L.P.D.: Libertarian Police Department

[Russ]

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2014/03/libertarian-police-department.html

thought the political chat crew might get a kick out of this

[GrayGhost]

I found this utterly inane and not remotely amusing. I guess you might find it funny if you're a left winger or right winger, because then it's like, "Yeah, haha, look at how goofy the people I disagree with are."

[prof61820]

+1

[sol]

Not laugh out loud funny, but still the funniest thing I've seen all day.

Anyone who doesn't see the humor there is probably a lost cause anyway.

[GrayGhost]

^ Aren't your political sympathies rather decidedly left wing?

If the answer to this question is yes, I believe that it supports the assertion that this article serves to do little more than slap libertarians in the face, and amuse people who have already made up their minds about libertarians. I guess you can like to do that stuff all you want, but you are definitely going to burn more bridges that you build, and I think that's pretty unfortunate.

[sol]

Oh relax, it was funny.  All political groups can be made fun of for at least a couple of good reasons.  It's a sad man who can't laugh at himself.

[Eric]

Ha! 

It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.

[grantmeaname]

"Yeah, haha, look at how goofy the people I disagree with are."

It's an amusing caricature of libertarianism and nothing more. I'm surprised that the fact that you personally disagree with it is enough to ruin the humor for you. I'm extremely sympathetic to business, even for this forum, but I can still find humor in send-ups of big business, lobbying, and corporatism. I don't think the oversimplifying things is a productive way to argue, but I also don't think this joke blog post is going to change anyone's perception of libertarianism here.

(Off-topic: my spellchecker has decided I'm spelling humor and neighborhood wrong and it's driving me insane.)

[GuitarStv]

Bahahahahahaha . . .

[hybrid]

This was hilarious, thanks for sharing. I voted Libertarian in 2012.

[Joggernot]

I had to put a quarter in the computer just to read it...:)

[GuitarStv]

"Yeah, haha, look at how goofy the people I disagree with are."

It's an amusing caricature of libertarianism and nothing more. I'm surprised that the fact that you personally disagree with it is enough to ruin the humor for you. I'm extremely sympathetic to business, even for this forum, but I can still find humor in send-ups of big business, lobbying, and corporatism. I don't think the oversimplifying things is a productive way to argue, but I also don't think this joke blog post is going to change anyone's perception of libertarianism here.

(Off-topic: my spellchecker has decided I'm spelling humor and neighborhood wrong and it's driving me insane.)

Don't feel bad, most Americans spell them wrong . . . always forgetting the u.

[Paul der Krake]

(Off-topic: my spellchecker has decided I'm spelling humor and neighborhood wrong and it's driving me insane.)

Maybe it's the same gravitational pull that's been tilting you 90 degrees for the past week or so? Also, happy cake day.

For what it's worth, I'm a closet libertarian too and found it funny. But I'm also a millenial so really I'm just a very confused person.

[MoneyCat]

ROFLMAO!  That was hilarious and so true.  Libertarians live in a ridiculous fantasy world that even Tolkien couldn't have invented.

[brewer12345]

I cannot be bothered to click the link, but it sure seems these forums are racing to the bottom, lately.  Everything seems to turn into a pointless, politically-oriented foodfight.

[BlueMR2]

I clicked the link.  It's not all that funny.  I think it could have been done a lot better.  That's why I don't normally bother with the New Yorker though.  They can turn the most interesting/fun thing into a lamefest.

[Hotstreak]

ROFLMAO!  That was hilarious and so true.  Libertarians live in a ridiculous fantasy world that even Tolkien couldn't have invented.

I can't quite tell if you're serious.  Would you care to explain?

[Michael792]

As self-proclaimed semi-libertarian, I find this hilarious.

[hybrid]

ROFLMAO!  That was hilarious and so true.  Libertarians live in a ridiculous fantasy world that even Tolkien couldn't have invented.

I can't quite tell if you're serious.  Would you care to explain?

I'll give it a try. The trouble I have with many Libertarian ideals is that they make a lot more sense in theory than in practicality. This satire hit on much of that, like the part about the gun. Libertarians seem far more interested in preserving the right to bear arms than the consequences of a society where guns are cheap and prolific. So while the cop is being fired at, his first thought is not that he is being shot at, but that the perp has every right to bear the weapon that is being aimed at him. Brilliant!

