Scott Adams seems to harbor a deep-rooted hostility against libertarians. As do all who want to reserve the option of archating (and worshiping The State) without feeling like the bad guy.
Years ago he claimed to be "libertarian, without the crazy stuff"; and he defined the "crazy stuff" as anything that defined libertarians, which he has never understood. Let me say that again: All his anti-libertarian opinions show he doesn't understand the first thing about liberty, and it doesn't seem as though he wants to. It would destroy his bubble if he did, and it's easier to attack the straw men he creates.
A couple of days ago he went on a rather strange rant against comic Dave Smith, a political libertarian who is probably always more correct than Adams on the topic of government.
A few highlights from his video (you can watch the whole thing at the link above): “you don’t need a libertarian country”… "there never has been one and it can’t work"… “Argentina… to me that just looks like capitalism”.
Then we get to the part where he really went off the rails: “you can fairly easily trigger them (libertarians) into cognitive dissonance”.
To demonstrate his point, he showed the opposite happening.
He quoted Dave Smith as saying, “Netanyahu did not sufficiently defend Israel from the October 7 attack and that perhaps that was intentional as well”. Adams says this is "too far", and is “mind reading”.
Sorry, Scott, your government supremacism is showing. You don't need to read any minds, just look at the actions taken.
Did the Israeli government impose anti-weapon legislation? Yes. They did. This is the opposite of "defending Israel" from such an attack. The residents were made easy prey for criminal scum so they'd be easier to govern. It was intentional-- legislation always is-- and it was demonstrably disastrous. Netanyahu and his minions are guilty, as Smith charged. Facts are facts, like them or not.
Then Adams allowed it may have been intentional on Netanyahu’s part, to give him an excuse to destroy Hamas at the cost of losing a few hundred innocent people. Smith said this was a bad thing. Adams says if this was the plan, the plan worked. Adams wants to wait and see how it turns out, not considering the human costs in the present, because it might be worth the deaths and suffering in the long run.
Which is a typically disgusting example of pragmatism.
He asked, “Was I making a good point or not?” No, Scott, you were being evil and pragmatic. Slavery was very pragmatic. Democide is pragmatic. They both "work", from a certain point of view. You can excuse anything by saying it "works".
Then Adams starts slipping into his own trap.
Smith replied, “Adams sees no evidence an unprovable counter-factual wouldn’t be worse”. Adams claimed this was "word salad" because he couldn’t understand it. This is not the first time he's claimed "word salad" for something easily understandable by anyone without the motivation to be unable to understand it. I understood Dave's sentence, accurate or not. Yet he claims this shows Smith suffering "cognitive dissonance".
Scott is the one in cognitive dissonance. And can’t see it. Partly because he’s so brainwashed by statism. Partly because he’s being dishonest. Again.
He also claimed this sentence was a quintuple negative (demonstrating an inability to count to five). Maybe he has difficulty reading words-- he dislikes words and their definitions, anyway, calling that "word-thinking". How convenient for him.
He then started trying to insult Dave Smith for not understanding costs and benefits. I guess Smith isn't pragmatic enough. Would Dave Smith refuse to consider the costs and benefits of slavery before standing up and denouncing it? I doubt it. Adams? I don't think he would denounce slavery if others hadn't already made it safe for him to take that position. Or unsafe to debate the costs and benefits before taking a position on it.
He kept calling Smith a progressive, even after initially admitting he wasn’t one. He then said libertarians and progressives were really the same thing because their ideas can't work in the real world. Well, not in the real world Adams promotes, where rights aren't real; only power matters. Where government can do anything it wants, using whatever excuse dumb people will accept.
It’s interesting to me that anyone who tries to ridicule the libertarian position has to either try hard to not understand or they have to lie. Or both.
Statism is stupid and evil. And statists seem to love acting patronizing to those who are smarter and more ethical than they are. It's like a spoiled toddler being patronizing toward his dad.
When Adams is right, he’s right. When he’s wrong, it’s generally because he’s a vile statist who is suffering from cognitive dissonance while seeing it in everyone who disagrees with him.
