A few links relevant to some recent posts:
I posted a compare-and-contrast between a feminist and feminist-critical view of checking for consent during sex. Sometimes “Alas” guest poster — and writer of one of the examples from my post — Clarisse Thorn posted an example of a “hot vanilla sex scene” including check-ins from the novel The Russian Concubine. Crank up the AC and go check it out.
Figleaf, another of my favorite sex bloggers, kindly links to my post and discusses the issues it brought up. If you’re not reading Figleaf’s blog, you really should be.
And in the comments of his/her blog Vagabond Scholar, Batocchio writes a great rebuttal to Davi’s “The 24 Types of Authoritarian” remix of my “24 Libertarians” cartoon. I hope Batocchio will forgive my quoting at length:
Like I said, it’s not bad, but judging it also depends on how seriously one takes the original and the revamp. It’s not really a “rebuttal,” since as Tristero’s put it, pretty much everything good about libertarianism already exists in liberalism, and liberals oppose both authoritarianism and the more idiotic strains of libertarianism. Many of the revamped panels express views already satirized in the original – and the revamped panels often don’t address the issues raised in the original. For instance, what is the libertarian solution for unsafe or poisonous food, products, pollution, etc.? (Raised by the “Caveat Emptor” panel in the original.) The “Nanny Stater” revamp attacks an outright ban on smoking, which doesn’t exist in America, while not addressing warning labels or secondhand smoke. What is the libertarian solution for exploitation and/or discrimination by “private” entities – or is there none? (Raised in part by the “Whitey” panel in the original, and the question Rand Paul didn’t want to answer.) Do you believe that taxation is theft, as the revamp suggests in several panels, or only taxation that relates to social spending, basic prosperity and public goods/works? (Raised by “The Island” in the original, among others.)
Some self-described libertarians, such as Glenn Reynolds, are authoritarians, and many others are pretty garden variety conservatives who like to be seen as independents, and independent thinkers. Others exist who are more sincere. Many adore Ayn Rand, some accept part of her views, and a small number reject her. (Then there’s the breakdown on Glenn Beck and Jonah Goldberg.) The more thoughtful view Hayek as a useful gadfly in small doses, even he got many important issues “stunningly wrong” (but was nonetheless more liberal than many of his devotees). If you have an essay/post describing your world view/political philosophy, feel free to link it and I’ll try to check it out. But Michael Tomasky does a pretty good job of explaining the limited value – and the extreme limitations – of libertarianism as it’s usually practiced. There’s also Belle Waring’s classic “If Wishes Were Horses, Beggars Would Ride — A Pony!” and “Libertarian Paradise” video. Thanks for stopping by.
Discrimination as in similarly qualified and performing equal jobs receiving unequal pay can not exist in a libertarian society. To understand why we first have to discuss why the corporation exists and why it produces.
The corporation exists to make profit, and to maximize this profit. Now if there is a pool of entities capable of performing an equal job at a lower compensation a company would discover this and be able to either lower prices or increase its profits. In either case the companies that pay unfair wages would be outcompeted by the ones employing the people capable of doing equal job at a lower compensation.
“since as Tristero’s put it, pretty much everything good about libertarianism already exists in liberalism, and liberals oppose both authoritarianism and the more idiotic strains of libertarianism. ”
This kind of liberal triumphalism rings false to me. Liberalism as currently expressed certainly has an openness to certain forms of authoritarianism, nanny-statism being one of the main obvious forms. It seems akin to the recent spate of ‘progressive’ triumphalism which took credit for being on the right side of the civil rights movement when in fact most of the actual progressives at the time were at best neutral and many were opposed.
It operates as a sort of political ideology colonization where the original backer of certain ideas gets written out of the history.
Modern liberalism and modern libertarianism both have many historical roots together. It isn’t surprising that they have a lot in common. But that doesn’t mean that their modern expressions can be summed up in “pretty much everything good about libertarianism already exists in liberalism”. Pretty much everything good about liberalism already exists in libertarianism. But at their differences you find a difference in emphasis which isn’t so easily dismissed by the claim. And being able to deeply understand the differences works wonders in curbing the excesses of whichever side you more naturally fall on.
Dismissing libertarian concerns the way Tristero so often does (I know nothing about Batocchio ) isn’t a good way to curb the excesses of your own side.
Now Amp, I think, sees the humor in some of the remixes. And some of the humor comes from the realization that they really do represent some of the silliness in his own side, just like the original represents some of the silliness in libertarians.
But I would think that readers here, more than many places, understand that in a comparison of liberalism to libertarianism, liberalism is a dominant political ideology while libertarianism is a marginal one. Liberalism comes with a lot of privilege compared to libertarianism. One way this is expressed is in how logical inferences are made across various arguments. With the dominant ideology you get to hold beliefs that don’t hang together really well and escape the questions more easily than you do with a more marginal political ideology.
Yes–
That only applies if applicants are always selected by merit alone (without privileging whites explicitly, or working on personal connections), and assuming customers aren’t racist and won’t spend seek out whites-only establishments. Your society is perfectly non-racist only if you assume from the beginning that no one in it is racist.
Racism is irrational, and you’re assuming everyone in a libertarian society is rational.