So, Is the Truce Ended Now?
Does the fact that Lew Rockwell is allowing Karen DeCoster to simply make shit up to smear Robert Poole mean that the truce is over?
Bob?
Bob?
Libertarians, My Libertarians!
Cruel to be kind means that I love you . Because, while I think you are mistaken, your hearts are in the right place -- yes, even you, Silas -- unlike some people . This Breitbart fellow (discussed in the link above), by all appearances, deliberately doctored a video of Shirley Sherrod to make her remarks appear virulently racist, when they had, in fact, the opposite import. I heard that at a recent Austrian conference, some folks were talking about "Callahan's conservative turn." While that description is not entirely inaccurate, I must say that a lot of these people who today call themselves conservative give me the heebie-jeebies.
What truce?
ReplyDeleteGene, I don't remember Karen ever signing on to such a truce. If you spot Stephan, Hulsmann, Jeff Tucker, or anyone else who posted on Rizzo's blog doing something naughty, feel free to cry foul.
ReplyDelete(I'm not even following the link; it doesn't matter whether what she is saying is true or not, since she never said, "Let's stop fighting with our friends in DC.")
I followed the link. What shit did she make up exactly?
ReplyDeleteI also followed that link. I'm confused by your allegations.
ReplyDeleteGene, FWIW, I think Karen's description of Poole's writings were at least as fair as your description of Karen's post. Yes, I imagine Poole's buddies would say, "What the heck are you talking about, Ms. DeCoster?! He can advocate jointly owned public-private roads without being a 'champion' of corporatism!"
ReplyDeleteBy the same token--as you see here--friends of Karen would be outraged that you would accuse her of "simply making sh*t up" when she is pointing to someone who clearly doesn't feel outraged by the TSA taking over security, or has no objection in publicly calling for public-private partnerships in business.
The one difference, as I see it, is that Karen never agreed she was going to play nice, whereas you did. And remember too when you explicitly based your conditional truce on me (and others) telling Karen et al. to "cut the cr*p" if they crossed the boundaries of courtesy, I explicitly told you I wasn't going to do so.
So no, I don't think this is a violation of the truce. By the same token, the next time Tom Palmer bites Kinsella's head off, that won't be a violation either. Only people who put their names on Rizzo's post are hypocrites if they violate it.
"Reason’s Robert Poole spilled his noodles again."
ReplyDeleteStupid ad hominem.
"He wants to see travelers undergo more intrusive measures..."
Well, no, he's explicitly making this recommendation because he argues it will be less intrusive.
'Not only that, he wants regular Joes to undergo an FBI approval and obtain a government-issued ID card before they can become a “trusted traveler”'
DeCoster presents this as if today you can become a "trusted traveller" without this ID. But, of course, there is no such category today, so he's not talking about imposing anything on anybody; if you want to get in this fast track, then you can get this special ID.
"but Poole has long been a big TSA proponent..."
Totally made up, at least if the link she's got is the best she can do. Poole is making a recommendation about what sort of screening ought to be done. Bob, if tomorrow you say "The Fed shouldn't lower interest rates," and the next day I link to that and say "Bob is a big proponent of the Fed..." Well, I'd be LYING, wouldn't I?
And, again, the "corporate state" part -- completely unfounded. If he were advocating taking, say, the grocery industry and making it a public-private partnership, then she would have a case. But he's advocating taking public services and (partially) privatizing them. I bet he'd prefer them completely private, but just doesn't think that's going to happen.
So, yes, she's just making shit up.
And as far as DeCoster not having signed on, true... but Lew Rockwell, who published Mario's peace call, is giving her the platform to write this nonsense. So I'd say that's a bit like one party to a peace agreement letting someone else stand on his parapet and shoot at the enemy, and then saying "Hey, it's not ME who's doing the shooting!"
And, of course, that's why you wouldn't agree with my caveat in the first place -- you knew Lew's attack dogs would be back in action in a week or two, and didn't want to have to call them on it!
I have to pay off my AmEx Christmas bill so this will be my last post here. I announce this not to show I'm "above" all this, but because if Gene comes back with some zinger argument, I don't want to give the appearance that I'm stumped...
ReplyDeleteGene, your analogy (or is it a metaphor?) is bad: In today's context, I would view the Fed cutting interest rates as an intervention. Under your view, if Poole said, "The government should use its existing powers of martial law to round up Arabs..." then that wouldn't be any reason for a Rothbardian to accuse him of being a statist. After all, he's just advising the government on how to exercise an existing power.
Of course I didn't expect Karen to refrain from questioning the libertarian bona fides and intelligence of people she thinks are wusses. Karen never apologized for her past writings and I'm sure doesn't think the people at the LRC blog have done anything wrong.
The whole point of that peace deal was to say, "Hey, if you think it's worthwhile to keep open the dialog, especially among Austrian economists, who tend to hang out in different circles, then put your name down here and let's all agree we will brush off the arrows that we are certain people in both our camps will shoot at each other."
Now I'll give you a pass since your agreement was conditional--i.e. you said, "I won't accuse anyone of being an a-hole, just so long as no one is an a-hole like they've been for as long as I can remember." But the whole point of the truce was so that when someone said something dumb, we would just ignore it and not draw attention to it (like you did in this post).
So e.g. I'm not going to link to this post on my blog and say, "Gene is a moron and can't read truce agreements!!"
Bob, all Poole was saying was that if TSA is screening, they might as well catch some people! He wasn't recommending any new intervention at all.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, ignoring people who are a*holes is nice. Even better would be not giving them a soapbox to be a*holes from.
I've got up to speed on this. Who gives a shit about LRC and Austrian infighting? The term Austrian should be given up and people should resume ignoring the crazies.
ReplyDeleteGene, with all due respect, this is small time.