Psychopolitik 2.0

Dave Weigel thinks this is the proper response to the “revelations” about the Kochtopus*:

Toss a hunk of Rearden metal at a D.C. libertarian organization or scholar and you’ll hit something connected to the Kochs. The brothers fund successful internships and fellowships via the Koch Associate Program, and every summer, dozens of budding libertarians in Washington work for think tanks before coming home to a group house nicknamed “Kochwood.” Koch interns are placed (often, not always) at Reason, Cato, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and other libertarian organizations while attending classes on media and economics. What’s so sinister about this? Nothing—at least until the Tea Party started winning, and then liberals started getting very annoyed.

So pre-empt the coming exposes. Libertarians: Embrace the Kochs! Kochs: Embrace the Tea Parties! You are, Kochs and libertarians alike, among the few activists who should feel no need whatsoever to apologize for wealth and success. (emphasis mine)

Translation: libertarians should deliberately discredit themselves in the eyes of anyone who is not already on their side.  Oh, and also completely ignore anyone pointing out the blind spots in their own ranks.

From nearly the moment it got any public traction, the Tea Party “movement” flushed any consistency down the toilet.  Consider that at one point Thomas Knapp started a “Boston Tea Party” that was to be an actual political party.  This got shoved aside by a parallel (albeit way better funded) movement claiming a similar name, which conveniently rose critique of government power with a laser focus on what the Donkey Crips did in power versus the Dixie Pachyderm Piru.  That parallel “movement” exists now as little more than a contradictory right-wing quivering ball of fear, locked & loaded to vote Republican.

Considering the result of political gridlock, and how the worst things the government here does are the ones that get “bipartisan” support, I can understand why less radical people may opt to play each side against each other.  But this isn’t a deliberate “when A has one branch, hand B the other for a monkey wrench, and vice versa” strategy, no.  Dave is saying to take the tea party — and by extension the Kochs — as if they are we and we are they.  What I want to ask him is this: who is this “we” you speak of?

The quip about “NOW liberals are annoyed” is a surprise to me, since by now the annoyance is solidly partisan.  Besides, pretty much anyone who frequents web forums & blogs who could place themselves anywhere on a spectrum of libertarian views knows that progressives have always been annoyed by libertarians.  Problem is, the type of connections & political influence the Koch brothers have obtained are exactly what they point at when asked why.

As I stated in comments at Roderick’s place, whether their disproportionate influence on a narrow section of corporate regulation (namely, less of it, even though corporate status itself is a distortion of the market) versus all other issues (Cato Institute, after all, also advocates for an end to the War on Drugs & against a militaristic foreign policy…) is a matter of playing Telephone or not doesn’t really matter.  Public credibility is important, and losing it costs more than even 10 Kochs could pay back.

As for “apologizing for wealth”, it depends on how they got it.  In the long run, rent-seekers have more to worry about than apologies…

(* – The origin of this term should sum up just how false the libertarianism-as-one-note assumption is.)

There’s a lot of 9th degree black belts in Stupid being earned these days.  In particular, the legs that the New York mosque multi-use community center “controversy” has taken on is even amazing my cynical ass.  It’s not the fact that this xenophobic nonsense exists, or even the component of Real Merkins butting in on a matter in the only other U.S. city they hate more than San Francisco.  To be honest, I can’t put a finger on why I didn’t just come to expect this as the new normal.

Anyway, Black Reagan put in his two cents, and his own damn party scattered, including, well…:

The Senate’s top Democrat on Monday came out against plans to build a mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, moving away from President Barack Obama on the controversial election-year issue.Locked in a tight race, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid became the highest profile Democrat to respond to Obama, who last week backed the right for the developers to build a mosque near ground zero. Since his comments Friday, the Democratic president and his aides have worked to explain the statement, which drew criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike.

“The First Amendment protects freedom of religion,” said Jim Manley, a Reid spokesman. “Senator Reid respects that, but thinks that the mosque should be built some place else.” (emphasis mine)

If I even have to explain that this is naked pandering, check your brain.  That said, there’s no pandering without a target.  Reid’s target is obviously those who, while maybe not outright bigoted, still think of this proposed building as offending their sense of P.C.  That’s completely irrelevant, but whatever, that never stopped anybody.

