hell’s handmaiden

There are currently 10 responses to “This is not my Country: May 2008”

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1. 1 On May 4th, 2008, Huey55 said:

   Are you sure Mike Billy isn’t really McCain/Clinton/Obama. In that case it would be true.

   Your Friendly Neighborhood Anarchist

2. 2 On May 5th, 2008, themaiden said:

   McCain/Clinton/Obama is it? A bit like saying ‘I like snake/fish/cats’. Kinda not the same.

3. 3 On May 5th, 2008, Huey55 said:

   I guess I could have put “or” in between the names instead of the slashes. My point was that if he was one of them in real life then he really would want Indentured Servants. Why can’t someone like snakes fish and cats? I realize that there are some superficial differences between McCain, Clinton and Obama, but they all want to be the head of the system that Mike Billy describes. It is more like saying snake 1/snake 2/snake 3 will bite you.

4. 4 On May 5th, 2008, themaiden said:

   Huey55,

   I might buy a McCain/Clinton connection. I don’t really think Obama fits though. True, they all want to be president but that doesn’t make them the same.

   By the way, I don’t buy that what Mike Billy describes is 1) accurate on the whole and 2) the necessary state of government. If I were forced to take it 100% seriously about the best I can say about Mike Billy’s tale is that it strikes me as wild hyperbole. It is funny though, as I hope it was meant to be, so I’m not sure I have to take it at face value.

5. 5 On May 6th, 2008, Huey55 said:

   That is funny because I thought Obama fits the best. He seems to be the one that wants to expand the government’s control of civil society the most.

   I think Mike Billy gives a fairly accurate description of our present situation. It is definitely from an angle that people are not used to looking at and he tells it in a humorous manner. I checked out some of Mike Billy’s other posts and he is a fairly hard core libertarian so I think he meant what he wrote. I really liked this video on his site: http://www.rottingnation.com/2008/03/23/pirates-and-emperors-video/

6. 6 On May 6th, 2008, themaiden said:

   Huey55,

   McCain leans toward dictatorial, meaning state power. Clinton leans toward socialist– a term I don’t use venom but it still means a fair bit of state power. That leaves Obama, and I think he sits between the two on this.

   You libertarians are just too blinded by paranoia

   Actually, I’d call myself libertarian except that too many libertarians remind me of teenagers whining about mom’s authority. Most people grow up and realize that some of that authority is there for good reason. Libertarians, mostly, don’t. They just keep spewing teen angst right into the grave. They get stuck. It is every bit as annoying as reading the damned Marxists moan about ’state oppression’. In fact, it is hard to keep the two separate. Which is it? Libertarian whining or Marxist moaning? Damn! I can never work that out.

7. 7 On May 7th, 2008, Huey55 said:

   Maiden,

   I think they all lean towards a dictatorial socialism. Who is the last president that lessened the offices power? Where does Obama say he will? I don’t see how you can say he will be less socialist than Clinton. He talks a lot about change, but all his solutions are government ones.

   You statists are just afraid to be free.

   Statists remind me of a 30 year old living in his mother’s basement. He will insist that he is free to do as he likes until he is blue in the faces, but he actual is only as free as his mother allows. I would consider you a Civil Libertarian but not what is normal considered a regular libertarian. I am 38 years old. I don’t need my Mother to approve my every action and I certainly don’t need my Uncle Sam to do it.

8. 8 On May 7th, 2008, themaiden said:

   Huey55,

   Weird. The spam filter caught your last comment. I had to rescue it. Interesting… Askimet must parse content better than I thought– ‘libertarian’ = ’spam’. It fits! I kid. I kid ’cause I love. (You’ll have to imagine the Jersey accent.)

   No, definitely not a ‘normal’ libertarian… but isn’t ‘normal libertarian’ oxymoronic anyway?

   Back to the topic: ‘Government does stuff’ doesn’t equal ‘dictatorial socialism’. That is the quintessential libertarian mistake. Government does do stuff. Government ought to do stuff. We all need government to do stuff. And what government does has a lot to do with population density and resources. High population means more government. Scarce resources means more government. Right now we have absurdly high, and growing, populations and several limited major resources. Complex government is unavoidable. It is a pattern that shows up in history over and over, but just think about it. 200 people living on Manhattan Island would be fine with limited or no formal government. Attempt that with 14 million and the results would be tragic. The point being that you can’t pipe dream government into smallness.

   That last point somewhat obliquely points to the flaw in your ‘afraid to be free’ and ‘living in mom’s basement’ ideas. We all live in mom’s basement, if you want to put it that way. Except that it isn’t mom’s basement. It is a basement we’ve all constructed and refined over thousands of year because it works, because it is something we humans are good at and because it gives us a hell of a lot of things that no other animal on the planet has been able to acquire. If the system breaks, we lose a lot. Watch ‘Blood Diamond’. That is what happens when the system breaks. I’m not too keen on living that life. Call it ‘fear of freedom’ if you want but that take doesn’t make much sense to me.

9. 9 On July 6th, 2008, Carnival of Politics said:

   Sorry to see that this carnival seems to have ended.

   If you want to find and share information about politics, you might be interested in our new site http://www.carnivalofpolitics.com - a mix between a blog carnival and digg exclusively for politics. We share up to 85% of revenue with contributors, including 10% for everything submitted by everyone you refer.

10. 10 On July 8th, 2008, themaiden said:

    The carnival hasn’t ended, but I’ve got some catching up to do. Expect a new addition in about a week and we ought be back on track after that.

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