Defining ‘bloggertarian’
by Paulie, 7 November 2007
‘Bloggertarian‘ is a piece of shorthand that I’ve found very useful recently. I pinched it from Pootergeek a while ago. But I’ve looked around and not found any definition of it anywhere.
The good thing about it is that - even though it’s a new word - when I’ ve used it, people seem to know what you mean instantly. My definition here is partly based upon the conclusion to an argument that I had with a particularly ugly version of this breed earlier. I’d stand by it as a template definition - you know, to help the OED out when they need it.
%%%%%%%%%%
A bloggertarian is a self-styled libertarian that can be found in weblog comment boxes and - occasionally - with their own weblogs - thus the name. There are plenty of decent libertarian bloggers around who have studied the subject and understand what it is, but they are in the minority of those who call themselves libertarians.
There is a much larger number of incoherent self-styled libertarians. The writing style tends towards the misanthropic. They are often keen to personalise historical processes and attempt to identify particular prominent public figures with those processes. Once this is done, argument can be replaced with personal abuse for those individuals. According to one spectacular genius of the genus for example, almost every government minister is a ‘cunt‘.
That elected governments have almost no legitimacy goes without saying for the bloggertarian. Both the right and left variety are keen on variations on ‘direct democracy’, but don’t waste any time trying to find a bloggertarian attempting to outline a model that would be likely to be accepted by any significant sub-set of the general public.
When politicians make decisions that are influenced by electoral considerations, this is either a scandal, or it isn’t acknowledged. Politicians are never described as having proposed policies that the bloggertarian disagrees with. Instead, almost any government policy that has an impact upon the individual is described as….”they’re lubing up to fuck us in the ass yet again” - or in similar terms.
It’s fairly pointless to accuse them of poisoning public debate because there is a slightly unformed (but surprisingly common) view that the application of reason is fairly futile and that markets are much wiser anyway. Of course all political standpoints have sweary advocates, and this - in itself - does no real harm to political discourse (indeed, it sometimes wakes it up). But with the bloggertarians, the profanity is instrumental.
The bloggertarian exists primarily to criticise. They will almost never present a policy proposal of their own. If they do, they will not offer one that anyone would be able to advocate in the context of an election.The bloggertarian will often tell you that this is because the electoral system is “fucked” and that it provides them with no space to impose their minority views on anyone else. But they are never able to outline a suitable electoral system that any bargaining unit of the general public would ever accept. With a bit more book learning, the bloggertarian could become formally anti-democratic instead of just being objectively so.
For the bloggertarian, the term ‘libertarian’ is little more than a flag of convenience. It is a useful one as it is a position that appears to require no evidence in support of a statement.When bloggertarians are confronted with the consequences of a particular libertarian position, they will often rapidly retreat to either a standard set of Conservative Party prejudices, or occasionally, to the slightly ahistorical position of a lumpen intelligentsia Guardianista.
For the avoidance of doubt, the bloggertarian rarely has any real commitment to libertarianism. It’s common to find a particularly flexible notion of what a liberty is. It is almost unheard of for a bloggertarian to acknowledge the tension between particular liberties and democracy, or to present any ideas on how ‘liberties’ can be improved. Generally, they only get as far as demanding that a government stop doing whatever it proposes to do. It goes without saying that almost every government decision that impacts upon civil liberties is the final brick in a completed totalitarian wall. For many bloggertarians, there is no distinction between a social democrat and a Stalinist (or a Nazi). They are all the same.
As an example of this, it wouldn’t occur to the bloggertarian that a privatised replacement for a particular state function may establish intrusive restrictions of it’s own. For the bloggertarian, without government, there would be no such thing as CCTV and there would be no coercive forces that could intrude upon your privacy.
There are journalists and other public figures that provide thought leadership and are acclaimed by this grouping.
And this is where to you come in, dear reader.
Can you provide us with a list of examples of our greatest bloggertarians, their heroes and their inspirations? Put them in the comments box - where else?
And - reading this back - I’m prepared to accept that this looks like I’ve created a massive Straw Man here. But I can think of a dozen sites that I’ve visited in the last couple of days that would tick almost all of the comparison points outlined here. Not just a cluster that have a number of points in common. And just click on a few of the links to the personal blogs of the commenters under this post if you’d like an easy start in your quest.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 0:34
That was the old me, I call myself a pragmatist nowdays - I’ve moved on found a new flag.