Critics have said the location of the mosque is insensitive because the terrorists who struck were Islamic extremists. The plans call for a $100 million Islamic center two blocks from where almost 3,000 people perished when hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

The more obvious ends of this sentiment take it further, claiming the Cordoba House is some kind of victory lap, a monument to conquest.  Let’s see, how best to respond to that one…

At least theirs has plans for a swimming pool.

Story of the day and all…:

In a major victory for gay rights advocates, a federal judge on Wednesday struck down a California ban on same-sex marriage.Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the voter-approved ban, known as Proposition 8, violates due process and equal-protection rights under the U.S. Constitution.

The ruling met immediate criticism from Mormon and Catholic church leaders and cheers from gay-rights advocates.

“Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians. The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples,” Walker wrote.

The judge added in the conclusion of the 136-page opinion: “Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.”

Majoritarianism doesn’t tend to have exceptions, at least by the folks that endorse it.  If they have 51% & you have 49, they win even if the winning vote is to boil the 49 in oil, strip their bones from the flesh, & make Sammiches with whatever can’t render down into soap.  I could use cheaper lunch meat, but soylent green ain’t my bag, ‘knaw’nsayin’?  In principle, I would much rather in the long run have a series of autonomous societies the likes of which largely ignore these kind of questions as inherently bullshit.  Failing that, the higher up they ask the sole reasonable question: “why the fuck you care???” — the better.  Even if you are the biggest fucking bible thumper on the face of the earth, you have no standing, that isn’t what we — or even YOU, if we wanna get snotty about it — live by.

I completely stand behind my previous hope, of a pro gay rights movement that openly asks “why the hell do you care?!?”  In principle, this should never have been an issue for the courts, as an arm of government.  But pragmatically speaking, the  way of least resistance is the closest to justice.  That is what matters, the rest is thumpery, that’s it.

The job of the courts is to overrule the majority when they shit in the punchbowl marked “individual liberty”.  If they don’t then and only then can they affirm it, within our assumed representative gov’t corporate owned regime.  Once you want to get to REAL control over individual rights, lemme know, because that part is inherently post-state.

I must say, to this day it is fucking hilarious how each side of the “mainstream” will act like the true protectors of liberty, meanwhile they lean on privilege to even get that far, and people are teetering on bankrupt.  That even in a place like California it takes “activist judges!!” to recognize that there’s no reasonable excuse to even give a shit about same sex couples, let alone command them to not marry, says a fuckton.  Your give-a-shit-o-meter is BROKEN, these are consenting adults, no reason whatsoever to be concerned!  Meanwhile, the priest that spew that nonsense are molesting your kids anyway.  Explain THAT shit to me, or stop voting.  I stopped back when I realize no political libertarian would bring up the elephant in the room — imperialism.  Thousands murdered overseas for seemingly nothing, but your ire gets up over those damn gheys.  Have fun being irrelevant.

+48 ounces, 8.1%.  Good night.

The Washington Post’s Alec MacGillis has a bright idea:

Americans are angry at Washington, and it’s not hard to see why. Not only does the federal government seem more ineffectual than ever in the face of ongoing economic hardship, but the capital has so far coasted through the downturn relatively unscathed.

The unemployment rate in metro Washington is 6 percent, well below the national average of 9.5 percent, and Virginia and Maryland have two of the three highest job-creation rates in the country. Meanwhile, the region is siphoning off many of America’s brightest workers: The nation’s five most educated counties, judging by the percentage of residents with college degrees, are all in metro Washington. The area’s prosperity gap with the rest of the country is increasingly glaring — particularly if you’re sitting in Michigan or Rhode Island or Nevada.

But instead of just ranting about Washington — or running against it, for those on the hustings — how about breaking it up?

Way ahead of you, buddy.  I’ve been for dismantling central government for years, but it is amazing that someone working for the local newspaper there would express such a sentiment.  He even got it PUBLISHED!

Wait a minute…what’s that?  That’s not what you mean by breaking up Washington?  Then what do you mean?

It’s an admittedly improbable idea, given the universal instinct for self-preservation, but with Washington burgeoning in a time of general economic gloom, why not address the imbalance by dispersing the government more broadly? Such a move would spread more evenly the benefits of federal employment (and its contractor hangers-on). It would make the federal bureaucracy more attuned to regional issues. And it just might help dissipate some of the anti-Washington venom that’s coursing through the country. (emphasis mine)

People are angry with the federal government.  Some because it props up big business & harasses people who have done nothing to anyone at home, while killing innocents abroad.  Others because despite the ever-expanding promises of politicians their livelihoods still wither to nothing.  And, of course, some because they (mistakenly) think their tax dollars are funding T-bone steaks for masses of Undeserving Darky.  And you mean to tell me your “solution” is changing the distribution of federal government jobs?  Are you high?!?

