Openly gay Rep. Barney Frank has a strong record in support of what might loosely be called cultural or lifestyle libertarianism (my phrase, and yes, I know sexual orientation isn't a "lifestyle"), on issues such as gay marriage, gambling and medicinal marijuana. But as the Cato Institute's David Boaz blogs, Frank's other causes revolve around support for greater government economic intervention.
"Liberal" used to mean support for free markets, and still does in Europe. But not in America, where liberals remain deeply suspicious of free economic decision-making. As Boaz writes of Frank:
This year, as Financial Services chairman, he's demonstrating his interventionist tendencies as well as his sometime libertarian instincts. He wants to push all workers into government health care, to regulate corporate decisions about executive compensation, to put more obstacles in the way of free trade across national borders, to keep Wal-Mart from creating an internal bank clearinghouse to hold down its costs. Not to mention expanding anti-discrimination rules to include gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
American liberals' seem to believe that the economy needs the firm guiding hand of highly intelligent, morally righteous officials such as themselves. That's a carryover not from the classical liberalism of John Locke, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, but from later European socialist philosophies that were noticeably "illiberal" on the issue of individual freedom as opposed to the "rights" of the collective.
Yet, as Boaz notes, Frank told a journalist: "In a number of areas, I am a libertarian. I think that John Stuart Mill's 'On Liberty' is a great statement, and I was just rereading it." Comments Boaz:
Would that the Republicans who once took Congress on the promise of "the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money" also reread (or read) "On Liberty" and take its message to heart. And would that Barney Frank come to realize that adults should also be free to spend the money they earn as they choose and to decide what contracts, with foreign businesses or local job applicants, they will enter into.
31 Comments for “On Liberty and Liberals”
posted by raot on
Boaz’s reasoning as bad as that of libertarians usually is. Saying that people should be free to spend their earned money as they wish is nonsense unless you advocate the total and immediate abolition of taxation, and I don’t think that this is quite his view?
posted by Brian Miller on
Saying that people should be free to spend their earned money as they wish is nonsense
That, in a nutshell, is the essence of modern “liberalism” in this country. It argues that an individual is not the best decision-maker as to how to spend his money — rather, the enlightened “liberal” central planner knows better than the individual and should take his money to spend it on other things.
Incidentally, Frank is not a “lifestyle libertarian” either. He was passionately opposed to marriage equality and remained so until the Goodridge case dragged him kicking and screaming out of the marriage closet (just like the page scandal dragged him kicking and screaming out of the regular closet some 15 years earlier.)
posted by Greg Capaldini on
Raot, in answer to your question: Yes, I recall that Mr. Boaz has taken a rather dim view of taxation in the past.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Brian, kindly show me where Barney expressed opposition, passionate or otherwise, to the goal of marriage equality–as opposed to particular strategies for getting there. He is very much a political pragmatist, and he has indeed been critical of those at the leading edge of the marriage fight. I disagreed with his criticism of SF Mayor Gavin Newsom three years ago. But favoring a more cautious strategy does not constitute opposition.
By the way, Barney came out of the closet well before the Steve Gobie scandal broke.
posted by ETJB on
Well, I hate to burst anyone’s bubble but no one who is really a ‘Libertarian’ could get elected.
posted by Amicus on
Stephen, in your zeal to paint a nay-sayer picture against the great good of free-markets, which brought us Enron recently, among other things, you didn’t answer for yourself (and your readers) the central topic of Boaz’s article. Are you for or against legalizing on-line gambling?
posted by dalea on
And just what is this ‘earned’ about? What does it mean to earn or not earn money. Can people in an economy like ours acquire money without earning it?
It seems to me this is where the issue is. When people acquire money partially through a government grant of monopoly privilege such as a patent, copyright, incorporation, letter of marquee, license, certification, deduction for doing some specific action, adherence to rules and regulations, then do these people actually ‘earn’ their money? And if they don’t earn it, what does that say about tax policy?
J S Mill’s On Liberty is a great work. So too are his other works, especially those on ‘rents’ which is what the above list reflects. Both Mill and Adam Smith condemned most of the things on this list that existed in their time.
