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I am going to make a thread of some recentish writings of mine, that feel at least tangentially related to some of the rancid conversations on this website today (and maybe every day).
My last pre-2016-election @Reason column was a lament for the “alarming resurgence of that foul and dangerous defect of judgment known as collectivism,” by which I meant negative collective generalizations about huge blocs of disparate people. reason.com/2016/11/05/the…
Confronting/ostracizing people for their political and workplace affiliations, I argued in Nov. 2018, leads not just to individual injustices (like what’s happened with @KatTimpf), but on a macro level a switch to a low-trust society. And that’s ominous. reason.com/2018/11/23/don…
Competitive Terms-of-Service tattletaling to social media companies against political enemies is unseemly behavior (particularly by journalists!) that will not end well, at all. reason.com/2019/06/16/let…
The cultural ethic of valuing and protecting free speech is deteriorating so rapidly that politicians are starting to write speech-constricting laws. Republicans in particular are trying to undo decades’ worth of their own pro-speech gains. reason.com/2018/10/10/par…
10 years ago, let us not forget, there was a widespread media panic about potentially fascistic violence at congressional townhall meetings to discuss Obamacare. The panic was misplaced, the underlying ethic was not. Violence & politics are a terrible mix. reason.com/2009/09/11/abo…
What haunts me about our current moment, in addition to the real-world injustices and lousy policies, is that THIS is what discourse looks like after a decade-long period of growth, employment, and stock market gains, & without any huge recent new wars. reason.com/2018/10/18/whe…
Portland went from putting eggs on everything to a never-ending street brawl. L.A. is a giant homeless camp. Chicago is a basket case. NY officials are at war with private property. D.C. is gentrifying faster than post-communist Central Europe. This is what PROSPERITY looks like.
When the recession hits, the market tanks, the war starts, the underlying math on our trillion-dollar deficits veers badly in both directions…how are we going to deal with one another then? As Fishbone taught us: U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no alibi.
Everybody hates libertarians (and so they should!), but we actually have some experience with the whole, the-Bad-People-are-running-things stress, and the nonstop anguish that humans are being mangled by foul politics. You should ask us about coping mechanisms! (Weed, obviously.)
My Brooklyn priest is fond of pointing out that “Love,” in the Bible, is a poor translation. A more exact phrase would be, “to will good for the other.” As he says, you don’t have to LIKE somebody to will good for him. I think there’s some wisdom there. Happy Sunday, everyone!
