Ancaps often declare, "All rights are property rights." I was thinking about this the other day, in the context of running into libertarians online who insisted that libertarianism supports "the freedom of movement," and realized that this principle actually entails that people without property have no rights at all, let alone any right to "freedom of movement." Of course, immediately, any ancap readers still left here are going to say, "Wait a second! Everyone owns his own body! And so everyone at least has the right to not have his body interfered with." Well, that is true... except that in ancapistan, one has no right to any place to put that body, except if one owns property, or has the permission of at least one property owner to place that body on her land. So, if one is landless and penniless, one had sure better hope that there are kindly disposed property owners aligned in a corridor from wherever one happens to be to wherever the...
I think sometimes Krauthammer is shrewd, but yeah, Colbert destroys him on this. Blood on the walls.
ReplyDeleteNext ugliest? I'd vote for Colbert myself, or Stewart. They encourage the kind of approach to debate you often decry. They have raised ad hominem to an art.
Come on Ken: they don't always play fair, but at least they are humorous, rather than snarling, like much of the Fox News crew.
DeleteIf I wanted to pick someone from the left, I'd pick someone like Madow or Garafalo.
Well I don't watch Fox so I don't know how snarling. But from what I have seen these past 10 years these guys are the most effective and influential corruptors of debate.
DeleteA friend in Canada asked me what I thought was the biggest problem in the US these days. My answer was that ad hominem is widely believed to be a valid argument. That and the idea that sneering is a good argument, which you just highlighted a few days ago with that New Yorker writer. But I agree those two you name are more like Coulter (who stands alone and incomparable) than my two.
I'm having trouble remembering a single thing Ann Coulter ever said, but my impression is that she talks sense from time to time. I suspect that she understands the world pretty clearly but is "in character" as a movement conservative commentator most of the time and so the things she says are her character's dialogue. At her worst, maybe she's worse that Krauthammer; I don't really know.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea if Krauthammer is similarly "in character", but, if so, I don't remember him ever letting the mask slip. He's been my personal least favorite since I was a teenager ... can't believe he's still a public figure!
Yes. She first hit TV during the OJ trial, where she was sharp and insightful. Then she needed a new gig, and crazed wolverine was available. I think she was serious after 9/11 when she wanted to invade the muslim world , kill their leaders and convert them, but she's smart when it serves her.
DeleteYou really don't like Fox News conservatives, do you?
ReplyDelete