That being said, I often find myself in the middle of a battle I don't want. Not because I'm afraid of a battle: I once challenged Tom Woods to a debate on Facebook, because I thought he was classless in trash-talking Mitt Romney. I'm paraphrasing here, but Woods said something to the effect, "Happy birthday, Ron Paul. Every day I thank God you're the real deal and not a phony like Mitt Romney." Totally unnecessary. I have issues with both Romney and Ron Paul, and I don't really want to spend my time defending Romney. I can do it, but life's too short. Multiple times on Twitter, I've been called a Trumpkin, when in fact I've literally published hundreds of anti-Trump tweets. But when people start holding him responsible for COVID-19 casualties, I have to call bullshit. This doesn't mean I approve of most of what he's said or done during the crisis. Do you think I enjoy the experience of knowing other people will see me as a Trumpkin? I see it as largely an unnecessary waste of my limited time on earth saying or writing thing maybe only a handful of people will ever hear or read.
I once belonged to a libertarian Christian Facebook group. The final straw was when I discovered that many/most of the people in the group were "truthers" (conspiracy theories on "what really happened" on 9/11). It's so palpably absurd that you don't want to spend time and effort taking on these kooks. It's not being afraid of fighting these idiots; I just don't think people need me pointing out the obvious. I don't want to debate Flat Earthers, either.
I've repeatedly mentioned when I had joined a Yahoo low carb forum during the diet's wild popularity (doughnut shops really lost sales) around 2003-4. The Gospel of Dr. Atkins apologists hated me passionately. I would debunk the old guidelines like drinking so many glasses of water a day, pointing out research articles questioning it. For me, the "jump the shark" moment was when the wolf pack attacked some poor lady who had posted her menu on their request after explaining she still wasn't losing weight. They quickly seized on the corn kernels in her mixed veggies as responsible for water retention. I'm like, "Dudes, have you lost your minds?" I asked the woman one question: "What are you doing foe exercise>" She responded, "What exercise? I'm wheelchair-bound." At this point, the thread went into an entirely new, more constructive direction as people flooded it with fitness tips.
All this achieved was stepping up the trolls' ad hominem attacks against me: "Who the hell are you? Where's your degree in nutrition? You may be a PhD, but you're no MD." To a certain extent, I felt the need to defend myself, not because I have a fragile ego and I can't go to sleep without the approval of Internet trolls I've never met and will never meet, but I really don't like trolls bullying other people who don't agree with them, and I didn't want them to set a precedent. Of course, it's still like you're still in middle school. I tried patiently to explain I understand research design and statistical analysis, but it really wasn't a case there was anything I could say or do to satisfy them and win them over to go to the light. They were just interested in yanking my chain, delighted I was playing their game of wasting my time, taking them seriously, and the reward was sitting on their whoopee cushion for amusement. It was just more opportunity for them to blow some raspberries and mock me I really hadn't joined the forum to play adolescent games. I decided to leave the group; I had a couple of followers who personally pleaded with me to stay, not to let the bastards win in their game of trying to intimidate me to leave, but in a way I was taking the lead of a favorite maternal uncle/priest who didn't see the point of repeating himself after saying what he needed to stay. I know I helped make that forum more interesting and a success. I don't know or really care what happened after I left. I had already read Dr. Atkins; I didn't need his acolytes to cite chapter and verse from his gospel. The group, except for me, was rather boring and predictable.
So there have been a couple of recent kerfuffles that I really wasn't looking for, but I drew the attention of a couple of trolls, somewhat informed. Now, I probably do tend to write more provocative tweets and/or posts, but in these cases I was thrown on the defensive on topics I hadn't read comprehensively, so it forced me to do more research to fashion responses. (I tend to be a perfectionist and often engage in due diligence. It's not surprising you will find me citing hundreds of sources in an article or book chapter.) So in the first case I was mocking the Kabuki dance of face mask policies in a tweet when some middle-aged ICU nurse decided to attack me, apparently seeing me as some anti-masker Trumpkin. Now I was fairly well-read on the topic, but I really wanted to be careful in debating the topic with a health professional. She's immediately challenging my credibility from the get-go, pointing to her 3 decades of working in an ICU. I stood my ground but it was an unpleasant experience, like threading a needle, and she wouldn't drop it. I finally put an end to the thread, because she was arguing for the sake of arguing and I had already had my say.
The real thread, though, for this specific was based on one of those stupid Internet memes I've seen in Facebook posts for years, although not recently. I had joined a relatively new (for me) Facebook group on classical liberalism. Classical liberalism is basically a nineteenth-century precursor to modern-day libertarianism, with emphasis on individual rights and the free market, with minimal government interventionism, including the modern welfare state. (In fact, I often refer to myself as a classical liberal.)
