Reality-Based Community, My Ass, Part Three
A conservative libertarian friend of mine sent me a page that purports to show that Democrats are more libertartian than Republicans.
My friend is smart. He knows a lot and does his research. Usually. In this case, he did none. He did not notice, for example, that the data was compiled by a pro-Demcratic web site with the explicit goal of convincing libertarians to affiliate with the Democratic Party.
My friend noted that it was shameful that Hastert got a zero score. This should have at least raised a flag demanding further examination, since Hastert is pro-tax-cuts. In fact, Hastert did not vote on most of the bills in question (as the Speaker rarely votes), and was assumed to have voted against the scorecard if he did not vote at all.
Not that it would have mattered if Hastert did vote in favor of tax cuts, because those votes were specifically excluded from the scorecard, "because of the desire to place an emphasis on the importance of limiting the growth of government spending and ideally cutting spending as well." That's nonsense, of course: the point of having a scorecard is to incoroporate a broad range of votes, so you can get a really good idea of where they stand as a whole. If the vote in favor of tax cuts, but also in favor of government growth and against spending restraints, then you know the scorecard should reflect all that. He left off tax cut votes because it favored Republicans.
And this restraint did not apply to many other types of votes: the Iraq war alone shows up as 1/15th of the overall score, and they decided that a vote in favor of the war in any way is a vote against libertarianism. Also, a vote for any pro-life position is also against libertarianism. And a vote for protecting the borders with the armed forces is viewed as anti-libertatian. (Get that? It's against our liberty to use the military in other countries, and also to use it to protect us at home.)
And so on.
It's really a ridiculous pair of scorecards, designed to maximize the scores of Democrats, and minimize those of Republicans, in order to convince libertarians that the Democratic party is on their side.
My friend is smart. He knows a lot and does his research. Usually. In this case, he did none. He did not notice, for example, that the data was compiled by a pro-Demcratic web site with the explicit goal of convincing libertarians to affiliate with the Democratic Party.
My friend noted that it was shameful that Hastert got a zero score. This should have at least raised a flag demanding further examination, since Hastert is pro-tax-cuts. In fact, Hastert did not vote on most of the bills in question (as the Speaker rarely votes), and was assumed to have voted against the scorecard if he did not vote at all.
Not that it would have mattered if Hastert did vote in favor of tax cuts, because those votes were specifically excluded from the scorecard, "because of the desire to place an emphasis on the importance of limiting the growth of government spending and ideally cutting spending as well." That's nonsense, of course: the point of having a scorecard is to incoroporate a broad range of votes, so you can get a really good idea of where they stand as a whole. If the vote in favor of tax cuts, but also in favor of government growth and against spending restraints, then you know the scorecard should reflect all that. He left off tax cut votes because it favored Republicans.
And this restraint did not apply to many other types of votes: the Iraq war alone shows up as 1/15th of the overall score, and they decided that a vote in favor of the war in any way is a vote against libertarianism. Also, a vote for any pro-life position is also against libertarianism. And a vote for protecting the borders with the armed forces is viewed as anti-libertatian. (Get that? It's against our liberty to use the military in other countries, and also to use it to protect us at home.)
And so on.
It's really a ridiculous pair of scorecards, designed to maximize the scores of Democrats, and minimize those of Republicans, in order to convince libertarians that the Democratic party is on their side.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
Leave a comment