With Libertarianism and justice for all

[vovat]

For more radio fun, I listened to Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian Presidential candidate, being interviewed on NPR. I thought he came across as fairly rude and not too bright. (Brighter than Bush, I suppose, but then so are most potted plants.) Really, he struck me as being pretty similar to the Family Radio fundamentalist types, only instead of "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus," it was "private property, private property, private property." Yes, there are areas in which I think the government has too much control. The thing is, though, who doesn't? I'm sure if you asked Democrats, Republicans, and even Socialists, most of them are not going to say, "Yes, I want the government interfering in every aspect of my life!" There's certainly some disagreement among the different political parties in terms of exactly when the government SHOULD be allowed to interfere, but not wanting a lot of interference isn't an idea on which the Libertarians have a monopoly. Libertarianism, as least as explained by Badnarik (who might not represent the views of all people who consider themselves to be libertarians), seems to be based on easy answers and buzzwords. For instance, he said that criminals are people who don't respect private property. Also, Columbine was apparently caused by Ritalin (something with which the host of the program actually took issue), and a lack of restrictions on gun ownership would result in less crime. In addition, Badnarik used the word "steal" so often, you'd think he was a representative of the RIAA. It's a word that gets a reaction, even when used in a fashion that might not be entirely appropriate. So, yeah, even if I thought Badnarik had a chance of winning, I wouldn't vote for him.

Comments

[revme.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the one I'm thinking of -- I mean, I totally agree that that particular chick was dumb as a box of hammers, and that a bunch of those sorts of folks are doing it because it's a Cause rather than actually feeling strongly about the particular issue, and that a lot of those types of Environmentalists are actually Pretty Embarassing and even maybe Detrimental To Their Cause. The only problem is that P&T were sort of doing a Clueless By Association Thing (More than with the other episodes, where, y'know, it's hard to find, say, someone who believes in Ouija boards who ISN'T clueless -- I had less of a problem with that sorta stuff, especially since most of the people they'd actively beat up on weren't People Who Were Taken In, but The Evil Motherfuckers Who Know Better But Are Saying This Bullshit To Make Loads Of Money), and they seemed to do less actually Hard Science in it. I tend to think that there was a germ of a good episode in that one, but as is, it was a really flawed ep, and sort of a bad way to go out, since wasn't it the season finale? But yeah, I don't hold that ep against the series or anything.

But yeah -- I don't know really. I'm pretty much where you are; I mean, I thought it was interesting that they mentioned in that episode about how in the 1970s everyone thought that Global Cooling was the Big Problem (although, of course, they didn't go into it as much, about reputable scientists-versus-kook/moneymaker scientists, I thought; after all, that's part of the charm of science; hypotheses can be proven wrong and scientists aren't felt compelled to hang on to them, even if it does look a little weird to be "Oh, this is True!" one day and "Oh, no, this wholly other thing is True!" the next -- no matter if you actually were working under a hypothesis the first day that seemed like it was going to bear out, and then the next the results were in that showed how wrong you were); so, I dunno. I think that barring me-doing-my-own-legwork and stuff, I'm tempted to more-or-less trust P&T, since I, well, I trust them and don't necessarily think they'd lie to me (Well.... you know what I mean, heh.) -- but, yeah, I tend to think of it more like you do: If it exists, it's not nearly as big a problem as folks are making it out to be, but it's still a problem. And if it doesn't exist, that pollution can't be good anyway, so something should still be done. I mean, it's not like anyone (uh, as far as I know... maybe some twits are...) is saying "OK, once we get Global Warming licked, we can just sit back and do whatever we want!" -- and since the Suggested Causes of GW are mostly stuff that we know is Bad Anyway, why not spend time fixin' them?

Also, Shari's might just be a West Coast thing, I'm not quite sure. They're sort of a Denny's but a bit better.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get the idea that Penn and Teller are usually more or less accurate, even if they have an agenda that doesn't necessarily agree totally with my own political beliefs.

Is Shari's open all night, and do they have breakfast at all hours?

[revme.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty much how I am. When I agree with them, though, it's AWESOME.

Definitely yes to 24 hrs, and I think yes to breakfast, but I'm not certain on that one.