BBE/IE: R.J. Eskow

[BlameThe1st]

Hey? Remember when one Salon screed writer posed that question libertarians could not answer (even though they managed to)?

Well, another Salon screed writer has uped the ante and posed 11 questions that libertarians cannot answer.

Here's just a portion of the le fail:

Libertarians have a problem. Their political philosophy all but died out in the mid- to late-20th century, but was revived by billionaires and corporations that found them politically useful. And yet libertarianism retains the qualities that led to its disappearance from the public stage, before its reanimation by people like the Koch brothers: It doesn't make any sense.

They call themselves "realists" but rely on fanciful theories that have never predicted real-world behavior. They claim that selfishness makes things better for everybody, when history shows exactly the opposite is true. They claim that a mythical "free market" is better at everything than the government is, yet when they really need government protection, they're the first to clamor for it.

Libertarianism is simply a ploy by evil, greedy corporations? Especially those evil Koch Brothers? Gee, what a unique arguement. Like I've never heard THAT before!

Oh, and fanciful theories? Last time I checked, it was mostly Austrian economists who were warning of the housing bubble while Keynesian tools like Krugman were pushing for the policies that created it in the first place. Oh, and for a more historical example, it was Ludwig Von Mises who predicted that the Soviet Union would collapse under its socialism, while prior to its downfall, progressives were praising it as a socialist paradise. (Of course, nowadays, they argue that Soviet Russia wasn't really socialist. Right. Of course it wasn't!)

[MrBogosity]

"Their political philosophy all but died out in the mid- to late-20th century, but was revived by billionaires and corporations that found them politically useful."

Right, that's why they donate billions of campaign dollars to the Libertarian Party and its candidates and almost nothing to the Democrats and Republicans. Oh, wait...