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I've been sharing links on facebook and through GReader, because it's easy and I only have to come up with a pithy sentence to intro the link (or none at all, even). So you've been missing out on my politics and anti-Libertarian links. I thought I'd fix that. (And this is only about 3-weeks' worth of links...)
Libertarians + Tea Party = true love always
Tea Party Leader: Denying vote to those without property makes sense.
Tea Partiers sure seem to want to tear up the Constitution they loudly proclaim to love.
In North Carolina, groups like Americans for Prosperity, funded by NC millionaire Art Pope (who bought almost all of the elections in NC where Republicans won, thanks, SCOTUS, for Citizens United), have coordinated Tea Party events with the above-mentioned Tea Party leader.
The Tea Party targets sustainable development as a nanny state, socialist plot.
On how bad a nanny state really is
There are no libertarians in airplanes. There's too much good stuff here, so you get a blockquote.
"How cute," indeed.
Hypocrisy from the Tea Party? Surely you jest.
GOP legislator who campaigned on repealing health care reform flips out when he learns his insurance on the Hill doesn't kick in for 4 weeks. He obviously doesn't care about the 30 million people he wants to deny insurance to completely.
Tea Party bloodlust
There will be blood: So here’s what the very serious Mr. Simpson said on Friday: “I can’t wait for the blood bath in April. ... When debt limit time comes, they’re going to look around and say, ‘What in the hell do we do now? We’ve got guys who will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give ’em a piece of meat, real meat,’ ” meaning spending cuts. “And boy, the blood bath will be extraordinary,” he continued.
Let's hear it for the Free Market!
Comcast charges fees that threaten online video delivery and competition. Never mind that ISPs have local monopolies and that people don't exactly have a choice about which ISP serves their neighborhood. FREE MARKET! YES!!
Sign a petition to tell the FCC to support Net Neutrality.
Think government is bureaucratic and rationing-happy? Try dealing with insurers.
Don't let some pesky facts get in the way of your orthodoxy
Learned Helplessness: It’s true that if you bought completely into rational-expectations macroeconomics, the crisis in the economy should be causing a crisis in your faith — although as far as I can tell, the freshwater types remain smugly convinced of their rightness. But those of us who hadn’t forgotten Keynes, who paid attention to things like Japan’s lost decade and developing-country financial crises, aren’t feeling all that at sea.
A Mechanical Manifesto: First, it’s conservative economists who insist that people are always rational and utility-maximizing; liberal economists are the ones willing to invoke bounded rationality, animal spirits, etc.. The whole salt-water fresh-water split was about which you were going to believe: the assumption of perfect maximization, or your own lying eyes. And the Keynesians were the ones who preferred to believe their eyes.
A little honesty, and a bit of realizing you're utterly wrong, would help you Free Market Fundamentalists make sense of reality.
A different version of the truth. A Libertarian blogger wanked on about how huge the government has become, and how greatly the regulatory burden bears down on Our Corporate Lords and Masters, and he cited as evidence employment rates in regulatory agencies.
One problem with that: Well over 90% of the increase in regulatory employment is due to one specific agency. Drum roll please: Homeland Security.
Real-world libertarianism isn't much like the CATO version: Places like Reason and the Cato Institute exist strictly to whitewash the realities of libertarianism as actually practiced in the real world. By putting forward a handful of libertarians who aren’t overly priggish and know how to order a cocktail, the funders of these places can create the illusion that libertarianism isn’t so bad. And that gets paid forward in articles like Lind’s, where he suggests that socially liberal/economically conservative is a politically viable stance in the United States.
Analysis shows rich people save, not spend, so clearly, the solution to our problem is to cut taxes to stimulate ... rich people saving, not spending.
Tax cuts won't help you, but a wage increase will. Why, indeed, should profits go to line the CEO's pockets, rather than being shared with the workers?
If we can eliminate the rail alternatives, we will create a new market for our cars. Discusses how disingenuous it is for Free-Market Fundies and their ilk to hate on Amtrak for its "extensive" public funding (note: those are sarcasm quotes) while worshiping the highly-subsidized automobile and highway systems. (This can also be filed under "I hope you enjoy your classism with a nice slice of cake" because public transportation is for those people, not us good, hardworking middle class people.)
A "culture of dependence"? I hope you enjoy your classism with a nice slice of cake.
A nation of deluded dependents: How can 43% of those who received a Pell Grant--college aid--not know that it came from the government? Not only is it all over the grant application forms, but, presumably, at least some of the recipients were smart enough to get into a college and, maybe, even graduate.
A survey asked people if they'd been recipients of government aid. 60% of respondents who had used the lifelong learning credit, 53% who had used Stafford loans (student loans), and 43% who had received unemployment checks said they had NOT received government aid, while only 25% of people on food stamps said that. Government aid is for those people, not us good, hard-working, responsible middle class people.
Libertarians + Tea Party = true love always
Tea Party Leader: Denying vote to those without property makes sense.
Tea Partiers sure seem to want to tear up the Constitution they loudly proclaim to love.
