Lost is all about challenging authority and seeking a non-coercive way to live together. Libertarians don't need to claim the show as theirs exclusively, but they should at least recognize it as friendly to their outlook.But by then everyone had left because it was a nice day outside, and he smelled.
Also new! From Nick Gillespie at The Daily Beast:
Between this and their hundreds of articles about millennials, tomorrow belongs to them. Prepare yourselves for the ice floes, statist seniors!
UPDATE. sharculese, in comments: "You know what else Lost is about? Ten years old, now."
"Why Libertarians love 'South Park' (sic)"
ReplyDeleteBecause it thrives on glib, shallow reactions to the outrage of the moment as perceived by people whose income level and skin color immunizes them to consequences and who constitutionally confuse contrariness with wit.
Didn't we already know that?
Also: "Lost is all about challenging authority and seeking a non-coercive way to live together."
You know what else Lost is about? Ten years old, now.
Lost is all about challenging authority and seeking a non-coercive way to live together.Also, getting beaten up by better-armed strangers. And conveniently not having to worry about providing the essentials for survival if the plot didn't call for it, because it was a work of fantasy. So, yeah, there's a Libertarian lesson in Lost all right.
ReplyDeleteNews Flash! People Convinced Of Their Own Superiority Enjoy Television Program That Panders To Their Belief System! News At Eleven!
ReplyDeleteYou know what else Lost is about? Ten years old, now.
ReplyDeleteYou know how it is: When you fixate on how popular entertainment validates your beliefs, it's only a matter of time before you run out of current material. After that, you have to look back - there's no other choice. If you try to predict what will become popular, you might be wrong, and we can't have that.
What are they supposed to do - devise, create and market their own creations? We've seen how well that goes with this set.
Nothing says 'cool guy who is totally still with it' like talking about how the twenty year-old show about cussy children is still the best thing on tv (seriously, that shit is sad.)
ReplyDeleteGranted the Fighting Young Priest can't praised Comedy Centrals new crop of shows, what with them all starring non-whites, and women and Canadian Jews. Maybe Reason can draft Daniel Tosh for a thinkpiece on the libertarian value of punitive rape?
"non-coercive"
ReplyDeleteSomeone better explain all the guns to me, then.
As well as the sparkles every time gLibertarians talk about the police or the military.
it's almost as if state power is okay with them as long as it's directed at someone else, someone... um, browner...
Also, unless I'm mistaken (never seen it), Lost is science-fictiony, and if there's anything tomorrow's brave technocratic vanguard love it's their SF, unless of course it's written by an icky lady-parts person or something.
ReplyDeleteAnd what about Choc-o-mutts ice cream? Is that libertarian yet or still conservative?
ReplyDeleteChoc-o-mutts
ReplyDeleteI know nothing about this yet find it hysterical every time I see it.
Seems like Survivor would be a better fit.
ReplyDeleteHave you actually watched Nick on television? I really do imagine he....smells...a bit. I mean, rumpled is cool in a few cases, but Nick Gillespie is no Roger Ebert.
ReplyDelete" Main characters
ReplyDeletewho spend significant time with the Others—such as Jack, Kate,
Sawyer, and Sayid—are baffled by their antagonistic behavior. Even
characters who switch allegiances—including Juliet and John
Locke—fail to comprehend much."
Oh... so in other words, it's like the comments section of every Conservative blog and website on the internet.
Jesus, people are talking about Lost in 2014?
ReplyDelete"A decade later, its fan community is still active; a reunion
ReplyDeleteand convention, organized by fans, took place in Hawaii this past
weekend."
Jeezus... how did they get these people out of their basements long enough to go to this glorified Comic Con?
Let's not be hasty folks. I say we ought to encourage libertarians interest in being marooned on an island far from civilization.
ReplyDeleteAs for South Park, libertarians are convinced that it is libertarian because Parker and Stone refused to say what political party they support. So naturally this means they're libertarian! It's worse than Mormons.
A few years back I flipped onto one of those weekend CSPAN book shows that had Nick on the panel. It was in D.C. in the middle of the summer, and he was wearing that damned leather jacket. So, yeah, he probably has an Amazon subscription for a regular supply of Axe spray.
ReplyDelete""Don't tell me what I can't do!" - the oft-repeated motto of crash survivor John Locke"
ReplyDeleteOr, you know, something a bratty 10 year old says.
Libertarianism is the haunting fear that somewhere, an able-bodied, affluent white man is being told ‘no’.
