Interesting to know. But my point remains: The word “liberal” does not belong to the libertarians any more, and you will never, ever, get it back. Please stop trying; you’ll only confuse things.
I’m afraid it’s not that simple. From this Wikipedia article:
“United States: The primary use of the term liberal is at some variance with European and even British usage.” Many European Dopers, in fact, have chimed in before to corroborate the fact that the term is used differently here. It is the American harbingers of Nanny Government that have confused things. My username is my small part of the general effort to take the word back from you. But don’t feel singled out. We’d also like to have the word “freedom” back from the conservatives, please. They’re making it into something awful. 
European “liberals” might not be the same as American “liberals” – but neither are they libertarians, in the American sense. (Britain’s Liberal Democrats, in particular, seem to have more in common with our Green Party than with anything else American. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democrats_(UK)) In fact, so far as I’ve been able to find, there is no precise analogue to the American Libertarian Party or libertarian movement in any other country. I ran a GD thread on this a couple of years ago: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=189470
No, not perfectly serious.
John Derbyshire explains this column to people with no sense of humor.
Well, here’s Libertarian Party of Canada. Here’s Partido Libertario Argentino. Here’s Liberal Democratic Party (Australia). Here’s Partido Movimiento Libertario (Costa Rica). Here’s Libertarische Partij (The Netherlands). Here’s Libertarianz (New Zealand). Etc. You might need a new search engine.
Well, I hadn’t researched the question in two years – I guess the movement is growing. But, N.B.: Except for the Liberal Democrats of Austrialia, all those parties call themselves “libertarian,” not “liberal.” That would appear to be a worldwide trend in usage of the words.
Well, by whatever word or whatever the trend, my answer to the OP remains what it was in post #2. I’d like to see this replace this.
To be honest, I don’t believe Derbyshire really believed those things he said.
Rather, I think it’s just one more example of the football-offense rhetoric that the right is so much better at than the left:
-
Pundit says something outrageous.
-
If it’s challenged roundly enough, pundit says it was an attempt at humor, possibly adding that it was too sophisticated for the humor-impaired liberals.
-
If it goes unchallenged, pundit has advanced the acceptance of other, less extreme stances on the issue, resulting in a ground gain.
The “I’m-An-Entertainer” get-out-of-jail-free card is simply part of the strategy.
I suspect this has its roots in the writings of William F. Buckley, who did this much more artfully (and thought-provokingly) a long time ago. (P.J. O’Rourke also does it well).
E.g., in 1986 or so, Buckley advocated the mandatory tattooing of AIDS patients.
When people of all political persuasions were outraged, he said, essentially, “OK, I guess that was a bit extreme, I take it back”.
This is not the same as saying it was a joke, but is similarly absolving.
And I’m not saying that that liberals wouldn’t do the same thing if they could – they just don’t seem to be able to ‘find their voice’.
As far as whether Derby’s article is funny:
I have a brother who hates President Bush with the passion of a thousand suns. As such, I make sure to avoid the subject of Bush around him, because if I don’t, he will invariably get pissed at me for not laughing at some lame insult of Bush. Such insults make him feel good because he hates Bush. He confuses this feeling with humor, and accuses anyone who doesn’t share his hatred of lacking a sense of humor.
My brother and Derbyshire would probably get along really well, if they only hated the same people.
On the contrary, I think that liberal views are becoming stronger. I think that conservative views are the ones that are becoming harder to hold on to. It seems obvious to me also, I mean, just look at our society now, it’s not supported by anything close to what our traditional values in the 20s or 30s were.
I don’t think it is possible to appeal to the majority of Americans until Americans as a whole are a lot better educated. No, I didn’t say “better indoctrinated into Commie Pinko-ism”; I said "better educated. You know, stuff like learning to speak correctly, knowing about grammar, learning what the scientific method is, and most importantly–understanding and using critical thinking.
I suspect, but can’t prove, that a well-educated populace will be a populace that has far less reliance on superstition as a guiding force in their lives, and will be a lot more successful at making informed decisions about things that happen beyond their property.
If I meet any people with no sense of humor, I’ll let them know. But frankly I doubt they’ll be impressed. That response is mostly just name-calling, declaring anyone who disagrees with his column a “hysterical idiot”. The one would-be relevant point is when he defends his right to direct “mockery” at Presidential offspring. But his column didn’t mock Chelsea Clinton; it called for her execution. Understand the difference?
Here’s an experiment we could try. Take Derbyshire’s column. Change every mention of a Clinton family member to the corresponding Bush family member. Post the column on some right-wing message board, and claim that Michael Moore wrote it. If the right-wing denizens of the board in question respond along the lines of “Good ole’ Michael Moore, he wields humor and hyperbole to such wonderful effect,” then I will acknowledge that your line of argument has some reasonable basis. Until then, however, I’m going to judge Mr. Derbyshire by what he wrote, rather than by what you’d like me to believe that he wrote.