You are not alone in your quest see - Mike Huben’s excellent summary of web libertarians (only 13 years old now):
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 1:54
You should definitely check out the “One Lesson” & “One Lesson: The Second Lesson” - quite funny.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 9:50
“Economic libertarians”, corporate stockholm syndrome sufferers, robust individualists who live at their parents’ place, self-hating Republicans of any nation, right-wing-versions-of-Rik-from-The-Young-Ones, lackwits who can have their thumbs taken out of their mouths and replaced by the market’s spigot without noticing, belligerent solipsistic cretins for whom thinking more than no steps ahead would cause an aneurism, mealy-mouthed pissants for whom no problem is too great despite having no problems, bewildered ethical illiterates who believe that society can be transformed without transforming them (just making them richer), birds who believe they could fly faster in a vacuum without all this atmospheric drag.
Libertwatrians.
Oh you meant URLs.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 10:07
“it wouldn’t occur to the bloggertarian that a privatised replacement for a particular state function may establish intrusive restrictions of it’s own. For the bloggertarian, without government, there would be no such thing as CCTV and there would be no coercive forces that could intrude upon your privacy.”
Straw man indeed. You seem to have confused me with an anarchist.
Otherwise your definition is spot-on.
As for your example; when gated communities, banks, shops and other private CCTV operators get together to build a massive database of every citizen’s DNA, enter my license plate number and details of my every car journey onto a second database, put my children’s details onto a third, send me hectoring letters if they’re overweight, claim the right to enter my home for any one of a myriad of different reasons, and appropriate a third of my income for the privilege… then drop me an email and I’ll call them “cunts” too. Deal?
Until then, I’ll be busy reading my pop-up edition of Anarchy, State and Utopia.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 10:50
There’s an obvious point you haven’t mentioned Paulie - the ‘bloggertarians’ are *Tories.* I might be wrong, and let’s hope we don’t find out any time soon, but I get the impression that they wouldn’t be so quick to call ministers ‘cunts’ if their lot were in power. Like the distinction you make; the bloggertarian is too *partisan* to be a proper libertarian.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 10:54
Excellent post Paulie.
Just a quick aside to Mr Eugenides - in fact, private organisations have built up just such databases in the past, using available technology, to, for example, blacklist trade unionists. I would also point out that the third of your earnings has also paid for the transport you use daily, the education system that might just have contributed to your “above average technical skills”, the health care you require (and remember that private health is parasitic on publicly funded training), and a range of other benefits that you may not use now but could be eternally grateful for in the future. On top of which, it pays my salary - so thanks for that third mate and keep paying.
All of which points to the desperate monism of much crude libertarian thought. We need both collective and individual property and rights and the libertarian debate deals with the balance between the two; practically rather than ideologically.
Finally, in embracing capitalism uncritically, much crude libertarianism is rejecting its interesting historical roots and could do with re-discovering the critique of monopolistic and corporate capital by its antecedents.
Sorry Will. Couldn’t find a YouTube of Auberon Herbert but here’s a glib one liner, ‘the world is more complicated than that’.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 12:51
Shuggy,
” but I get the impression that they wouldn’t be so quick to call ministers ‘cunts’ if their lot were in power”
Then you haven’t been paying attention.
One of our greatest complaints is precisely this: the Conservatives are no better: there is no party offering to roll back the grip of the state. Have you seen DK on the topic of the Conservative position on, well, anything?
All three main parties are hopelessly statist. That is why you can identify bloggertarians - they clearly aren’t ordinary Conservatives.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 13:51
A third of my earnings hasnt paid for my education - it was my parent’s generation* just a shame my 40% is going to creating an functioning illiterate, innumerate generation vis State Education. (By the way I feel people actually deserve better than the crap they are served up without choice.)
Most anger against the govt tax take is that the money is taken but little of value is given in return …the contract has been broken but we cant get out of it unlike in a commercial situation.
I don’t agree that private medicine is parasitic but for sake of argument lets take your (flawed) assumption at face value. The situation is caused by the monopoly position of the state, stopping private medicine training its own staff. In that case of course they use some staff trained by the state. (They also prolong the participation of many people in health care, who would simply have quit the NHS in disgust years ago.)
