Protecting us from ourselves

[nettiger]

The leftish blogs have been alight recently with the question of what has been coined "liberaltarianism" - the melding of progressive politics with libertarian sensibilities.  One of the things that comes up as to why this connection hasn't been made before is the tendency of the traditional progressive left to try and "protect us from ourselves",

Comments

[toob]

Interestingly, I have always connected the prohibition of things -- things that could make drugs, things that could be used to pretend to hijack planes, etc -- with the Republican party and their Boogeyman of Personal Safety and Thinking Of The Children.

I associate protection of personal freedoms with the left, not the right.

[nettiger]

Well, here's a question from a fantasy poll:

There is currently a lawsuit seeking damages and a change in behavior from fast food companies for knowingly including a harmful substance in their products (saturated fat) in the products they sell to customers.
The question is: If you had to guess, would you say the group behind this lawsuit identifies with the Republican party, the Democratic party, or neither?

Prohibitions against things that could make drugs? Some of the most stringent were passed during the Clinton administration. Ditto for the rules now being used to crack down on amateur chemists. Then there's the Brady bill, also known as the Clinton gun ban. (I'm still waiting for the anarchy that was supposed to follow that sunsetting, damnit...)

And yes, I agree. I personally identify the Democratic party with better protecting more personal freedoms. Many people, however, see only the failures, and you have to admit, they could be doing a lot better job. (How about Hillary's support for the flag-burning amendment?)

[toob]

Yeah, Hillary and Lieberman both are big on banning stuff.

Dems do tend to get behind banning products. Guns, stuff that poses environmental hazards, etc. But that's because the left is big on cracking down on corporate / business "freedoms."

You, you can do what you want. But businesses, they can't.

A Republican is more likely to make it illegal for you to buy, possess, or use something.

A Democrat is more likely to make it illegal for a company to produce it or sell it to you.

[nettiger]

In the end, there isn't that much functional difference between the two when you consider it. Making it illegal to produce or sell laboratory-grade glassware is just as bad as making it illegal to possess it (referring back to my comment about highly motivated individuals).

Yes, there's a visceral difference between having a SWAT team show up at your home because you have a 1950s chemistry set and not being able to wander on to San Jose Scientific and pick up the materials to replace breakage or used up supplies. But the end result is the same, and that is a curtailment of my rights in the (vain) hope of keeping someone from doing something inappropriate. In a way, the Democratic way is just that much sneakier and underhanded - it gives the impression, though likely unintended, that they're trying to keep what they're doing out of sight.

This is a different issue from "corporate rights", where somehow corporations and businesses are treated, under the law, as individuals themselves.

[zexyz]

=D