry, not quite edible little sugar & fat bombs are for kids. And Libertarians, who may be what they meant when they coined the phrase "children of all ages"...
ReplyDeleteNeil Young likes them. He stood in for Eddie Vedder at a show in SF once when EV couldn't make it. The Chron called it "Neil Jam." As a Boomer, I will say that their music doesn't suck, but Vedder's voice usually makes me hate life.
ReplyDeleteThe Libertarian Moment is the greatest spontaneous outburst of our youth's cultural energy since the Pepsi Generation, or at least Menudo.
ReplyDelete[This opinion for purchase in long-form for $7,500. Discounts available for non-billionaires.]
Insects don't reproduce at bacterial levels, but they're not far behind, compared to us. That's a lot of generations in a pretty short time.
ReplyDelete"Bug spray? Ha! I would shit on your bug spray if it weren't so damn tasty!"
Problem is, the goal isn't more babies; it's more well-trained interchangeable conformist workers happy to queue for crumbs from the owners' tables and fade out of sight the moment they can't give 100% of their lives to their corporate masters. They're big on marriage because the kids of unmarried partners tend to mouth off and fail to buy into the b.s.
ReplyDelete"You may sit here in the waiting room, or wait here in the sitting room."
ReplyDelete"Even if you don't want to play my stupid game I'll change the rules so you are playing my stupid game anyway and I win."
ReplyDeleteI don't see no brush being cut.
ReplyDeleteMore of a symptom really.
ReplyDeleteadvertise their cancer therapies on an equal playing-field
ReplyDeleteand receive medical insurance payments.
Something something blowing and fingering.
ReplyDeleteAnd some nun rapers.
ReplyDeleteThat middle Jesus looks Jewish to me.
ReplyDeleteGullible to Outrageous Propaganda Disorder?
ReplyDeleteDoes it sometimes feel like an elephant is sitting on your chest? You may suffer from GOPD. Ask your doctor if voting is right for you.
"Oh, you must mean the Old Same Place, sonny. It's right out back. Here's the key."
ReplyDeleteGimme a break!
ReplyDeleteAgain with the Hayek pseudo-worship...are we sure this guy and Doughberg aren't joined at the buttocks by a common flatus?
ReplyDeleteOh, Dios mio...she had me at "KennedyNation."
ReplyDeleteI mean, fill_in_the_blank Nation never got old in the 90s.
She's so dated, she brings Joan Rivers to life.
ReplyDeleteAnd here I thought a "Libertarian Moment" was that long stretch of silent, flopsweaty seconds on national teevee when you can't remember which Big Gubmint Agency you'd already vowed to drown in the bathtub. For freedom.
ReplyDeleteFunny, I always think of The New Yorker as the magazine for monoculists.
ReplyDeletePhilistines, all of you!!
ReplyDeleteExtruded food industry lobbyists in the audience blushed modestly at that unrehearsed, off-the-cuff, yet sincere compliment.
ReplyDeleteWhat's obviously missing is the middle class humility the Huxtables were
ReplyDeletecareful to cultivate in their family, and the strong work ethic they
exhibited--for instance by Cliff being called out in the middle of the
night to deliver babies, and the long hours Clair worked when she was
involved in an important legal case
Being called out in the middle of the night to oversee the raid that brought Bin Laden's head back on a stick doesn't count.
Whatever happened to that guy?
ReplyDeleteThat's a good one! I think I may have to revive the old blog...
ReplyDeleteI'm a Rush defender, but that song is pretty putrid. Yeah, let's do coke from Colombia and opium from Afghanistan...good thing those drugs have been nothing but good for the people actually living there.
ReplyDeleteI still maintain that the entire Presto album from 1989 is an apology for the more questionable stuff from earlier, and that ardent haters should give it a few listens before coming to any conclusions.
Protestant Jesus looks like Handsome Squidward.
ReplyDeletePoptart Paralysis?
