As pointed out in email

[james_davis_nicoll]

Peter Thiel and Glenn Beck discuss everything that's wrong with modern society.

Comments

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

#notalllibertarians

[dsrtao]

#notruelibertarian
#yesalllibertarians
#libertarianmostlymeansivegotminescrewyoujack

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

#fivedollarsforeachlibertarianscalp #marketsineverything

[monte davis (from livejournal.com)]

#raiselibertariansforprofit

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't that require people willing to buy them? Or their byproducts?

[monte davis (from livejournal.com)]

I wouldn't know: I don't sell the cute little rascals myself, I sell pens, feed, nesting litter etc. to the idiots who think they'll get rich selling them. Can I interest you in a breeding pair of chinchillas?

[nebogipfel.livejournal.com]

Are there actually any card-carrying Libertarians who distance them from this bull*it ?

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Are there ten righteous men in Sodom? Nine? Eight, seven, six..

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

I suppose if by "libertarians" you include "libertarian communists"?

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

I think I would have, back when I was libertarian.

[(Anonymous)]

I distance myself from them by not calling myself a libertarian - the faux-libertarians of the US Libertarian Party and their hangers on have well and truly poisoned the term. (I've considered empowermentarian as a substitute.)

Ed Brayton definitely distances himself from Glenn Beck.

[laetitia-apis.livejournal.com]

FEMA is doing such a clever job of convincing everyone that top-down organization is the only organization, and that it's immoral to try to help anybody without a direct order from someone sanctioned by FEMA, that it's pointless to call ourselves anything.

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

X-Files paranoia for the win.

[laetitia-apis.livejournal.com]

I take it that you have never taken a FEMA-sponsored Emergency Communications course.

They aren't doing it on purpose -- and that's what makes it so clever. There is nothing that one could object to without sounding as though one were in favor of burning people alive; they have an excellent reason for every teensy step toward central control.

[mrfnord.livejournal.com]

I remember reading an Ayn Rand essay with that exact same thesis. It didn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense to high-school me either.

From the comments

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

"Whatever the case, they're right about one thing and that is that as things look now, 1969 was probably the peak of US civilization. Sure there's been progress since then but that is due to riding on prior thrust."

Yup.

Re: From the comments

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

...you agree with that?

Re: From the comments

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

Sorry, those were my sarcastic keystrokes.

Re: From the comments

[treddytrafalgar.livejournal.com]

So wrong! Obviously, 1859 was the peak of US civilization. Right after that, it all went pear-shaped ...

Re: From the comments

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

Space program still existed; civil rights were going full swing; economy was still growing; Republicans were still mostly sane.

After 1969, we had Watergate, Iran hostages, gas rationing, and Reagan. (And Prop 13 in California.)

While I think that statement is certainly a supportable one, I suspect my reasons are different from the original source. (Which I haven't read, mind you, and don't plan on it -- James' comments are about the only ones I read. :))

Re: From the comments

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

A whole bunch of gay, trans, female, and so on people disagree fervently that 1969 was peak anything. In particular, the Stonewall Riots were in June 1969.

You can have all my chip-based devices... well, under no circumstances, alive, dead, zombified, cybered. Having Wikipedia at my fingertips -- with all its flaws --24/7 is unbelievable.

Re: From the comments

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

"Sure there's been progress since then but that is due to riding on prior thrust."

Also, I said it was a supportable argument. And I most certainly am not saying everything was rosy then.

But do consider this: in 1969, there was belief and optimism that things would continue to get better. Now, I worry every single election because a backslide is probable, and when it happens -- as we learned due to Reagan -- digging out of it is at best a long, long process.

Re: From the comments

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

I agree that *I'm* depressed and hopeless about the future, but I'm fiftysomething instead of tensomething. I have a kid who's a QUILTBAG activist and is pretty hopeful about the future. She's more realistic than I am about what can and cannot be done in politics, but she still has faith that things cannot be done.

Re: From the comments

[ilya187.livejournal.com]

Did you mean "can" where you wrote "cannot"?

Re: From the comments

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

Ooops. Yes. Yes, I did.

Re: From the comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Aren't there gay grognards who grumble about how gay culture got all square and assimilationist after Stonewall?

[awesomeaud.livejournal.com]

Karl Marx is cool? Who knew? I'd better get my Karl Marx t-shirt before they're all gone.
:)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I see Silicon Valley software types constantly citing Peter Thiel as if he were some kind of futurist wise man. I always pipe up and remind them that he is or was a major seasteading booster.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

I would tell them that he's against market competition. Reminding them that he's also against women's suffrage might be a point in favor for those losers.

[james-angove.livejournal.com]

Might? That is an unusual display of misplaced faith in humanity, there, Carlos.

Although I can't imagine that the problems with SeaSteading could ever be blamed on the sea-steading boosters... if you're into sea-steading don't you already have an all-purpose villain?

[andrew barton (from livejournal.com)]

Come on, he wants to put all the libertarians out in the middle of the ocean on platforms run by people that don't believe in building codes. He's doing all the work FOR us!

[nebogipfel.livejournal.com]

If only - in the 70s/80s they hallucinated about L5 spacestations full of libertarians, then about kilometers-long freedom ships full of angry retired engineers. Now they don't even manage to build those islands. And their attempts in establishing colonies in Chile also failed. What is next ? Objectivist rowing
boats ?

[james-angove.livejournal.com]

I see it now... each man will own his own family sized galley, where he can be truly free, and no one toils unjustly for another and where wives understand their role as incubators for the household's propulsion system.