Salon: The lesson of Rand Paul: libertarianism is juvenile

Friday, May 21, 2010 08:30 ET
The lesson of Rand Paul: libertarianism is juvenile
By Gabriel Winant

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/05/21/libertarianism_who_needs_it/index.html

Rand Paul blew up the Internet. Did you notice? Here's how it went down: first, he suggested unmistakably that he opposed the Civil Rights Act. Then he tried unsuccessfully to weasel his way out, under near-implacable questioning. This was when people got really worked up. So Paul put out a press release, the strategy of which was more or less to deny that the previous 24 hours had happened. In the meantime, those of us who hail from the Internet have lost the ability to talk about anything else.

Mainly, of course, we've been condemning and mocking Paul. But there's a group that’s lined up to defend him as well. The basic claim is that, while Paul was of course wrong to oppose civil rights legislation, it was an honest and respectable mistake. As Dave Weigel put it on Twitter (hence the weird sentence), "Rand doesn't mean harm, is suffering as old libertarian debate moves into prime time." (Weigel wrote a longer defense of Paul yesterday as well. For an excellent response, see this post from Salon editor Joan Walsh.)

Various figures who stand a few notches in toward the mainstream from Paul have made arguments similar to Weigel's. It was a mere theoretical fancy, they say, nothing should be made of it. A staffer for Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., calls the whole thing "a non-issue." Thanks, white people, for clearing up that whole civil rights thing for everybody else. Not important!

But, lest Paul be allowed to escape, those of us who do want to make something of this need to broaden our argument. It's not just that he screwed up and said something stupid because he's so committed to a purist fancy. No, it's worse than that. Libertarianism itself is what's stupid here, not just Paul. We should stop tip-toeing around this belief system like its adherents are the noble last remnants of a dying breed, still clinging to their ancient, proud ways.....

The libertarian who insists that the state has no place beyond basic night-watchman duties is like a teenager who, having been given a car, promptly starts demanding the right to stay out all night. Sometimes, someone else really is looking out for your best interests by saying no. (This isn't to say the state is looking out for the best interests of everybody, or even most people. The point is just that, however Glenn Beck might hyperventilate, the government doesn't want to destroy the market. It wants to preserve it, and it does this job better than the market can on its own.)

And that's why the best rap on libertarians isn't that they're racist, or selfish. (Though some of them are those things, and their beliefs encourage both bad behaviors, even if accidentally.) It's that they're thoroughly out of touch with reality. It's a worldview that prospers only so long as nobody tries it, and is too unreflective and self-absorbed to realize this. In other words, it's bratty. And that's bad enough.

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Much more at link - I just posted some comments on Katrina from infamous talk show host Neal Boortz, need I say more? Juvenile is too mild a statement in my estimation. Cruel and uncaring are more like it!
:grr:

Buncha fuckin' babies. Or rather, overwrought teenage boys.

I really liked this

--It's a worldview that prospers only so long as nobody tries it--

Libertarianism is utopian the same was as the pinkos of the 60s.

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

I've always wondered why Ayn Rand appealed so much to 18-year-olds, most of whom -- the brighter ones, anyhow -- got over thinking they could be John Galt long before they finished college. This article nicely explains how fundamentally juvenile and self-absorbed you have to be to take libertarianism or objectivism or whatever else you want to call it, seriously. It's just adolescent thinking.

from Ariana Huffington:

"I used to like Ayn Rand. Then I turned 12."

First proposed as a mind experiment by political philosophers, it fell on its face coming out of the gate. For libertarianism to work at all, the original distribution of goods in society would have had to have been fair and every subsequent transaction would have had to have been fair. Since that's not the case and can't be undone, libertarianism is just a utopian fantasy. It appeals to people who don't want anyone else to tell them what rules to follow.

I once had a student get up in class and announce that she was a libertarian and didn't believe in all this "liberal activism." She was a single mother on public aid, attending a state-run college and receiving financial aid, and the only reason she was there was because she got in under a special program to admit applicants with low SAT scores. So much for being self-sufficient.

He is in favor of the government meddling in personal freedoms such as gay marriage and abortion.