In North Carolina, groups like Americans for Prosperity, funded by NC millionaire Art Pope (who bought almost all of the elections in NC where Republicans won, thanks, SCOTUS, for Citizens United), have coordinated Tea Party events with the above-mentioned Tea Party leader.
The Tea Party targets sustainable development as a nanny state, socialist plot.
On how bad a nanny state really is
There are no libertarians in airplanes. There's too much good stuff here, so you get a blockquote.
Amid the pie-in-sky libertarianism, free-market circle jerks, and talk of regulation as a criminal enterprise, I suddenly want to be surrounded with libertarians on this plane. I want them as brave volunteers for my experiment in the majesty of the unfettered free market at 35,000 feet. Like there are allegedly no atheists in foxholes, I intend to prove that there are no libertarians in airplanes. [...]
The good libertarian relies on the free market to solve problems on its own. Take a couple of hamburger chains, for instance. The one that makes bad food will go out of business. Customers won't eat there! Thus the market, left alone, will punish those who fail to provide what people want. How cute. Let's leave the airline industry alone -- bust the unions, abandon all regulation, let the market set whatever wage it will, let the pilots be on for 36 hours at a crack -- and let the same process go to work. Markets will force airlines to keep their planes safe, otherwise no one will pay to fly with them!
"How cute," indeed.
Hypocrisy from the Tea Party? Surely you jest.
GOP legislator who campaigned on repealing health care reform flips out when he learns his insurance on the Hill doesn't kick in for 4 weeks. He obviously doesn't care about the 30 million people he wants to deny insurance to completely.
Tea Party bloodlust
There will be blood: So here’s what the very serious Mr. Simpson said on Friday: “I can’t wait for the blood bath in April. ... When debt limit time comes, they’re going to look around and say, ‘What in the hell do we do now? We’ve got guys who will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give ’em a piece of meat, real meat,’ ” meaning spending cuts. “And boy, the blood bath will be extraordinary,” he continued.
Let's hear it for the Free Market!
Comcast charges fees that threaten online video delivery and competition. Never mind that ISPs have local monopolies and that people don't exactly have a choice about which ISP serves their neighborhood. FREE MARKET! YES!!
Sign a petition to tell the FCC to support Net Neutrality.
Think government is bureaucratic and rationing-happy? Try dealing with insurers.
Don't let some pesky facts get in the way of your orthodoxy
Learned Helplessness: It’s true that if you bought completely into rational-expectations macroeconomics, the crisis in the economy should be causing a crisis in your faith — although as far as I can tell, the freshwater types remain smugly convinced of their rightness. But those of us who hadn’t forgotten Keynes, who paid attention to things like Japan’s lost decade and developing-country financial crises, aren’t feeling all that at sea.
A Mechanical Manifesto: First, it’s conservative economists who insist that people are always rational and utility-maximizing; liberal economists are the ones willing to invoke bounded rationality, animal spirits, etc.. The whole salt-water fresh-water split was about which you were going to believe: the assumption of perfect maximization, or your own lying eyes. And the Keynesians were the ones who preferred to believe their eyes.
A little honesty, and a bit of realizing you're utterly wrong, would help you Free Market Fundamentalists make sense of reality.
A different version of the truth. A Libertarian blogger wanked on about how huge the government has become, and how greatly the regulatory burden bears down on Our Corporate Lords and Masters, and he cited as evidence employment rates in regulatory agencies.
One problem with that: Well over 90% of the increase in regulatory employment is due to one specific agency. Drum roll please: Homeland Security.
Real-world libertarianism isn't much like the CATO version: Places like Reason and the Cato Institute exist strictly to whitewash the realities of libertarianism as actually practiced in the real world. By putting forward a handful of libertarians who aren’t overly priggish and know how to order a cocktail, the funders of these places can create the illusion that libertarianism isn’t so bad. And that gets paid forward in articles like Lind’s, where he suggests that socially liberal/economically conservative is a politically viable stance in the United States.
Analysis shows rich people save, not spend, so clearly, the solution to our problem is to cut taxes to stimulate ... rich people saving, not spending.
Tax cuts won't help you, but a wage increase will. Why, indeed, should profits go to line the CEO's pockets, rather than being shared with the workers?
If we can eliminate the rail alternatives, we will create a new market for our cars. Discusses how disingenuous it is for Free-Market Fundies and their ilk to hate on Amtrak for its "extensive" public funding (note: those are sarcasm quotes) while worshiping the highly-subsidized automobile and highway systems. (This can also be filed under "I hope you enjoy your classism with a nice slice of cake" because public transportation is for those people, not us good, hardworking middle class people.)
A "culture of dependence"? I hope you enjoy your classism with a nice slice of cake.
A nation of deluded dependents: How can 43% of those who received a Pell Grant--college aid--not know that it came from the government? Not only is it all over the grant application forms, but, presumably, at least some of the recipients were smart enough to get into a college and, maybe, even graduate.
A survey asked people if they'd been recipients of government aid. 60% of respondents who had used the lifelong learning credit, 53% who had used Stafford loans (student loans), and 43% who had received unemployment checks said they had NOT received government aid, while only 25% of people on food stamps said that. Government aid is for those people, not us good, hard-working, responsible middle class people.
