[767] in libertarians
Re: Zimmerman case
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kevin THEOBALD)
Sat Feb 25 13:45:18 1995
From: theobald@duke.cs.mcgill.ca (Kevin THEOBALD)
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 13:43:51 -0500
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
| > NOW screams about Packwood's treatment of women but not Kennedy's. It's
| > simple. Kennedy is more likely to give them what they
|
| I've seen this charge a lot, but it really doesn't hold up on
| examination. Packwood's been a very supportive Senator for women's
| issues, in spite of his party. There's a big difference in the two
| cases (and it's not that Kennedy's a Democrat and Packwood's a
| Republican :-)): Packwood is accused of nonconsensual groping, while
| Kennedy's activities have been presumably mutual. Kennedy's mostly
| accused of conduct that's more moral sins to conservatives (bar-hopping,
| philandering, having a mistress) than liberals.
| But I get the point.
OK, compare Packwood/Thomas to Clinton/Kennedy's nephew.
Many of the "no woman would ever lie about rape/sexual harassment" types
who screamed for Thomas' head were pretty silent when the accused was
from the Kennedy family. Then look at Paula Jones. (Also, wasn't
a Dem senator from Hawaii once accused of feeling up a Chinese woman
without consent?)
| >|> similarly shaky?). The concept of "abuse of private power" is almost
| >|> regarded as an oxymoron.
|
| > This is because it so rarely happens no in the true sense. If you want to
| > abuse someone today, you go and get the government to do it for you.
|
| ??? You mean it's somehow different if the particular tool they
| use is government? This does indeed seem to be a common rhetorical
| tactic - place the blame on government if there's any connection to it.
I notice an interesting parallel. Liberals (many of them, anyway) see
people using guns to commit crime, but instead of focusing on the
perpetrators, they focus on the mechanisms (guns) and advocate gun
control. Yet when bad businesses use government power to stifle
competitors, the liberals villify the perpetrators, not the mechanism.
Of course, libertarian gun supporters could be charged with the same
inconsistency. However, there is a difference. When a criminal uses a
gun in a crime, even card-carrying NRA members will agree that this is a
crime. There is no question that, say, using a gun to kill someone is
illegal and should be punished. So a gun supporter could argue that
gun control is not necessary -- the problem of gun crime could be
addressed through greater enforcement of anti-crime laws.
But when a business uses the government to crush its competition, it
is almost impossible to show that the act was illegal, since it is
usually couched in "public good" terms. For instance, keeping
Japanese cars out of the hands of American consumers wasn't done to
protect the bottom line of the Big Three. It was done to "save American
jobs" and prevent the Japanese from buying up any more American buildings.
| I cannot recall ever having seen a Libertarian attack that
| bailout with the heartfelt venom heaped upon, say, a welfare mother
For that matter, I cannot recall ever having seen a Libertarian attack
welfare mothers with much heartfelt venom either. Magazines like Reason
tend to be low on venom.
But I remember in the early 80's, a prominent libertarian (I think
the name was Goffman?) went around accusing the nuclear power industry
of committing "random murder.
Kevin Theobald
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| Well, like they say: Live and learn -- die and teach the gene pool. |
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