Now here's the context for the current kerfuffle: a troll got very upset at Jimmy Carter getting lumped in with Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump in the image below. To a certain extent, he's got a point: widespread intervention really started with Clinton's East European intervention in the former Yugoslavia. Now maybe Carter was anticipating Reagan's pro-Defense stand, but he had definitely was interested in rebuilding the military, and never mind his failed military mission in Iran, he really set our eventual disastrous Afghanistan intervention into motion. He was interested in provoking the USSR, even with stupid stuff like boycotting the 1980 Olympics and grain embargoes. We libertarians have a relevant talking point: where goods don't cross borders, soldiers will.
The meme really seems to be more left-libertarian with some telltale references to banks and corporations. Typically we right-libertarians argue that regulatory capture is an artifact of the size of government. Reduce the scope of government and the issue of crony capitalism goes away. We could say a similar thing about the size and scope of our military footprint overseas.
In the following exchange, I'm actually a little taken back by troll Vesovski's hero worship of Carter. Conventionally, Carter's Presidency is almost universally panned. I give him credit for taking a relatively unpopular position, although I've since seen a number of libertarians compliment Carter's supposed conservativism on similar grounds. Notice I refused to get baited into a discussion about Reagan, who isn't even in the meme, other to say I don't agree with his polemics. I take the blogger's prerogative of final comments after the thread/asterisks below.
Vangel Vesovski
Why is Carter there? He did not start any wars and had a pretty good foreign policy compared to most of the rest. Hell, he was more Conservative than Reagan or GW and is probably the best ex-president that you have had since Hoover.
· Reply · 5d
Ronald A Guillemette
This is disingenuous crap.
"In his 1980 State of the Union address, Carter revealed an aggressive Cold War military plan. He declared a “Carter doctrine,” which said that the Soviets’ attempt to gain control of Afghanistan, and possibly the region, was regarded as a threat to U.S. interests. And Carter was prepared to meet the threat with “military force.”"
Carter armed the Afghan radical resistance and embargoed grain sales to the USSR. Parts of the meme don't fit, but Carter was ex-Navy and vested in the military-industrial complex.
Plus, Hoover sucked as POTUS. FDR basically supersized Hoover's policies. The last decent President was Coolidge.
· Reply · 5d
Ronald A Guillemette
I also need to debunk this absurd idea that Carter was "conservative". Don't forget the Departments of Energy and Education occurred on his watch. Stagflation marked his Presidency; he maintained high tax rates and did little to control spending unlike Coolidge. Whereas he did some good things (trucking deregulation and Volcker), he was a bad administrator, even micromanaging White House facility guest lists.
· Reply · 5d
Greg Buser
He tried to tackle congressional pork barrel spending and was crucified by his own party.
· Reply · 4d
Vangel Vesovski
Ronald A Guillemette I agree that the Afghan nonsense spoiled Carter's otherwise excellent and very restrained foreign policy. By arming the Afghan resistance, Carter set the stage for the blowback of 9/11. But note that is what Reagan, both Bushes, Clinton, Obama, and Trump have been doing. Because of the Vietnam War, both Ford and Carter were unwilling to intervene by deploying the American militarily overseas. They deserve a lot of credit for that.
Carter did not favour the idea of using military force abroad to settle disagreements with the USSR. He stayed away from engaging in war in the Horn of Africa and when Somalia invaded Ethiopia he told the Somalis that he would not provide defensive assistance until they withdrew. The fact that Somalia was fighting a country supported by the Soviets did not matter because there was nothing worth fighting for. Nixon, LBJ, and Kennedy would have been far more involved. The same is true of Reagan.
Carter negotiated the transfer of the Panama Canal, normalized relations with China avoided conflicts in Latin America and Cuba and ended the Taiwanese military alliance.
On the economic front, Carter scores much better than Reagan in my book. He deregulated airlines, trucking, telecommunication, energy, etc., something that Reagan gets credit for because the legislation took effect after Carter was out of office.
As for Hoover, I agree that he set a bad precedent when he tried to have the government fight the depression. FDR built on that precedent and destroyed what was left of the economy. That is why Hoover is around 25 or so on my list of presidents. But that puts him above Reagan, Obama, and Bush. Carter is in my top ten.
· Reply · 4
Vangel Vesovski
Ronald A Guillemette "I also need to debunk this absurd idea that Carter was "conservative". Don't forget the Departments of Energy and Education occurred on his watch."
I agree with this comment. He did create those departments but he also DEREGULATED the energy sector as he did transportation, and telecommunications.