(*when the Ponzi scheme of the Welfare State at least appeared to function in some way.)
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 13:56
“Then you haven’t been paying attention”
Guilty as charged. I don’t, for example, follow DK’s arguments. I have to take your word that they exist; personally I find them rather difficult to locate under the pile of profanity. What I have read, though, leads me to be sceptical about your claim that bloggertarians’ attitude to Labour and Conservatives is essentially the same. I dare say I’ll be proved wrong in due course - but I hope that doesn’t happen any time soon. And not because I particularly care about being proved wrong.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 14:30
In response to Paulie’s question at the bottom of the post, I’d like to nominate your commenter, Hovis: a hero, an inspiration. And, above all, a thinker.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 14:33
Bugger. You beat me to it Tom.
A giant of an intellect indeed.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 15:48
Let nobody ever accuse Hovis of belonging to “a functioning illiterate, innumerate generation”. He’s probably just tired.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 17:07
OK Hovis. Paulie might have complained about abusive language but I am afraid yours exceeded all others for personal insult. I refer to:
the crap they are served up without choice.
It is a bit different for me as I work in adult education so my students are there through choice, and we all work bloody hard to ensure that the students have an excellent experience. Now, there is a lot that I question about the current government’s education policies and the system is far from perfect, but you have chosen to insult some incredibly dedicated friends of mine.
Some work in tough schools getting amazing results from people suffering from levels of multiple disadvantage that you can only dream of. To do this they have to work long hours, not because of a market reward, but because they bloody care - and care passionately.
What is more, it is the failure of markets that has led to this disadvantage. It is those working for the state who are putting it right and giving people hope and self belief. And all you can do is glibly dismiss such dedication as serving up crap. I would like to see you say that to their faces. Even more I would love to put you in front of a class in one of these schools and watch you try and cope - that would really be a laugh.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 17:14
Just for the record, I’ll repeat: I have no problem with profanity. Anyone who has met me will tell you that it would be massively hypocritical for me to mind swearing.
But I do object to swearing as a substitute for argument, or the idea that you can substitute a public figure for an historical process and then call that public figure a cunt instead of arguing your point in context.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 17:26
Mind you Paulie, just calling some commenters cunts is incredibly tempting :-)
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 17:39
Call them cunts. It’s the only language they understand.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 17:57
Call them cunts?
I did already.
Have a look here:
http://devilskitchen.me.uk/2007/11/libertarianism-and-solutions.html#7888170013112022843
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 18:15
Gadgie
Oh dear, did that nasty Hovis insult some of your frendy wendies? Ah diddums!!
I’m sure there are dedicated and hardworking teachers in the state sector. That doesn’t mean that state education isn’t crap.It is, as the 20% functional illiteracy and innumeracy in my local area clearly shows.The sooner the state gets out of education the better, as the recent Swedish experience clearly shows.
However, you are right about one thing, the plight of underprivileged kids is entirely due to a failure of the market. A failure in the market for education. The sooner useless schools go bankrupt and useless teachers find they have no pupils because the parents have taken their children elsewhere the sooner the lot of poor children will improve.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 18:46
I have a new idea. Will always wants to line up tossers and shoot them. I think we ought to put them in front of a class in a school in a tough area. Far crueller.
Can’t be bothered to discuss mechanistic abstractions with people who have no concept of reality.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 18:48
Not only Will …
Something from the archives.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 21:00
Gadgie
I can only quote a good friend of mine
“You may think that it’s fair enough for you to chuck obscene insults at people just because they have views that you don’t like –but I don’t agree”
Oh No! Pauline isn’t my friend…he’s yours!!!
“Can’t be bothered to discuss mechanistic abstractions with people who have no concept of reality.”
Presumably you’ll be giving up your risible ‘blog’ then.
And if I did stand in front of the class you mention I would tell them that they were the victims of a failed, faith based ideology called socialism which condemns them to lifelong demoralization and victim hood, all in the name of ideological purity and that the state employees paid to keep them in this condition couldn’t give a damn about them.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 21:04
hakmao
That’s the problem with people like me, see, I just don’t understand that it was ‘CAPITALISM WOT DUN IT!’
