Dec 26, 2021·edited Dec 26, 2021Liked by Noah Smith
I live in Vietnam which, in many respects, is way more libertarian than the US. I imagine most developing countries are similar: the lack of state capacity just gives things a fairly minarchist tinge.
My impression is that most libertarians generally hate it. I'm in Facebook group where foreigners (usually Americans) come for free legal advice and 95% of the posts are from people wishing the government would protect them from these "local bullies".
My landlord evicted me when I got pregnant. My neighbour has a dog that barks all the time. My job took my passport and won't give it back. My job didn't pay us. Banks don't have deposit insurance. Cancelled flights don't get reimbursed. Faulty table lamp started a house fire. Bars that refill alcohol bottles with cheaper knockoffs. Etc etc etc.
Landlords and employers cause TONS of issues. And the only recourse is to hire a lawyer and sue in court.
I've always said that if libertarians want to see their philosophy in practice, they should move to a country where the central government lacks the capacity to impede the whims of local warlords. Like Afghanistan.
The funny thing is that I recall some extreme libertarian magazine article extolling the virtues of Somalia when there was no central government there. Of course, if that Western libertarian author (who was a woman and not Muslim, I’m pretty certain) had actually ended up in Somalia at that time, I doubt she would have actually liked living under warlord-enforced Sharia law.
This is so spot on. It also demonstrates why one can't take ibertarians completely seriously about what they say they want. Like western Marxists, most libertarians don't really imagine that libertarianism will ever be implemented. They're typically hard to pin down on how exactly they want the state would work, and typically regard specific questions about such details as a kind of hostile confrontation.
Noah's big bully/local bully/individual analysis is one way of thinking about the drawbacks of libertarianism. I think it can be put more simply and broadly as a matter of idealism vs. reality. In communism, the ideals relate to the party state and its leaders, who are imagined to be perfect altruists. In libertarianism, the ideals relate to every private individual, about whom it is imagined that if they each pursue their own self-interest all will work out best for everybody.
Liberals' defense of social media platforms' right to censor and ban seems more situational than libertarian. Where most American liberals have an essentially libertarian ideology is in foreign policy. The New York Times and Tucker both apologize for and excuse Russia's bullying rather than face up to the reality that the libertarian foreign policy we have had under Obama, Trump and Biden is nurturing expansionist autocracies and leading towards World War III.
Hmmmm. This is one of the best articles I've ever read here, and there has been some fierce competition.
So, where to start?
Well, the first basic problem with people is we think in extremes and categories. Libertarianism looked at the Soviet union, rightly thought 'oh no', and went off in the completely opposite direction.
There are no such things as societies without hierarchies. There can only be democratic and undemocratic hierarchies, democratic or undemocratic power. In a country with only a notional government, everyone isn't living happily in tiny self-sustaining communities
The power vacuum is filled up with local bullies instead who in many cases are worse than governments because they are not responsible to you.
And I think it's insightful that there are two major roles they expect governments to play: protect property rights and protect people from violence.
That's basically insure our lives and insure our properties and we'll take care of the rest by ourselves.
Liberty is not the natural state of human affairs. It must be continuously managed. That, ironically enough, is the one thing that can't happen in libertarianism.
How right! Today's words and yesterday's essay both point out that "Libertarianism" is the rationalized political philosophy of the wealthy, powerful, narcissistic, dominant, egotistical, and selfish 'empowerfulled' to justify and preserve their expectation of dominance.
That might be true. But to see if your gross generalization is coming from any place of reasonableness, I would like you to admit progressivism is the political philosophy of the underachieving, envious, nihilistic, and economically illiterate who rationalize an inability to cope by hating those better than themselves.
Dear Mark I would love to sit down over a coke or beer to discuss this at length.
With all respect due to you, your conception of "progressivism" as a political philosophy seems to me a distorted caricature. I would propose that the opposite of Libertarian is not Progressivism, but humanitarian democracy. In this case each person that has resources and security personally and philosophically feels in his/her heart and soul the urge to support and share with those who are less fortunate. A good government would have policies to institutionalize this human collegiality among all its citizens. I think this would maximize liberty, freedom and security.
AND, speaking of "economic literacy," in my opinion the main problem with "libertarianism" and free market fundamentalism is that it willfully ignores the unique economic status of "public goods." - an economic concept familiar even to Adam Smith.
