In the thread Pre-civil-war legal questions about slavery, I was told to stop making political jabs in GQ. Fine. I’ve reported others for doing so. But it got me thinking. (anguished moans, scurry for pitchforks)
The first comment was in reference to the thread Why can’t I volunteer to get paid below minimum wage?. That was almost purely an economic debate about the wisdom and the effects of a minimum wage, an issue that plays out in politics but was not being associated with party. Then Claverhouse used that reference to cite a satire about Libertarian views on slavery. I responded that “Libertarianism is to the social sciences what Creationism is to the physical sciences.”
It didn’t occur to me that I was taking a political jab. That doesn’t even make sense in context. Creationism is not a political party or even a political position. Although it is an issue that sometimes plays out in Republican politics I think we can agree that plenty of Democrats are Creationists. They’re wrong not because of politics but because Creationism is pseudoscience. So is Libertarianism.
Assume though that Libertarianism is viable, because my opinion of it is irrelevant here. The only question is where is the politics? Libertarians are found in both major parties and outside of them. There is an entity called the Libertarian Party but it is a minor player and I think that all of the board’s avowed Libertarians loudly proclaim they are not party members. If not all, then certainly the great majority. Economic philosophies can share names with political philosophies; I can’t deny that socialism and communism are terms that can be used either way. But would anyone take it as a political jab is a satire of communist economic policy were linked to? Or someone snarked about communism as a failed ideology?
Libertarianism is bad social science, but that doesn’t make it political. (Yeah, everything is political.) I’m just curious how the mods feel about this.
So are you saying that only party politics, or even Democrats versus Republicans, counts as political in this context?
I would certainly say that “a satire of communist economic policy” or snark about “communism as a failed ideology” are political. It is just that there are not enough dedicated communists around on these boards for it to matter. Political jabs about communism in GQ are not likely to degenerate into a nasty derailment of the tread into lengthy GD type arguments about the merits or otherwise of communism. On the other hand, there are plenty enough libertarians (and Democrats and Republicans) around that jabs against them are likely to degenerate into just that sort of derailment. The purpose of the rule, I take it, is to avoid such derailments in GQ.
Communism and socialism are economic ideologies, but they are also political movements. So is Libertarianism. It doesn’t really matter that Libertarians are found in both major political parties, or the Liberatarian party is comparatively small. Even if you personally feel it is solely an economic philosophy, for many others it is a political movement.
Besides that, both your and Claverhouse’s posts were not really relevant to the thread on slavery. Even if your point were valid, I would still have given both of you mod notes for hijacking the thread.
I’ll back up Colibri on this one, Xap. With the added proviso that your sentence about ‘the ninnies’ in the GD minimum wage thread might have drawn my irritability out of hiding, too. Carrying that stuff over from one thread to another isn’t a good thing.
That is a fact? That belongs in GQ? Or, is that an opinion that doesn’t belong in GQ? It should be noted that “bad” is value judgement, and whether something is “bad” or not isn’t something that belongs in GQ.
I’m not a mod but here’s my views anyway. Libertarianism is a political ideology and one which, for better or worse, several posters support. I agree with Exapno about its worth but the post was a jab and it was off-topic in that thread. So I think the moderator action was correct.
Discussion of libertarianism in the media recently may focus on economics, but as a political philosophy it also takes very strong views on freedom of association, separation of church and state, civil liberties, etc. For some proponents, it also focuses heavily on politics of non-interventionism.
OK, I wanted to confirm my suspicion that “political” has a somewhat wider meaning here than the strict usage might imply.
There’s an interesting parallel to be made between the effect of slave labor on an economy and the effect that setting the wage minimum at zero would have. I believe that’s an economic argument rather than a political argument, and the effects of slave labor on an economy is in fact argued almost exclusively in economic terms today. Economics can be separated from politics, although it often takes a wedge of history to do so. I’ll apologize for using the word “ninnies” in GQ. That was careless and I could have found a better word. Now, if we can only come up with a better word than “political” for matters that aren’t political…
Libertarianism is a political philosophy. It contains economic aspects, but it is not primarily economic. From the first sentence in the wikipedia article:
You got the mod note because of the political comment you made. As noted, had the moderated seen your “ninnies” comment, it would have been a warning. And that would have been more for personal insults than political comments, although the comment certainly was political in nature, too. There is plenty of overlap between economic theory and political theory, and the thread you linked to was primarily political in nature.
I think libertarians would argue they’re predominantly a political platform. What libertarians want is no political control imposed upon economics, which makes them a political not an economic movement. In theory, once government control of economics is removed, individuals would be free to adopt whatever economic system they wanted.
Libertarianism is a political philosophy, that happens to be largely argued in economic issues, but has larger grounds. Snarking about communism being a failed philosophy would have been just as out of place in that thread about slavery. Calling the people arging in GD “ninnies” in this GQ thread was pretty close to throwing insults.
There certainly is a valid point of comparison that could be made, but you could make it without (a) calling the posters in GD “ninnies”, and (b) dragging Libertarianism into it. I suppose technically Claverhouse is the one who did that, but your comment about Libertarianism was completely unnecessary, unrelated to the thread topic, and snarking on a political philosophy which there are at least a few energetic advocates on the board, so bound to stir up a heated hijack.
“Ninnies” is an insult, but does it cross the insult threshhold for the SDMB, or does that fit under the “insulting groups but not individuals” category? I didn’t want to take the time to interpret the situation that closely. Carry on.
It was referring to other individual posters who were making a specific argument, so yes, it would cross the insult threshold. Even if those posters were not named the insult was directed at identifiable individual posters. It was not directed at a group such as Libertarians in general.
