Comments Elsewhere

PFJO:

“I think the problem here Ms. Howley, is that you seem to be mistaking libertarianism for a complete moral philosophy, which it isn’t. Libertarianism SHOULD only be concerned with coercion.”

Why?

Suppose, for example, that there are certain ideas or noncoercive social customs which will make it easier to eliminate coercion from society, and other ideas or noncoercive social customs which will make it hard or impossible to eliminate coercion from society. If so, don’t libertarians have strategic reasons to try to promote the libertarian-friendly ideas and customs, and to work (nonviolently) against the libertarian-unfriendly ideas and customs, even though both of them are non-coercive per se?

You’re setting out a thin conception of libertarianism here, as if it were obvious that anything not strictly logically entailed by the non-initiation of force is therefore completely irrelevant to libertarian politics. But I think it’s not at all obvious that this is the case. In any case, it needs much more argument than you’ve given it so far (since the rest of your comments after what I quoted merely elaborate the way you draw a distinction between “moral” and “political” questions — without an argument to justify drawing the distinction the way you draw it).

Kerry,

After reading over the recent series of posts, I think the difficulty here may have something to do with the fact that Todd Seavey can apparently read a post the explicit and entire point of which is to argue that, while nonviolent discriminatory social pressures are not coercive per se, “No thinking libertarian is only concerned with coercion,” and then immediately reply, without a hint of sarcasm, that it “seems” to him that you are claiming that social pressures are “literally coercive” (!) and that “you have a right to tax me or sue me in response” to purely verbal misogyny.

Or, to put it in other words, Todd Seavey is quite comfortable with just making shit up in the course of a conversation. He also feels free to attribute the opposite of your stated views to you, and then to treat his attack on that ridiculous strawman as a successful response to your comments, and then to go on to give you a lecture about his 20 years in This Movement Of Ours and his knowledge of movement figures and philosophy, which apparently doesn’t reach beyond the middle of the Eisenhower administration.

Or, to put it in other words, he’s lying and generally acting like a perfect jackass.

Thank you for these posts. Besides admiring your lucidity, I also admire your patience. Not because I think it’s going to do anything to change Todd Seavey’s mind; he’s hardly deserving your time. But rather because it has produced some very good posts on an important issue, in spite of the undeserving interlocutor.

You write: “That may surprise you, but it is hard for me to be totally comfortable with dropping the age to 18. You see too much of the dark side of gambling when you live here to want teenagers exercising those judgments, new credit cards in pocket. I would not have made good choices at that age.”

It doesn’t surprise me at all. That sort of discomfort is perfectly natural. It’s also unfortunately common for people to try to use their own personal discomfort with someone else’s decisions as a justification for coercing other people into acting in ways that make you feel less personally uncomfortable.

It’s good that you have the self-insight to know that you personally would not have made good choices when you were 18; and you certainly have a right to be concerned for other people’s financial well-being. You should of course feel free to express these concerns to any 18-20 year old who asks for your advice. But 18-20 year olds are, after all, young adults, who are legally and morally responsible for their own financial decisions. What do you think would give you the right to make a decision on the matter for all 18-20 year olds everywhere, and then impose that decision on them with or without their consent, rather than allowing them to make their own decisions — and their own mistakes?

Roads and other infrastructure should be provided by voluntary means, with some combo of user fees/advertising, etc. paying for them–and they would be in a free market, just as innovation would still get done without the monopoly formerly known as intellectual property paying off politically-connected rent seekers. Roads would also be better maintained in a free market, so the transportation costs incurred by Wal-Mart would fall in a free market.

Hi,

Since you mention it, I thought you might be interested to know (if you don’t already) that the problem you noticed with mis-attribution of authors has been fixed in the most recent release of FeedWordPress, version 2008.1105.

(If you’re curious, the problem was more of a relationship problem between FeedWordPress and BlogSpot than a problem exclusively with either. If FeedWordPress can’t find a syndicated author in the WordPress database by name, it then looks for someone with a matching e-mail address before it goes ahead to create a new user account. Unfortunately BlogSpot uses a single generic e-mail address for every user who does not want their own e-mail address listed (noreply@blogger.com). So older versions of FeedWordPress took the matching e-mail addresses to indicate that the authors were the same person. The newer version is more circumspect; there’s a list of generic e-mail addresses that it doesn’t take to uniquely indicate the author of the post. (By default, the list consists entirely of “noreply@blogger.com.” But if you notice this issue coming up with other generic e-mail addresses, you can add them under Syndication :: Authors.)

Hope this helps!

Charles “Rad Geek” Johnson Author, FeedWordPress

GT 2008-10-24: Ending State violence against women in prostitution in San Francisco: in which I speak in favor of Prop. K, a ballot initiative which would result in complete de facto decriminalization of women in prostitution who work in the city of San Francisco. Not because I’m pro-prostitution (I’m not), but rather because I’m against vice cops being able to inflict fines or jail terms on women in prostitution.

GT 2008-10-10: Whiteness studies 104: Class, cuisine, and authenticity: in which I discuss NPR “Progressives,” class, and the construction of “real Mexican cuisine.”

m. leblanc:

If you’ll recall, you are only authorized to use deadly force in order to protect yourself from deadly force,

“Authorized” by whom? If you’re referring to the law, then you are absolutely wrong. Washington state law certainly does not require a threat of deadly force in order to justify deadly force in self-defense. RCW 9A.16.050 considers the use of deadly force a justifiable form of defense against rape, or any other form of “felony or … great bodily injury” against a person or a third party.

As well it should. If your claim is not about what the law allows for, but rather about morality or something of the sort, then I think it is absolutely moral for a woman to kill her kidnapper and would-be rapist in self-defense. Do you disagree? If so, why?

Jill:

which would mean that a lot of kids in more conservative or rural areas would get really crappy sex ed, or none at all. And likely crappy science and literature classes, too. Which is why I think libertarian principles applied to education are problematic.

Well, then. Thank goodness government schooling has done such a great job making sure that kids in more conservative areas don’t end up with really crappy sex ed, or none at all.

Oh, wait.

Found it! The comic you seek is “Dan Rather” (1992).

While I was looking through the archives, I also found this strip from 1990.

You write: “But as recently pointed out by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman in his keynote speeches at TREXPO West, we actually live in the most criminally violent period in American history. The murder rate is down, not because Americans have stopped trying to kill each other but because emergency medicine has advanced ….” This is not true. If you check the FBI UCR, since 1992, violent crime rates per 100,000 population have fallen every single year except for small upticks in 2005 and 2006. (The increase those two years never brought the rate above where it was in 2003.) Absolute numbers of violent crimes committed decreased every year except for 2001, 2005, and 2006, even as population increased. The figures include not only murder and non-negligent homicide, but also attempted murder, all forms of aggravated assault, and forcible rape, so advances in ER procedures and technology would make no difference at all. Why are you repeating a claim that could have easily been proven false by spending a couple minutes checking easily-read tables on the FBI’s website?

Francois,

Where did you get the image for the “New School Version” from?