Already, the federal government is less clustered on the Potomac than many think. Eighty-three percent of its 1.9 million civilian employees (not counting postal workers) are outside metro Washington, from Homeland Security agents at borders and in airports to rangers in national parks to NASA engineers in Houston. The country’s federalist system further distributes public jobs outside Washington, to the 50 state governments. (emphasis mine)

Nah, he’s not high.  That much short-term memory loss can only be explained by one thing: head injury.  Probably from sticking it up his rectum too fast.

TPM comments section again, this time in a post on John Boehner saying something should be repealed that hasn’t even passed yet:

TPM regular: “When did rabid anarchists take over the Republican party?”
Me: “They’re definitely rabid.  But “anarchists”?
Another regular: “Is there a term for a group of people who refuse to recognize any method of governance that they don’t agree with? I don’t think ‘dissident’ is strong enough a term here.  They see the whole thing as completely illegitimate, despite a majority of the voting public saying otherwise over the course of 2+ years.”

Once again “Dissident?  Anarchist?  Right-wing Republican?  Same thing!” Blargh…

Another scene in the ongoing reality play “Death of a Consumerist Economy“:

The credit scores of millions more Americans are sinking to new lows.  Figures provided by FICO Inc. show that 25.5 percent of consumers — nearly 43.4 million people — now have a credit score of 599 or below, marking them as poor risks for lenders. It’s unlikely they will be able to get credit cards, auto loans or mortgages under the tighter lending standards banks now use.Because consumers relied so heavily on debt to fuel their spending in recent years, their restricted access to credit is one reason for the slow economic recovery. (emphasis mine)

This reliance on debt was deliberately designed, over several decades.  An at least partially rational economy, if it insists on leaning on consumption, realizes that people need the MONEY to actually fucking PAY for the crap.  Credit is NOT the same as money, as it merely defers & adds interest so you owe even more later, under the assumption that you will always have more money later.  As we can see, that assumption has FAILED.  All the talk about a “credit crunch” is misdirection, credit never should’ve been as important as it came to be in the first place. You know what people used to borrow for?  Big shit like a house or a car, stuff that no one in their right mind would carry around the money for even if they had it.  It was a burden that people sought to pay off as soon as possible.  Any other use of credit was commonly seen as a sucker move.

It still is.  We’re just being led into it at virtually gunpoint now.

The pseudo-radical bleatings of the right-hand of “our” institutional ruling class as of late are great comedy:

There’s also an edge to these kind of things that pisses me off.  Beyond the huge inaccuracies (the “tea tax” was more a corporatist favor to a business the Brits favored, and the Abe in his other video is the same one that put in place the first income tax.  Also, there’s the whole matter of other, less-justifiable reasons for the American Revolution, but I’m not in the mood to go there), there’s a cognitive train wreck at the core of such appeals: if you say the U.S. government is tyrannical, completely unrepresentative, and regularly commits acts morally equivalent to the friggin’ Holocaust, then…um, why do you want to be part of it?

“Smash the state: vote Republican!”.  That is the “message” of morons like this & his peers.  Now, there’s always been in political campaigns a tendency to exaggerate the meaning of voting for the challenger, whoever they may be (after all, the saying “if voting mattered, it’d be illegal” had to start somewhere…).  But this goes further, as to equate revolution — even a VIOLENT one — with merely flipping between D & R at the ballot box.  The term “hyperbole” isn’t remotely enough to describe such nonsense.

So, why do they do it?  Consider their base: older, more rural & exurb white folks who tend to get stiff on God & Country appeals.  Feeling alienated from the flow of society, pining for that idealized golden age that never existed, they wish they could stand athwart it all & not just yell STOP!, but push it back.  Deep believers in patriotism, invoking the founders pushes multiple buttons at once — “Want the glory days back?  The founders of Teh Bestest Nation In The World see it your way too!  They’re OUTRAGED at the wrongs done to you Upstanding American Citizens!  They’d even want another revolution…or to vote for me, same difference!”.  Fapfapfap…

Shorter Michael Gerson, w/r/t Dave Weigel’s Journolist remarks: “Snark…anger…PROFANITY!!  WHAT HATH WE WROUGHT!?!?”