Hayek advocated for universal health care and social insurance facilitated by government in the Road to Serfdom. Hayek even supported the Tennessee Valley Authority and wasn't opposed to minimum wage laws. In the Constitution of Liberty he thought a central bank was a good idea and should be independent.
Milton Friedman was really the first prominent supporter of a negative income tax when he wrote about in Capitalism and Freedom. He thought carbon taxes were a way to tackle externalities. He thought central banks should do whatever it takes to prevent bank failures and supported deposit insurance and New Deal banking reforms. He wasn't even opposed to public schools even though he made the case that phasing out was preferable.
Bastiat advocated social insurance in times of recession. I haven't heard too many libertarians criticize Bastiat.
So when you say libertarians ignore market failure and externalities, who are you talking about specifically? Rothbard and Nozick and a few of his followers?
Well, it depends on whom you mean by "libertarians". If you are talking about the unwashed masses and the Libertarian Party, they do not seriously consider those tiny parts of Hayek and Friedman. It's like Christians who pick and choose from the bible: they generally ignore Leviticus and its prohibitions. So I consider Hayek and Friedman as providing deniability, and no more.
In point of fact all the wise folk you mentioned never used the phrase "Libertarian" which is not an economic term of art but a political philosophy which I well described in my first post. The problem with the many esteemed economists you mentioned is their emphasis (or the emphasis added by their disciples): carefully describing the limitations of government agency and elaborating the many benefits of the mercantile free market for commerce societal necessities, and productivity but neglecting the "externalities" and "public goods." I refer you to the excellent paper by Nobelist, conservative Stanford economist Kenneth Arrow in 1958 on welfare economics, especially medical services.
In any case, can you cite me ever in history of one instance of a just, well ordered society run on libertarian principles?
First of all, Friedman did use the word libertarian to describe his views. He also interchanged with classical liberal.
United States 1870-1913? over 4% real GDP growth using Christina Romer's numbers. That time period was likely more libertarian than what Friedman and Hayek would advocate. It is the time period Friedman used as an example of libertarianism working though.
I would call Switzerland a libertarian country today. It ranks number 1 in most freedom rankings and number 2 in most economic freedom rankings. Hong Kong historically is very libertarian.
It is easy to point fingers from a position of strength and advantage. The issue is sustainability. Wealth and advantage at the expense of worker health and the environment is unsustainable. By all means make lots of money and be "superior" but do it responsibly without contributing to health disparity, social burden and environmental destruction. I would invite you to think about the social determinants of health and the impact of short sighted, irresponsible and unsustainable business practices. What good is a corporate entity if in the pursuit of profit it proliferates illness, suffering and social decline or even puts us all at risk of annihilation?
Only for a very small proportion of the total population. According to the credit swisse report only around 15% of all humans on Earth today have a net worth over $100k usd. That leaves roughly 6.9 billion people with lower income and no ownership rights. In what way does that represent a better life for the ordinary person? If you replaced the word "ordinary" with "privileged" your statement would be correct.
There was always something that nagged at me about the workability of libertarianism, but I couldn’t quite figure it out. Thank you for pointing it out so clearly!!
Excellent article! I couldn't agree more. The liberty of local bullies is absolutely related to the rise in libertarian ideals and laissez-faire thinking. The function of government is not to deprive individuals of their liberty it is to protect it. Unfortunately today there is no government of the people for the people as the whole system of law and democratic representation has been corrupted by plutocrats and their minions/lobbyists.
In my experience, libertarianism is not a single position, but rather a spectrum, ranging from Randists to classic liberals a la J S Mill. Most libertarians I know agree that government has a role that goes beyond protection of person and property. For example, Nozick acknowledges the existence of externalities and the need to compensate for them.
It then becomes a question of degree, rather than of absolutes. Yes, government must intervene -- but when and to what extent. The libertarian, as I understand the term, is one who favors minimum intervention to achieve the objectives. Progressives, on the other hand, often seem to think that government intervention is the default position, with the onus of justification on those who would leave the initiative to individuals.
The other important point is voluntary versus coercive collective action. Government, with its monopoly on (legitimate) violence, obviously has a lot more scope for coercive collective action, and it can extend that power to help self-constituted collective groups. Voluntary groupings, on the other hand, must work much harder to be responsive to their members and temper their excesses.
Yes, and even worse are those who themselves bully and then enlist the big bully to help.