Legitimately good comment over at Reason:
ReplyDeleteSPOILER ALERT: They were all in purgatory. That's anti-atheist and therefore anti-libertarian. Although the smoke monster was analogous of giant soda bans.
But what I'd really like to know is whether Knight Rider mirrors correct politics.
ReplyDeleteOnly if the voice of KITT was done by Jeff Sessions.
ReplyDeleteHouse style.
ReplyDeleteBecause there is no thing hipper than an old & balding wretch trying to cover it w/ a rug.
ReplyDeleteWrong. That's second hippest thing. 1st hippest is the balding wretch who wears his five remaining hairs in a pony tail.
This kills me:
ReplyDeleteseeking a non-coercive way to live together.
I remember anti-communists screeching "You can't change human nature, blah blah blah." I think that should be inscribed on the inner eye-lids of all these cretins. Shit, find me a human relationship, let alone a society, that isn't all about coercion.
You know what else Lost is about?
ReplyDeleteIs it about a bicycle?
Shit, find me a human relationship, let alone a society, that isn't all about coercion.
ReplyDeleteYOU CAN'T MAKE ME!
Holy moley, if I was unemployed, I would download clips of the show, audio of Sessions saying moronic stuff, and I would MAKE THAT HAPPEN. Someone please fire me, or make your own Republican Knight Rider YouTube channel, like now.
ReplyDelete"michael, behind you--a single payer healthcare plan."
ReplyDeleteI only find it all the more hysterical now.
ReplyDeleteI resent that remark!
ReplyDeleteOr Fantasy Island
ReplyDeleteNaw. At least pony tail guy isn't hiding his wretchedness.
ReplyDeleteYOU AIN'T THE BOSS OF ME!
ReplyDelete*runs into room, slams door*
"Let's not be hasty folks. I say we ought to encourage libertarians to take interest in being marooned on an island far from civilization."
ReplyDeleteIsn't that the basic idea behind sea-steading? Except that they would be building their own islands, so you can add the hilarity of watching the infrastructure fail and the floating island eventually transforming itself into Rapture.
Next: "The Libertarian Core of I Love Lucy: Family and Small Business Trump Wackiness" or possibly "Pow, To The Moon: Norton as Hayek"
ReplyDeleteYeah, show me the Libertarian lesson of Lord of the flies, fuckhead...
ReplyDeleteUm, "Cramden"?
ReplyDeleteYes, me too Pere Ubu.
ReplyDeleteYou know what? I never watched Lost but my right wing sister in law and her moronic son *loved* it so I just kind of assumed that it was passively right wing or at any rate as soothing to her wing nut sensibilities as an algae bath.
ReplyDeleteI LOL'd.
ReplyDeletePiggy Totally Deserved It: QED.
ReplyDeleteI knew you had great taste, Pere Ubu; this just confirms it. I do find it odd that ostensible Libertarians never mention that novel, or Nozick's "Anarchy, State and Utopia" when arguing for their prefered system of government. Maybe they decided it would be too much work. LeGuin makes it pretty clear that functional anarchy would entail a hell of a lot of hard work, and Nozick, IMO, basically argues himself into a corner that only a functional civil government, however minimal, can get him out of.
ReplyDeleteIf you really wanna start some shit, we could take up a collection and mail copies of The Left Hand Of Darkness to all the major anti-LGBT groups around the country. We could drop comments on a couple of right-wing blogs about how Pres Obama's UN handlers have decided that should be the new social model.
Let's face it: Gay people just don't inspire the requiste horror anymore, they may as well start howling about hermaphrodites...
I do find it odd that ostensible Libertarians never mention that novel
ReplyDeleteNot enough manly blowing shit up, as opposed to - well, any given military SF series.
No wait, really? The show was Pincher Martin with a cast of dozens?
ReplyDeleteActually it's because of fart jokes.
ReplyDeleteLibertarians thrive on 'em.
In fact, if you have the Reason secret decoder ring, you will find that every issue is nothing more than one long elaborate fart joke carefully concealed as a discourse on the libertarian cause du jour.
Murray Rothbard can pull my finger.
mail copies of The Left Hand Of Darkness to all the major anti-LGBT groups around the country.
ReplyDeleteI've never been in a used bookstore that does not have a few copies. Say the word and I'll start buying them.
On a different note, I'm all stocked up on bannock and cacpatoc and ready for my cruise on the ice floe.
