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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35891 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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With "Build the Wall" on the right and "Give me your huddled masses" on the left?

I think it would be reasonable to classify Bryan Caplan as a libertarian, and he supports open borders. I'm not sure if you could strictly call Objectivism a subset of libertarianism, but certainly Ayn Rand is an influential figure within the libertarian school, and IIRC John Galt's speech contains a passage where Galt says that the only functions of government should be to protect citizens from threats from without (e.g. foreign invasion, which I take to include secure borders) and threats from within (e.g. murder and theft at the hands of one's fellow citizens), and the government should otherwise leave well enough alone.

How do you square this with ACAB stickers on the left and Thin Blue Line flags on the right?... Those all seem to be cases where the "right" broadly speaking is asking the gub'mint to protect them, and the left is saying just let it happen we can handle ourselves.

I'll concede that Thin Blue Line flags on the right is a wrinkle in my theory, but I don't think ACAB stickers actually contradict it. Yesterday I was binge-reading a bunch of articles about the defund/abolish the police movement in 2020, and as far as I understand it, supporters of the movement generally don't think "just let [crime] happen we can handle ourselves". They rather tend to support abolishing the police in favour of delegating a large range of social functions to social workers, case workers, psychologists etc., as opposed to pure laissez-faire state-of-nature existence.

I'm increasingly convinced as time goes on that there are like maybe 25 libertarians in the entire USA, and everyone else just adopts libertarian talking points when it is convenient to their preexisting tribal commitments.

Well, it's a spectrum, not a binary. There's a big difference between "we don't need police at all" and "we do need police" and "we need police and they should be legally empowered to do anything they so choose to stop/prevent crime". My half-baked theory is that where one falls on the authoritarian-libertarian spectrum will be inversely proportional to one's internally perceived ability to protect oneself, so people who believe that they are very poorly equipped to protect themselves from harm will be very authoritarian, people who believe that they are very well equipped to protect themselves from harm will be very libertarian, and everyone else will be somewhere in the middle, proportional to said self-perceived ability.

No one who is a Trump supporter is also a Libertarian, that is just flat out incompatible.

Agree.

I'm not sure if you could strictly call Objectivism a subset of libertarianism

Objectivists deny any belonging to libertarianism and have an odd tendency to support global government.

re: Rand

Ron Paul made the excellent point that a border wall will keep Americans in as much as it will keep Mexicans (et al) out. A border wall is incompatible with Libertarianism because it is the obvious pre-req to restricting Americans from exiting the country. Open borders are good for me, not just for my roofer.

They rather tend to support abolishing the police in favour of delegating a large range of social functions to social workers, case workers, psychologists etc., as opposed to pure laissez-faire state-of-nature existence.

I'd say the side that thinks they need as many men with as many guns as possible patrolling the streets patting down anyone who looks suspicious are more frightened of crime and less confident in their ability to deal with it than the side that thinks you can deal with it via social workers and suchlike. That's absent a judgment on who is right, or what the correct level of fear is: when I'm scared of things I want to deal with them violently and immediately, when I'm not viscerally scared of things I talk about long term root causes.

My half-baked theory is that where one falls on the authoritarian-libertarian spectrum will be inversely proportional to one's internally perceived ability to protect oneself, so people who believe that they are very poorly equipped to protect themselves from harm will be very authoritarian, people who believe that they are very well equipped to protect themselves from harm will be very libertarian, and everyone else will be somewhere in the middle, proportional to said self-perceived ability.

Sure, but map the spectrum onto either a binary or the spectrum or left-right and it doesn't come out with "Rightists are confident self-defenders" and "Leftists are nervous weaklings." The positions on cops map more to "members of my perceived tribe should have more power." Which is my point about libertarianism: people adopt libertarian and constitutionalist talking points when their tribe is under perceived threat from the government, and ignore them when their tribe is in power. Free speech absolutists were on the left when I was growing up, they are on the right today, who knows where my kids will perceive the first amendment to be assuming insh'Allah the first amendment makes it to them.

I'd say the side that thinks they need as many men with as many guns as possible patrolling the streets patting down anyone who looks suspicious are more frightened of crime and less confident in their ability to deal with it than the side that thinks you can deal with it via social workers and suchlike.

Arming up with guns and patrolling your territory is dealing with it. I'm not afraid of criminals, but I nevertheless support putting them down violently, and making sure they can't organize.

The right is broadly more supportive of lower taxes, the right to bear personal arms, and neighborhood watches, too, so..

I'd say the side that thinks they need as many men with as many guns as possible patrolling the streets patting down anyone who looks suspicious are more frightened of crime and less confident in their ability to deal with it than the side that thinks you can deal with it via social workers and suchlike. That's absent a judgment on who is right, or what the correct level of fear is: when I'm scared of things I want to deal with them violently and immediately, when I'm not viscerally scared of things I talk about long term root causes.

That's a fair characterisation and a point that I'd overlooked. I'd be curious to see what hard-libertarians' preferred approach to crime is.

Sure, but map the spectrum onto either a binary or the spectrum or left-right and it doesn't come out with "Rightists are confident self-defenders" and "Leftists are nervous weaklings."

I think my comment may have unintentionally presented this theory as a be-all and end-all theory when I viewed it as more of a contributing factor which might assist in leading one down one garden path or another. I'm not denying that there are strong, confident people who nevertheless support authoritarian policies, or vice versa.

Which is my point about libertarianism: people adopt libertarian and constitutionalist talking points when their tribe is under perceived threat from the government, and ignore them when their tribe is in power.

Agree.

I think my comment may have unintentionally presented this theory as a be-all and end-all theory when I viewed it as more of a contributing factor which might assist in leading one down one garden path or another.

That's fair, and I apologize if it seemed like I was jumping down your throat. I think you can see how "Right man strong, left man scared" is kind of a boo-outgroup alarm, in the same way as /r/science loves to post articles about how conservatives are dumber, less open to experience, etc.

Yes, in retrospect suggesting that men only support leftist policies because they're physically weak was rather poorly phrased.

Indeed, it's not only physical weakness contributing to that.

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