The obvious example is a coalition of gangsters and corrupt cops, which is a reality in some countries.
A less obvious one is the outreach from school boards to the DOJ asking that dissident parents be monitored on the grounds that they are "domestic terrorists."
When it comes to bullying, there's nothing better than getting the government on your side.
I think you are weakmanning libertarianism a bit here. There is a large portion of the movement that does make the mistake you describe, and they tend to put themselves forward as the only "real" libertarians, but they're not.
The term of art for the intra-movement argument over this is "thin" vs "thick" libertarianism, where the "thin" ones take the position you criticize here that lack of government coercion suffices for liberty, and the "thick" ones say you also need cultural tolerance norms. Part of the "thick" argument is what you say here, that people's felt sense of liberty also depends on non governmental institutions tolerating a diversity of behavior, and part is that in practice intolerant cultures can't sustain protections against government coercion.
If you Google "thick vs thin libertarianism" you find arguments going back to the date of your original post and even earlier, so this isn't a particularly new dispute.
A basic problem is that libertarians do not have an idea of what liberty really is: they instead say "these are the liberties we want, they are 'natural', and no others."
Freedom is complex in the real world: "A person (P) is free to do or be a thing (T), achieving a net value (V), using an ability (A), with a resource (R), despite externalities (E) to others (O), when interference (I) from others is not too high, because of reason (B)." Libertarians ignore most of that.
For more on the nature of freedom, see my paper: "Taking Freedom Seriously: A Pre-Legal Model of Freedom, Interferences, Rights and Duties." https://philpapers.org/rec/HUBTFS
"This is what you get from 40 years of deregulation. While good citizens are bound by ever more oppressive laws, “the market”, according to neoliberal theory, should be released from regulatory constraint. Deregulation is a euphemism for destroying the effective capacity of the state to protect us from chancers, conmen and criminals. Empowered to cut corners, fishy businesses outcompete responsible ones and we begin to shift towards an organised crime economy."
Thank you for stating this obvious problem with Libertarian "freedom".
Libertarian is great for people with property (money, land) but what does it offer for everyone else?
Allowing business owners and managers to harass women employees - make sexual favors a condition of employment - may seem like freedom for some men but few women who would have to deal with it would call it being more "free".
Allowing business owners to put up "whites only", "no Jews", "no gays" signs may seem like freedom for some people but it is hardly "freedom" for those excluded.
Libertarians should really call themselves Propertytarians because without property what Liberty do they really offer? Without property all that is available is selling ones labor to someone with property but without any protections. No Free Speech rights (employers being free to fire you for anything you say), no religious rights, or labor protections. Property owners are "free" to collude and blacklist and skew the "free" market in their favor.
Constitutional rights are limited only to government (and often only federal government) while at the same time government scope is small and limited making Constitutional rights from a practical sense mostly non existent. Hardly the definition of Liberty.
This this problem with Libertarian ideology has existed since it was made up in the 1970's yet rarely mentioned by Libertarians. It is almost as if Libertarianism is simply about the wealthy wanting government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy.
So, how do you "fix" libertarianism, then? Government as the bully to keep the local bullies in line? Disempower the bullies? *Dilute* the power of the bullies? Or *counteract* the power of the bullies?
I don't think that "liberty" is the issue. The issue is democracy. Dream-minarchies require very little democracy: arguably none past the constitutional moment. A dream-miniarch would constitutionalize a few things: preventing "force and fraud," protecting property, and enforcing contracts. There would be no need to make subsequent decisions: no need for democracy.
Of course, this is wanking. Even this kind of state would need cops, judges, and jailers. And as we all know, cops and judges have plenty of discretion. And besides, who would name them?
But still, miniarchy is a beautiful dream, for those who don't think hard about liberty and hate democracy.
200,000 years of societal evolution by homo sapiens and we still struggle with a mechanism to deal with assholes.
Really not surprising that segregationists dealt repeated blows by the state would glom onto and expand a framework that identifies them as aggrieved minorites. A lot of us very online liberals identify as left-libertarian largely as a rejection of their choices of whose rights matter most.
I live in Vietnam which, in many respects, is way more libertarian than the US. I imagine most developing countries are similar: the lack of state capacity just gives things a fairly minarchist tinge.
My impression is that most libertarians generally hate it. I'm in Facebook group where foreigners (usually Americans) come for free legal advice and 95% of the posts are from people wishing the government would protect them from these "local bullies".