ReplyDeleteWheee.
Lost is all about challenging authority and seeking a non-coercive way to live together.
ReplyDeleteIf you're seeking
a non-coercive way to live together, government is what you end up
with, because, at its best, it's the least coercive of the lot. Left to their own devices, people
suck. People push eachother around. People kill and grab what they want.
People enslave other people and ride high on their broken backs (don't
ever think slavery died in 1865) A decent
government--about the best we can hope for, given what governments are
made of--alleviates much of that. We call it government for a reason,
and all that's required to understand why is knowledge of what the
fucking word means. I'll define it by example: Try, I dare you, to run a
lawnmower, tractor, generator, or pump without a governor on the
engine. It. Won't. Work. It will run fast when it should run slow, and
slow when it should run fast. It will not function, and all you'll get
by not hooking up the governor is pissed off. Some people, of course,
are happier that way...
A=BRAAAAAAAAAAAPPPP
ReplyDeleteIt will be nowhere near as ambitious a city, nor as dramatic a failure. It will end up like a re-enactment of "Lord of the Flies" set on the remains of a fourth rate Costa Concordia. Like a cruise ship where everyone on board is convinced that keeping the bilge pumped, and the hull free of reef related punctures, is someone else's job, the effort will be only as memorable as the difficulty it creates when the time comes to rescue the survivors and clean up the mess.
ReplyDeleteWell, the glibertarians are certainly peddling something.
ReplyDeleteGilligan's Island as libertarian paradise!
ReplyDeleteHank Rearden makes his new alloy from coconuts!
ReplyDeleteThat is a fascinating pancake and a conundrum of great incontinence, a phenomenon of the first rarity.
ReplyDeletePicture a ship with a helm in every cabin. That's pretty much the way glibertarians picture their dream society: Everyone's a captain, even though there's only one ship.
ReplyDeleteYou know, when you focus on works about the collapse of civilization or
ReplyDeleteat least about a group of humans removed from it (Lost, Hunger Games,
etc.) as the perfect place for your ideology to thrive...it's almost
like you're rooting for civilization to collapse just so you can prove
it.
Provided the collapse also wiped out everyone's memory of what civilization or functioning society was. In other words, predicated on humans never acting like humans.
Yeah, the chicks really dig that. Almost as much as they like comb-overs. Just ask Donald Trump.
ReplyDeleteBlue-green algae? Does she play the piano beautifully?
ReplyDeleteNow a comb-over combined with a pony tail, well, that's just tragic.
ReplyDeleteI watched it during its original run. It was an entertaining mystery show with some sci-fi for two seasons, then it started throwing more and more and more "mysteries" out there that never went anywhere and didn't actually have anything to do with the overall plot.
ReplyDeleteThere was some generic "good vs. evil" and "man vs. society" stuff in there, but I don't really recall anything right wing about it.
I did't think it would be overt. Just something not disturbing to her overall worldview.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great point.
ReplyDeleteDog-eat-dog is no way to have a civilized society. Like you say, people kill and grab what they want. Is that REALLY the kind of world that Libertarians want? I think that most of them wouldn't like it if they ever got it.
Anyone who thinks they would succeed in such a lawless society must be sure that they themselves are the strongest, smartest, and best armed individuals. I suspect that most of them are fooling themselves.
People used to call that kind of situation "Too many chiefs, not enough indians."
ReplyDeleteThat saying was NEVER used to describe a well-functioning organization.
Would probably get written out. Sounds too much like "cramdown."
ReplyDeleteSouth Park, eh? My New Solidarity-reading brother loves it. My "South Park Republican" BiL loves it. I've watched a few bits over the years, probably less than an entire episode all told. Meh. Lotta gratuitous cussing and potty humor, and not much else. I think I'd rather watch old Honeymooners...
ReplyDeleteWhy they're nattering on about "Lost," when there's "Deadwood" is beyond me.
ReplyDeleteCrapraSteel CopraSteel
ReplyDeleteAbout 55 minutes, minus commercials?
ReplyDeleteSomething like this?
ReplyDeleteThat I could definitely see. It was benign enough that I don't think it'd piss anyone off for ideological reasons (outside of people who think anything not explicitly and lovingly showing their ideological view is an egregious attack on them).
ReplyDeleteBless you for reminding me of this!