I suspect the reason that most Liberals came to favor a more restricted market comes from a close examination of the whole concept of ‘earned’. Rather than a desire to run other people’s lives, it is a realization that ‘earned’ is an enormously complicated set of conditions and circumstances which lead to the welfare state. Many liberals in the 19th century came to this view. And some Libertarians still do make this same journey.
‘to regulate corporate decisions about executive compensation’ seems to me a wise move as it requires this to be done by the owners of the corporation (the stockholders) not the employees setting their own salaries. How this is not libertarian is beyond my understanding.
posted by Tim Hulsey on
Hmm. Interesting point here about the evolution of the word “liberal.” I wonder how it happened ….
posted by dalea on
Here are actual Liberals discussing the three leading dems positions on gay rights;
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/1/03215/20902
posted by Audrey B: Classical Liberal on
You, dalea, think that the refried pseudo socialists of dailykos are actual liberals, and that I, Audrey B: Classical Liberal, am now supposed to take anything you say seriously? It’s not that I think there’s anything wrong with being a refried pseudo socialist, even if I disagree with your conclusions about how to run a country. I just wish you wouldn’t call yourselves liberals (progressives, however, works fine).
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Amen, Audrey. People on the right, such as the GWB dead-enders, lump together liberals and far-leftists. That is not a good reason for liberals and socialists to do the same. I, who would probably claim “classical liberal” if I had to pick a label for myself, try to distinguish between classical conservatives on the one hand and the neocons and theocons on the other. It is difficult to discuss politics these days with any clarity without making these distinctions. Hillary Clinton is a liberal. If the people at Daily Kos who hate her are also to be called liberal, then you might as well call it Mary Poppins’ Bag, because almost anything will fit into it.
posted by Audrey B: Libertarian on
Mr. Rosendall, you have got to be kidding me, right?
posted by dalea on
No, Audrey. I think you need to get out more.
Hillary is regarded as at the minimal a ‘moderate’ by liberals. This would exclude those who find her to be a conservative, but a few steps removed from Wm F Buckley. And it does not include those who rank her with the DLC as an agent of conservativism.
HRC is the most conservative of the Democratic party candidates.
Real liberals are for Obama or Edwards. Actually, they pass up these conservative sellouts and go for Kucinich. Who barely makes the grade.
Dear, you really need to get out more.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Oh, for goodness’ sake, look at Hillary’s voting record. Don’t just cherry-pick votes you don’t like. And I hope that no one here is so ignorant of political history as to suggest that voting for war marks one as a conservative. The Cold War was launched by Democrats. To be sure, classical liberals are deemed conservative by some today, but only those who are eager to see the Democratic Party controlled by its leftmost wing would accept that characterization. Anyone who seriously thinks Hillary Rodham Clinton is a conservative is missing the forest for the netroots.
posted by Brian Miller on
Hillary Clinton’s anti-gay, pro-war voting record doesn’t make her a “liberal.”
Neither does her support for huge government expenditures for social programs.
What they *do* make her is a socially conservative-to-moderate socialist. Which isn’t a liberal per se.
posted by Brian Miller on
kindly show me where Barney expressed opposition, passionate or otherwise, to the goal of marriage equality
I am good friends with one of the couples who filed the Goodridge lawsuit in Massachusetts.
Frank lobbied them furiously — including with personal phone calls — to drop the case. He also condemned them in the gay press and warned that marriage “wasn’t the most important thing.”
Barney came out of the closet well before the Steve Gobie scandal broke
I suppose that if you count hanging out in DC bars as “being out,” that’s accurate. But in terms of being truly out, most people didn’t know until the Gobie scandal exploded in the press.
Frank’s “gay activism” was a “pragmatic” effort to leverage his newfound queer celebrity into a new political role in Washington when his old schtick burst as a result of the scandal.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Brian,
Barney’s urging them to drop the Goodridge case was based on his thinking it was not a good time. It was a strategic consideration, not evidence that he opposed or opposes SSM. Come on, if you want to condemn the guy, why can’t a big strategic disagreement be enough for you? You can say he put the Democratic Party’s interest ahead of the gay community’s — to which he would probably reply that he is trying to create actual change instead of just talking about it, and the Democratic Party provides the best chance for the advancement of gay equality available. What’s your realistic alternative?
