At the same time, people who try to combine libertarianism with “conservative” policies (prohibition, anti-immigration, corporate cronyism, foreign interventions, government surveillance) run into similar problems. And, if they’re tossing about the term “left libertarian” to mean someone who is a principled libertarian, they aren’t even using the term as the oxymoronically self-described “left libertarians” mean it.

Individualism doesn’t fit on the archaic and stupid left/right continuum. And, when people aren’t trying to form some hybrid stupidity, I suspect that in many cases, the “left” or “right” biases among some self-described libertarians is a residual emotional tie to one’s past, before becoming enlightened by individualism. If you were a Democrat before becoming libertarian, then you may tend to overlook the faults of Democrats as they run afoul of individualist principles. The same goes for Republican converts.

And of course, these are the people who always used to collectively deride the “left-libertarians” at Reason, etc. Politics and strange bedfellows and all that.

Not at Reason, there isn’t.

Because Ron is a full-time staffer who is allowed to have his own opinions. Reason is a magazine of ideas. Which means sometimes some writers will have different ideas.

And show me where anyone at Reason said the mandate is a step on the way to a fascist state. It’s troubling to think the government can force you to buy something from a private company. But no one at Reason has suggested is fascism.

This simply isn’t true. One Reason writer favored a mandate as part of his overall idea on healthcare reform. This isn’t difficult to understand. Reason isn’t monolithic. We don’t publish unsigned editorials. Different writers can and do have different opinions.

He wrote a piece criticizing Judge Vinson’s decision in the Obamacare case; in the piece, he mocked Vinson for concluding that the mandate could not be deemed a tax. His argument was that this was a “transparently result-driven ideological polemic” because no reasonable person could accept this conclusion. Apparently Chait didn’t realize that every single judge to issue an opinion on Obamacare, including the Democratic-appointed judges who upheld Obamacare, rejected the “tax” argument.

(Note to some: this is an insult, not an ad hominem. I am not saying that Chait’s arguments are wrong _because_ he’s a hack. I am just calling him a hack.)

Mendacious, or just stupid? Which is t1? I’m going with both.

Noting that someone has previously advocated a position they now criticize is not an ad hominem attack.

First, a clarification. Greenhouses work by preventing convective cooling. The “greenhouse effect” of gasses in the atmosphere do not prevent convection, they absorb infrared radiation, warming the atmosphere rather than allowing the radiation to escape to space. Convective cooling still occurs in the atmosphere.

If the atmosphere were totally transparent to infrared radiation, the “planetary average annual surface temperature” (PAAST) would be 0 degrees F. Instead, it is 59 degrees F. He then goes on to explain how much of that 59 degrees is due to what gasses (something like 56 degrees are due to water vapor from evaporation from the oceans – something we can’t effect if we tried). The amount attributable to mankind’s emissions is 0.28 degrees F.

So if mankind had emitted NO, ZERO, NADA, ZILCH, “greenhouse” gases so far in all of history, the PAAST would be 58.72 degrees F.

In other words, don’t lose any sleep over this (non)problem.

He also has information on whether being warmer would actually be “bad”. It’s a good site, well researched, and I highly recommend it.

The thing is, even if the CAGW claims are true, short of reverting civilization back a couple centuries, there’s no way to make a difference. All the “green” initiatives will make next to no difference whatsoever, without completely destroying much of human industry.

So, the people trying to organize carbon markets are essentially snake oil salesmen, trying to make a profit off of fear, without doing anything substantive to solve the problem.

Well by all means, then. Educate me!

Explain to me how attacking someone based on where they get their funding doesn’t qualify as an ad hominem attack.

ughh… Radley, you shoulda quit while you’re ahead.

I consider the solid waste stream a serious environmental problem, by the way. Styrofoam and similar products are an environmental disaster that should be avoided when possible. Biodegradable alternatives, however, are often pat non-solutions. A lot of materials that are easily decomposed in ideal conditions fester for decades in hypoxic zones in landfills. Then, when they do start decomposing, they produce large quantities of methane and acidic leachate that are very difficult and expensive to capture. Some Ancient Roman landfills are still discharging leachate, so biodegradables are a gift that keeps on giving.