TheAgitator.com
Dinesh
Saturday, December 22nd, 2007Dinesh’s silly, unoriginal rant against libertarians isn’t really worthy of a response.
Save for this line:
Yes, I agree that many nominal Christians have also forgotten the message of Christmas. Even so I wonder: what’s the atheist equivalent of Christmas? Darwin’s birthday? For many libertarians I suppose it’s the day they get their tax refunds.
Well, no. Most libertarians are smart enough to know that your “tax refund” is a scam, whereby the government takes more of your paycheck you’re obligated to pay over the course of the year, earns interest on it, then cuts you back a check of your own money right around tax day. The evil genius behind it is that this ripoff does, actually, make people happy. They’re duped into thinking the government’s giving them free money. It’s a brilliant bit of appeasement loosed at right around the time we should be evaluating whether we’re getting the government we’re paying for.
Like many odious things the government does, the current incarnation of paycheck withholding was passed during World War II, sold to the public as a temporary way of funding the war. As the late, great Milton Friedman (who helped implement withholding—one of his few regrets) said, there’s nothing more permanent than a temporary government program.
I’m an agnostic libertarian, though Dinesh will probably be disappointed to learn that I’m not gay, don’t use illicit drugs, and have been with the same girl for four years. It’s just that I’m not particularly interested in damning people who’ve made different choices or live different lifestyles than I have. But to answer his question, my “equivalent” of Christmas is . . . Christmas. You don’t have to believe in virgin births or god descending to earth in human form to appreciate time and camaraderie with friends and family, to enjoy the tradition and fellowship of Christmas, and to dig the warmth and opportunity to recognize relationships that are important to you with small tokens and acts of kindness.
The reason event with Hitchens was little more than a bit of bohemian contrarian revelry. That can be fun, too.
Being both a Christian and a libertarian, I find it doubly insulting. I’m not sure where all these assumptions about libertarianism come from.
Who the fuck is Dinesh?
Radley; Well said! Dinesh really is an idiot.
I liked dinesh’s earlier stuff. Of course, that was all before GWB took power and turned him along with other cronies like Rush into apologists.
The word of the day is :
intaxification
look it up.
I’m not sure why so many people assume that “libertarian” and “Christian” are opposites. I’m both. Of course, I think the perception is partly created by the fact that many libertarians are so openly hostile to religious people that most religious (or even socially conservative) people tend to assume that all libertarians are anti-religious. It seems to me that libertarian ideas are a natural fit for Christians, especially if more libertarians would see the positions we’re advocating as political instead of social.
It’s because the people who’ve made an business out of being the “official” Christians generally come off as being authoritarian busybodies. This isn’t fair, of course, but it’s no more unfair that depicting libertarians as drug-addled libertines.
For what it’s worth, I agree with you that libertarianism is a good fit for Christian and atheist alike, as it allows for each to live his life according to his own beliefs.
As an apatheistic libertarian raised in the Jewish tradition, I say that now is the time to come together as a family, remember the true meaning of the season, and kill the Greeks.
Do we really need to add “apatheist” to our lexicon?
No, we really, really don’t.
Unoriginal rants like that are some of the reaosns I’ve left the “conservative” movement. The distaste that many GWB conservatives have for true personal liberty is almost as disgusting as the Liberal’s distaste for economic liberties.
In modern American politics you either get personal busibodies with free markets, or economic busibodies with free personal lives.
“In modern American politics you either get personal busibodies with free markets, or economic busibodies with free personal lives.”
No, you don’t. The conservatives only pay lip service to the free markets, just like the liberals only pay lip service to the free personal lives. None of them truly respect it, which is why I hate the “libertarians are economic conservatives and social liberals” line. (Not to mention that fails to address both foreign policy and civil liberties, unless you shoehorn them into social issues, which only serves to make the sentence more false).
Dinesh D’Souza on Atheism and Libertarianism:…
There is no shortage of poorly informed rants against libertarianism; similarly, it’s easy to find silly screeds against atheism. Dinesh D’Souza, however, has achieved the unusual distinction of combining these two art forms in…
“temporary government program.”
Truly an oxymoron!
Govt has proved to the citizens that here is NEVER a temporary program, only a test program and 100% of all test programs will become permanent!
What a whiny little Grinch!
I agree with Ilya from the volokh link above about how sad it is to see someone that was once an interesting and pointed critic of things like affirmative action turn into a garish Ann Coulter in mandrag.
I don’t think Dinesh would be too pleased by my recent love letter to Christians: Dear Christians: Thanks for Christmas, Love Atheists.
We’re in ur holiday, celebrating ur doodz!