ReplyDeleteIs there a coherently Libertarian view on anything?
ReplyDeleteAfter all, its principal proponents aren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, nor were its intellectual icons. Hayek? Please. Rand? Puh-leeze. Friedman? Another con man in a bow tie with a fistful of computer models that didn't in any way approximate the real world (just ask Mark Ames how Libertarianism came to be and about Friedman's role in its birth).
Fuck, Libertarianism is about a quarter-step up from Scientology when it comes to intellectual coherency.
What if you can't tell the difference?
ReplyDeleteWell, he's wrapped up the all important Eraserhead demographic.
ReplyDeleteif you spell Pixies as Husker Du without Greg Norton's 'stache
ReplyDeleteIf the libertarians were going to put a former VJ on the gravy train, why couldn't they have chosen Martha Quinn. Her step-mom even was a financial columnist
ReplyDeleteyou should have bought the wasp-killing spray.
ReplyDeleteThank you folks, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip the waitstaff
I stopped eating Pop Tarts soon after Obama's ascendance: those things can get you killed, what with all the jumpy concealed-carry types proliferating.
ReplyDeleteOooops. Objective: Morrissey is a Brit war flick, not to be confuzzled w/ Objectivist Morrissey. Heh heh.
ReplyDeleteI'd need to see some studies showing anti-establishment 'tude goes with being raised by single/unmarried parent(s), 'cos anecdotally, I'm not seeing it.
ReplyDeleteAnd a common Con sneer directed at non-WASPs is "They breed like rabbits," even if said breeding is conducted within a marriage and encouraged by religion.
What I've seen happen is first they spent years claiming gay people were fundamentally subhuman and the "fact" that they were incapable of forming monogamous relationships was one piece of "evidence" (citation still needed). But when couples finally felt it was safe to say "We'd like to get married," these shitheads - who'd been having a few rough decades because segregation was no longer chic - fell on their backs and started howling "Nooooo! You tan't have it!"
And when the usual screaming and threats and hanging up No Queres ALlowed signs on the gates of Club Wed stopped working and people started filing lawsuits, the Cons had to think up reasons why OSM was so super-special that letting gay people into the exclusive Club would ruin everything forever.
The Children seemed a safe bet. First as in "It will make the kids gay." Then "You don't want to leave little kids alone with gay men. IYKWIMAITYD" and finally "HEY! THEY CAN'T EVEN HAVE KIDS WITHOUT HELP! AND MARRIAGE IS FOR MAKING KIDS!!" [Splutter flail!]
That and The Trees are both awful. Free Will sounds like it fell off the pen of a particularly obnoxious phil. major and The Trees is just dumb.
ReplyDeleteHowever, both I and Mr. S have listened to Rush for ages and I think we'd both be ignorant of the libertarian bits if someone hadn't pointed them out. And even then, I tend to take song lyrics with a truckload of salt, when I bother to listen to them at all.
Chuckles come in all FIVE flavors--not only red, but green, yellow, orange, and purple!
ReplyDeleteThat's why Witchie-poo is always after Walker!
ReplyDeleteAnd don't forget Crunchy Frog--mmmmmm. Constable Clitoris ate one of those.
ReplyDeleteThey spelled "or" right, and the question mark is good ole American right-side-up, so good enough.
ReplyDeleteAre those the 2-inch fuckers? They look ferocious, but as with people and dogs, it's the little fuckers you need to be careful of.
ReplyDeleteI've been stung about a zillion times by yellow-fucking-jackets in my life, and then suddenly one day walking to work in early autumn, one comes out of nowhere and blasts me right behind my ear. Within minutes I'd lost my sight. Stumbled into the office, receptionist called 911. Got some nice expensive medical care, and now must go armed with a bulky, inconvenient epi-pen. All because of those little yellow assholes.
Barry Lynn's "Cornered" was the first thing I thought of as well when I read that.
ReplyDelete