Friday, March 29, 2013

Quote of the day

Yglesias has a great reaction to the new Mercatus ranking: "any reasonable person can look at this map and see that something's gone wrong".

I always think it's weird that libertarians rolled their eyes when Bush used the word "freedom" just to be a synonym for his collection of political views but seem unaware that a lot of people are rolling their eyes at libertarians for doing exactly what Bush does.

Bush, I feel, knew that a lot of people deep down just thought he had a lot of rotten ideas and that was that. He used the word "freedom" because (1.) he liked his definition, but more importantly (2.) he was running for election.

I feel like most libertarians genuinely think that they are in a minority that values liberty. As Yglesias said - "something's gone wrong" with them.

6 comments:

  1. Yea, it's a narrow definition of freedom. One could make the argument that 0% public spending suggests less freedom than 10% public spending, even on the same terms.

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  2. If all are equal in poverty, I guess all are free in it too. There is more truth to this than we would like to admit. We are enslaved to our wealth. If libertarians seek real freedom, they must give up everything.

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  3. The personal rank feature was kind of great I thought.

    ~I feel like most libertarians genuinely think that they are in a minority that values liberty. As Yglesias said - "something's gone wrong" with them.~

    Wow, medicalizing your disagreements with libertarians. How lovely. One of the standard tropes of liberals these days is to try to pathologize any disagreement they have with anyone. It is of course patronizing and should be ignored for the rampant stupidity it represents.

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    1. I am missing where the medicine and the pathology is coming in LSB.

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  4. The Mercatus center wrote a top 10 list that Yglesias thought was in the wrong order. He whined about it. It would be better if he wrote his own list so that we can see what a Progressive considers the best freedom metrics to be. Prediction: his list would not agree with Haidt's work on this issue.

    Then he should write about why he thinks that a 25% inflation rate is a good idea.

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  5. I disagree with Yglesias in that I think the map is good BECAUSE it gives a bad name to freedom.

    I love my life here in New York City, and I think that comes a lot from NYC being an essentially un-free place (apart from the people, the culture, and the life). The state is as vigilant as it gets here, and the result is very low noise, clean streets, very little crime, a sense of safety even at night, no teenagers drinking and causing trouble (due to harsh drinking laws), drivers who are at their utmost discipline due to stringent licensing for driving, food from eateries that is sure to be healthy, zoning laws that give room for public spaces, and so on. I have never seen a more omnipresent state, and yet I have never felt safer, happier, and more relaxed.

    Like Yglesias says, if New York is so bad, why do so many people still keep moving into it and why is even Brooklyn reaching Manhattan's cost of living?

    People willingly move to get less freedom, how about that? Goes to show that freedom is NOT an important political ideal.

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