"Stagflation marked his Presidency;"
Agreed. But you got that because of the spending in Vietnam and Nixon's closing of the gold window. It was Carter that gave Volker permission to undo the damage that he helped bring about and hike interest rates to bring the inflation under control. As for the Department of Education, it exploded under Reagan. When Carter created it the teachers were against it.
"...he maintained high tax rates and did little to control spending unlike Coolidge."
That would be Congress. Carter's sin is not going back on the gold standard and not having the Fed hike rates much earlier."
"Whereas he did some good things (trucking deregulation and Volcker), he was a bad administrator, even micromanaging White House facility guest lists."
Again, I agree about the micromanagement to some extent. But, unlike Reagan, he did not have the US government import drugs into the country while passing laws that encouraged the formation of a healthy black market that made criminals rich and destroyed inner cities. He did not sell missiles to the Iranians and arm South and Central American rebellions.
I see the flaws but they are still minor in comparison to a fraud like Reagan or idiots like Bush and Obama. Hell, Clinton was more conservative than Reagan so I do not see the attraction.
Ronald A Guillemette
Vangel Vesovski you and I disagree on Carter and other things, including your dismissive take on Reagan. There was nothing free market about Carter whatsoever. The energy crisis had a lot to do with government intervention. Carter was into anti-trust nonsense. Carter reintroduced draft registration, and there's no way you can rationalize federal involvement with public education. He also favored more progressive tax schemes.ive tax schemes.
Vangel Vesovski
Ronald A Guillemette Carter deregulated many of the industries that had been looking at massive regulatory burdens. That deserves some credit. He was better than Reagan because he spent a great deal less than Reagan and did not increase taxes the way that Reagan did. Why do you guys worship Reagan when his actions were never close to those great words that he spoke?
He was a disaster in California and was a disaster as president. You forget that the California budget grew by 122 percent during his eight years as governor even though he kept talking tough about cutting spending. Let us move on to budgets. In Carter's final year the deficit stood at $74 billion. Reagan increased that to $155 billion as, in Dick Chaney's words, he taught Americans that deficits don't matter.
He was a disaster on taxes too. His 1981 tax cut did not cut taxes at all. Tax rates for higher-income brackets were cut; but the rate went up for the average person. This happened because of "bracket creep," which allowed inflation to quietly move people into higher tax brackets and forced to pay more taxes even if the schedule remained the same. But the bigger source of higher taxes was Social Security taxation, which helped taxes go up overall. Just after that, Reagan 'saved' the Social Security System by introducing much higher Social Security taxes.
I stand by what I said. Reagan was a fraud and was certainly no conservative. And as much as I have trouble with Carter and Clinton, both were better.
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Concluding Remarks
I don't think I've ever admitted this before in print, but I never cast a ballot for Reagan. (I've implied it in the sense I mentioned leaving the Democratic Party after the Bork nomination failed. Of course, I could have been a Reagan Democrat.)
I give troll Vesovski credit for at least acknowledging many of my points explicitly, but his counter attacks didn't impress me much. By any objective standard, Carter was a liberal/progressive, not conservative. He embraced the concept of nationalized health insurance. He believed in more progressive tax burden, vs. the smaller, flatter tax system I and others believe more efficient and effective.
The troll engages in pure, misleading propaganda. For example, Carter enjoyed huge majorities in each chamber of Congress while Reagan didn't have control of at least the House and/or the Senate at the end of his Presidency. Social security taxes had increased from an aggregate 11.7% to 13.3% by 1981 under Carter. Carter only initiated certain deregulation trends during his term, and deregulation goes beyond industry liberalizations. Take, for instance, the pages added to the federal register; the Reagan era regulations broke the existing upward trend through the Carter Administration. Much of Volcker's pain of interest rate hikes occurred on Reagan's watch, extending the recession through Reagan's first mid-term. Real GDP growth was higher under Reagan, and Reagan had the largest cumulative percent increase of jobs of any POTUS since Carter. And, of course, the Cold War ended under Reagan/Bush, arguably one of the greatest foreign policy developments in recent global history, enabling a modest contraction in defense expenditures in the 1990's.
The troll also does some other disingenuous baits and switches trying to twist the Iran-Contra scandal into the moral equivalent of military intervention (including Carter's ill-fated attempt to release the hostages in Iran). Comparing Presidents is always polemical in nature, and I have my own issues with Reagan. The troll seems more interested in bashing Reagan than in defending the indefensible (Carter).
Yes, among modern Democrat Presidents, Carter was probably the least interventionist overseas and one of the better ones on (investment) taxes, spending and market liberalization. But do I regret having voted for Carter? Yes.