I would have thought that good education would expose people to ideas other than just yours. Lots of very smart people, for example, from Descartes to Darwin have been something other than atheists (I guess that’s what you’re getting at by your incredibly disrespectful remarks about “superstition”).
Sorry, but no. I won’t subjugate my own judgements on what is funny and what is not to the whims and prejudices of a bunch of people on a message board.
In other words, I am not you. And thank heaven for that.
Mr. Moto and ITR champion, we’re losing focus here.
The original argument concerned whether respected, mainstream talking heads on the right (and specifically, Derbyshire) were receiving more license when they said outrageous things than their counterparts on the left.
Mr. Moto claimed that since Derbyshire is trying to use humor to make his point, he was exempted (my paraphrase of his stance). I personally disagree with this stance, unless it’s applied equally across the ideological spectrum.
ITR champion asserted that Derbyshire was dead serious, and not funny to boot – I disagree with the first of these, but neither point is relevant to the argument.
Mr. Moto, you certainly don’t have to subjugate your judgements as to what you think is funny – humor is a very personal thing. But if you use your judgements to unilaterally claim the aforementioned license, you’re asking others to subjugate their judgements to yours.
And let’s recall that the right is not averse to pretending not to get a joke:
In one of Al Franken’s books, he relates how he referred to John McCain in a speech as a ‘draft-dodger’ – joking that he escaped the draft in a ‘comfy’ prisoner of war camp. The Washington Times ran an item claiming that Franken had slammed the war hero, with no context or mention of the fact that the rest of Franken’s speech praised McCain, and the draft-dodger bit was a parody of his opponents’ tactics.
But Shakespeare, don’t you see that the Washington Times often uses humor and hyperbole to make their points? They were just joking around with Franken when they twisted around his praise of McCain to make it look like an insult. You need to be more fair and equitable.
No, it was wrong and stupid of the Washington Times to selectively quote someone in this way. I think we can all agree on that one.
However, ITR champion, you did some selective quoting yourself on the Derbyshire column. You don’t get to call the Times on this unless you correct this error.
Failing to do so would be hypocrisy, don’t you think?
(I must be insane for jumping back into this nutty discussion, but somehow I can’t help myself…)
ITR: You completely missed the point. The analogy isn’t between The Washington Times and Franken, the analogies are:
Franken is to Derbyshire as The Washington Times is to… YOU!
As for your suggestion of posting a story on a right wing message board, again all that would prove is that you are the left wing version of those denizens. If that makes you feel any better, knock yourself out.
I certainly will agree that Derbyshire’s article was in extremely poor taste. I don’t sanction such activity, but your claim that this amounted to TNR “demanding” (your words) that Bush supports murder the Clinton family is simple hyperbole.
And that’s all I have to say on the subject.
I beg your pardon. Darwin was raised a Christian but became an atheist, or agnostic, in the course of his intellectual development. (There is no proof of the urban legend that he re-converted to Christianity on his deathbed.) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin's_views_on_religion) Descartes believed in God, but the Catholic Church still found his views disturbing enough that it placed all his works on the Index of Prohibited Books. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes) Yes, education does tend to erode both religion and superstition (assuming a distinction exists).
Well, a lot of us have been “exposed” to say the least to the idea that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. There’s a big difference between insisting on that and being something other than an atheist. Some of us have also been exposed to the idea that God and/or Jesus will use their supernatural powers to punish the whole of America if we legalize gay marriage. Surely that is both superstitious and incredibly disrespectful.
Naturally a good education will expose people to all sorts of ideas. You are wrong if you gathered that I meant that a good education would only expose people to my particular belief system.
As for being disrespectful, I’m afraid I have to disagree that I was (though if you are particularly thin-skinned you may have perceived it that way). I am not suggesting that the better one is educated the more likely one is to be atheist (although, now that YOU mention it [not I] I think there is probably a lot more atheism among people with better or more complete educations than among the less and/or un-educated. It would be an interesting endeavor to try and discover why or why not this is so).
Now let’s consider superstition; the word that apparently set you off. I was mainly referring to people that are hoodwinked by psychics, palm-readers, astrology, and James Edwards and his ilk. However, there is probably some superstition involved in some religions too.
I’m OK with people not wanting to open their umbrellas inside or choosing not to walk under ladders, but if public (or even most private) policy starts to be dictated or affected by these beliefs then I think we’re in trouble.
It is an entirely different discussion whether one’s religious beliefs are as dubious as common superstitions such as those mentioned above. I know some extremely intelligent people who are atheists and assert that since they have never heard of or seen any evidence of a God they don’t believe in one.
I also know some extremely intelligent people that DO believe in a God; usually as a idea representitive of universal forces currently impossible to understand.
I don’t know any extremely intelligent people that believe in superstition as a real force that affects them or the Universe at large.
Yep. The last three paragraphs are completely anecdotal. Maybe I need to meet a more diverse group of people. I’d love to run across a super-intelligent person who truly believes that if they step on a crack their mother’s back will be broken.