For those who don't realize this, teabagger also has certain sexual connotations. "Teabagging" is a particular sex act. This has been a public service announcement.
Ah, I didn't know that. Thanks. (So it's potentially a two-way offense?)
For those who don't realize this, teabagger also has certain sexual connotations. "Teabagging" is a particular sex act. This has been a public service announcement.
Not at all. How can I be an ageist when I'm a grandmother? (A grandmother at 42, mind you, but still...)
Heck, I'm officially a geezerette now.
Oh, I think Don is quite contemptuous. Just not insulting.
Have you checked with AARP about that?I don't. I think he's pretty funny--for a geezer.
*smirk*
Fortunately, geezer isn't a poltically loaded word.
Oh yeah, this has been bugging me.
Can we add "Somalia = Libertarian Paradise" and USSR/DPNK = "Communist Utopia" to the 'stop doing'.
Yes, we know that libertarians and anarchists want less laws and a weak/nonexistent centralized government, and I know that several interpretations of communist/socialist theory involve a strong centralized government and a command economy...
But that does not mean that I want to live in Somalia, just as I am sure that the communist/socialist leaning members of the forum don't want to live in ye olde USSR or North Korea.
We want to live in countries that FUNCTION. We just disagree on HOW they should function.
Implying otherwise adds nothing to the conversation and is really bugging me.
MOD NOTE: This is a repost for Michael Wolfe, that I moved accidentally.
apologies. -- Williebee
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoombie
Oh yeah, this has been bugging me.
Can we add "Somalia = Libertarian Paradise" and USSR/DPNK = "Communist Utopia" to the 'stop doing'.
Yes, we know that libertarians and anarchists want less laws and a weak/nonexistent centralized government, and I know that several interpretations of communist/socialist theory involve a strong centralized government and a command economy...
But that does not mean that I want to live in Somalia, just as I am sure that the communist/socialist leaning members of the forum don't want to live in ye olde USSR or North Korea.
We want to live in countries that FUNCTION. We just disagree on HOW they should function.
Implying otherwise adds nothing to the conversation and is really bugging me.
I sympathize with this, although OTOH, the advantage of seeing people make these Somalia and North Korea comparisons is it exposes the person as being completely unknowledgeable about libertarianism and communism. Which is sometimes helpful.
As I suspect I am the person most responsible for the libertarian=Somalia comments, I'll offer this: I've made those comments as blatant hyperbole, in response to one, and only one, other person's commonly expressed comments about how the absence of government would be desirable. When that other person admits to similar hyperbole, AND ONLY THEN, will I refrain from making such comments in response. Otherwise, I consider them entirely appropriate.
As Somalia is the best, if not only, living example of a state-less country, I think it's a cromulent counterpoint to any serious argument for anarchy. I certainly don't accuse any libertarians here of admiring Somalia's 'society', but if anyone wants to advocate an anarchist utopia then they should address its evident shortcomings.
A better counter-argument to libertarian utopianism is Britain or America during the industrial revolution, anyway.
When the question of the day is whether it's sexual assault if the TSA does it, arguing over whether a minimal state or no state is the ideal seems a rather silly, and actually dangerous distraction. However, I understand that the more intrusive and objectionable the state, the more important it is to keep people afraid of any alternative to an even more powerful state.As I suspect I am the person most responsible for the libertarian=Somalia comments, I'll offer this: I've made those comments as blatant hyperbole, in response to one, and only one, other person's commonly expressed comments about how the absence of government would be desirable. When that other person admits to similar hyperbole, AND ONLY THEN, will I refrain from making such comments in response. Otherwise, I consider them entirely appropriate.
Um, yeah, definitions are important. The Somalia = Libertarian Paradise argument is not only hyperbole, it's flat-out wrong. Michael's post at #57 pretty much nailed it.But that person is not a libertarian. Libertarians are not against government. Libertarians are not anarchists. The prime literature for libertarians are Robert Nozsick's "Anarchy state and Utopia" wherein Nozsick describes the philosophical foundations for the libertarian night-watchman state, and how such an entity always emerge. The fundament of libertarianism is thus that nature abhors a vacuum, and that a political vacuum will be filled by a proto-state first and then a state.
Anarchists don't believe this. Which is why they are anarchists, and not libertarians.
If it's Don you're talking about, he's an agorist. An anarchist.
Well, except for the part where legislators were already writing laws by the bucketload to grant special privileges to their robber-baron buddies. Libertarian utopianism requires free markets and the absence of political privilege. Corporations, OTOH, are creatures of government, not the free market. The robber barons were the creations of government, not free markets.A better counter-argument to libertarian utopianism is Britain or America during the industrial revolution, anyway.
Yeah, that's a much better example, as are the cooperatives and mutual aid societies that arose in the American west before the territories were conquered by political machines. The reality, not the John Wayne/Hollywood version.Or the Nordic countries. But this is OT so I'll bow out.
Most? Maybe. But you're not the only one.As I suspect I am the person most responsible for the libertarian=Somalia comments...
But all of these comments do seem to be hyperbole. As far as I'm concerned, that should be okay, since they're easily answered (Mac et al may feel differently). And such comparisons are just that: comparisons.
Agreed. A comment can be trite and simply wrong without being offensive. I've many times seen the mildest of social democracies get called communist. If you're going to start existing on plausible comparisons, the mods will have loads of work to do.
Libertarian utopianism requires free markets and the absence of political privilege.
Hmm,is there some word equivalent to 'teabagger' that describes that group and isn't considered offensive?
I supposed you would bounce Bill Maher--he uses it all the time.
I don't understand what's wrong with using the word "tea bagger."
People who are in the tea party deserve derision.
Guys? I'm seeing a resurgence of usage of deliberately-insulting diminutives like "teabagger" and "rethuglican" here. Stop it. Seriously.
Don't. Do. It.
Not here.