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 21:12
The problem with infantile, politically illiterate degenerates–‘Pauline’ WTF?–like you is that you don’t understand anything. Carry on shitting in your nappy little man.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 21:49
Do these fucking pricks think we’re trying to convince them of something?
Fucking idiotic fantasists.
We are taking the piss out of your moronic feudal loving piss — gaaawwwd — talk about political illiterates.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 22:37
if I did stand in front of the class you mention I would tell them that they were the victims of a failed, faith based ideology called socialism which condemns them to lifelong demoralization and victim hood
Would that be before or after they kicked your head in?
Because I tell you what you do first, you establish control by earning their respect and trust. That respect has to be mutual. I can assure you that I can’t do it, I do not have that ability, but the people I know can and can do wonderful things in transforming lives. They deserve the utmost respect and they demand the type of resources that a privatised system would deny them in a poor area.
Your description of socialism is sadly inadequate but I think you need to learn more about your libertarianism if you are to engage in anything like a meaningful debate. The historical roots of libertarianism lie in early radical liberalism (one of the major precursors of Marx) and its later development. It was anti-statist because it saw the state as one of the instruments by which the products of labour were extracted from the ‘productive classes’ by the ‘unproductive classes’. They sought to find ways to return the full value of labour to the labourer and developed a form of free-market anti-capitalism. They were concerned about the brutalities and inequities of the market, as was Adam Smith if you read him properly. The problem for modern libertarians was that they failed and it was the consolidation of voluntary self-help into the state that provided the buttress between the market and the individual. Any anti-statist must recognise that the state had acquired a vital new role in social protection. This is the problem with the monism of simplistic libertarians, they have a one-dimensional, ideological view of the state.
Early libertarians were also concerned with ownership and control of the means of production. To substitute real and direct ownership with a commercial relationship as a customer is totally inadequate vis a vis power in a market place. Thus the most thoughtful and interesting of libertarians explore all sorts of forms of collective security such as citizens’ incomes funded through general taxation. Look it up, you may be surprised by its advocates.
If you want to explore the history of this there is a post on my risible blog. It is based on scholarship. Find it yourself.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 22:55
Waste of time your Gadgeness.
It will only bounce off their thick metal plated skulls.
Ask them about anything to do with the workplace — where we spend most of our daily lives being told what to do. Ask them about not being coerced by the boss class. You’ll find nothing at all from them on that. Unions? Pah — interferes with the sacred ‘market’.
These ignorant fuckwits deserve scorn — nothing more. Not even pity.
Thursday 8 November 2007 at 23:03
Waste of time your Gadgeness
I know, but boy do I feel better for that :-)
Friday 9 November 2007 at 1:00
Gadgie,
It is possible to be a time serving teacher or one who career climbs on the basis of ingratiating with the boss and not giving more than lip service to the students. It is also the case that if more reward were on offer people who would make excellent teachers would become teachers. These are problems of a uniformist state school system.
Vouchers are the in vogue (libertarian/conservative) solution for introducing competition into the education system. Provide each student with a vouchered amount either across the board all the same or more equitably on a means tested sliding scale. Students and their parents are then able to choose where they allocate this resource. Without under resourcing poor students.
Can’t see any real problem with this.
Friday 9 November 2007 at 1:26
unaha-closp: I think you are mad. Seek help.
And stop cluttering up our comment boxes with your insanity.
No. I wont engage with you in any way shape or form. I need to speak to someone on a certain level. That level doesn’t include yours.
have a good fucking day.
Friday 9 November 2007 at 9:51
Vouchers are the in vogue (libertarian/conservative) solution for introducing competition into the education system.
Yes, this has worked brilliantly in the US.
(That was sarcasm. It wasn’t economically necessary, but I did it anyway.)
Friday 9 November 2007 at 10:51
It’s difficult to make bloggertarians look good, but Gadgie’s deployment of the evergreen “How dare you besmirch the name of my dedicated colleagues?!” non-argument and Will’s refusal to engage in reasoned argument at all have combined here to that effect. I don’t come here to read a mirrorworld version of Devil’s Kitchen. Pull yourselves the fuck together.
