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Atrios's turkee post never did much for me.

The 'and a pony' critique is pretty funny. I like it. Let me try a few:

"I want Social Security to remain unchanged and give me my full benefits when I retire. And I want a pony".

"I want free health care from the govt that is more effective, efficient, and a more pleasant experience than the insurance I have now. And I want a pony."

"I want to raise the capital gains and corporate income tax rates through the roof to pay for more programs, and create more public sector jobs. I want this to grow our economy, not ravage it. And I want a pony."

"I want to ban GMO's and continue with farm subsidies and not feel guilty about the devastating economic effects this has on third world farmers. And I want a pony."

That works pretty good.

jb

But if everyone had a pony, who would clean up all the pony excrement in the streets? Would a pony tax be required, or would private entrepeneurs enforce the removal of pony exrement for profit?

"Just tell them if they vote for you all their wildest dreams will come true."

"...or would private entrepeneurs enforce the removal of pony exrement for profit?" Sure, they would! Just like is presently the case for wrecked vehicles, construction rubbish, etc. Our roads, streams, rivers, communities, and country increasingly resemble trash dumps.

pedro does, indeed, offer you his protection.

Most libertarians hate freedom---they believe in a form of landed aristocracy. See Dan Sullivan's brilliant essay, "Are you a Real Libertarian, or a ROYAL Libertarian?" (URL: http://geolib.pair.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html)

I assume that the recent post about the wonderful prospects of the whale oil industry, to which you linked, was too new and therefore not yet eligible.

And not to denigrate Brad's amusing and well-written "and a pony"-inspired piece, which can be found at http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/000423.html. (Esp. the Scottish highlands account and "Adam Smith: I have written a book, which very few of you have read . . . .")

Somebody should put up a plinth somewhere and chisel that on it.

I was also poised to say "that post is so great we are all better people for reading it", however, upon opening the comments I find the excreable Joe Blow putting paid to that thought.

However, I may rally - Joe Blow has given much indication that he hasn't read really anything in any depth, so I submit that a fair claim would be that he likely didn't actually read much past the title, so we can throw him out as a suspicioulsy outlying data point.

This one's for joeblow

I want wingnuts smart enough to tell the difference between their own simple-minded strawmen and someone elses wish-fulfillment fantasy and ridicule appropriately, and I want a pony.

I want politicians who tell the truth, no matter how unpopular it is, and a pony.

"Joeblow" completely misses the point. Belle Waring was talking about utopian dreamers who are proposing policies that have never been enacted in human history and that are implausible in the light of both historical antedescents and the known facts of human nature. On the other hand, "Joeblow"'s examples pretend that it is impossible to do perfectly ordinary things that have been done in the past. Social Security? Of course we can pay it if we choose to. We've been fairly up-front about the fact that it will require some increases in income taxes on the rich, to make up for the free ride on payroll taxes that they've gotten since 1983. National health care? Every other civilized nation manages to do it. The U.S. health care 'system' is a national disgrace and the laughingstock of the rest of the civilized world. Higher cap gains and corporate taxes? We *had* far higher taxes during the post-WWII era, and did just fine. These are all pragmatic and proven policy solutions, not wishful thinking.

Belle Waring's is a nice bit of writing, even better than a pony, and points to a few hopeful tendencies in these evil times. The weblog allows a new art of shortform which can be entertaining and informative, while dealing with theoretical and abstract issues too, and getting instant feedback to improve the argument. I hope that many more writers will examine the intersection of theory and reality in this way. Here she is right on the money in tackling the ridiculous idea that self-interest through the market alone can manage our planet, or will even do much extra, in the end, to promote freedom. This idea has mutated from Adam Smith's simple observation of mechanism, to a theoretical axiom for an ordinal calculus of utility, through Hayek's unproven thesis of a slip-slide into socialism, and now to the central battle-cry of the New Conservative Social Engineering--indeed a plan every bit as unreal and vampirish as the Marxian plan to shape the New Communist Man. Now its weird tendrils extend to cutting taxes on the rich so they can realize a utopia of innovation and creativity for all of us, --and just around the corner, too!--; as well as to President Bush's unwise implication that all of Social Security's recipients to-date were leeches who didn't understand the value of ownership! Of course, it doesn't speak well for the Enlightenment that so many fevered halfwits, some of them grandly credentialed, have latched onto this set of guiding principles. OTOH, IMHO, IIRC, writers of all times have gladly welcomed each period's own bizarre amalgam of bad psychology, self-torturing manipulation, doctrinaire abstraction, and historical amnesia--for that endless bounty of dramatic and hilarious material necessary to entertainment and art. You couldn't ask for a better SNAFU! ...So now is the time for all good folks to come to the aid of their party! The Democrats may not be organized, as Will Rogers once joked, but that means the internet could fit them to a tee. It is time for everyone everywhere to put aside timidity in the face of the supposed experts, and do the only wise, just, and reasonable thing, which is to drive a wooden stake through their goddamned undead hearts. Now that the good Dr. Thompson is cannon-powder, we are charged to soldier on, and the mission is clear.

aww, thanks guys; you're making me blush over here.

Not to denigrate the poor man playing poker with Dick Cheney. http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/002789.html

Prof:

A propos of contemporary libertarians, why not give a prize to the first of your students who can remember who said, in referrng to the extreme left parties of post WWI Europe as "... tiny ferocious creatures devouring one another in a drop of water."