Saturday, May 17, 2014

Twisting libertarianism

Twisting Libertarianism | National Review Online: - Kevin D. Williamson:

Michael Lind either misunderstands it or is intellectually dishonest.

May 15, 2014 - "If you would like to see everything that is wrong, shallow, and dishonest about our contemporary political discourse in one neat package, read Michael Lind’s recent drive-by defamation of Bryan Caplan, 'Libertarians’ scary new star'....

"Mr. Lind’s piece contains no analysis.... [I]t is mostly a half-organized swarm of insults out of which emerges the occasional tendentious misstatement of Professor Caplan’s views and those of the libertarian thinkers with whom he is sometimes associated. Mr. Lind begins by bemoaning our alleged national descent into plutocracy and writes: 'Some on the libertarian right have responded to this research by welcoming our new plutocratic overlords. Among these is Bryan Caplan.'

"Professor Caplan, author of The Myth of the Rational Voter, is a trenchant critic of electoral decision-making. Voters, he argues, suffer from specific, predictable biases — anti-market bias, anti-foreign bias, make-work bias, and pessimistic bias — that cause them to hold, and act on, untrue beliefs about the way the world works.... He characterizes the typical American voter as a moderate national socialist who strongly supports state intervention in many areas, and remarks, 'Given public opinion, the policies of First World democracies are surprisingly libertarian.'

"There is a great deal of agreement among the poor, the middle class, and the rich on most political issues, but the rich are significantly more libertarian ... not only on economic issues but also on social issues. The poor are 'much more anti-gay,' Professor Caplan writes. 'They’re much less opposed to restricting free speech to fight terrorism.' On the relatively few issues on which there is strong disagreement between the poor and the rich, the preferences of the rich have tended to prevail, and that pleases Professor Caplan, because that means that more libertarian policies are put into place than public opinion would suggest. 'To avoid misinterpretation,' he writes, 'this does not mean that American democracy has a strong tendency to supply the policies that most materially benefit the rich. It doesn’t.'

"But there is no avoiding misinterpretation when the opposite side is committed to misinterpreting you. Professor Caplan celebrates the advance of gay rights, pushback against the surveillance state, and, regrettably ... abortion rights, among other items on the progressive social agenda. Mr. Lind sees only a champion of plutocracy — because that is all he is inclined to see."

Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/378004/twisting-libertarianism-kevin-d-williamson
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