Public education is one of those areas where some bloggertarians occasionally make a good point. This is because, instead of spouting their usual empty slogans, they can point to some alternatives that might work—and work to the advantage of, for example, poor black people. Western educational systems have been screwed around catastrophically by Left-leaning “educationalists”, who know exactly as little about research as you would expect from people who think there’s anything at all “scientific” about Marxism (the libertarianism of the Left). As usual, the victims of this tinkering have been the children of the people the concerned middle-classes claim to be so concerned about. The Guardianistas can fix the system very nicely thank you for their own.
Another evergreen response to suggestions that there should be any kind of system of choice in public education (or, indeed, the suggestion that bad schools be shut down) is the empty slogan: “we want a country where every school is a good school”. Now that’s the kind of babytalk that deserves our contempt and one of Will’s “have a good fucking day”s.
[I should point out to any bloggertarians reading this comment that I agree with the bulk of what the Drink-Soaked have to say here; I’m just doing my bit to keep our intellectual standards higher than yours. It’s a matter of civic hygiene.]
Friday 9 November 2007 at 11:02
they can point to some alternatives that might work
Oops. Hadn’t seen the more recent data on vouchers.
Friday 9 November 2007 at 11:47
pootergeek
“It’s difficult to make bloggertarians look good, but Gadgie’s deployment of the evergreen “How dare you besmirch the name of my dedicated colleagues?!” non-argument and Will’s refusal to engage in reasoned argument at all have combined here to that effect.”
Damn! You’ve spoiled our fun now! Besides the last thing these people want is rational debate. What they want is an echo chamber, where their deeply held but irrational beliefs are never questioned.
I’m sure there was no need to provide that link to the article on educational vouchers. So deeply committed are the trots to the proper education of poor children that I’m sure they have all read it and pondered long and hard on its possible implications. And then dismissed it as a foul conspiracy by those “FUCKING BASTARD LIBERTARIANS> THE FUCK FUCK FUCKING BASTARDS.”
gadgie
Being a scholar I’m sure you’ll have no trouble identifying who said this:
“We have cleared the way for individual people. The opportunity for development must be independent of wealth and social origin. The poor person should have the same chances as the rich.”
I’ll give you a clue, he was a socialist and it’s not Alan Johnson, although it does sound like him. Do you agree with him?
Friday 9 November 2007 at 12:49
What PooterGeek said, save for the call to engage in reasoned argument with those incapable of such. Nobody owes these people a response, just as those who post here are not owed a response in the comments. You can take it or leave it.
I do, though, agree with Damian on education, and the data speak for themselves. We could do with more of this empiricism in politics, and less bullshit, impossibilist ideology.
Talking of Sweden, it’s worth pointing out that there have been relatively few private schools opened there since the introduction of the voucher scheme. Parents, it seems, are by and large happy to continue sending their children to community schools, in which there is far less state interference than in the UK.
Denmark is another country traditionally thought of as being in the hegemonic grip of social democracy, but here too there is demand-side financing of schools. Most of my friends and neighbours in Denmark were left-leaning - natural SD and SF voters. But they still supported the decentralised education system, with its internal market and school vouchers.
Other policies worth investigating - claimed by right-libertarians, but which were in fact first advocated by left-libertarians and greens - include the replacement of absurdly complex benefits systems with a basic income scheme, and a vastly simplified direct taxation regime. Where is the debate on such matters within the mainstream UK left? From what I understand, it’s impossible to discuss them in the Labour Party, which won’t even countenance a fair voting system for the Westminster parliament.
I find it incredible how in the UK we have such a centralised tax system, whereby revenues are collected centrally, and local government is dependent on the largesse of Westminster. Elsewhere in Europe taxes are collected by the local council, and a set portion distributed upwards. In Denmark income taxes vary from council to council, and residents are given a detailed breakdown of how much is spent, and where. People take an interest in such matters, and debate them in a mature manner.
In my experience, those among our European neighbours who know anything about this country look on us with utter bemusement. They regard the UK as a feudal backwater with an economy built on tick.
Friday 9 November 2007 at 14:51
CBI is an interesting idea, but frankly it does not appear to fly. It costs a fortune, introduces the quandary of things like housing, local variations, identity fraud amongst other things.
If someone can square the circle, then that would be marvelous, but right now it is a non-starter. Shame, as it fits well with Rule of Law and simplicity.
