TheAgitator.com
Reason.tv on the D.C. Cab Commission
Thursday, July 7th, 2011Powerful lobbyists conspire with big cab companies to screw over consumers and independent cab drivers, most of whom are immigrants and minorities. Can you guess on whose side the evil, corporatist libertarians will come down?
Government of the people, by the people, for the people my ass.
“We know tyranny when we smell it”. Great sound bite.
Don’t need to guess.
Powerful lobbyists conspire with big cab companies to screw over consumers
This is a good description of most all regulations.
Well, it serves that reporter right for invading on the privacy of the cab commissioners! Just because they’re public employees running a public meeting at a public place on the public dime for a public institution doesn’t mean they don’t have an absolute right to privacy!
Really, why should a government employee’s actions be subject to ANY sort of scrutiny? Come on, people– should we allow YOUR boss inspect your on-the-job performance or hold you accountable for the quality of YOUR work?
This Balloon Juice-reading liberal assumes that libertarians will be on the side of the cabbies, just as most real-life liberals are. As we see every day — through national, regional, and local chambers of commerce and professional organizations — the impulse for businesses and industries to block competition has no political bias.
karl –
Read the comments to the Balloon Juice post about this video. They’re precious.
Ugh, I went to the balloon juice. It’s awful. I especially love the constant mischaracterization about libertarians hating the poor.
“I find this entirely in keeping with the central analytical failure of libertarianism as a worldview: a total and disqualifying inability to measure or account for power as it exists in the real world.”
the lack of self-reflection here is stunning.
Oh my God, the balloon juice post is so deliberately missing the point that it makes me kind of queasy.
Yes, harp on the dramatic tale of Jim Epstein, mock Gillespie and libertarianism in hugely broad terms. Ignore why they were at the meeting in the first place and who they were defending.
If anyone that stupid mocked me I would have to keep linking to it, too. It’s actually kind of terrifying.
Radley,
We’re having a little fun with the John Cole article over at Hit & Run if you wanna join us.
Funny, I went over to BalloonJuice as well. Found the post and thought, this has to be a followup post, there has to be an original post that actually focuses on the taxi issue in DC.
Nope. Couldn’t find one.
They completely miss the issue of poor and minorities being impacted by the DC Medallion proposal – because they would rather bash white libertarians as being out of touch with the poor and minorities.
Speaks volumes doesn’t it.
Judging an intellectual movement by the discussions in its unmoderated comment threads is like judging a civilization by the graffiti in the mens’ rooms of its truck stops.
Freddie deBoer article
My apologies to John Cole. He didn’t write that turd.
Radley:
I read the BJ comments you recommended. There were some good ones (there had better be a few out of 139) but much of it was old-fashioned libertarian-caricature-bashing — much like the liberal-caricature-bashing I often see here. The trick is (no doubt I’ll be accused of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy) that those of us who send in comments to blogs of any stripe don’t represent the man on the street with either liberal or libertarian leanings.
My error was assuming that BJ’s commenters would be as thoughtful and reasonable as I am (or, of course, as you are).