Fuck its silent in here.......

[Slaky]

This shit in Texas is getting worse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

[MAD]

This shit in Texas is getting worse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

"We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future," Dunbar said. "In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."

Unless the Guardian is somehow quoting out of context, someone needs to point a cannon at this woman and light the fucking fuse.  Seriously, I don't know how any right-minded libertarian/conservative here would not be alarmed by the propulsion of this particular agenda unless (s)he is so fucking scared/insecure and blinded by their own ideology that (s)he would be willing to turn a blind eye to this shit that, in a normal society, wouldn't even be taken seriously. 

I have no tolerance for this unique brand of willful ignorance.  Fuck this bitch and all who follow her.

[Slaky]

This shit in Texas is getting worse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

"We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future," Dunbar said. "In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."

Unless the Guardian is somehow quoting out of context, someone needs to point a cannon at this woman and light the fucking fuse.  Seriously, I don't know how any right-minded libertarian/conservative here would not be alarmed by the propulsion of this particular agenda unless (s)he is so fucking scared/insecure and blinded by their own ideology that (s)he would be willing to turn a blind eye to this shit that, in a normal society, wouldn't even be taken seriously. 

I have no tolerance for this unique brand of willful ignorance.  Fuck this bitch and all who follow her.

I don't think being conservative or Republican has anything to do with this brand of insanity. I don't even think MikeC would approve of this.

[Bort]

This shit in Texas is getting worse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

"We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future," Dunbar said. "In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."

Unless the Guardian is somehow quoting out of context, someone needs to point a cannon at this woman and light the fucking fuse.  Seriously, I don't know how any right-minded libertarian/conservative here would not be alarmed by the propulsion of this particular agenda unless (s)he is so fucking scared/insecure and blinded by their own ideology that (s)he would be willing to turn a blind eye to this shit that, in a normal society, wouldn't even be taken seriously. 

I have no tolerance for this unique brand of willful ignorance.  Fuck this bitch and all who follow her.

I don't think being conservative or Republican has anything to do with this brand of insanity. I don't even think MikeC would approve of this.

I dunno, he can surprise you.

[Oleg]

This shit in Texas is getting worse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

"We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future," Dunbar said. "In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."

Unless the Guardian is somehow quoting out of context, someone needs to point a cannon at this woman and light the fucking fuse.  Seriously, I don't know how any right-minded libertarian/conservative here would not be alarmed by the propulsion of this particular agenda unless (s)he is so fucking scared/insecure and blinded by their own ideology that (s)he would be willing to turn a blind eye to this shit that, in a normal society, wouldn't even be taken seriously. 

I have no tolerance for this unique brand of willful ignorance.  Fuck this bitch and all who follow her.

THIS times infinity.

[SKO]

This shit in Texas is getting worse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

"We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future," Dunbar said. "In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."

Unless the Guardian is somehow quoting out of context, someone needs to point a cannon at this woman and light the fucking fuse.  Seriously, I don't know how any right-minded libertarian/conservative here would not be alarmed by the propulsion of this particular agenda unless (s)he is so fucking scared/insecure and blinded by their own ideology that (s)he would be willing to turn a blind eye to this shit that, in a normal society, wouldn't even be taken seriously. 

I have no tolerance for this unique brand of willful ignorance.  Fuck this bitch and all who follow her.

I don't think being conservative or Republican has anything to do with this brand of insanity. I don't even think MikeC would approve of this.

No, this is fundamentalist Christians at their worst, and the actual conservatives in Texas are too scared to stop them because of the votes they'll lose. These people aren't conservative in any kind of ideological way, they're bat-shit crazy reactionaries. Revising history is the antithesis of what an actual conservative stands for. If you truly believe that it's necessary to understand the lessons of the past in order to move forward, as I, and most actual conservatives do, you'd agree that this is an incredibly dangerous abuse of political power. This shit has to be stopped at all costs.

[Brownie]

This shit in Texas is getting worse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

"We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future," Dunbar said. "In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."

Unless the Guardian is somehow quoting out of context, someone needs to point a cannon at this woman and light the fucking fuse.  Seriously, I don't know how any right-minded libertarian/conservative here would not be alarmed by the propulsion of this particular agenda unless (s)he is so fucking scared/insecure and blinded by their own ideology that (s)he would be willing to turn a blind eye to this shit that, in a normal society, wouldn't even be taken seriously. 

I have no tolerance for this unique brand of willful ignorance.  Fuck this bitch and all who follow her.

I don't think being conservative or Republican has anything to do with this brand of insanity. I don't even think MikeC would approve of this.

No, this is fundamentalist Christians at their worst, and the actual conservatives in Texas are too scared to stop them because of the votes they'll lose. These people aren't conservative in any kind of ideological way, they're bat-shit crazy reactionaries. Revising history is the antithesis of what an actual conservative stands for. If you truly believe that it's necessary to understand the lessons of the past in order to move forward, as I, and most actual conservatives do, you'd agree that this is an incredibly dangerous abuse of political power. This shit has to be stopped at all costs.