“consolidation of voluntary self-help into the state”
Shame that consolidation was not, of itself, voluntary.
Friday 9 November 2007 at 15:19
Hey Roger,
It was you that said this about my post:
“Who on earth was that? Talk about a re-framing exercise by the Left-Fibbernazis.” Here:
http://devilskitchen.me.uk/2007/11/libertarianism-and-solutions.html
I’ve just seen your fantastic site: http://neuearbeitmachtfrei.blogspot.com/
Great title: New Labour Makes You Free. Sounds familiar! Great strapline too! “Under New Labour, the UK has become subject to a Sociofascist, Autocratic and borderline Kleptocracy.”
And the pic. Did YOU spend hours photoshopping the gates of Auschwitz to make your vile point? Or was it some other fuckwit? I don’t know whether disgust or spite is the most appropriate response in your case. You are a terrifically sick man, aren’t you? Is there any other atrocity that you’d like to reformat to make your weird point?
And these hilarious e-mail addresses you’ve invented:
bogoffeunazis@yahoo.co.uk
eufasciststate@gmail.com
barrososucksdick@hotmail.com
eussr.airstrip1.smith.w@hotmail.com
I believe that - of all of the bloggertarians that I’ve found, you really are - demonstrably - the most spectacularly stupid fuckwit. Of the posters here, (compared to Will, for instance) I usually tend to err on the side of ’suffering fools gladly’, but you are THE exception that proves the rule. Anyone who were to engage in any debate with someone who doesn’t see the distinction between - on the one hand - a social democratic party in an age of network governance - and on the other hand, a Nazi / Stalinist dictatorship - is barely worth anything other than a volley of insults.
This is not the fallacy in media and politics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies#Fallacies_in_the_media_and_politics
I’m not objecting to your views because you have advocated other things I disagree with. I object to them because you base them upon assumptions that would be laughed at by sixth formers.
Arguing with you is like arguing with a creationist. No-one should bother. I hereby command the other Popinjays to stand down. All units have been instructed accordingly. The war is over.
Friday 9 November 2007 at 16:57
You have jumped immediately into ad hominem (however much you may try and assert that you have not). You are losing already. Badly. Even your attack above is a sign of desperation and fear, including your response of “you’re not worthy” blah blah.
If you think New Labour is, erm, what is that term you used?…”a social democratic party in an age of network governance”…then you really need to look more carefully at what they are doing and also more carefully into your sources of fatuous newspeak.
The only assumptions around here are the ones you think I am making.
Try replying without the juvenile vulgarities and pompous newspeak next time. Lets see if you can.
Friday 9 November 2007 at 17:00
Bloggeraria-fascist!
Friday 9 November 2007 at 19:21
Oh dear, poor Pauline, what did that nasty Roger say..
“Who on earth was that? Talk about a re-framing exercise by the Left-Fibbernazis.”
And what did you say about him. Let me remind you,
“Bloggeraria-fascist!”
Let’s examine the evidence for each allegation in turn. You claim Roger is some kind of fascist. I’ll leave you to define “Bloggeraria” as you enjoy it so much.
Roger is a Classic Liberal, as the manifesto on his blog makes clear. I feel sure you’ve read it in detail and have a number of interesting and pertinent comments to make. Roger believes that people own themselves and is against any form of coercion against the individual either by the state or any other person or organization….sound like fascism or any form of authoritarisnism to you? Incidentally the very existence of his manifesto is proof of the foolishness of your claim that “bloggatarians” are only ever negative.
Now let’s look at yourself. Here are a few recent quotes
“Once again, for the avoidance of doubt, I’m the one who’s gone to the trouble of defining ‘bloggertarian’ so I’m claiming sole authority in explaining the term.”
“Sole authority” eh? Here’s another,
“I hereby command the other Popinjays to stand down. All units have been instructed accordingly. The war is over.”
You in charge? I’m sure you’d love to be Beria to Will’s Stalin.
And then there’s there’s your recent claim that making the police more accountable to the people they serve would lead to ‘Illiberal demagoguery’. A more unpleasant and snobbish disregard for the wishes of ordinary people would be hard to imagine.
Likewise your proposal for the establishment of regional assemblies “by the back door” in the teeth of the clear and democratically expressed wishes of the people, is breathtaking in its contempt for them.