My landlord evicted me when I got pregnant. My neighbour has a dog that barks all the time. My job took my passport and won't give it back. My job didn't pay us. Banks don't have deposit insurance. Cancelled flights don't get reimbursed. Faulty table lamp started a house fire. Bars that refill alcohol bottles with cheaper knockoffs. Etc etc etc.
Landlords and employers cause TONS of issues. And the only recourse is to hire a lawyer and sue in court.
You can guess how rarely that actually happens.
I've always said that if libertarians want to see their philosophy in practice, they should move to a country where the central government lacks the capacity to impede the whims of local warlords. Like Afghanistan.
The funny thing is that I recall some extreme libertarian magazine article extolling the virtues of Somalia when there was no central government there. Of course, if that Western libertarian author (who was a woman and not Muslim, I’m pretty certain) had actually ended up in Somalia at that time, I doubt she would have actually liked living under warlord-enforced Sharia law.
This is so spot on. It also demonstrates why one can't take ibertarians completely seriously about what they say they want. Like western Marxists, most libertarians don't really imagine that libertarianism will ever be implemented. They're typically hard to pin down on how exactly they want the state would work, and typically regard specific questions about such details as a kind of hostile confrontation.
Noah's big bully/local bully/individual analysis is one way of thinking about the drawbacks of libertarianism. I think it can be put more simply and broadly as a matter of idealism vs. reality. In communism, the ideals relate to the party state and its leaders, who are imagined to be perfect altruists. In libertarianism, the ideals relate to every private individual, about whom it is imagined that if they each pursue their own self-interest all will work out best for everybody.
Liberals' defense of social media platforms' right to censor and ban seems more situational than libertarian. Where most American liberals have an essentially libertarian ideology is in foreign policy. The New York Times and Tucker both apologize for and excuse Russia's bullying rather than face up to the reality that the libertarian foreign policy we have had under Obama, Trump and Biden is nurturing expansionist autocracies and leading towards World War III.
Libertarian utopia Vietnam's Freedom rankings out of all countries
Heritage- 90
Fraser-128
World Bank- 70
Hmmmm. This is one of the best articles I've ever read here, and there has been some fierce competition.
So, where to start?
Well, the first basic problem with people is we think in extremes and categories. Libertarianism looked at the Soviet union, rightly thought 'oh no', and went off in the completely opposite direction.
There are no such things as societies without hierarchies. There can only be democratic and undemocratic hierarchies, democratic or undemocratic power. In a country with only a notional government, everyone isn't living happily in tiny self-sustaining communities
The power vacuum is filled up with local bullies instead who in many cases are worse than governments because they are not responsible to you.
And I think it's insightful that there are two major roles they expect governments to play: protect property rights and protect people from violence.
That's basically insure our lives and insure our properties and we'll take care of the rest by ourselves.
Liberty is not the natural state of human affairs. It must be continuously managed. That, ironically enough, is the one thing that can't happen in libertarianism.
How right! Today's words and yesterday's essay both point out that "Libertarianism" is the rationalized political philosophy of the wealthy, powerful, narcissistic, dominant, egotistical, and selfish 'empowerfulled' to justify and preserve their expectation of dominance.
That might be true. But to see if your gross generalization is coming from any place of reasonableness, I would like you to admit progressivism is the political philosophy of the underachieving, envious, nihilistic, and economically illiterate who rationalize an inability to cope by hating those better than themselves.
Dear Mark I would love to sit down over a coke or beer to discuss this at length.
With all respect due to you, your conception of "progressivism" as a political philosophy seems to me a distorted caricature. I would propose that the opposite of Libertarian is not Progressivism, but humanitarian democracy. In this case each person that has resources and security personally and philosophically feels in his/her heart and soul the urge to support and share with those who are less fortunate. A good government would have policies to institutionalize this human collegiality among all its citizens. I think this would maximize liberty, freedom and security.
AND, speaking of "economic literacy," in my opinion the main problem with "libertarianism" and free market fundamentalism is that it willfully ignores the unique economic status of "public goods." - an economic concept familiar even to Adam Smith.
Hayek advocated for universal health care and social insurance facilitated by government in the Road to Serfdom. Hayek even supported the Tennessee Valley Authority and wasn't opposed to minimum wage laws. In the Constitution of Liberty he thought a central bank was a good idea and should be independent.