ReplyDeleteMy thought, exactly. Most of the Libertarians I know/read are pudgy, upper middle class white guys with no survival skills & only "gun range" firearm experience. Thirty days of the kind of society they claim to want, and they'd be some marauder chieftain's bowel movement.
ReplyDeleteI hear them claim that government's functions should be limited to national defense, and enforcement of contracts, with no consideration of how to do those things absent a functioning civil government with coercive powers.
Its almost like they haven't thought through the implications of their own ideas...
The first season of Bones had an odd, "world (sic) salad" quality to it--as though they thought the could construct a show which would have enough real world cues and images to please everybody, without pissing anyone off. I remember a complicated terrorist/muslim episode in which literally everythign that anyone thought about terrorists and muslims was incoherently thrown into a blender which ultimately satisfied neither the "we hates them all because they are evil" nor the "muslims are not the enemy" crowd.
ReplyDeleteYep,that's the logical inference.
ReplyDeleteReally, those castaways were able to make just about anything out of those coconuts.
Okay, now that I think back on it, I don't remember WHAT the political system actually was on Gilliigan's Island.
ReplyDeleteDid they ever vote on anything? It seemed like whenever there was a decision to be made that affected everyone in the group, the Professor told the group what the smartest thing to do was, and the Skipper said "That's right! We should listen to the Professor!" and that's what they did.
Is that a Technocracy?
Have you seen the show? That line from Locke is not really supposed to be a sign of his indomitable independent spirit, as the Reason guys seem to think. He's brave, but he's pretty crazy and confused. Plus, the thing he's being told he can't do at that point is something he really literally can't do; he only becomes able to do it later because of magic.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you're thinking of Peewee's Big Adventure? It was about a bicycle. Peewee Herman, by the way, would be the perfect libertarian standard bearer.
ReplyDeleteCoprophiliac?
ReplyDeleteA fine philosophical question. We should ask Jonah Goldberg.
ReplyDeleteDid it come from this?
ReplyDeleteLibertarians don't need to claim the show as theirs exclusively
ReplyDeleteOh, but, ho ho ho, you know they will anyway.
I begin to suspect that every libertarian is a Dork-Enlightenment Neo-Feudalist who has not yet taken that final step.
ReplyDeleteit refuses to let us escape the god-forsaken world in which we live
ReplyDeleteI am not convinced that "quickly-dating topical references" are an essential component of humour.
Our "Reason" friend has done just that by describing it as "all about challenging authority and seeking a non-coercive way to live together"
ReplyDelete"Thirty days of the kind of society they claim to want" and said marauder chieftain's also going to be melting down the Libertarians' meager hoardings of gold and pouring it down their throats as after-dinner amusement.
ReplyDeleteWhy, yes - Andrei Rublev is one of my fave Tarkovsky films.
I've just recently gotten into Iain M. Banks' Culture novels -- a civilization with a post-Scarcity set-up, way, WAY past socialism or any other scarcity-based economy. Don't know if any of it would really work, but gosh, it's fun to read about.
ReplyDeleteThe mention of Goldberg reminds me that they sometimes used wind power on Gilligan's Island.
ReplyDeleteNo, Cramden is Rand in this metaphor.
ReplyDeleteLost, Hunger Games
ReplyDeleteNo "Mad Max"?
Libertarians don't argue from Nozick for the same reason that they don't argue from Kropotkin or Bookchin. They're not anarchists. They're minarchists and micro-feudalists and other fans of rule by the rich.
ReplyDeleteThis. Oh, so much this.
ReplyDeleteLibertarians and Objectivists (Liberjectivists?) don't actually mind the idea of being ruled by elites, as long as they're the right elites. For all the squalling about "non-coercion" they're hideously anti-democratic.
Particularly if it is about a bicycle with a lantern.
ReplyDeleteIn high school and college I used to annoy self-professed anarchists by asking if they'd call the cops if I stole their stereo. Somehow that was always different.
ReplyDeleteBut the other problem with a lawless whatever (what's the antonym for society?) is it can only exist during times of extreme turmoil. And those times don't last because humans, like ever other animal, don't like chaos.
What the libertarian proposes is an arrangement that no other living creature would willingly tolerate. But I think when they talk about lawless whatevers they really mean "I wanna live in Las Vegas 24/7."
There's a general air that anything goes, lots of TnA and you can drink right in the street. But half the workforce does nothing but make sure you're safe and happy.
Blush.
ReplyDeleteScalzi's "Objectivist Jerky" comes to mind.
