The first is a wildly exaggerated sense of risks — a belief that if government is engaging in certain action (such as surveillance or gun control), it will inevitably use its authority so as to jeopardize civil liberties and perhaps democracy itself. In practice, of course, the risk might be real. But paranoid libertarians are convinced of its reality whether or not they have good reason for their conviction.
He lists five signs of libertarian paranoia. I expected to hate the article, but I agree with it more than I disagree. In the three-axis model, paranoia means seeing others as representing the “bad” end of your preferred axis. So when a libertarian thinks that conservatives and progressives are merely out to crush liberty and expand coercion, that is a paranoid libertarian.
Similarly, when a conservative thinks that progressives and libertarians are merely out to tear down civilization and replace it with barbarism, then that is a paranoid conservative. Finally, when a progressive thinks that conservatives and libertarians are merely out to help the oppressors keep down the oppressed, then that is a paranoid progressive.
” So when a libertarian thinks that conservatives and progressives are merely out to crush liberty and expand coercion, that is a paranoid libertarian.”
But, when a libertarian thinks (and often demonstrates) that what conservatives and “progressives [?]” are out to do (for whatever reason) can, or will, crush liberty and expand coercion, what kind of libertarian is that?
A thoughtful one
Well, call me paranoid if you like, but I found it rather obtuse and myopic.
“The first is a wildly exaggerated sense of risks — a belief that if government is engaging in certain action (such as surveillance or gun control), it will inevitably use its authority so as to jeopardize civil liberties and perhaps democracy itself.”
There really are people who are anti-gun and would like to see virtually all of them removed from private hands. No, they are not mainstream at present, but making concessions to their agenda will not take the issue off the table; they will simply move the goalposts and start agitating anew. That’s how politics works. For someone who spent the last X years in DC, I find it difficult to believe he doesn’t understand this.
And as for civil liberties, is Sunstein old enough to remember the Church Committee? If he is, how does he write sentences like “[t]he second characteristic is a presumption of bad faith on the part of government officials — a belief that their motivations must be distrusted?” Come on, Cassy. I might only wear a tin foil hat on Halloween, but the fact that I have an IQ over 70 enables me to recognize that the interests of government officials are not identical to mine, and that their motivations are likely motivated by self interest; a self interest which conflicts with the population at large more than most people would care to admit.
I could go on fisking this tripe, but you get the point.
I have met some people who might be called libertarian but I would not characterize them as paranoid. Resigned, mocking, worried, cynical, skeptical, even absurdist, might be the temperament of some of them, but again, none would I call paranoid. I have met many who call themselves conservative and many who call themselves liberal or progressive, and I would call many of them paranoid, especially about those who don’t agree with them.
This is a very good point. Libertarian paranoia is generally of an intellectual variety, concerned with principles and slippery slopes, and the “paranoid” are generally very level-headed.
Many conservatives and liberals, on the other hand, appear to be authentically psychologically paranoid and emotionally riven because of it.
Maybe that’s just how they look on the outside, but inside they are fully intellectual. Maybe I’m just looking from one axis at the others.
The last paragraph in the post I think demonstrates how each of the three axes works as checks and balances for each other. Perhaps the paranoia exists for good reason (from all three sides).
Arnold, Progressives did slaughter 170 megs of human beings during the 20th century so it’s right to be careful with them.
As a radical libertarian myself, I can see that concern over Conservatives is overblown because they only want to ban a few things:
Abortion, Sodomy, Fornication, Lewd Cohabitation, Pornography, Drugs, Rec. except Tobacco & Alcohol, Birth Control, Artificial, and Adultery as well as the Common Law crimes we learned in L1, and the 3 mentioned in the Constitution: Treason, Piracy, and Counterfeiting.
Do you think he’s writing it to open minds?
Btw, isn’t it just weird to use the right now to criticize slippery slope thinking as paranoia? Someone developed the technology and before the government even has any idea what to use it for they took it and are using it for nothing good. I can’t even figure out a nefarious benefit for them. It’s there, so they just mindlessly pursue it. They don’t even know what they might use it for, they just think they might need it some day. Kind of exactly how we thought it would go down with the Patriot Act after they said they wanted to do it and we said no the first time. As in, it didn’t even require that much lubrication for them to mindlessly pursue the path of available we technology. It was there so they took it.
Also, if you are one who thinks gun rights or privacy ARE civil rights, Sunstein sounds pretty insane.
What exactly does he think I think is even worse than universal spying or previous gun control?
I suspect I happen to know the people he’s accusing of paranoia much better than he does and I’d bet they pass the ideological Turing test with much higher marks.
Okay, wow, I just reread it again. If Arnold agrees maybe I misread it. To me it reads like a cult vow where one must repeat things obviously false to prove our loyalty to the cult.
So, the paranoid distrust the motives of government officials? You mean like the president who has lied a half dozen times about the NSA? Is that the distrust he’s referring to?
http://boingboing.net/2013/12/10/tally-of-obamas-lies-about-t.html
Did I mention that this is The MFPOTUS? Are we to wait until Jesus comes back and lies to our face? Seriously, is he detached or will he now defend this with a no true Scotsman argument? I’m confused. And serious.
I apologize, but this is kind of a big deal.
For example, if we made the very minor change of doing away with the anonymous ballet, would THAT threaten Democracy?
Or: “These words and phrases now comprise a whole Washington vocabulary crafted specifically to avoid the L word [Lying]. That’s because once the L word comes out, it means the official in question is deliberately misleading the public — and that is rightly considered an abhorrent act in a democracy.”
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/16/what_if_the_president_lied_to_us/
If The POTUS is lying to the voters who make decisions in a democracy, does THAT threaten Democracy?
So, he’s not referring to some higher government official. He’s not referring to some more fundamental foundation of democracy. He’s obviously not talking about me being paranoid- I’m just reporting documented facts. And the reason I know they aren’t out to get me is that I can’t possibly pose any threat to them. What could Sunstein possibly be talking about?
For example, if we made the very minor change of doing away with the anonymous ballet, would THAT threaten Democracy?
Only in Russia.
“ In practice, of course, the risk might be real. But paranoid libertarians are convinced of its reality whether or not they have good reason for their conviction.”
I thought Cass Sunstein was supposed to understand the notion of “risk,” but reading this passage and the rest of his essay I get the sense that he doesn’t at all. A risk doesn’t have to manifest itself as a bad outcome to be real. Risk is about the possibility of bad outcomes, some of which are realized and some of which are not. At what point is there a “good reason for their conviction?” By the time something terrible has already happened? Libertarians argue for a very good risk management strategy: don’t create the levers of power in the first place if they may be abused.
“The fourth characteristic is an indifference to trade-offs — a belief that liberty, as paranoid libertarians understand it, is the overriding if not the only value…”
This passage also irritated me. Statists have a very hard time justifying their favorite government programs with any kind of cost-benefit analysis, even the ones who consider themselves part of the scientific enlightenment. It’s generally libertarians who want to do this kind of analysis. Doing so tends to lead to libertarian conclusions. Very few government programs survive an honest cost-benefit analysis; they persist in spite of failing utterly to justify their own costs. To be charitable, maybe he’s specifically criticizing a very specific sub-sect of libertarianism. But my overall impression is that he’s casting libertarianism as a mental defect. His readers will come away with the impression “libertarians are paranoid,” even if his intention is to say something more subtle.
How to spot a paranoid government: universal surveillance.
How to spot a paranoid government: one of its paranoid mouthpieces suggests infiltration free association groups.
Sorry but this is good game if I do say so myself. Let’s move on.