Misc links

[sqbr]

Mostly from my blogroll I think (which would be on Dreamwidth if we had filters yet :/).

New Alice in Wonderland. Looks cool though I hope it doesn't end up creating a good vs evil dichotomy, that lack is one of the charms of the book.

A libertarian argues for an amnesty for undocumented migrants Libertarianism is so totally far from my own cynical pinko tendencies(*) that I find it incomprehensible, so it's really surreal to find it used to argue against racist views I find incomprehensible, you end up with (to me) bizarre statements like It’s true that when you combine something basically moral (free immigration) with something completely immoral (government subsidies for education and medicine) you may get bad results from the combination.

My Life In a G-String: A Round Up of Stripper Memoirs This is EXACTLY what bugged me about "Candy Girl" by Diablo Cody.

Equal pay for equal work (unless you’re creative, in which case “pride” is enough) Not that the Australian Government has a history of ironically doing the exact opposite of what it's preaching while it's preaching it *cough*

Also: I keep meaning to write a post about the Iranian protests but don't feel like I have anything informed to add to the conversation (and assume you all know it's happening so generic "awareness raising" won't make much difference. If not you could do worse than searching for "Iran" on my blogroll). I did set my twitter timezone to Tehran.

(*)I was brought up around rigid socialists, and as a result am both left wing and anti-dogma, so I'm not a big fan of right wing idealistic dogma.

Comments

[ex_peasant441]

Libertarianism is so totally far from my own cynical pinko tendencies(*) that I find it incomprehensible, so it's really surreal to find it used to argue against racist views I find incomprehensible, you end up with (to me) bizarre statements like It’s true that when you combine something basically moral (free immigration) with something completely immoral (government subsidies for education and medicine) you may get bad results from the combination.

If you ever feel the urge to understand I could try to explain. In return I would love someone to explain why they think state control is a good idea because that is the one that I find completely incomprehensible.

[sqbr]

Well...I think before I'm comfortable deeply explaining my politics I want a stronger grasp of political/class theory (on my to-do list of things to read up on) since otherwise I try and end up flailing and saying "It just DOES" a lot.

But in general terms: I've read some sensible explanations of Libertarianism and I can kind of see the appeal of the desired outcome, I just don't think that's what you'd get if you put those principles in action. Which to some extent isn't really something you can argue about: as with socialism (or, lets face it, democracy) any negative example can be handwaved away as "not doing it properly", since any actual country is always messy and complicated and doesn't follow the ideology it says it does very closely.

[ex_peasant441]

I think before I'm comfortable deeply explaining my politics I want a stronger grasp of political/class theory (on my to-do list of things to read up on) since otherwise I try and end up flailing and saying "It just DOES" a lot.

Fair enough. :: eyes own to-do list of reading. Sympathises ::

I've read some sensible explanations of Libertarianism and I can kind of see the appeal of the desired outcome, I just don't think that's what you'd get if you put those principles in action.

I think the fellow you linked to has a very well thought out and logically coherent theory behind what he is saying, but like you I can't see it working in practice. For example he seems to be forgetting the human dimension of tribalism in his open-borders policy. He is actually so far to the right of my own views I would label him an anarchist rather than a simple libertarian. But the label libertarian is not one I am entirely familiar with so maybe they are in fact all like that. So I can understand the logical basis of what he is saying but don't hold those views myself.

And I agree, these highly theoretical systems are always impossible to argue against with a devotee.

[sqbr]

I think "libertarian" covers a lot of different ideological frameworks, and doesn't mean the same thing in America as it does overseas (and possibly means something different in Britain than it does over here). But my understanding of any of them, as with all of this, is kind of vague.