As to Barney’s coming out, you are just wrong. And surely you know that the phrase “coming out” quite objectively does NOT (and cannot honestly) include hanging out in gay bars. There is about zero chance that you could have honestly thought that was what I meant. No. Barney really did come out publicly in the commonly accepted understanding of that phrase well before the Gobie case. The Gobie case broke in 1989, as I recall, while Barney came out a couple of years before that. You can speculate that he anticipated some scandal breaking and decided it was best to come out before that so that he would at least be controlling the manner of his coming out and not associate it directly with scandal, but that is speculation.
Although I have my disagreements with Barney, he has gone to bat for our community more times and more publicly than most have done. The level of hostility you appear to bear toward him is unwarranted from a gay-rights point of view.
As to the continued insistence by some that Hillary is obviously not a liberal, there is no other single political label (leaving aside disparaging epithets) that is more accurate about her. If her support for big government programs makes her a socialist, GWB is an uber-socialist.
posted by Brian Miller on
Barney’s urging them to drop the Goodridge case was based on his thinking it was not a good time.
Whatever the rationale, he’s on the record as doing it. Aggressively.
Although I have my disagreements with Barney, he has gone to bat for our community more times and more publicly than most have done.
Has he?
My perception is a bit different. He’s gone to bat for the Democratic Party more than once (using gay rights as a convenient backdrop), but when it was time for real political courage, Frank did worse than merely tuck tail and run — he rather attempted to sabotage marriage equality due to “strategy” concerns more relevant to partisan Democrats than LGBT families.
As to the continued insistence by some that Hillary is obviously not a liberal, there is no other single political label (leaving aside disparaging epithets) that is more accurate about her. If her support for big government programs makes her a socialist, GWB is an uber-socialist.
Your second sentence here is typed as though you’d expect me to disagree with you! 😉 I agree, Mr. Bush is also a socialist. The problems that America is facing today is because of big-government socialism (and paternalism) that Republicratic politicians like Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Bush alike have engaged in. The differences between the two are far less easy to count than the similarities. Hence the objections by many liberals to the assignment of that title to Mrs. Clinton — and the rejection of the label of “conservative” for Mr. Bush by many conservatives.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Brian,
Barney’s opposition was strategic, not substantive. I have been accused of being anti-marriage-equality myself because I favor a more cautious approach in D.C. due to our special constitutional relationship with Congress. So I have first-hand experience with purists denouncing me and my colleagues because we choose to deal with reality.
Barney is one of the few out gay members of Congress. Yes, he damn well has gone to bat for us many times. You have decided to loathe him so you cheaply refuse to give him credit for everything. As with his coming out in 1987, you are ill-acquainted with the facts.
The dispute over what to call Hillary is similar. Washington is not a city filled with ideological purists (witness Orrin Hatch’s announcement the other day of his support for the Davis-Norton DC Voting Rights bill), and “liberal” is a slippery enough term in practice. It is the closest accurate label for Hillary in my view. And few would seriously summarize GWB as a socialist just because his huge new Medicare entitlement makes that one of the threads in his presidency.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
In my second paragraph above, I meant “credit for anything.” Pardon me, but I just finished a large mango daiquiri.
posted by dalea on
Richard and Audrey
I am reporting what actual liberals say about Hillary. And by and large, they regard her as more conservative than they are. Also, where has Hillary in the last 25 years publically identified herself as a Liberal?
For Audrey. The owner of DailyKos, Kos himself, identifies as a ‘libertarian Democrat’. And supports like minded candidates such as Jim Webb and Jon Tester. Let us remember that there have always been left libertarians. And that usually there are far more of them than right libertarians.
Personal point. I feel I have more in common with a left libertarian than with a libertarian conservative.
posted by Brian Miller on
Barney’s opposition was strategic, not substantive
Yes, it was strategic — strategic to assist the Democratic Party, which would rather avoid the question. It wasn’t very strategic for LGBT people, who waited over a decade before finally striking it out on their own in 2001 in Vermont.
Remember that “civil unions” and such were unprecedented until a lawsuit, and that no Democrats — including Barney Frank — were willing to take any “cautious strategic steps” until after the VT ruling forced their hands.
If the “strategists” ala Barney Frank had been closely heeded, not only would we not have marriage equality in MA, but civil unions wouldn’t even exist. Which means that Mr. Frank’s approach to marriage has been, to be charitable, less than useful over the last few years.