ReplyDelete"Lost is all about challenging authority and seeking a non-coercive way to live together. Libertarians don't need to claim the show as theirs exclusively, but they should at least recognize it as friendly to their outlook."
ReplyDeleteAlso too Lord of the Flies, the People's Temple, Somalia and, um all of recorded history.
Sure, some people want to be a 'cooercive authority' over others, but when has anyone ever sought to live in a society where they are unable to challenge authority, and lead a coerced life?
.
Sorry, guys. I know you all thought you were going to be one of
ReplyDeletethose paying a nickel for your cigarettes in Galt Gulch. That’ll be a
fine last thought for you as the starving remnants of the society of
takers closes in with their flensing tools.
Have I mentioned how much I love John Scalzi?
I knew you had great taste, Pere Ubu; this just confirms it
ReplyDeleteBTW, thanks!
I like to think I do. ;)
Lotta gratuitous cussing and potty humor
ReplyDelete"Fuck knows WE would never resort to such a crass delivery! Isn't that right, Jonah?"
"FAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRT"
My favorite quote about anarchy was by Billy Bragg, it was something like, "I used to be an anarchist until I caught myself complaining about the bus being late."
ReplyDeleteLost was entertaining and literate, and it also had a disappointing ending. So, you know, there is a point of comparison, just not the one they want.
ReplyDeleteWell, they could latch onto Orange is the New Black and make believe its lead actress is still playing Dagny Taggart.
ReplyDeleteRight Rider
ReplyDeleteDon't forget "parts from the radio."
ReplyDeleteExcessive laws and regulations can make us less free. Lack of laws and regulations can also make us less free. This is especially likely to happen when monopolies form.
ReplyDeleteMost libertarians don't talk much about this latter circumstance, or bring it up only to dismiss it. You could almost think they were only concerned with the freedom of the 1%.
Pincher Martin and Lord of the Flies, in the same thread? There is a trend emerging here and I am sure that "The Inheritors" belongs somewhere here as well.
ReplyDeleteOr as the Dead Kennedys put it:
ReplyDelete"Anarchy sounds good to me 'til someone asks 'Who'd fix the sewers?'"
One nitpick: The main characters weren't dead and in a literal purgatory, at least not until parts of the last season. A few of them were able to get back to their old lives for a while, sort of. The purgatorial metaphor was definitely there, though.
ReplyDeleteSon of a gun. I knew there was something not quite right about her.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget your kapok, your mukluks,and your firkins, gherkins, and merkins.
ReplyDeleteBecause the place eventually becomes part of a state with actual functioning government--which kinda ruins the ending for them.
ReplyDeleteHard out there for a TransAm on all the unmaintained roads we have now. Probably shake Kit's electronics to pieces.
ReplyDeleteThat was poetry. How'd I miss that? Mall Ninja; when you have a 15 year old kid trying to dry-hump his girlfriend behind a mall dumpster, there's only one man to call.
ReplyDeleteI'm the first person to admit I have a ridiculous fantasy life (shorter: Felicia Day & a dimensional rift; let's leave it at that), but holy shitballs, Batman! That's just too funny.
Did you make that comment yourself?
ReplyDelete"South Park is not just funnier than any of those shows"
ReplyDeleteI imagine he owns hundreds of 'fridge magnets, each with the name of a comedy on it, which he shuffles up-and-down in a list, incessantly for the perfect order of hilarity. Stroking his chin and chuckling to himself with every little improvement.
When someone inadvisedly claims that Crocodile Dundee is funnier than Petticoat Junction, but Scrubs is precicely as funny as McHales Navy, he'll be ready...
I bet he's a hoot at parties.
.
He invents a new motor powered by ambient static electricity?
ReplyDeletePincher Martin and Lord of the Flies, in the same thread?A thread provoked by shmibertarian foolishness, no less. Talk about golding the lily ...
ReplyDeleteyour firkins, gherkins, and merkins.IYKWIMAITYD.
ReplyDeleteBear in mind that there is no way to keep canoes warm, because you can't have your kayak and heat it.
ReplyDeleteYep, Banks was the first thing I thought of as well. Which means, probably, that Pere Ubu is right and good examples are rare.
ReplyDeleteIt took me three years to make and it took me another year to believe that I had made it.
ReplyDeleteIt is nearly too nice a comment to talk about it.
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, there was a time when Parker & Stone were capable of some truly biting social satire. They seem to have lost that knack right about the time they got their 500 million contract re-neg, and the accountants told them how much of that cheddar was going taxes.
