Ha ha, stupid hippies and their, uh, markets! 8

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1. 

   DavoJ Posted 9:36 am
   11 Jan 2006

   I'm not so sureWell I'm not so sure about that.  The piece itself is mildly positive and the comments reflect the full range of political views and varying levels of sanity that these sort of discussions often attract.  It's probably unfair to tarnish the libertarians associated with that site on the basis of some of the loopy comments made in reponse to their piece.

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2. 

   David Roberts Posted 9:58 am
   11 Jan 2006

   Yeah, DavoJ,I don't want to tarnish the blog or the magazine (Reason). I read a lot of stuff I enjoy there; there's plenty of stuff I disagree with, but it's always intelligent. Generally I respect libertarian scholars and writers.
   But libertarianism as a philosophy makes fairly unique and strong claims to unemotional, hard-headed rationality -- children of Ayn Rand, don't you know. Which is fine and all, but that's just not how most people really think, or behave. The average libertarian-on-the-street is, IMO, a libertarian of convenience. Again, this doesn't set them off from anyone else, but the claims made by libertarianism make the hypocrisy a bit more pungent.
   Whole Foods is run by a libertarian. But it caters to environmentalists. It sells homeopathic remedies. But it's buying wind power on the open market. But wind power is beloved by hippies. It's just a revealing clash of libertarian philosophy and the prejudices of libertarians.
   (Possibly, I acknowledge, interesting only to me.)
   
   www.grist.org

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3. 

   jdhlax Posted 11:46 am
   11 Jan 2006

   LibertarianismThere's every reason to oppose libertarianism if you're an environmentalist.  Libertarians believe that the individual is paramount, that individuals should be able to do whatever they want, regardless of the negative consequences suffered by the environment or other people.  While, for moral reasons, I agree with their advocacy of vice and there might be other positive aspects of this ideology,  libertarianism is inherently anti-environmental.
   Moreover, the libertarians to whiom I've listened  sound immature, like children who have yet to recognize that others, including non-humans, must be taken into consideration when determining one's actions.  As much as I hate them, I certainly would own a gun if we lived in a place where libertariansism was the law.
   
   Jeff Hoffman

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4. 

   lloydalter Posted 12:26 pm
   11 Jan 2006

   apalling commentsI have seen some pretty awful comments (today I got "you are an idiot loyd") but the anger and nastiness that I see on that site is just terrible. I just got home from seeing "good night and good luck" and some of these guys would give McCarthy a run for his money. Whatever happened to intelligent discourse?

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5. 

   amazingdrx Posted 10:21 pm
   11 Jan 2006

   My replyShowed 'em the riot act.  Hehey.
   These neorats are cards, they need to be dealt with.

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6. 

   biopolitical Posted 5:35 am
   12 Jan 2006

   StereotypesDavid, countering the prejudices and stereotypes of some libertarians by openly displaying your prejudices and stereotypes about libertarians is quite emotional and irrational. But I respect your behavior because you aren't physically hurting anyone or anyone's property. For the same reason I respect Whole Foods. (On the other hand, I do not respect the fact that politicians forcibly take people's money to build wind farms, subsidize oil use or invade other countries.)
   
   

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7. 

   ericr Posted 1:46 am
   09 Jun 2006

   Reason?Sorry to jump in at this late date ...
   Every comment on the Reason site was about wind energy, but Whole Foods, as noted in the original post, is buying wind energy credits. Their actual energy use does not change, nor does anyone else's. Wind companies simply get a second stream of income.

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8. 

   atreyger Posted 2:42 am
   09 Jun 2006

   biopoliticalTax money is used for lots of reasons, which reinforce the infrastructure of a country (US in our case). Without infrastructure, such as highways, electric lines and the like, the country becomes relatively 'unliveable' by today's standards.
   Subsidizing use of renewable energy using tax money (and that's only a relatively small portion of the monetary input for renewable energy projects, from what I understand) makes more sense than subsidizing purchases of large trucks for small businesses. I believe that the electrical companies themselves are using their funds to create these projects as well as using 'wind farm credits', which businesses, individuals, and local governmental agencies are buying.
   I am not pro-large fed involvement in local affairs, but fed taxes are used or rather should be used to make certain aspects of life in our country easier. I'm thinking of maintaining interstate infrastructure, securing our borders, and providing health care. Recent comparison study of healthcare in Canada and US found that Canadian outranks or equals US healthcare in every aspect, including usually brought-up waiting times.
   Getting back on the topic: wind turbines have a very competitive ROI, especially as fossil fuels increase in price. The subsidies to renewables are miniscule compared to existing subsidies to big oil, air companies, military, and insert any number of pork barrel legislation here. There's no reason to go for the small fish, when using an argument, if a much larger fish is looking hungry on the other side of the boat.

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