Milton Friedman was really the first prominent supporter of a negative income tax when he wrote about in Capitalism and Freedom. He thought carbon taxes were a way to tackle externalities. He thought central banks should do whatever it takes to prevent bank failures and supported deposit insurance and New Deal banking reforms. He wasn't even opposed to public schools even though he made the case that phasing out was preferable.
Bastiat advocated social insurance in times of recession. I haven't heard too many libertarians criticize Bastiat.
So when you say libertarians ignore market failure and externalities, who are you talking about specifically? Rothbard and Nozick and a few of his followers?
Well, it depends on whom you mean by "libertarians". If you are talking about the unwashed masses and the Libertarian Party, they do not seriously consider those tiny parts of Hayek and Friedman. It's like Christians who pick and choose from the bible: they generally ignore Leviticus and its prohibitions. So I consider Hayek and Friedman as providing deniability, and no more.
In point of fact all the wise folk you mentioned never used the phrase "Libertarian" which is not an economic term of art but a political philosophy which I well described in my first post. The problem with the many esteemed economists you mentioned is their emphasis (or the emphasis added by their disciples): carefully describing the limitations of government agency and elaborating the many benefits of the mercantile free market for commerce societal necessities, and productivity but neglecting the "externalities" and "public goods." I refer you to the excellent paper by Nobelist, conservative Stanford economist Kenneth Arrow in 1958 on welfare economics, especially medical services.
In any case, can you cite me ever in history of one instance of a just, well ordered society run on libertarian principles?
First of all, Friedman did use the word libertarian to describe his views. He also interchanged with classical liberal.
United States 1870-1913? over 4% real GDP growth using Christina Romer's numbers. That time period was likely more libertarian than what Friedman and Hayek would advocate. It is the time period Friedman used as an example of libertarianism working though.
I would call Switzerland a libertarian country today. It ranks number 1 in most freedom rankings and number 2 in most economic freedom rankings. Hong Kong historically is very libertarian.
Last note: Having spent time in Switzerland I would call it an egalitarian participatory democracy. (Last post.)
It is easy to point fingers from a position of strength and advantage. The issue is sustainability. Wealth and advantage at the expense of worker health and the environment is unsustainable. By all means make lots of money and be "superior" but do it responsibly without contributing to health disparity, social burden and environmental destruction. I would invite you to think about the social determinants of health and the impact of short sighted, irresponsible and unsustainable business practices. What good is a corporate entity if in the pursuit of profit it proliferates illness, suffering and social decline or even puts us all at risk of annihilation?
And yet, strangely, life has never been better for the ordinary person than it is right now...
Only for a very small proportion of the total population. According to the credit swisse report only around 15% of all humans on Earth today have a net worth over $100k usd. That leaves roughly 6.9 billion people with lower income and no ownership rights. In what way does that represent a better life for the ordinary person? If you replaced the word "ordinary" with "privileged" your statement would be correct.
Well said doc! Exceptionalism taken to extremes. Power is the new truth and wealth the new merit.
Libertarianism - Astrology for men.
There was always something that nagged at me about the workability of libertarianism, but I couldn’t quite figure it out. Thank you for pointing it out so clearly!!
Excellent article! I couldn't agree more. The liberty of local bullies is absolutely related to the rise in libertarian ideals and laissez-faire thinking. The function of government is not to deprive individuals of their liberty it is to protect it. Unfortunately today there is no government of the people for the people as the whole system of law and democratic representation has been corrupted by plutocrats and their minions/lobbyists.
In my experience, libertarianism is not a single position, but rather a spectrum, ranging from Randists to classic liberals a la J S Mill. Most libertarians I know agree that government has a role that goes beyond protection of person and property. For example, Nozick acknowledges the existence of externalities and the need to compensate for them.
It then becomes a question of degree, rather than of absolutes. Yes, government must intervene -- but when and to what extent. The libertarian, as I understand the term, is one who favors minimum intervention to achieve the objectives. Progressives, on the other hand, often seem to think that government intervention is the default position, with the onus of justification on those who would leave the initiative to individuals.
The other important point is voluntary versus coercive collective action. Government, with its monopoly on (legitimate) violence, obviously has a lot more scope for coercive collective action, and it can extend that power to help self-constituted collective groups. Voluntary groupings, on the other hand, must work much harder to be responsive to their members and temper their excesses.