Whoever transcribed this post from Gerson’s fine quill pen scribbings on tanned yak hide to that shiny spirit box with the blinking lights on his desk he’s so afraid of needs to tell him sometime that there are these things on the internet called “message boards” (and newsgroups even before that), on which people have been calling each other lying, Hitler-worshipping baby-stompers who should be anally violated with a rusty tire iron then locked in a box full of fire ants while their mother watches, over topics as diverse as politics, religion, music, sports, favorite architects,  even whether one prefers chunky or smooth peanut butter, ever since the internet began.  Regardless, many of these people dish out & take such bashing & live rather normal lives otherwise.  I can recall multiple times where in the course of a heated argument participants (including me) have told each other to go fuck themselves with a pipe wrench, yet I’m mellow in public almost to a fault.

As for his attempt to tie Weigel in with a larger critique of “ugly” politics & beg for “civility”, based on the personalities he describes, I can only conclude “civility” consists of a circle-jerk of “moderate” Serious People dismissing any passionate outsiders simply on the basis of their passion & not their argument: “Birthers?  DFHs that said Iraq was going to be a disaster & were proven right?  Same thing!”

Patri Friedman makes a comment about disaster liability.  Brian Doherty, as an excuse to mention Reason’s dumbassed cruise (which I’m surprised Patri is planning on attending), quotes him.  Of course, hilarity ensues, primarily in the form of site regulars actually defending limited liability via strawman — “Really, you would sue every single insignificant shareholder?” — followed by a couple mainstream liberal passersby making remarks such as the following:

Libertarians, like it or not, are de facto Republicans, who deliberately weaken regulatory agencies, fill them with cronies, and ignore any checks on conflicts of interest – and then claim, when the agency fails, that it must be some inherent flaw in government. *facepalm*

Corporatism — hell, corporate existence itself — requires a state so that there’s an entity for large, politically connected businesses to leech off of the populace through, and a complex regulatory structure so that the people being robbed can’t easily track what is happening.  Without this, the corporate form as we know it would be dead, as if each business owner had to openly ask for the same privileges and loopholes that are currently assumed by existence alone they would be overwhelmed by the amount of negative response.  A consistent libertarian response to this form being rendered impossible would be “good, fuck ‘em!”, as keeping it leads to injustice. Someone with this view would much rather, instead of merely weakening the regulatory agencies, do away with their reason for existing in the first place, and as such has both no desire for control over them and no chance in hell of obtaining it anyway.  The ones that do gain control are about as far from such radicalism as is possible: they don’t want to get rid of government, they just want it to work for them.

Actually, I agree that crony capitalism is not an inherent flaw in government.  Calling it a flaw would imply that it was unintentional…  

Considering that the overwhelming bulk of the product all that blood in Mexico is being shed over is destined for the other side of La línea imaginaria que, and they’ve even stopped locking up casual users, it’s reasonable to expect some sort of general shift in the direction of common sense taking hold there.  Sadly…no, not if Felipe Calderon has anything to say about it:

Mexican President Felipe Calderon urged the U.S. Congress Thursday to reinstate a ban on assault weapons to help cut cross-border gun smuggling and reduce drug gang violence for its southern neighbor.In a speech to a joint session of Congress, Calderon described efforts to fight organized crime in Mexico, where 23,000 people have been killed in drug violence since he came to power in late 2006 and launched an army offensive.  Washington is also aiding Mexico’s battle against drug gangs with a 2007 pledge of $1.4 billion for equipment and police training to help fight the cartels that ship some $40 billion worth of illegal drugs north each year. [...]

“There is one issue where Mexico needs your cooperation. And that is stopping the flow of assault weapons and other deadly arms across the border,” Calderon said to a standing ovation from U.S. lawmakers.

The reason for existence of the cartels is the demand for mind-altering substances on the part of US citizens, the satisfaction of which is artificially lucrative thanks to OUR LAWS.  As for the U.S. aid, many of those police forces end up taking Uncle Sucker’s training & then switching sides.  But never mind that!  Yanks that don’t work for the government are walking around with scary looking guns!!  Panic!!!