ReplyDelete"Why Libertarians love 'South Park'"
ReplyDeleteBecause it's a funny, well-written show that flatters their political sensibilities?
I wonder how you manage to stretch that sentence out to article length. Not enough to read the article, but still I wonder.
I have to wonder if "Robby Soave" is a nom de plume... did he start out as "Rico Suave" and get a cease-and-desist order from Gerardo?
ReplyDeleteStanding up, as it were, for the right to wank in public.
ReplyDeleteA coir-all.
ReplyDeleteWhen the hair being combed over is growing from your ears, it's probably time to accept the inevitable. Or so I hear from a friend.
ReplyDeleteIf you're saying that government should do its job better, then I would agree with you. I think most reasonable people would.
ReplyDeleteBut Libertarians tend to take a different view, saying that the problem is government itself.
This being Baron Beauregard of Selma (Lord, Selma), Right Rider is a rusted out F-100 on blocks.
ReplyDeleteHey, is this the Keta from Plastic.com fame?
ReplyDeleteI have, we watched every episode when the aired. But I haven't watched a single one since the finale, and the only time I thought about the show in the last five years was this weekend when I was cleaning out some drawers, found the DVDs for seasons 1-3 and brought them to goodwill.
ReplyDeleteYes and no. If there's one thing upper middle class white guys who are smug libertarians are good it, it's being synchophants to authority. They'd be bootlicker-in-chief to the first warlord that threw them some scraps.
ReplyDeleteShort of the anarcho-capitalist crowd, they think the only legitimate role is as a night watchman state, protecting the private property of the landed gentry.
ReplyDeleteAfter hearing Tom Hardy as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, I used to imagine him covering "Rico Suave." #randomthoughts
ReplyDeleteI wrote off South Park after they did the show that suggested that all alcoholics had to do was, you know, just stop after a couple of beers.
ReplyDeleteGovernment is the problem though?
ReplyDeleteI mean, those right there are examples of the government, and by all rights one of the better governments, doing exactly what it is supposedly a bulwark against.
Slavery is an especially weird thing to use to defend the government, given that slavery (and segregation) wasn't about random strangers grabbing you off the street in violation of the law; it was an institution protected and encouraged by various governments. Dredd Scott was not a decision made by private citizens.
One thing I've started to notice is that no political system actually works very well at doing what it's supposed to. The fact that the other guy's system has never worked is proof that he's a fool; the fact that yours doesn't work is just proof we need to try harder. Right? Somalia discredits all libertarian thought everywhere. Something like, say, World War I, or slavery, or Jim Crow, or CIA torture, the kind of horror that has sprung from every known democracy doesn't similarly discredit modern democratic government, because...
Lord only knows what the solution is to get people to stop killing each other, though.
Lost is a series of random scary ideas that get the audience revved up, don't seem to cohere, and in the end don't add up.
ReplyDeleteNope, can't see any connection to libertarianism there.
Mr Hanky works as a metaphor for the Libertarian movement, I'll give him that.
ReplyDelete"All I Really Need to Know I Learned From Mr. Slave," by Nick "Libertarian Fonzie" Gillespie.
ReplyDeleteJohn Locke (the "Lost" character, of course, not the one with the Provisos) developed all these mystical theories to explain What Is Going On, which were all completely wrong, and ended up being a patsy for a shadowy and powerful group with huge financial resources.
ReplyDeleteWhen he was no longer useful, he was strangled with an extension cord, and his last thought was, "I don't understand."
On the other hand, he did have lots of weapons, and a cool catch phrase.
So, yeah, pretty much the most Libertarian figure on television. I can see why they like him.
That's quite an insight, and implies something of a Laffer Curve of Freedom - and because of it the libertarians think that cutting regulation is always the right thing, just as the original makes them think cutting taxes is always the right thing.
ReplyDelete"One thing I've started to notice is that no political system actually works very well at doing what it's supposed to."
ReplyDeleteHumans... what're ya gonna do? I hear there's still a lot of empty space out in the Missouri Breaks where a man can breathe the air of freedom, if he doesn't mind busting his own sod, and building his own farm machinery, weapons, and medical equipment from scratch.
Maybe not "rare", but you have to look for the most part.
