But a brief outing in the comments section at Cuntishness is Free yesterday just reinforced the thing that really stops me the most: it's become so tedious to re-hash the same arguments over and over and over to an audience of people who don't appreciate the stupidity of their own "logic". And even when you "engage" with someone and they genuinely try to understand my point of view, they are all so blinkered that they might as well not bother.
It really is like banging your head on a brick wall. Every new statist I talk to brings out the same set of "killer" arguments that seem so self-evident that they've never bothered to question them. And when you question them, even as they trip themselves up they fail to see the inherent internal conflict of their point of view.
I don't want to pick on anyone in particular, but let's grab this one:
OK, Mr Devil, let's take a case in point. 'Socialised' health care, the NHS, which uses taxation, which by definition must be 'coercive', to provide health care for the many. I am assuming that the libertarian principle would be to abolish the NHS because it depends on coercive taxation and presumably a libertarian government would take steps to do just that.
However it is clear that the vast majority of people in the UK support the principle of 'socialised health care' even if there are differences on how the NHS should be organised. So how does the a libertarian government square undoing a policy with coercive law that the vast majority accept? To use your own parlance, How can it threaten 'violence' to undo something that you oppose but the majority do not.
A libertarian government could only occur if it won sufficient votes to actually form a government. This would mean that a significant percentage of people would have to sign up to the libertarian model and actually, you know, vote for us. So we would have the same democratic legitimacy as any statist party. So why would this even be an issue?
And on a practical point, how on earth would a libertarian government ever come to power unless most people become magically transformed into libertarians?
Fuck me. This cunt is a genius or something. But actually, he also just goes on to highlight how shit his understanding of democracy is. Only about a third of the British population is required to become Libertarian in order for us to have outright control over the political agenda for five years. If we had 10% of the population, we could probably start moving the goalposts away from the default statist agenda.
But it does rather point out another major flaw in this cretin's thinking: one third of the population can get to set the way 100% of the population has to live, and yet he's comfortable with that, as long as no-one moves his particular cheese.
That was just one comment. It's all just far too much like hard work fisking people one by one, especially when you've done the exact same fisk or a 95% match a dozen times before. Even when people are seriously trying to discuss things, there are certain places their minds just refuse to go and they just run back into the arms of the state, crying like the little bitches they are.
And the people on the left who are suddenly crying for my voice to be raised against the civil liberty violations were fucking happy to grin and bear that shit while "their lot" were in power, so they're just shallow tribalists looking for another voice to cause trouble for the coalition, they don't actually care about liberty. All they want is for their team of statist cunts to be in charge again. So fuck them.
I'm no more happy about the political direction of this country than I was under Labour, primarily because the policies are indistinguishable and the state is still grown and the cuts are nothing of the sort and taxes are still shooting up.
But people aren't interested in learning about a truly different way of solving problems. People aren't interested in re-thinking their politics, even if they wind up in the exact same place.
So no, fuck it. The way I feel right now is that blogging isn't fun.
Update: As if by magic...
18 comments:
In fairness, Obo, CiF comment threads that are explicitly about libertarian blogs are never really going to be a bastion of reason and accuracy.
Just ignore the cunts. Or laugh at them.
They're throwing you a bone and you keep burying it.
Fuck 'em. Let's have some Obo ranting about life's irritations.
Ready for the glorious revolution Comrade Clown?
You are right though, blogging with the same reductions to basic principles does get tedious and infuriating when people come back with some bullshit.
Mandelson's Law:
"round about the time you're utterly sick of saying something, is when you are beginning to get your message across"
Be fair Obo, you were given a fair hearing. Just because people disagree with you doesn't mean that they are wrong or stupid.
I know how you feel. I often feel the same about my (non-political) form of blogging, but I keep going because I think it will lead somewhere, 10 or 20 years down the line. Also, I don't have a life.
Great article, also liked Bella's.
I am getting to see your point on blogging now.
It is a tough game for libertarians. I hope you somehow get re-inspired in the future.
Well, for what it's worth...we miss you.
We miss your sweary, ranting, in your face, opinionated, out of line, permissive, stupendous, arrogant, fascinating, outrageous, bloody minded blog.
Why? Because it was just that. You said what you felt and we came right back at you.
It was worse than a smelly sock.
Come back. Please. All is forgiven.
Is it something we said?
There is lots to blog about at the moment, with the coagulation. I mean, you could hardly miss it...
Have you gone to sleep?
Wake up!
wv: solds
hmm.....
As I just mentioned to you on twitter, I caught up with the CIF article which sort of bashed libertarians. I found the left winger contributions to be amazingly sneary and deliberately obtuse and sarcastic in tone.
Your opponents (I have found this umpteen times when debating with lefties) almost wanted to swerve away from the debate at hand, as though they were trying to club together with fellow like minded civilised statist social democrats.
As though they feared, inside, that they might have to, for the first time, challenge their own belief systems.
The mark of a weak person. Often to be found amongst the left wing statist self-proclaimed intelligensia.
You gave 'em as good as possible, but I could see from the off you were on to a losing battle.
I hope most people would come across that discussion and have the balls to properly look at what you were arguing, to look at our ideas and to question their own beliefs. And if they still disagree, then to engage decently.
Goodbye Obo,
You had become tedious. I'm so glad you've had the good sense to sign off. At the same time as a host of other pipsqueak bloggers. Just as we'd stopped looking. Or caring.
Irrelevance. It's death, I kid you not.
So tedious that you just couldn't stop coming back for more, eh? :o)
So tedious. But I had to have one last chuckle at it's death throes. And I have a little time on my hands. Being the boss an'all.
Please do not go. These people in government need to reminded frequently that they have it wrong. You do so with great humour and an interesting turn of phrase and language.
Are you going AGAIN? My knickers are more reliable.
Why don't you go and argue with all the people who like China's planned economy/engineers-as-politicians and rest the credit with the West's falling genetic/IQ base?
They hate libertarians and there are loads of 'em? I'd have thought you'd love it.
I meant to say,
poof!
Obnoxio
Do please keep posting. Ignore stupid comments, only engage with those that show a small sign of sanity. Trying to have a sensible conversation on CIF about any subject is a waste of time anc completely demoralising; the Gruniad readers are so deep in their own groupthink. Don't get involved, you won't cure them.
Stick around Obnoxio. The FightClubHikers love you man. Fuck The Guardian...
Peter Crawford
"there are certain places their minds just refuse to go"
Maybe it's time for a different approach? Why not concede coercion in return for some additional choices? In other words...let's accept the necessity of taxes but ask that tax payers be allowed to directly decide which public goods their taxes are used to help fund.
Post a Comment