Yes, and even worse are those who themselves bully and then enlist the big bully to help.
The obvious example is a coalition of gangsters and corrupt cops, which is a reality in some countries.
A less obvious one is the outreach from school boards to the DOJ asking that dissident parents be monitored on the grounds that they are "domestic terrorists."
When it comes to bullying, there's nothing better than getting the government on your side.
I think you are weakmanning libertarianism a bit here. There is a large portion of the movement that does make the mistake you describe, and they tend to put themselves forward as the only "real" libertarians, but they're not.
The term of art for the intra-movement argument over this is "thin" vs "thick" libertarianism, where the "thin" ones take the position you criticize here that lack of government coercion suffices for liberty, and the "thick" ones say you also need cultural tolerance norms. Part of the "thick" argument is what you say here, that people's felt sense of liberty also depends on non governmental institutions tolerating a diversity of behavior, and part is that in practice intolerant cultures can't sustain protections against government coercion.
If you Google "thick vs thin libertarianism" you find arguments going back to the date of your original post and even earlier, so this isn't a particularly new dispute.
A basic problem is that libertarians do not have an idea of what liberty really is: they instead say "these are the liberties we want, they are 'natural', and no others."
Freedom is complex in the real world: "A person (P) is free to do or be a thing (T), achieving a net value (V), using an ability (A), with a resource (R), despite externalities (E) to others (O), when interference (I) from others is not too high, because of reason (B)." Libertarians ignore most of that.
For more on the nature of freedom, see my paper: "Taking Freedom Seriously: A Pre-Legal Model of Freedom, Interferences, Rights and Duties." https://philpapers.org/rec/HUBTFS
George Monbiot says more or less the same thing at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/24/dead-goldfish-licensed-waste-disposer-system-falling-apart:
"This is what you get from 40 years of deregulation. While good citizens are bound by ever more oppressive laws, “the market”, according to neoliberal theory, should be released from regulatory constraint. Deregulation is a euphemism for destroying the effective capacity of the state to protect us from chancers, conmen and criminals. Empowered to cut corners, fishy businesses outcompete responsible ones and we begin to shift towards an organised crime economy."
Thank you for stating this obvious problem with Libertarian "freedom".
Libertarian is great for people with property (money, land) but what does it offer for everyone else?
Allowing business owners and managers to harass women employees - make sexual favors a condition of employment - may seem like freedom for some men but few women who would have to deal with it would call it being more "free".
Allowing business owners to put up "whites only", "no Jews", "no gays" signs may seem like freedom for some people but it is hardly "freedom" for those excluded.
Libertarians should really call themselves Propertytarians because without property what Liberty do they really offer? Without property all that is available is selling ones labor to someone with property but without any protections. No Free Speech rights (employers being free to fire you for anything you say), no religious rights, or labor protections. Property owners are "free" to collude and blacklist and skew the "free" market in their favor.
Constitutional rights are limited only to government (and often only federal government) while at the same time government scope is small and limited making Constitutional rights from a practical sense mostly non existent. Hardly the definition of Liberty.
This this problem with Libertarian ideology has existed since it was made up in the 1970's yet rarely mentioned by Libertarians. It is almost as if Libertarianism is simply about the wealthy wanting government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy.
So, how do you "fix" libertarianism, then? Government as the bully to keep the local bullies in line? Disempower the bullies? *Dilute* the power of the bullies? Or *counteract* the power of the bullies?
I don't think that "liberty" is the issue. The issue is democracy. Dream-minarchies require very little democracy: arguably none past the constitutional moment. A dream-miniarch would constitutionalize a few things: preventing "force and fraud," protecting property, and enforcing contracts. There would be no need to make subsequent decisions: no need for democracy.
Of course, this is wanking. Even this kind of state would need cops, judges, and jailers. And as we all know, cops and judges have plenty of discretion. And besides, who would name them?
But still, miniarchy is a beautiful dream, for those who don't think hard about liberty and hate democracy.
Outstanding article!
200,000 years of societal evolution by homo sapiens and we still struggle with a mechanism to deal with assholes.
Really not surprising that segregationists dealt repeated blows by the state would glom onto and expand a framework that identifies them as aggrieved minorites. A lot of us very online liberals identify as left-libertarian largely as a rejection of their choices of whose rights matter most.