ReplyDeleteMy short list, off the top of my head: John Brunner, Mack Reynolds, Micheal Moorcock, Ken MacLeod, LeGuin of course, Emma Bull, H. G. Wells, Iain M. Banks of course (RIP), Norman Spinrad.
There's a list by China Mieville here called "Fifty Fantasy & Science Fiction Works That Socialists Should Read"; it's down at the moment but hopefully should be back up at some point. Not all the writers are leftist though; Rand's Atlas Shrugged is on there, with the phrase "Know your enemy" and described (accurately) as "vile and ponderous".
I don't think there IS any way to absolutely keep people from killing, torturing or enslaving each other, when it comes right down to it. That's the sad truth.
ReplyDeleteBut doing any of those terrible things doesn't require government at all.
The best we can do is act together as a people to try to cut down on these things. That means passing laws against them, and trying to enforce those laws.
That DOES require government.
I think that's true.
ReplyDeleteWhat I hate most about the Libertarian point of view is that they try to take that "kiss up and kick down" mentality and pass it off as some kind of principled philosophy.
wrong, Hank Reardon build an entire industrialized utopia on the island and shares it with no one who won't work for the joy of being close to hank Reardon
ReplyDeleteThat settles it then. The use of wind power shows they were Communists
ReplyDeleteYou can't tell him what to do!
ReplyDeleteExcept that theirs would be called Mr. Napkin, because, as XeckyGilchrist points out below, Laffer Curve.
ReplyDeleteWould be, and have been. The Bush years taught us that, among all their other horrid lessons.
ReplyDeleteI used to find them hilarious, but the shtick got tired fast when I started thinking, for a cutting-edge irreverent satire, they sure are PREACHY. Say what you like about Beavis and Butthead, at least Mike Judge never tried to pass them off as the voice of reason.
ReplyDeleteWe should ask Jonah Goldberg's readers, just like he does.
ReplyDeleteFor a chuckle, head on over to Amazon and read some of the reviews of MacLeod's work written by folks indignant that socialists even exist in the future, never mind become the protagonists.
ReplyDeleteOK, that explains what happened to the snows of yesteryear.
ReplyDeleteTrue Fact: The Sacred Order of the Lobster, AKA The Lobsterhood began as a last ditch attempt to repel libertarians from England.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to take Golding the lily and press it between the pages of my copy of A Moving Target.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ9Si5pkAqg
ReplyDeleteI love the soda ban bit, but no, they weren't in purgatory. That was one of the leading fan theories, though (and for good reason).
ReplyDeleteBanks is wonderful. A couple of his books are better if read in publication order, because of callbacks.
ReplyDeleteI just got around to reading that "Mall Ninja" page you linked to.
ReplyDeleteGood grief, that's funny! Thanks for pointing it out.
Yeah, at its best it was terrific, but as soon as Parker and Stone realised people were writing thinkpieces about their deep political insights (and, worse, hanging out with Penn and fucking Teller) they started playing to that crowd, and picked up a whole new audience of the kind of tiresome, thought-averse dickheads who thinks writing "MANBEARPIG LOL" in the comments of an article about global warming is a substantial point.
ReplyDeleteReally, the great episodes were always basically absurdist, even if they had a point snuck in there somewhere. The political episodes always end up exposing that Parker isn't as bright or well-informed as he thinks he is.
What Ben Franklin said.
ReplyDeleteFor that matter, Penn and Teller used to be pretty cool, until Penn Gillette decided that he wasn't just a magician/skeptic in the mold of James Randi, but rather a Fearless Truthbringer; although Richard Dawkins is usually designated as the head of the skepbro "movement", I think that most skepbros really want to be Penn.
ReplyDeleteYour basic mil-SF fan is someone who loved Aliens save for the gender of the protagonist.
ReplyDeleteGREEETINGS FROM THE HUMUNGOUS!!
ReplyDeleteIt's great that he includes Spinrad's The Iron Dream in there.
ReplyDeleteIt is necessary for wingnuts to keep cranking out this sort of story, not because they believe a word of it, but because it reinforces their claims that sinister left wingers control the media.
ReplyDeleteWhat Lost is really about is some writers and producers who worked very hard for six years to provide an entertaining experience for their viewers. That's it.Those who think otherwise obviously know nothing about the reality of TV production.
YESH.
ReplyDeleteIncrease Tigrismus' chocolate ration to five ounces!
De nada.
ReplyDeleteYep. Older, sea-saltier and not a whit wiser.
ReplyDeleteWoohoo!
ReplyDelete