Monday, March 6, 2017

Libertarian Trump Fanboy Extremisim


The Transportation Security Administration is about to institute more aggressive pat-downs.

I posted on this last week, U.S. Airport Pat-Downs Are About to Get More Invasive:
The new physical touching—for those selected to have a pat-down—will be what the federal agency officially describes as a more “comprehensive” physical screening, according to a Transportation Security Administration spokesman...“I would say people who in the past would have gotten a pat-down that wasn’t involved will notice that the [new] pat-down is more involved,” TSA spokesman Bruce Anderson said Friday.
These enhanced pat-downs do not surprise me.  Since John Kelly was nominated by Donald Trump to head Homeland Security, of which the TSA is a division, I expected that more aggressive government tactics would be used on American citizens. The “comprehensive” pat-downs are one example.

Kelly is a military man. His objectives come first, before any niceties or decency---or even logical policy (let the airlines handle their own security/boarding policy).

So how are libertarian Trump fanboys handling the news of these new aggressive pat-downs? By apologizing for this new groping in the Age of Trump!

One commenter to my post writes:
My reaction is the same. The TSA is off on its own doing these things and not even Gary Johnson had he been elected would stop it unless the people put up a massive stink over it. There simply weren't any real libertarian choices in this regard. 
There weren't any real libertarian choices so we go for an aggressive upgrade in groping?

The TSA is off on its own without approval from Kelly that Kelly or Trump can't do anything about?

Is this the kind of response we got during the Obama and Bush presidencies?

And another posted this:
 I fear that Wenzel's anti-Trump glasses are coloring his thinking to such an extent that they are now negatively impacting the quality of his analysis.
Yes, because I am sticking to libertarian principle on government groping, my overall analysis has gone wrong!

And, yet, another:
  Believe it or not, the state is not going to disappear any time soon simply because of the NAP. Trump represented a pivot away from political correctness and an erosion of our national borders and thus our national identity, which is why many of us voted for him.

Oh yeah, let's not attack groping because "the state is not going to disappear anytime soon." But, hey, Trump is good on federal transgender policy, so all is forgiven: "a pivot away from political correctness" and that great statist theme, "national identity."

So got that, no howling about the new aggressiveness is allowed?

When the less aggressive intrusions under Bush and Obama occurred, libertarian howls never ended.

Trump has clearly co-opted a bunch of the libertarian crowd who have stopped supporting full on liberty.

Just because Trump is good on federal transgender bathroom issues does not mean that libertarians should fail to raise an uproar when the Trump administration goes in a decidedly anti-libertarian direction. I would think the move in the direction of more aggressive groping applies.

The real libertarian movement is rapidly shrinking in size all because an authoritarian is in charge, who wants tariffs, has already escalated the wars in the Middle East, is hugging Israel, and has called for vast increases in military and infrastructure spending.

It's probably good they are gone. It gives us the opportunity to hone our libertarian communication skills, without noise from those who can be so easily swayed from supporting full out libertarianism in the first place.

We need more Ludwig Erhard types in our corner, not more beltarians or Trumptarians.

-RW 

9 comments:

  1. It is unfair to cast me as an apologetic Trump fan boy because I don't swallow 'because Trump' nonsense on everything that is against liberty. The state was moving away from liberty long before Trump came along.

    There are things that are uniquely because of Trump and there are things that are common behaviors of the federal government. So many people these days can't tell difference any longer and pretend like none of it would happen if HRC or someone else not Trump was elected. To point that out isn't a call to "go for an aggressive upgrade in groping" but statement of the reality of the situation. It is a ridiculous interpretation of my comment to say it's pro-groping and Trump fanboi-ism. My comment is what it obviously was, that this is not a unique because Trump thing. It's simply typical of what would have happened no matter who was elected from the choices.

    I've watched the TSA push to be more intrusive since it started. This is nothing new, nothing special. It's just the state being the state. It's not like the TSA hasn't tried this before. Remember the situation before this change is because of people pushing back against the TSA. This is how government works. It pushes against liberty and if the people resist it backs off and then tries again later when people are distracted, have forgotten, etc, become beaten down, aren't looking, etc. When something actually gets out of the norm then "because Trump" will make sense. Tweaks to TSA policy making it a tiny step more intrusive, taking back, what it was pushed away from a few years ago, isn't "because Trump".

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  2. Never did I state that you shouldn't be vocal about TSA or it's horrible policies, I just think the fact that you want to blame Trump for this highlights your libertarian autism.

    "There weren't any real libertarian choices so we go for an aggressive upgrade in groping?"
    I don't remember seeing TSA pat down policies anywhere on the ballot, but let's go ahead and just blame Trump for that as well.

