All this discussion of best interest decisions has left me pondering this question....
If someone's best interest is "that which they deem to be so," why is it that the Cult, a collective that champions individual defense of one's property through the right to bear arms, happily gives up that right to the Federal authorities in the form of acknowledgment that our armed forces do, in a fact, know what is in all of our best interest to defend us?
8 comments:
Really, are you that stupid? Are you that BLACK and WHITE? Where is all that enlightened ability to sift through shades of gray, to appreciate nuance?
I mean if all you really want to send up is anarchists, fine, but you can't even begin to correctly characterize libertarian thought, let alone the variants within.
Crap. I knew I should've commented right away instead of working on my portfolio for tomorrow.
Now someone has gone and beat me to the mark is stupid tactic, also know as classic denial, completely avoiding the question.
My fun making for Sunday Funday is now ruined:(
I should add that libertarians are also different from conservatives, and M usually has his shorts most twisted up over neo-cons and social cons (i.e. the people that actually like Palin).
Us big, bad, massively influential libertarians - the people that REALLY want limited govt (especially at the federal level - notice that the Repubs haven't delivered on that either) - don't much like Palin, or most other Republican "leaders". Just look at the love the Republicans heap on Ron Paul - the closest thing to a libertarian in Congress (and yes, he has his share of loony fringe baggage in his wake). The Republicans don't have much use for poor ol' Ron. I imagine he's less admired in that caucus than Bernie Sanders (or Joe Lieberman) is amongst the Dems.
But really, why should I bother, the tribe here has spoken.
So, could someone please tell me, which part of the Constitution says you are obligated to give a shit about me, much less give me all the shit I might want. I've just never been able to find that clause.
Ugh. To any of Mark's students who might be reading this: outside of school, you may at some point find that you want a job (or even better, create a job by owning your own business.) You'll find that it will be very important to be able to process information effectively; that is, take in observations, determine which observations are relevant to your task at hand, and use those observations to make decisions. Those decisions may or may not be correct, and experience will tell you which it is. If wrong, you must then be able to then go back and examine your observations and your decisions to determine why they might have been incorrect. Perhaps your observations were wrong, or perhaps you interpreted them the wrong way. Neither is a failing on your part. What would be a failure on your part, however, would be to refuse to examine those decisions and observations in order to improve the way you process information. That ensures that you will fail the next time, in exactly the same way.
I mention this because your teacher, Mark, has two very definite problems - he is unable to sort out which observations are relevant to the task at hand, and unable to go back and examine his observations and decision making process when it is clear that he has made a mistake. (The refusal to admit a mistake could be considered a 3rd problem, but that's just plain old human nature. Some people outgrow it, some people don't.)
Witness this current debacle - he has formulated this cult hypothesis, yet has refused to defend it, justify it or even to respond to criticisms of it. After he builds this edifice, he then claims to be pondering a question that only makes sense if you
1. Can't understand the difference between defending ones personal property and defending a nation, which incidentally requires no small measure of ignorance of the Constitution
2. Make the unfounded assertion that the people that don't agree with him always think that what our military does is (or is directed to do by its, gasp, popularly elected leader(s)) right and correct.
If you emulate him, you will find that when you get out into the world, you will be at a severe disadvantage relative to people who are able to synthesize information in an effective manner. Please don't waste your potential in this way.
Uh, what?
And still the question posed by Mark has not yet been answered in regards to the defense of this country.
Juris, that would be the "insure domestic tranquility" part and the "promote the general welfare." It's right there in the beginning.
What do they mean to you?
I think that a lot of Libertarians do not believe that the military really knows what is in our best interests. Many are opposed to our occupation of Iraq.
One would think a Libertarian viewpoint is that if we didn't stick our nose in places we shouldn't (building permanent military bases in Saudi Arabia, for example), then Osama bin Laden wouldn't have attacked us. Bin Laden said, in fact, that our occupation (in his mind) of the Holy Land after the Gulf War was the cause for his jihad against us.
In many ways the military has been co-opted by the big business foreign intervention paradigm, and it seems many Libertarians are more isolationist than this, Mark. I would think the whole Bush idea of exporting Democracy and nation-building is anathema to them.
After all, the war in Iraq was started at the behest of Halliburton, based on lies fabricated by former Halliburton employees. And the oil that they promised would flow into our reserves from Iraq is in large part going to countries like China. So this war was botched nine ways to hell.
Our military is drastically oversized, from what I'd guess is a Libertarian viewpoint. With nukes we don't really need a gigantic conventional force -- from what I can find on the web, our military budget in 2008 was 42% of the world's total military expenditures: we're 4% of the world's population. Our total spending is seven times China's, and 10 times Russia's. We're either horrendously inefficient or we're spending more our on military than we really need to.
The "starve the beast" theory should apply equally well to the military. We keep looking for countries to invade because we've got to do something to justify all those military expenditures. We have repeatedly fallen into this pattern of military adventurism under both Republicans and Democrats, so it's obviously not a strictly partisan failing.
The real problem with your thesis of the Cult, Mark, is that you posit there is some unified group of individuals who all drink the same Kool-Aid. The current conservative insurgency is not your grampa's conservative insurgency. The old guard conservative machine never really all spoke in one voice, but the Republican machine kept them all in line through masterful illusion.
A lot of the religious right really do care about their fellow man and want to help the people in Haiti. They are against abortion because they really believe killing is wrong. They really want to help AIDS victims in Africa. They're against gay marriage because they think gays are damning themselves to hell. They want to help. And so many of them are falling away and their concerns are being discarded by the new crop.
So, railing against the Cult is a waste of time. You'll never find someone who admits to membership because there is no real organization. It's just an angry mob that only has the appearance of cohesion because so many of them bitch about the same things. As you can see from comments above, most of "them" can't seem to stand each other.
the defense of this country
You mean aside from it being a strawman argument with respect to [most] libertarians, i.e. The Cult? Or the part where M can't decide who scares him the most - conservatives or libertarians? It would help if he actually grasped who he is throwing that argument at.
What do they mean to you?
First, the two things you cite are NOT powers granted to Congress in Article 1 Section 8. Second, how does either one of those mean you owe me shit - food, healthcare, housing, whatever. I won't be tranquil if you don't give me stuff? The welfare of the nation fails if my well being does?
One would think a Libertarian viewpoint is...
In fact that IS the predominant libertarian viewpoint, which makes M's argument AT BEST misdirected.
the whole Bush idea of exporting Democracy and nation-building is anathema to them.
Correct. There are very few libertarians that embrace that nonsense.
We're either horrendously inefficient or we're spending more our on military than we really need to.
Both, to an extent. But remember, defense is about 20% of the entire federal budget, so you won't get a smaller, more limited govt just by cutting that, even to zero (and I wouldn't accuse even the moonbattiest leftie of advocating that).
Torch, you know something about avoidance alright. Like avoidance of any discussion of any length on this blog. You usually hurl an insult from the sidelines.
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