Who, then, is the Nazi?
Friday 9 November 2007 at 20:21
Fortunately, the bloggertarians normalize the situation by deploying “Peter Horne”, a man exposed to so many absurd but straight-faced Nazi comparisons by his gang that he has been rendered incapable of detecting ironic ones. Or, indeed, of recognizing irony in any form.
Oh, the stupidity!
Friday 9 November 2007 at 21:51
NoPootergeek. Don’t argue with him. He’s just a FibberNazi.
Friday 9 November 2007 at 22:50
Great! Normal service has been resumed. More gibberish, misdirection and abuse.
Oh, what a surprise!
Saturday 10 November 2007 at 0:07
http://scwr.blogspot.com/2007/11/naming-of-parts.html
Saturday 10 November 2007 at 8:19
http://inversions-and-deceptions.blogspot.com/2007/08/shuggy-on-libertarians.html
Saturday 10 November 2007 at 19:33
Was Pol Pot a bloggertarian?
He destroyed the state, and something worse took its place. Perhaps decent libertarians are warier of this.
Anarcho-capitalism on Cambodia:
What has been happening so swiftly in Indochina can only be exhilarating for libertarians: for what we have been seeing before our very eyes is nothing less than the death of a State–or rather two states, the Saigon regime in South Vietnam, and the Phnom Penh regime in Cambodia.
*chortle*
Sunday 11 November 2007 at 0:06
Pootergeek, to reiterate what was said above, there’s no point engaging with political illiterates, you might as well try to reason with a bag of crisps–you’d get more sense out of it.
Sunday 11 November 2007 at 10:20
“Talking of Sweden, it’s worth pointing out that there have been relatively few private schools opened there since the introduction of the voucher scheme. Parents, it seems, are by and large happy to continue sending their children to community schools, in which there is far less state interference than in the UK.”
Above, Pootergeek linked to a May 2007 Economist article (which I have also linked to a number of times when advocating a voucher system) which, on the subject of Sweden’s voucher system, states the following…
“The result has been burgeoning variety and a breakneck expansion of the private sector. At the time of the reforms only around 1% of Swedish students were educated privately; now 10% are, and growth in private schooling continues unabated.”
Now, it may be true that relatively few new private schools have opened there, it must be the case that the existing ones have expanded.
It is also important to note that a crucial part of your point (and with which I agree) is that “there is far less state interference than in the UK.” Very true.
Such is the state’s stranglehold over education in the UK that politicians constantly use people’s lives — if you stuff up someone’s education you severely lower their life chances and reduce social mobility — as a political football, sometimes in the most cynical way.
I dislike politicians for this particularly. But then again, this is what Paulie refers to as a political reality: the politicians will do what they have to do to get re-elected and it is easier, for instance, to simply make exams simpler (or change their nature) to show good results than it is to radically alter the system.
So, the electoral realities fail children, and fail the adults that those children grow into too. As such, and because of the political realities that Paulie refers to, politicians should have as little direct control over the education system as possible.
And if that applies to the education system, then it applies equally to other systems. Many of the frontline bloggers — teachers, doctors, nurses, etc. — complain of many the same problems: the most recurring being the imposition of arbitrary “targets” which then make the target more important than the intrinsic job that the service should do (educating children, curing people, etc.).
This is the basis of my libertarianism: I am more of a “consequentialist” libertarian that a “rights theorist” (as Wikipedia defines these two factions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian).
Sorry if any of you find the above unpalatable, but I felt that I should stick my oar in. I do apologise for the absence of swearing and the notable lack of praise for the Tory party.
DK
Monday 12 November 2007 at 9:52
The libertarians I’ve come across tend to be rather thoughtful people who tend to be quite involved in their communities and what might be called civic society.
The ‘bloggertarians’ are, it would seem to me, wanting to be controversial, a little bit naughty and attracted to a slightly out-there point of view. A bit like students who join the SWP.
Going back to the original request -
Can you provide us with a list of examples of our greatest bloggertarians, their heroes and their inspirations? Put them in the comments box - where else?
I would have to name Paul Staines, who blogs as Guido Fawkes, for relying on the (purported) protection of states when under threat, uses that stick himself and all the while complains about the overweening state, often in the language of ‘lubing’ as mentioned above.