Not that this is particularly surprising — Mr. Frank’s public persona/lifestyle isn’t one that favors monogamy, marriage, etc., and that’s fine. He’s free to live his life, but he’s also going to get quite an earful from those of us who don’t want to delay equal treatment under the law so that he can pass some Democratic Party economic package without having to worry about “the gays.”
posted by Brian Miller on
You have decided to loathe him so you cheaply refuse to give him credit for everything. As with his coming out in 1987, you are ill-acquainted with the facts.
Oh goodness. Two unsubstantiated points made in rebuttal to inconvenient facts!
The dispute over what to call Hillary is similar. Washington is not a city filled with ideological purists
One need not be an “ideological purist” to identify the broad political orientation of a particular politician. “Liberals” don’t support wars, social conservatism, and government intervention in one’s private life — just like “conservatives” don’t typically favor tax hikes, government health systems, and huge spending increases.
few would seriously summarize GWB as a socialist just because his huge new Medicare entitlement makes that one of the threads in his presidency
Bush’s $18 trillion Medicare bill is indeed his largest single socialist legacy, but he’s also got quite a bit of other government spending to prop up the economy going on as well.
Conservatives typically aren’t big-government-to-solve-everything activists. They also don’t tend to subscribe to government as a solution for the world’s ills, they mock nation-building (as Bush did prior to his Iraq gambit), and they’re not keen on swelling government payrolls by 40,000 people a year (on average).
Any way you swing it, Mr. Bush and Mrs. Clinton’s policy differences, on the most crucial issues, are very minor.
posted by dalea on
No Brian, the differences between Hillary and GWB are not minor. She supports habeus corpus and he has done away with it. Hillary supports the rule of law; GWB and almost the whole of the conservative movement embraces the ‘unitary executive’ model.
Which means, contrary to Hayek, that electing conservatives invariably leads to fascism.
Brian, perhaps some day you will tire of defending rents and state priviledge. Which is apparently the Libertarian Party’s main function. Until then, blessings.
posted by Brian Miller on
She supports habeus corpus and he has done away with it.
She voted for the USA PATRIOT Act, which means that she doesn’t.
Oh yeah, she *says* she does, but look at that vote!
Hillary supports the rule of law; GWB and almost the whole of the conservative movement embraces the ‘unitary executive’ model.
Hillary happily supported the entire Bush agenda when the polls suggested it would help her to do so — from Iraq, to civil liberties violations, to supporting the legislation allowing those violations with her Senate vote.
I also have no doubt that if she becomes president, she will very clearly leverage that unitary executive power to the utmost for her own purposes.
perhaps some day you will tire of defending rents and state priviledge
Huh?
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Brian,
For goodness’ sake, do not tell yourself much less the rest of us that you are going to persist in believing that Barney Frank was outed by the Gobie scandal based on my not doing your homework for you. He came out in 1987, and the scandal occurred in 1990. Look it up on Wikipedia. If you distrust Wikipedia, look further. It is the case, Brian. Stop your posturing already. You are mistaken on this point, as is plain to any scrupulous person regardless of how cleverly you try to mask it.
Hillary is certainly opportunistic, as her collaboration with Sen. Kyl on the anti-flag-burning law nicely illustrates. But it is hard to imagine her being nearly as bad as Bush. Your need to despise people gets in the way of your judgment.
posted by dalea on
OK Brian, I rounded up some quotes and sources about why you should look into the matter of rents.
John Stuart Mill is an interesting case. He favored estate taxation. He favored a graduated income tax. All of which he presented as ‘Classical Liberalism’. And all the people here who call themselves Classical Liberals point to J S Mill as their concept of what Classical Liberalism is all about.
The discussion of rents that I found ranges from Adam Smith to the current GeoLibertarians.
This is a central issue for liberals of all schools and persuasions. And has been for over two centuries.
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/mill_rent.html
John Stuart Mill in Book 2, Chapter 16, The Principles of Political Economy. Please note that this 19th century Classical Liberal argues for regulating monopoly. And even for government ownership of things.
” It is at once evident, that rent is the effect of a monopoly; though the monopoly is a natural one, which may be regulated, which may even be held as a trust for the community generally, but which cannot be prevented from existing.”