The same for the minimum wage argument. I have talked to Libertarians that believe the minimum wage is a sham and the law should be abolished. They don't seem to get at all that many people making minimum wage are making that only because their employer has been mandated to do that. They cannot see a world - and its consequences - where hourly workers could fall back to five dollars an hour because that's what the market will bear (and is therefore the proper wage, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean). I have also never met a Libertarian making minimum wage, they have always had a valuable skill to parlay (and shouldn't everybody, because everybody is created equal, right?).

Anyway, I agree with some planks of the Libertarian platform but I also get why they don't manage much traction in the US. They are often entirely too dogmatic about their positions, positions which are often out of the mainstream. 

[greaper007]

Pretty funny.

I love libertarianism for the sex and the drugs, but after that it starts to lose its appeal for me.   I do think that it has a lot of valid points, but like many interest theories the thing that tends to turn me off is how far some of the followers take it.

[MoneyCat]

The same for the minimum wage argument. I have talked to Libertarians that believe the minimum wage is a sham and the law should be abolished. They don't seem to get at all that many people making minimum wage are making that only because their employer has been mandated to do that. They cannot see a world - and its consequences - where hourly workers could fall back to five dollars an hour because that's what the market will bear (and is therefore the proper wage, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean). I have also never met a Libertarian making minimum wage, they have always had a valuable skill to parlay (and shouldn't everybody, because everybody is created equal, right?).

     Early in American history, we didn't have a minimum wage and we had slavery.  (Coincidence?  I think not.)  Then, a little later on, we didn't have minimum wage laws and we had problems like company scrip and company stores which led to open warfare between workers and private armies hired by the companies.  If you leave everything up to the market to decide, that's what you get because some people have more power than other people and they will use it to increase their profits by any means necessary.

     If Libertarians got their way and everything was changed to laissez-faire free market capitalism with almost no government at all, it would very quickly degenerate into a situation like Somalia where petty warlords would rule different parts of the USA and it would be utter anarchy and chaos with lots of people getting enslaved and murdered.  That's because people are naturally selfish to the point of screwing over everyone else, unless there are outside forces (i.e. government) to prevent it from happening.

     And, of course, the government isn't perfect, but just because something isn't perfect that doesn't mean you scrap the entire system.  That's what has happened with education in the USA when they began privatizing everything and now our public schools have become the laughingstock of the first-world over the past decade.

[GrayGhost]

I find it really entertaining that the people who claim that libertarians are ideologies whose points might make sense in theory, but don't pan out as planned in real life, are the same people who imply or outright state that the introduction of libertarian ideas into politics is a fast track to Somalia and slavery.

The most obvious problem with this argument is that there isn't any evidence to back it up. Libertarians make certain claims about minimum wage hurting poor people and stuff like that (and by the way, that's a really, really low-hanging fruit--most libertarians focus most of their attention on ending the drug war, military adventurism, and civil liberties/privacy) and immediately people claim that this will clearly lead to effective slavery, but their arguments are no more coherent.

The other issue is that we need not take a black and white view on libertarian policies in general. It's not like having a libertarian President, for example, will result in the end of the minimum wage, although it will lead to far less militarism and far fewer civil rights abuses. And let us suppose we have enough libertarian Congressmen to end federal minimum wage. The states are still free to have minimum wage if the way, and if the states that don't have minimum wage see bad results, there is a very strong chance that they will correct themselves and re-institute the minimum wage.

There's also the more general point that it's far from clear that having powerful, centralized government results in less slavery and violent death. Everyone knows that the Civil War was fought by a government in order to preserve the "right" to keep slaves. There's also the sickening abuses perpetrated by the victor of the Civil War, including the waging of "total warfare" on non-military installations. And then, in WWI, the US managed to enter one of the most useless and pointless wars in recent history. WWII was a little more justified, but we nuked a country to end it and the acts that we engaged in in the European theater would likely be called genocide today. And then there's the rampant spying, the assassination of people with drone strikes (without any legal or judicial process, of course) and more that go on today.

Honestly, do you really think a libertarian society will be overall much worse than that?

[ShortInSeattle]

As self-proclaimed semi-libertarian, I find this hilarious.

