digamma.net - notes

There’s a city planner named Joe (I know his full name and the town that employs him, but I’m not sure how anonymous he prefers to be) who plays very well the role of “token lefty” on Hit & Run.

Joe’s pet issue is his area of expertise, city planning. In particular, he tirelessly tries to convince libertarians that the suburban lifestyle disliked by leftists is often held up by policy that cannot be described as “free-market". And again and again, he’s dismissed as a socialist who wants everyone to be forced to live in his own vision of paradise.

I think he outdid himself in this post last Thursday. The first line is a quote from a post he’s responding to.

“The bottom-line is that you either believe in the market and people’s freedom of choice or you don’t.”

Hear hear! Now John, for your homework, go down to the country zoning office, and ask where you’d be allowed to built a six story, 36 unit building, with a couple of storefronts in it. Then ask where you’d be allowed to build that glorious single family home on two acres. Then get back to me about sprawl and the free market.

Oh HELL yeah.

“Not much to read on the blogs this morning,” I said to myself. “Wait, it’s a weekend - maybe Michael Young is posting weak apologies for the Iraq war on Hit and Run.”

Young did not disappoint:

Following on from Nick’s post on an Ian Buruma piece in London’s The Times critical of the power worship evident in the political left, I found another, earlier piece by Christopher Hitchens, also in The Times and also looking at the poverty of the left in the face of despotism. Hitchens’ article introduces something called the Euston Manifesto, drawn up by leftists disgusted with the turn the left has taken.

Where does one even begin?

Power worship on the left? Are you serious? Who gave us Mission Accomplished and the stuffed crotch? Who regularly apologizes for torture? Who asserts the executive branch’s immunity from all legislation?

A Hitchens article asserting that the left is bad? Stop the presses!

This is typical Young. The Euston Manifesto was “introduced” weeks ago, which in blog time makes it paleolithic. And it was rightly laughed at by all sensible people, including the power-worshipping leftists at Reason:

In the annals of “people taking themselves too seriously,” between Tom Hayden’s autobiography and George Clooney’s Oscar speech, room must be made for “The Euston Manifesto.” The British lefty magazine The New Statesman is hosting the wan testament, composed over the last year by “20 or so similarly minded people” who had met in a pub near London’s Euston station. It’s apparently crafted to “invite debate” and “call for a progressive realignment.” Unfortunately, it reads like a mish-mash of blog posts and Joe Lieberman applause lines.

But Young gets to “discover” it now and declare that its observations are timely and relevant.

In New Jersey, you can’t pump your own gas - it’s all full service. Some lawmakers there want to change that, and make buying gas in Jersey the same as buying gas in 48 other US states. So far as I can tell, here is how the debate has gone:

A: You can still get full service. You just won’t have to.
B: But I LIKE full service!
A: You can still get full service.
B: Some women don’t feel safe getting out to pump gas.
A: They can still get full service.
B: Some old people don’t feel comfortable handling pumps.
A: They can still get full service.

I guess people are afraid that they won’t choose to pay extra for full service, so they want to be forced to pay for it. And they want everyone else forced to pay for it in the process.