Principles of Political Economy (1848), Book V, chap. II secs. 5 and 6
“Before leaving the subject to the quality of taxation, I must remark that there are cases in which exceptions may be made to it, consistently with that equal justice which is the groundwork of the rule. Suppose that there is a kind of income which constantly tends to increase, without any exertion or sacrifice on the part of the owners: those owners constituting a class in the community, whom the natural course of things progressively enriches, consistently with complete passiveness on their own part. In such a case it would be no violation of the principles on which private property is grounded, if the state should appropriate this increase of wealth, or part of it, as it arises. This would not properly be taking anything from anybody; it would merely be applying an accession of wealth, created by circumstances, to the benefit of society, instead of allowing it to become an unearned appendage to the riches of a particular class.”
“But whatever may be thought of the legitimacy of making the State a sharer in all future increase of rent from natural causes, the existing land tax (which in this country unfortunately is very small) ought not to be regarded as a tax, but as a rent charge in favor of the public; all portion of the rent, reserved from the beginning by the State, which has never belonged to or formed part of the income of the landlords, and should not therefore be counted to them as part of their taxation, so as to exempt them from their fair share of every other tax.”
” To claim for the benefit of this state the interception by taxation of the future unearned increase of the rent of land (so far as the same can be ascertained) or a great part of the increase, which is continually taking place without any effort or outlay by the proprietors merely through the growth of population and wealth; reserving to owners the option of relinquishing their property to the state at the market value which it may have acquired at the time when this principle may be adopted by the Legislature.”
“in allowing the land to become private property, the state ought to have reserved to itself this accession of the income, and that lapse of time does not extinguish this right, whatever claim to compensation it may establish in favor of the landowner. The land is the original inheritance of mankind. The usual, and by far the best argument for its appropriation by individuals is that private ownership gives the strongest motive for making the so loyal yield the greatest possible produce. But this argument is only valid for leaving to the owner the full enjoyment of whatever value he adds to the land by his own exertions and expenditure. There is no similar reason for allowing him to appropriate and increase the value to which he has contributed nothing, but which accrues to him from the general growth of society; that is to say, not from his own labor and expenditure but from that of other people — of the community at large.”
http://eh.net/bookreviews/library/1184
Sowell’s point of departure is a chapter devoted to the “social philosophy” of the classical economists — a diffusely defined group associated with the “authoritative tradition” emanating from the _Wealth of Nations_. That they were “conservative” is placed in doubt by pointing to their anti-aristocratic attitudes and their high wage policies. Their hostility to the state is rightly associated with an aversion to war and, as James Mill put it, the imperial system of “outdoor relief for the upper classes” (p. 7). Rather than asserting the benefits of laissez-faire based on the existence of a “natural harmony of interests” the classical economist are portrayed as seeking to dismantle a politicized disharmony of interests that greatly favored wealth and power.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0254/is_2_63/ai_n6141848/pg_4
“Ricardian theory showed that ground rent, being a return to a
nonreproducible natural agent, was eminently suitable for taxation.
His mentor and disciple, James Mill, was the first to draw the
obvious corollary that all future increments in rent from some
current base year could be taxed away without serious harm. Ricardo
himself was not happy with the proposal but it remained an academic
question in his lifetime. But with the publication of John Stuart
Mill’s Principles in 1848, a section of which reproduced his
father’s arguments, and the subsequent formation of the Land Tenure
Reform Association under Mill’s aegis, the idea caught on. John
Stuart Mill proposed totally to exempt present rents and to tax “the
future increment of unearned rent” by taxing the capital gains of
increases in the price of land. Henry George in Progress and Poverty
(1879) went a little further and proposed to confiscate all rents in
the manner of the physiocrats, a measure that he claimed would
abolish poverty and economic crises, the latter being simply the
result of speculation in land values. This would be a “single tax”
because he thought that its proceeds would be sufficient to defray
the entire expenses of the state. His proposal was widely
misunderstood, partly because of his own clumsy exposition, as
advocating nationalisation of land. In point of fact, he only
proposed to tax pure ground rent, exempting the returns from site
improvements. In short, “the single tax” was designed to reduce the
price of land as mere space to zero, leaving untouched the rentals
of property located on the land; it was intended to put all property
on the same basis irrespective of its location. (29)”
http://books.google.com/books?id=kqoJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA103&lpg=PA103&dq=js+mill+rents+patents&source=web&ots=5-MNvNgjpg&sig=9kVRgqb-fllUYJgOrVfj2NUMTnY
Charles William MacFarlane elaborates on Mills theory of rents, comparing patents as akin to rents on page 103.