Me too. I lost it at "Years ago, a central banker killed my partner."

Thanks for an amusing couple minutes OP. :)

[bacchi]

The most obvious problem with this argument is that there isn't any evidence to back it up.

Not many people truly think that the Miracle of Chile was really a miracle.

[GuitarStv]

There's also the more general point that it's far from clear that having powerful, centralized government results in less slavery and violent death. Everyone knows that the Civil War was fought by a government in order to preserve the "right" to keep slaves. There's also the sickening abuses perpetrated by the victor of the Civil War, including the waging of "total warfare" on non-military installations. And then, in WWI, the US managed to enter one of the most useless and pointless wars in recent history. WWII was a little more justified, but we nuked a country to end it and the acts that we engaged in in the European theater would likely be called genocide today. And then there's the rampant spying, the assassination of people with drone strikes (without any legal or judicial process, of course) and more that go on today.

Honestly, do you really think a libertarian society will be overall much worse than that?

Yes.  The ideologies that have been proposed by libertarian proponents would create a society overall much worse than that.

[LalsConstant]

While I found it amusing the piece is tilting at a political strawman.  The word "libertarian " much like the words "liberal" And "conservative " has gotten to the point it just means whatever non-adherents think it means to sell media products.

[RetiredAt63]

Suggested reading: Cloak of Anarchy, a short story by Larry Niven.  What happens when there are no rules?

http://www.larryniven.net/stories/cloak_of_anarchy.shtml

[Gin1984]

I find it really entertaining that the people who claim that libertarians are ideologies whose points might make sense in theory, but don't pan out as planned in real life, are the same people who imply or outright state that the introduction of libertarian ideas into politics is a fast track to Somalia and slavery.

The most obvious problem with this argument is that there isn't any evidence to back it up. Libertarians make certain claims about minimum wage hurting poor people and stuff like that (and by the way, that's a really, really low-hanging fruit--most libertarians focus most of their attention on ending the drug war, military adventurism, and civil liberties/privacy) and immediately people claim that this will clearly lead to effective slavery, but their arguments are no more coherent.

The other issue is that we need not take a black and white view on libertarian policies in general. It's not like having a libertarian President, for example, will result in the end of the minimum wage, although it will lead to far less militarism and far fewer civil rights abuses. And let us suppose we have enough libertarian Congressmen to end federal minimum wage. The states are still free to have minimum wage if the way, and if the states that don't have minimum wage see bad results, there is a very strong chance that they will correct themselves and re-institute the minimum wage.

There's also the more general point that it's far from clear that having powerful, centralized government results in less slavery and violent death. Everyone knows that the Civil War was fought by a government in order to preserve the "right" to keep slaves. There's also the sickening abuses perpetrated by the victor of the Civil War, including the waging of "total warfare" on non-military installations. And then, in WWI, the US managed to enter one of the most useless and pointless wars in recent history. WWII was a little more justified, but we nuked a country to end it and the acts that we engaged in in the European theater would likely be called genocide today. And then there's the rampant spying, the assassination of people with drone strikes (without any legal or judicial process, of course) and more that go on today.

Honestly, do you really think a libertarian society will be overall much worse than that?

Given that many states have seen their policies harm their citizens and done not one thing about it, because it might be seen as "liberal", I don't think their is much hope for the bolded.

[Bob W]

Funny! As a libertarian I find it amusing that some people disdian personal freedom and liberty.  Bet that kid in Ferguson wished he had this cop!

[grantmeaname]

Which people disdain personal freedom and liberty?

[Bob W]

Which people disdain personal freedom and liberty?

Not sure how it is in the UK, but most people in this country think it is perfectly fine for the Government to take from one person and give to another.   

[bacchi]

Not sure how it is in the UK, but most people in this country think it is perfectly fine for the Government to take from one person and give to another.

Well, we can always put a meter on everything. ;)

[grantmeaname]

Oh, you're disagreeing with 'most people'. I can see where 'most people' said that a few posts up.

[DollarBill]

Pure genus of an story...lol. Lets just call everything an excise tax! You have the right to carry a gun but to shoot it; it cost a quarter. You have the right to walk but if your on a side walk pay a quarter. Plus we all need to be sponsored if we use a product. lol classic!