    The fact is that "former libertarians" realize that if you allow the nation to turn into Saudi Arabia with unchecked immigration, simply because you think borders are statist, the rest of the libertarian message doesn't matter. This is why some of us support the "statist theme" of national identity. As impotent as the Libertarian Party is here in the US, it fares much better here than in Yemen or the Congo.

    "The real libertarian movement is rapidly shrinking in size all because an authoritarian is in charge, who wants tariffs, has already escalated the wars in the Middle East, is hugging Israel, and has called for vast increases in military and infrastructure spending."
    The real libertarian movement is shrinking because it has been hijacked by leftists who are more concerned about being able to legalize their degenerate behavior than they are with promoting true freedom.

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  3. "Are you libertarian Trump fanboys sick of Trump yet?"

    This question was Wenzel's conclusion to his post reporting about the TSA aggravation. If that conclusion is to follow from the post, it reveals that Wenzel believes that Trump either caused the TSA action or failed to prevent it or that there is some causal connection to be found. Yet, there is no evidence presented that Trump caused the action. Are we to blame Trump for having failed to prevent a bureaucratic agency from doing what it does?

    "Yes, because I am sticking to libertarian principle on government groping, my overall analysis has gone wrong!"

    No, Wenzel, you are treating guesses about Kelly being behind the TSA aggravation as a fact. Looks like you are not able to consider the possibility of there being alternative explanations. That makes your analysis incomplete and very likely incorrect. If you have the evidence, present it. Otherwise, be fair to yourself and consider the alternatives.

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    1. Yes. We must blame Trump for having failed to prevent a bureaucratic agency from doing what it does. How about The Donald proposes to abolish the TSA? How about appointing...I dunno...a guy like Gary Johnson or Darrell Castle (per Brutus) to that role? Anyone that would work to reduce the size of that bureaucracy. Trump would argue the buck stops with him...he wouldn't let a bureaucracy grow out of control in his own company...well...he better step up and smash it as Prez or get blamed for not doing so.

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  4. "There weren't any real libertarian choices so we go for an aggressive upgrade in groping?"

    There was Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party, but no one mentioned him or his government-shrinking ideology. Not here. Not anywhere.

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  5. The way I look at it; frauds are revealing their true colors. These are darker times is good to know when one's hidden enemies reveal themselves unintentionally

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  6. No libertarians should be for a more aggressive TSA. However, one saving grace here - a more aggressive TSA might piss off the American people and get them to wake the hell up and demand for the abolition of TSA.

    We should recognize that the statists of both parties want airports to operate like they do in Israel. Privacy means nothing to these people.

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  7. The label "libertarian" is being appropriated and diluted and distorted in the same way "liberal" was stolen by progressives and eventually turned into the exact opposite of what "classical liberal".

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  8. I myself have found myself extremely annoyed by what i deemed to be Wenzel's obsession with regarding Trump as the devil, and being borderline hysterical at every little word he uttered or decision he made. I also don't retract that annoyance. I consider Wenzel to simply be generally to biased about Trump in a way that goes beyond regular level-headed and objective analysis.

    However, when criticism of Trump and his fan-boys is justified, it is justified.

    @ Paul Hansen
    "This is why some of us support the "statist theme" of national identity."
    National identity has NOTHING to do with libertarianism. Libertarians judge on the basis of what is a threat to freedom. Not on the basis of whether something threatens a "national identity." I detest cultural marxist leftists, for instance, not because they erode and help destroy a "national identity" but because they erode and help destroy freedom. Something like Islam can, in my opinion, justifiably be detested as a libertarian because it is profoundly collectivistic, statist, violent, oppressive and demands obedience. National identity is irrelevant.

    "The real libertarian movement is shrinking because it has been hijacked by leftists who are more concerned about being able to legalize their degenerate behavior than they are with promoting true freedom."

    Define "degenerate behavior". Should i assume you are talking about behavior that violates the non-aggression principle and property rights, or are you talking about non-violent and non-violative behavior that doesn't square with your personal, subjective conservative morality?
    Make no mistake, libertarianism is NOT conservative, neither is it alt-right.

    @peepingSanta

    "Are we to blame Trump for having failed to prevent a bureaucratic agency from doing what it does?"
    Yes, we ARE to blame Trump for that. Is he or is he not in charge? Is he not the president? You sound like those Ronald Reagan cheerleaders who claim that his legacy of growing the state was not his fault because Democrats opposed him.
    I find it ridiculous and disingeneous for libertarians to suddenly pretend that a president is not responsible for what government agencies do under his administration. What's next? Not holding Congress and the Senate accountable?
    Trump can abolish the TSA. If he opts not to, then that is HIS decision, and whatever the TSA does is HIS responsibility.

    I STILL prefer Trump over Clinton if i was forced to make a choice between them. But that doesn't mean i have to be an apologist, much less a fan of what his administration is responsible for (and in which non-action is no different than action). Libertarians who think they do, clearly don't understand libertarianism.

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