http://wealthandwant.com/themes/Mill.html
The ordinary progress of a society which increases in wealth, is at all times tending to augment the incomes of landlords; to give them both a greater amount and a greater proportion of the wealth of the community, independently of any trouble or outlay incurred by themselves. They grow richer, as it were in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing. What claim have they, on the general principle of social justice, to this accession of riches? In what would they have been wronged if society had, from the beginning, reserved the right of taxing the spontaneous increase of rent, to the highest amount required by financial exigencies?
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), in Principles of Political Economy
with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy, 1848.
found in Book V, Chapter II: On the General Principles of Taxation
http://www.econlib.org/library/Mill/mlP64.html
“I cannot, therefore, attach any importance, in a wealthy country, to the objection made against taxes on legacies and inheritances, that they are taxes on capital. It is perfectly true that they are so. As Ricardo observes, if 100l. are taken from any one in a tax on houses or on wine, he will probably save it, or a part of it, by living in a cheaper house, consuming less wine, or retrenching from some other of his expenses; but if the same sum be taken from him because he has received a legacy of 1000l., he considers the legacy as only 900l., and feels no more inducement than at any other time (probably feels rather less inducement) to economize in his expenditure. ”
Commentary on Mills’ views.
http://wealthandwant.com/themes/Mill.html
Current and of interest here.
http://wealthandwant.com/docs/Sullivan_RL.html
Are you a Real Libertarian, or a ROYAL Libertarian?
“According to royal libertarians, land becomes private property when one mixes one’s labor with it. And mixing what is yours with what is not yours in order to own the whole thing is considered great sport. But the notion is filled with problems. How much labor does it take to claim land, and how much land can one claim for that labor? And for how long can one make that claim?
According to classical liberals, land belonged to the user for as long as the land was being used, and no longer. But according to royal libertarians, land belongs to the first user, forever.”
“Geolibertarians
We are libertarians who make the classical liberal distinction between land, labor and capital. We believe in the private possession of land without interference from the state, but in the community collection of land rent to prevent monopolization of land.
We believe that all government activities should at least be limited to those which increase the value of land by more than what the government collects, and that government should be funded entirely from the land value increases it creates.
We oppose direct state monopolization of land as well as state-sanctioned private monopolization of land, and advocate that state and federally held land pay land rent to the communities the same as private land.
We advocate that government be allowed to spend only what is authorized by voter referendum or similar device and that it take for itself the minimum it is authorized to spend. Those who advocate collection of the full rent stipulate that the proceeds be divided among community members on a per-capita or similar basis, for the land, and the rent, belong to the people, not the state.
We condemn the taxation of property improvements, and of all activities, productive, consumptive, or recreational, as invasions by the state into the private affairs of free individuals.”
Brian, I would suggest you check out the link below. It will explain the central role ‘rent’ plays in Classical Liberal, Modern Liberal and Libertarian thought.
http://geolib.pair.com/welcome.html
http://geolib.pair.com/essays/sullivan.dan/greenlibertarians.html
posted by Brian Miller on
I’m aware of the economic rent argument, dale, and I reject it utterly.
Hillary is certainly opportunistic, as her collaboration with Sen. Kyl on the anti-flag-burning law nicely illustrates. But it is hard to imagine her being nearly as bad as Bush.
Hillary happily supported the Bush agenda on everything that matters. I suppose you could argue that her demeanor is a bit more pleasant, but that’s hardly a differentiating characteristic.
Your need to despise people gets in the way of your judgment.
Your need to assign phantom motivations gets in the way of a debate of the facts.
Wikipedia
Ahhh, my favorite “unbiased” source of information. The contention is uncited, while the Gobie scandal is well known.
As I noted earlier, Frank might have been out in a couple of Washington coffee klatches at the time, but he wasn’t generally out — including in his district — until 1990. I should know — I was a resident of his district at the time, and the entire media story was about how the scandal “confirmed rumors” of Frank’s sexual orientation.
