The Burning Sensation When I Pee: Venerial Disease or Libertarianism?

Yay! I got polled today! But not in the fun way...

If you plan to vote for John Kerry,
press 'one.'

11111111111111111111111111111111.

E-minus 7 days...and like 3 months.

Another political post--I know!--but I read something last night that has me spitting battery acid. It was Reason magazine online. What a self-righteous title, right? Reason. See, our arguments are reasoned because our magazine is titled Reason. No, thats not a tautology, its perfectly reasonable, see, I write for Reason magazine. It's a libertarian outfit. Actually, now it is all perfectly reasonable. No one can do self-righteous like a libertarian can do self-righteous, because a libertarian party don't stop! Hyuh!

The offending article asked various intellectuals to endorse a presidental candidate. Their responses must've sucked all the oxygen from whatever room they were in at the time. Yes, sucked up all the oxygen and released it in the form of flammable methane gas from their knotted anuses, which they then passed off as considered opinions.

Some sample endorsements:

Wendy McElroy, Fox News Columnist, " i
feminist ":
I’m voting for No One for at least three
reasons: 1) As a Canadian, I am spared the insulting process of punching a
ballot to express which power glutton should prevail; 2) as an anarchist, I
refuse to legitimize the process that puts anyone in a position of unjust power
over people’s lives; and 3) as a practical matter of value returned for effort,
the time is better spent enjoying family or working.

Hey! That's 1) typical smug Canadian self-satisfaction, 2) intellectually untenable (anarchism? precious) and 3) complacent idiocy couched in pretentious market rhetoric. What do they call that in hockey, Wendy? Oh yeah, a hat trick! Really, taking twenty minutes to choose your "oppressive overlords" is a waste of time? Well, maybe for you it would be. But don't pretend that regardless of whether or not you punch chad that you don't vote all the same. You vote even by not voting, voting to endorse the status quo (or whatever greater of evils you must to choose from). You can't escape your freedom Wendy!

This is the problem with libertarians. They claim to have dispensed with dogma, religious or otherwise. They claim to believe in the pure rationality of free markets, free minds and individuals using their freedom to pursue their self-interest. But they have really replaced one dogma with another: the apotheosis of the market. And this dogma, like many others, depends on the Myth of Purity. That only if markets were completely free, government as small as possible, people like little economic "rational actors" who at all times know and are able to pursue their self interest, that everything would be as perfect. Well, like Marx waiting for the "historical inevitability" of the "withering away" of the state, this ain't gonna happen. We live in a very diverse world, a very imperfect world, we need structures in place to manage this diversity and imperfection. And we need to make choices. Constantly. Choices between competing valid yet perhaps irreconcilable ends, and choices between the lesser of evils. Wendy is a political Holden Caufield and she needs to grow up.

Another?

Jeff A. Taylor, writes for Reason, endorses...

George W. Bush, pathetic bastard that he is -- and has made me. The only
thing that I am certain that John Kerry would do is raise taxes.

Again, with the taxes. You like low taxes? I know which country has low taxes: Afghanistan! You like minimalist government? I know which country has minimalist government: Somalia! Why don't you vote with your fucking passport and move to Khandahar. Now I see why the lot of you libertarians were against the assault weapon ban extension, it's not about Red states and Blue states, it's about a State of Nature. Can you name me an advanced democracy with our economic vitality that has lower taxes and less government than the U.S. ? Even if not a western-style democracy, can you name one that you would like to live in? Go ahead, don that Rawlsian veil of ignorance, assume that you will be in one of the lower quintiles of that society....Free markets and democracy require money through adequate taxation. How long do you think you'll have your rights to free speech, association, expression, and privacy to indulge in your socially-liberal mores if the society you live in is ignorant and uneducated? If its judiciary and law enforcement are not professional, well paid, well trained and kept honest?

This is how libertarians reproduce. They provoke apoplexy and outrage among other members of humanity, leading us to say: "Fuck it. If they want to live in this Madd Max Beyond the Thunderdome post-apocolyptic world, let them. They deserve it." I'm not quite there yet. I'll offer the liberal solution to the problem of the libertarianism: prescription drugs.