Avid reader Jeff Miller recently posed the following question: What's the deal with Libertarians? We here at the Fiery Sword can't resist an opportunity to expound extemporaneously on subjects over which we have only the slightest mastery, as we take the often surprisingly acceptable results as further confirmation that we are Always Right About Stuff, so we had R'n'D work up this nifty little Q'n'A feature on their R'n'R time.
Well Jeff, some might tell you that Libertarians are pretty much just anarchists who prefer powerlines and interstate highways to homemade candles and moccasins. As to what, exactly, the deal is with them, we have prepared this answer, after perhaps a full two to three minutes of slightly distracted rumination:
The deal with Libertarians is that they thought that they were firmly ensconced in the well-heeled, self-satisfied embrace of the American right-wing, but owing to some careful political jujitsu by the Bush junta, they have awoken, crabby and disoriented, on the center-left, for all practical purposes. Let this fact inform your dealings with them, and you will find that things go much more smoothly.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I did not find Cindy Sheehan to be terrible at her job. She's an outstanding parent who sacrificed enormously, and a tremendous example. Your needling about her style strikes me as pretentious, blogspeakish, and wrong.
Americans rarely take to the streets, and almost never in numbers that are meaningful. If the price of bread goes up by 10 cents in some countries, it causes work stoppages and massive, peaceful protests. Work stoppages send very serious messages and a million people in the streets, well, there's no better photo opp. Maybe more of us should be willing to padlock ourselves to the White House gates and camp in Crawford. That was Cindy's style. Too bad it doesn't suit you. Said style was effective (finally) in bringing Vietnam to a halt. And, if you find her being a throwback to the sixties to be out-of-touch with current political realities, then ask why blogging has failed to bring an end to the U.S. conflict in Iraq.
I dislike it when somebody writes "what one ought to do." It's so stuffy and sounds very passive-aggressive. There are ways to avoid first, second and third person references when writing non-fiction. Why not simply say "What Sheehan should have done..." (That even has some alliteration in it!) (Try reading Zinsser's "On Writing Well" for more tips.)
Ultimately, however, try to get over the persnickety attitude when it comes to judging a mother who buried her son, and who then constructively managed her grief in ways that did - yes - captivate and change a nation.
Cindy Sheehan is not and has never been representative of my personal views. Her son volunteered for the military ( not because they were so poor the military was the only option ) , he dies and she spends her time grandstanding on his corpse. PATHETIC. I love the typical peacenik , "well if we could all just get along and create dialog with terrorist groups (or freedom fighters as you may call them) the world would be a better place. Stupid hippies you think life is like some Beatles song..........one other thing I would like to say , THE ENTIRE LEFT WING ANTI WAR MOVEMENT IS VAPID, USELESS AND COMPLETELY INEFFECTIVE , YOU KNOW , I KNOW IT , AND THE TERRORISTS (I MEAN FREEDOM FIGHTERS ) KNOW IT TOO. I LAUGH IN YOUR COLLECTIVE FACES.
To pkp: Americans rarely take to the streets in this country like they do in other countries because their lives in America are so much better! It is not an accident that most Americans have better things to do and better lives than they think they would have by "taking to the streets in peaceful protests." The single reason that the war is not over despite huge media coverage and the creation of the massive blogosphere is because, despite it being unpopular, most Americans understand it's necessity.
pkp, I see your point, but I feel that "should" is overly prescriptive. Vietnam was brought to a close not by flower power, but by the gradual recognition by those with actual power that nothing of value was being achieved, and a laborious process of incremental legislation slowly drained the life out of the exercise. The notion that the concurrent public pot-smoking and hair-growing campaign of the Not-So-Greatest generation was the decisive factor is a pretty tired and, I would argue, harmful myth that continues to haunt this country. The political machine is too entrenched for shame to work, we need direct, internal political action. Also, Cindy Sheehan experienced the loss of her son, but to contend that she sacrificed him is flat-out incorrect. There is a difference. Her actions had promise when she started out, but let's look at her record after the first few weeks:
1. became target of ridicule for hawk and dove alike,
2. set out to get arrested and succeeded,
3. became irrelevant and dragged her followers down with her as the war escalation proceeded apace.
Not the kind of resume that makes the Nobel committee sit up and take notice. We call events like that "blips," not "watersheds." It's reminiscent of Ted Kennedy trying to ape RFK's campaigning style, it's so phoned-in. Her most obvious legacy is providing more and unnecessary fodder for the type of anti-American drivel that was posted anonymously right after your comment.
thank you for the enlightenment on libertarians, mr. fiery sword! i'll play seinfeld to your george any day.
(i'll skip the off-post cindy sheehan stuff, except to opine that these anonymous commenters sure are ballsy, what with the signing in to your blog and all)
it always seemed to me that libertarians and libs like me could get down about 50% of the time, but the other 50% of the time i ended up asking questions like, "who builds our roads?" and "who educates our children?" hence, the split between the right and left ideologies.
then again, there are times i think most of my libertarian friends are only in it for the privacy rights and gun laws.
interessant, for sure.
Post a Comment