It’s not *that* big a deal to me whether he was out or not — that’s the currency that he trades on himself. I just find it hypocritical that he’d deign to make himself an expert on “strategies for gay people” when his own strategies with regard to coming out (and maintaining relationships of questionable nature) are so poor.
posted by Tim Hulsey on
Dalea: Mill wasn’t a consistent liberal, because as a Utilitarian he did not endorse the basic liberal principle of inherent human rights. Property rights in particular were problematic for him: He saw no guarantee that private property would be used in such a manner as to maximize the common good.
Mill doesn’t seem to have favored a graduated income tax, as you claim he did. In the first edition of Principles of Political Economy, he even called such taxation “a mild form of robbery.” The idea of penalizing individuals for their own hard work and thrift was deeply repugnant to Mill. He thought capital gains, property and inheritance taxes were fine, though, because they redistributed unearned wealth and thus advanced the cause of social equality.
When libertarians invoke Mill, they’re usually referring to his book “On Liberty.” But hardcore types prefer Bastiat.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Brian,
Since I anticipated your sneering about Wikipedia as a source, your reaction is dishonest because you conveniently ignore the rest of my comment, which was to tell you to look further if you don’t trust it. THE FACTS DON’T CHANGE BECAUSE YOU DENY THEM.
You wrote, “As I noted earlier, Frank might have been out in a couple of Washington coffee klatches at the time, but he wasn’t generally out — including in his district — until 1990.”
Brian, that is simply not true. Barney truly and publicly came out in 1987. Not in a few coffee klatches, which if that is what I meant would make me a liar because I have made it explicitly clear that I recognize that that is NOT what “coming out” is generally understood to mean.
To cite one small example, the Washington Times published a letter of mine after Barney came out and before the Gobie scandal, responding to something they had printed joking about what a scary babysitter Barney would be (they were referring to his being openly gay). I wrote that I would much rather have him look after children than entrust them to an intolerant theocrat who would teach them hatred of people who love differently. At the time (before the Gobie scandal), I also remember Barney participating in a stand-up comedy contest in which he joked (in reference to some politician’s daughter’s “coming-out party”) that no one had thrown HIM a coming-out party. I also have family in Boston, and their memories confirm all this. But this is not a matter of duelling memories; a search of newspaper archives will confirm that you are wrong.
I recognize there is a popular habit among some on Internet discussion boards to act as if outside reality does not exist and that the only truth is what is cited by the people posting comments. If you truly believe that, you are welcome to your delusions. But it’s pretty clear that what is really going on here is mere posturing.
If it’s not a big deal to you, then you should stop disputing the facts and stop using misinformation to justify your contempt for Barney.
posted by dalea on
Tim says: Mill wasn’t a consistent liberal, because as a Utilitarian he did not endorse the basic liberal principle of inherent human rights. Property rights in particular were problematic for him.
Thank you for your kind response. I was not aware that all liberals everywhere endorsed ‘inherent human rights’. News to me.
AIUI, inherent human rights come from some sort of Natural Law system of thought. Which invariably strike me as lacking credibility. Like on a par with the Catholic theology of sex.
Instead, I tend to favor more utilitarian type trains of thought. With some consideration of rights as a social custom and vague entitlement.
Let me rephrase your statement: Bastiat can not be considered a consistent liberal as he continued to insist on the hocus pocus of ‘inherent rights’.
Actually I find Mill a much better starting place in understanding Liberty. The concept of ‘rents’ clarifies in my mind a great many problems I find with the usual libertarian way of looking at the world. What I see here is a tendency to defend things that are only rents, in the economic sense.
The higher the income, the more likely it is to have a high proportion of rents. So, when someone who gains 50,000 from restrictions on entry into a profession, pays a tax of 45,000 s/he is 5,000 better off than before. Why the fuss?
I find the law forbidding medicare to negotiate drug prices a particularly open case of corporate welfare. Many people here do not.
My personal observation is that a rights based approach rapidly ceases to do Political Economy but tends to become a branch of genealogy.
Tim, can you see that there are here two types of liberals, Classical Liberals at that. The rights type and the utilitarians. And I suspect that us utilitarians are much more likely to follow the reasoning of and agree with modern liberals.