Comment by DanielBMarkham
12 years ago
Meta remark, somewhat snarky: I would like to know at what point do all the HN'ers making fun of those libertarians among us concerned with security -- I believe over a period of months we were called "tinfoil hat types" and worse -- come back and offer us an apology.
I am not holding my breath.
(Although it's a snarky comment, I didn't make the comment just to snark. The point was to point out that over and over again, the folks who are concerned about government encroachment are made fun of, put down, and lampooned to a great degree. More often than not, these concerns turn out to be true. In most cases this happens long after the debate has died down. This is an important lesson from history that we all would do well to learn. This story has a lot more facets to it than just the NSA/USA angle)
As someone who routinely makes fun of libertarians, let me assure you this is not what we (or I) make fun of libertarians for. Lots of progressive-oriented folks I know are at the forefront protesting these things. Hell, Richard Stallman -- the man who's been all about resisting the cloud even before a lot of us were born -- is a self-alleged Green Party affiliate.
It matters not that you were right, but why you were right. If someone says they knew about the NSA taps because they were in cahoots with aliens, obviously they don't get credit.
I don't know what your politics are in general, so I can't criticize them.
But, in my experience, American capitalist libertarians are - in general - united not by a love of liberty, but a hatred of government. And that narrative, I think, does not have much predictive power. It vaguely fits the NSA case, but is harder to sustain when it comes to things like socialized medicine.
P.S. That said, I've learned a lot from libertarians, especially in their skepticism; sometimes doing nothing is the best strategy and sometimes the existence of a government agency is the problem. And it's inspired me to read authors like Hayek, who I respect a lot. But the modern movements seem to be more inspired by Rand than Hayek. Rand's narrative is that government is a conspiracy by the weak to oppress the strong, which I find ludicrous.