Okay, this is weird. Grover Norquist is going to Burning Man:
There’s no government that organizes this….That’s what happens when nobody tells you what to do. You just figure it out. So Burning Man is a refutation of the argument that the state has a place in nature.
This is a fun, exciting, cheerful collection of people being free of state control and doing stuff they want to do…. If somebody wants to sit in a corner and read Hayek, I think that that’s allowed. If people want to run around with not as much clothes as they normally do, I think that’s allowed as well.
Norquist better put down the Hayek and read the Ten Principles. He’ll especially like the parts about decommodification and leaving no physical trace of your activities.
How do I get the gig to cover this event?
The state doesn’t “exist naturally” (who argues that?), but last I checked the state must exist for capitalism to exist.
I’ll argue that, depending on the definition of state. Man is a social animal and states appear to have appeared spontaneously on every continent except Australia which was sparsely settled and perhaps it could be argued that tribes are “states”. I won’t go that far. A certain level of technology appears necessary for the population to be concentrated enough for a state. Were the Australian aborigines farmers? That seems to be the minimum level of technology required.
Nation states as we know them are fairly new. Agricultural societies are what? 10,000 years old thereabouts? Yet “man” is hundreds of thousands of years old as a species (depending on how you define “human” you could say millions).
New? Egyptian Old Kingdom? Babylonia under Hammurabi? The Roman Republic? Athens? Sparta?
they weren’t nation-states
That’s so cool, Grover! Glad to hear you are down with it. So I can only assume you would be just as enthusiastic about all that “freedom” that occurred at Max Yasgur’s farm; being that is was so unencumbered by the heavy hand of government organization?
Something tells me old Grover would really hate that scene once the reality of it all sank in.
And look as awkward as this man going for a stroll on a beach wearing black wingtip shoes.
Neel Kashkari’s homeless stunt didn’t shake his love of deregulation and tax cuts. What makes you think Grover is going to learn any actual lessons from going to Burning Man?
watching Norquist watch the freaks would be worth the price of admission.
Burning Man is NOT going to fit his ideas about what it is, and a week’s immersion in the difference between his ideas and reality will be good for him.
just to start with, the fact that it’s held on Federal land under permit from (IIRC) the BLM, makes it hard to claim “free of state control”. Despite tolerance of drug use, all normal laws apply. There may be no “government” organizing it, but it has an organization and it has rules and even more so it has traditions. And as you note, its traditions like civic responsibility and environmentalism don’t fit Norquist’s all-against-all libertarianism.
I disagree completely. Burning Man has both a society with rules and a body to enforce those rules. That is the definition of a government.
The Ten Principles even writes about it as such, especially under Decommodification (which I expect GN will love)
Why are you “troll” rating my comments? State your disagreements. I’m honest about being a “leftie,” and therefore, I’m not a troll.
You have no ideal how ironic I find it that you’re making a demand that one person submits to your will and thus reduces their freedom of opinion to suit your purposes on an article about a public figure who does the same thing you’re doing going to an event specifically about the freedom of the individual being essential and yet that freedom must still be used in a manner that is not detrimental to the society as a whole or the individual must face the consequences of their actions to the society as a whole.
The irony becomes glaring when you understand that the rating comes from you trolling the boards because you’re defining isolationism as the only true “left” position because no one is allowed to influence other nations with words, money, or might. You’re attempting to “other” everyone who disagrees with you. It’s all so comical.
And the worm continues turning.
Which worm?
The one that is presently beginning to connecting the two more radical sides of this society with he vast undecided middle.
That one.
Watch.
Next up?
Elizabeth Warren camping out at a militia convention.
No?
Oh well…I guess the turn is only coming from the right side.
So it goes.
Have fun.
I am.
Later…
AG
Maybe he and Frank Luntz are going together? http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/the-agony-of-frank-luntz/282766/
he better bring his own weed…
Boo, go as a freelancer and be sure to take Dr. Gonzo along. You could bang one out for RS.
Where have you gone, Hunter S? A nation turns its beady eyes to you.
Hey, Grover, want the special tour to see the INSIDE of the Burning Man?
Now Burning Man will never seem the same.
I’m hoping that someone can arrange to leave no physical trace of Grover Norquist.
If nobody tells you what to do then it follows that nobody tells you what not to do either. Grover and his fellow libertarians would last somewhere between three seconds and three days should their libertarian fantasies come to pass. Their promised land would turn out to be Lord of the Flies, not Atlas Shrugged.
Libertarians like Norquist want a utopian society. The problem with a utopian society is that it depends on a self-selecting population committed to upholding its values. The next generation might not be so committed. Few utopian societies last more than a single generation unless there is a lot of coercion. (THIS. IS. SPARTA!)
Burning Man is a practical utopia in that it’s deliberately temporary. It’s a good place to visit but no one tries to live there.
With people like Norquist joining it, it will lose its “cool” as quickly as the DFHs did when flyover Americans added love beads to their Sunday going to church leisure suits.
A truly libertarian society requires two things:
Libertarian utopia is science fiction. Norquist is just a gigantic fucking shill for oligarchs. Period.