This.

[Quality Start Machine]

I'm just getting my crackers, candy & marshmallows so I can make S'Mores at the inevitable book burning.

[morpheus]

This shit in Texas is getting worse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

"We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future," Dunbar said. "In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."

Unless the Guardian is somehow quoting out of context, someone needs to point a cannon at this woman and light the fucking fuse.  Seriously, I don't know how any right-minded libertarian/conservative here would not be alarmed by the propulsion of this particular agenda unless (s)he is so fucking scared/insecure and blinded by their own ideology that (s)he would be willing to turn a blind eye to this shit that, in a normal society, wouldn't even be taken seriously. 

I have no tolerance for this unique brand of willful ignorance.  Fuck this bitch and all who follow her.

I don't think being conservative or Republican has anything to do with this brand of insanity. I don't even think MikeC would approve of this.

No, this is fundamentalist Christians at their worst, and the actual conservatives in Texas are too scared to stop them because of the votes they'll lose. These people aren't conservative in any kind of ideological way, they're bat-shit crazy reactionaries. Revising history is the antithesis of what an actual conservative stands for. If you truly believe that it's necessary to understand the lessons of the past in order to move forward, as I, and most actual conservatives do, you'd agree that this is an incredibly dangerous abuse of political power. This shit has to be stopped at all costs.

This.

THAT.

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

But others' self-interest should pursue the great libertarian ideal of limiting the power of government to essentially pick the winners.

I'm not sure what your point here is.

For starters, it seems awfully prescriptive for someone to say what someone else's self-interest "should" be.

More to the point, it is often in someone's self-interest to allow the goverment to "pick the winners" (if they're the ones in the position to be picked, or if they expect to be left on the short end of the stick if everything's left to market forces/etc).

This is precisely to my point.

In the example at hand, it is in the oil companies' self-interest to encourage legislative actions that limit other parties' freedom to sue them. Through their industry association, they work to convince the world that allowing the government to preemptively limit the ability of others to sue them is also in everyone else's self-interest. Quoting again...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-new-20100514,0,6291548.story

The American Petroleum Institute, the industry's trade group, said Thursday that raising the cap could also increase the costs of exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico by 25%, "which would threaten our nation's energy security, reduce government revenues and cost thousands of American jobs."

Further, apparently Lisa Murkowski sees it as in her self-interest to join them in opposing legislation that would enable the freedom of others to sue oil companies.

All fine. This is exactly what self-interest and power looks like in practice. (Which, no, is not to say that the workings of self-interest and power are necessarily bad.)

The simple fact is that such restraint of liberty by the government is a result of various parties' pursuit of their own rational self-interest.

Self-interest is the natural state of things. You cannot eliminate it. I will have my interests, you will have yours, whatever they are. It's not "privilege" anymore than you being hungry at lunchtime is "privilege" or you wanting to go to the Hawks game Friday is "privilege."

Self-interest above all involves everyone else pursuing their self-interests. Keeping restraints on the government is a ton more preferrable to shackling the people.

I don't mean to say libertarianism treats self-interest as a privilege. No one will deny the existence of self-interest. And no one here is talking about 'eliminating' it.

I just mean that libertarianism privileges individual self-interest on the social level as a value first in importance before all other social values (e.g., equality, justice).

As you said:

Libertarian thought assumes that self-interest trumps all.

I won't deny that self-interest is an unavoidable fact of life and that, in a society of individual self-interests, we will see competing self-interests.

But the negotiation of these competing self-interests in a social space, then, becomes a necessity. And this process of social negotiation is that big, bad dirty word, "politics."

Political structures, both formal and informal, develop over time to deal with competing self-interests, allowing us to live together while still pursuing differing interests (to a greater or lesser degree).

Some (though not all) of these political structures form we call "civil government."

Our American government as it currently exists is the product of over 200 years worth of self-interest contending with self-interest, power contending with power. Actually, well over 200 years if you consider that our American polity didn't leap fully formed from Alexander Hamilton's head, but rather grew out of existing civil traditions. Indeed, self-interest contending with self-interest is the story of all of human history, to the extent that it's probably tautological to describe it as such.

The upshot of this, though, is that our political structures, including all of those that restrict liberty, are the very fruit of centuries worth of rational self-interest playing out in the political economy.

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

You won't kill self-interest.

Wouldn't dream of it.

I'm just asking how libertarianism proposes to deal with the reality that rational self-interest will oftentimes conflict with greater liberty.

And, moreover, how libertarians propose to negotiate the conflicting self-interests within society after they've scrapped the very political structures that have developed over centuries of human history for the purposes of dealing with that very problem.

