the lexfiles

And While We Are On The Subject...

Friends expect that, given my classical liberal leanings, I would be a Ron Paul supporter.  And I have been unable to fully articulate why I haven't been.  I mean, he's the libertarian candidate, right?

Ok, so we disagree on the war, and on immigration, and on switching back to the gold standard.  But it's not as if he's going to win.  And support for Dr. Paul at least shows that small government principles have some following.

But you really gotta be careful who you lie down with.

Will Wilkinson's take here.

I had hoped Paul would do more good than harm for libertarianism, inspiring lots of college kids to get interested in the ideas of liberty. But now I’m pretty certain that he’s done a lot of harm, causing many people to associate libertarianism with racist cranks. I think it’s pretty important then to publicize the fact that there are genuinely liberal versions of libertarianism out there. The young people who got interested in libertarian ideas through Paul need to be able to find Cato, Reason, the IHS, and other places where one can learn about classical liberalism, which isn’t about keeping the Mexicans out, deploring the abolition of slavery, or hoarding gold.

Brink Lindsey here.

Speaking of Libertarianism...

Are progressives suitably enarmored of the term "progressive" that we can have "liberal" back.  Pretty please?

Kinsley on Libertarianism

Michael Kinsley has an op-ed in Saturday's Washington Post regarding libertarianism (leave aside for the moment that I'm so done with that label) which isn't all that bad (Ilya Somin has a critique on it here, which discusses some things so I don't have to).

What bothered me, pet-peevishly, is the notion that libertarians are insufficiently respectful of equality:

A similar flaw affects libertarian thinking about government-mandated redistribution. Extreme libertarians believe this is immoral or even unconstitutional, and even more moderate libertarians disapprove of government social welfare programs as an infringement on the freedom of taxpayers. But freedom is only one of the two core values our nation was built on. The other is equality. Defining equality, libertarians tend to take a narrow view, believing that it means only political equality with no financial aspects. Defining freedom, by contrast, they take a broad view, and see a violation in every nickel a citizen must spend.

Libertarians ask: By what justification does the government concern itself with inequality -- financial or otherwise -- in the first place? They are nearly alone in asking this question. Even conservatives claim a great concern for equality of opportunity, while opposing opportunity of result. And the reasons seem obvious: some degree of material equality as a necessary basis for political equality; the huge role of luck in getting each of us to our relative stations in life; etc.

But nothing like this is obvious to libertarians. They force us to think it all through from scratch. Good for them.

I recognize that he has limited space to make his point -- I assume from the fact that this passage appeared at the end of his piece means that he would have elaborated on this were he not tied to a particular word count.  But.

I'm not sure what he means by "political equality".  The libertarian view of equality is only that the government should treat everyone equally (at least, that's the big libertarian "equality" issue that jumps to my mind) -- but that doesn't seem to be what he means.  He could mean that libertarians believe that each person should get a vote; which is true but trivial.  I expect that all members of a liberal society would believe that.

Then he speaks of "financial equality".  I don't mean to be flip, but I'm not sure what that means either.  Is talking about equality of income?  Wealth?  Is he advocating socialism?

He says that "the reasons [for the government concerning itself with inequality -- financial or otherwise] seem obvious: some degree of material equality as a necessary basis for political equality;".

This passage makes me suspect that he says "political equality", he means "possess equal political power", which is, frankly, bizarre.  Is there any degree of material equality that will grant me political equality (in this sense) with a president, or a senator, or even an op-ed columnist for the Washington Post?  I don't think so.

Quotesfile this

Julian Sanchez:

I'm all for division of labor, but do we actually need to outsource the production of uninformed, half-assed thought experiments to opinion writers?

Very Sad News

George MacDonald Faser has passed away.

George MacDonald Fraser, who died on Wednesday aged 82, revived in a long-running series of novels the career of one of fiction’s most infamous characters, Flashman.

[...]

So successfully did Fraser bring off the conceit that some critics, especially in America, believed the memoirs to be authentic. A debate ensued in the New York Times, and Flashman’s concocted curriculum vitae found its way into works of biographical reference.

The Best Political Post of the Year

Comes from Alex Massie: The Wodehouse Primary.

In my sourer moments I find myself persuaded that Bertie Wooster's verdict on aunts also applies to politicians: "It is no use telling me that there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof."

Read the whole thing.

Gunpowder, Treason, &c.

The good news: Surgery went well.  They extracted a little-bigger-than-pea-sized stone at relatively little damage to the gland.  I can feel that something happened, but it doesn't hurt.  I went in for the follow-up this morning; apparently it's scarring over nicely and the gland is operating well.

The bad news: The stone showed signs of some weird bacteria or another, so I've got a super-long period of antibiotics coming up - the weird bacteria does not die easy.

Chicago: I've been trying to schedule a trip to Chicago for over a month now -- want to visit Kyle & Janet and meet the baby.  It looks like I may finally be able to sneak in a long weekend about the 16th.  And I should be able to get out for an evening with other Chicago area friends...

Random:

A Tale of Werewolf maybe ruining hackfests, via Our Friend Faisal, who did indeed try to get a great big game of Werewolf going at his wedding.  If you ever play this game, ignore Mr. Harrington.  Lex is not the werewolf and should not be lynched first.

DC granted the first exemption to the smoking ban, not to the crappy basement bar, but to a place right down the street (and owned by the same folks).

Left vs. Right

This is a neat trick.  But the left brain vs. right brain thing does not much hold up.  To me she seemed to move counter-clockwise, and while watching her I couldn't reverse it.  But I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds and imagined her moving clockwise.  That worked, and works every time.

Sialolithiasis

Sounds tasty!

WHAT ARE THE TREATMENTS? For small stones, the stone may be squeezed directly out of the duct. For larger stones that cannot completely pass out of the duct opening, a small incision into the duct can help to expel the stone. There have been some reports using shock wave lithotripsy for breakage of saliva gland stones similar to that which is used for kidney stones, but this is a treatment that has not gained wide acceptance. For those individuals who cannot pass their stone and continue to be symptomatic, the only alternative is to remove the gland and the duct which contains the stone.

All the fun in the world scheduled for the 22nd.

Best Sentence I read today

From Scott Adams:

I keep wondering why I don’t get mad about the government chipping away at my freedoms in the alleged interest of fighting terrorism. I used to think it was because I thought the tradeoff was worth it. But I suspect the real reason is that losing a few more freedoms would just get lost in the rounding.