The Burkean in me suggests a certain amount of prudence when approaching the political status quo we've inherited and a wariness of the unintended consequences of messing with it. What currently exists politically grew out of the needs of the complex interactions of society (and, yes, out of competing self-interests within society). What exists, at least to an extent, exists as it does for a reason.

The social democrat in me responds that many of these political structures grow from asymetrical power relations, resulting in structural inequalities that demand interrogation and often reform, accomodation or outright abolition.

It also says, vis a vis libertarianism, that's it's entirely appropriate for society to regulate some self-interest for the sake of greater equality and for the sake of avoiding a society that goes full Thunderdome, where only the powerful prosper.

Finally, while the liberal in me still holds liberty as the highest of ideals, it tempers this with a respect for pragmatism and the importance of fairness, openness and deliberation when it comes to the operations of power.

[Canadouche]

This shit in Texas is getting worse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

"We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future," Dunbar said. "In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."

Unless the Guardian is somehow quoting out of context, someone needs to point a cannon at this woman and light the fucking fuse.  Seriously, I don't know how any right-minded libertarian/conservative here would not be alarmed by the propulsion of this particular agenda unless (s)he is so fucking scared/insecure and blinded by their own ideology that (s)he would be willing to turn a blind eye to this shit that, in a normal society, wouldn't even be taken seriously. 

I have no tolerance for this unique brand of willful ignorance.  Fuck this bitch and all who follow her.

I don't think being conservative or Republican has anything to do with this brand of insanity. I don't even think MikeC would approve of this.

No, this is fundamentalist Christians at their worst, and the actual conservatives in Texas are too scared to stop them because of the votes they'll lose. These people aren't conservative in any kind of ideological way, they're bat-shit crazy reactionaries. Revising history is the antithesis of what an actual conservative stands for. If you truly believe that it's necessary to understand the lessons of the past in order to move forward, as I, and most actual conservatives do, you'd agree that this is an incredibly dangerous abuse of political power. This shit has to be stopped at all costs.

Good luck with that.  They've got Chuck Norris.

[CBStew]

This shit in Texas is getting worse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

"We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future," Dunbar said. "In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."

Unless the Guardian is somehow quoting out of context, someone needs to point a cannon at this woman and light the fucking fuse.  Seriously, I don't know how any right-minded libertarian/conservative here would not be alarmed by the propulsion of this particular agenda unless (s)he is so fucking scared/insecure and blinded by their own ideology that (s)he would be willing to turn a blind eye to this shit that, in a normal society, wouldn't even be taken seriously. 

I have no tolerance for this unique brand of willful ignorance.  Fuck this bitch and all who follow her.

I don't think being conservative or Republican has anything to do with this brand of insanity. I don't even think MikeC would approve of this.

No, this is fundamentalist Christians at their worst, and the actual conservatives in Texas are too scared to stop them because of the votes they'll lose. These people aren't conservative in any kind of ideological way, they're bat-shit crazy reactionaries. Revising history is the antithesis of what an actual conservative stands for. If you truly believe that it's necessary to understand the lessons of the past in order to move forward, as I, and most actual conservatives do, you'd agree that this is an incredibly dangerous abuse of political power. This shit has to be stopped at all costs.

Good luck with that.  They've got Chuck Norris.

Big deal.  Al Franken was a wrestler in college!

[Wheezer]

This shit in Texas is getting worse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/texas-schools-rewrites-us-history

"We are fighting for our children's education and our nation's future," Dunbar said. "In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."

Unless the Guardian is somehow quoting out of context, someone needs to point a cannon at this woman and light the fucking fuse.  Seriously, I don't know how any right-minded libertarian/conservative here would not be alarmed by the propulsion of this particular agenda unless (s)he is so fucking scared/insecure and blinded by their own ideology that (s)he would be willing to turn a blind eye to this shit that, in a normal society, wouldn't even be taken seriously. 

I have no tolerance for this unique brand of willful ignorance.  Fuck this bitch and all who follow her.

I don't think being conservative or Republican has anything to do with this brand of insanity. I don't even think MikeC would approve of this.

No, this is fundamentalist Christians at their worst, and the actual conservatives in Texas are too scared to stop them because of the votes they'll lose. These people aren't conservative in any kind of ideological way, they're bat-shit crazy reactionaries. Revising history is the antithesis of what an actual conservative stands for. If you truly believe that it's necessary to understand the lessons of the past in order to move forward, as I, and most actual conservatives do, you'd agree that this is an incredibly dangerous abuse of political power. This shit has to be stopped at all costs.

Good luck with that.  They've got Chuck Norris.

Big deal.  Al Franken was a wrestler in college!

Barney Oldfield strikes again.

[Wheezer]

No one will deny the existence of self-interest.

Until it's separated from clairvoyance and other homely rhetorical baggage, I'll deny it as a meaningful theoretical apparatus, just like the "state of nature."