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Apr 9, 2010 
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I keep saying here that I'm a small-l libertarian. What does that mean? It means that I'm not a member of the Libertarian Party, and don't have any plans to become one. Why? In part it's because I think party identification encourages sloppy thinking and orthodoxy — it leads us to adopt positions not because we've concluded those positions have merit, but because the tribe with which we identify has adopted them.
Also, to be blunt, it's because the Libertarian Party and other bastions of libertarian officialdom (as opposed to individual libertarians) seem doomed to attract cranks and crazies, much to the detriment of libertarian ideas.
Case in point . . . .
Last year I wrote this post demonstrating that the Los Angeles Times had indulged in legally illiterate scaremongering about the PATRIOT Act. In short, the Times asserted that a woman named Tamara Freeman was held under the PATRIOT Act for misbehaving on an airplane, when in fact she was prosecuted based on a law that existed before the PATRIOT Act, based upon elements unchanged by the PATRIOT Act, for conduct that the Times substantially distorted and minimized. In other words, the PATRIOT Act had nothing do to with it. Here's how I closed:
As I have often argued on this blog, citizens should remain vigilant about how our government uses the convenient excuse of the War on Terror to expand police powers and trammel rights in a manner unrelated to legitimate anti-terrorist efforts. The media does it job when it reports on genuine abuses and expansions of power. However, like the boy who cried wolf, the media does more harm than good when it does not do its homework before asserting that pre-existing norms and practices are actually new developments. And the media certainly doesn’t do its job when it attempts to sanitize someone like Tamera Freeman.
You would think that nobody could read that and conclude that I'm a Republican defending the PATRIOT Act.
You'd be wrong. Here's the comment we got last night:
Hay [sic] dumbass Republican’s [sic] you are not safer on airlines becuase [sic] the Gov’t uses the Patriot Act for trivial nonsense like this. The LA Times was very correct in there [sic] reporting. Welcome to the USSA
This was so dumb, so sub-literate, and so completely lacking in any sign of reading comprehension that I decided to Google "mdabfab23@aol.com", the email address left with the comment. To my surprise — wait, that's misleading, to my regret — I discovered that the email address belonged to Dave Begy, "Membership Chair" of the San Diego Libertarian Party.
Surely, I thought, this must be some statist trying to discredit libertarians by trolling blogs with silly comments and leaving the email addresses of libertarian party officials. Right? So I sent Mr. Begy an email warning him that someone was misusing his email address using the name "Joe."
No such luck. Here's what I got back:
No your [sic] the educated idiot. If you think your [sic] safer on a plane because the Patriot Act is applied in this manner and a woman is denied her god given right of Habeas Corpus to go in front of a judge to answer to the charges brought against her then all I can say your a sad human being.
Got it! Did I make myself clear enough this time?
Yep, that sounds like the same commenter. I replied rather brusquely, he replied in kind again:
O.K. Mr. Fed [the name on the email address I used], let's try this, you're an educated moron. Got it? Lay off the conspiracy crack pipe dude. So when from the time she was charged with these "egregious" "trumped up" air crimes was it to the time she was brought before a judge? 3 months? tyranny works on your mind not mine. Take your meds and watch dancing with the stars. Don't insult my intelligence. Nice blog! I look up to controllers like you! lol
Of course, anyone who actually read the post on which Mr. Begy commented would see that I cited, and attached, multiple documents from Ms. Freeman's federal criminal prosecution illustrating that she was not held incommunicado under the PATRIOT Act in defiance of the Great Writ, but routinely prosecuted under pre-existing federal statutes, made multiple and timely court appearances, and only spent time in custody because nobody in her family would bail her out. Again, the entire point of the post was to document that the PATRIOT Act had nothing to do with the prosecution.
That level of reading comprehension seems to elude Mr. Begy. As far as I can tell, he read one or two paragraphs of the post at random and then emoted.
There are several possibilities. One possibility is that Mr. Begy really is exactly this thick. Another is that Mr. Begy is engaging in the fine internet tradition of trolling, but using the email address he uses in his capacity of Membership Chair of the San Diego Libertarian party. That possibility is sort of a riff on the first one.
Libertarian ideas are important and worth exploring seriously. That's why we've blogged about post-9/11 idiocies and abuses by the TSA, police misconduct, the encroaching Nanny State, and the excesses of the War on Drugs.
If you care about these issues, you should examine them carefully and draw your own conclusions. When you follow a party, or a party's platform, you are letting people like Dave Begy decide issues for you.
Last 5 posts by Ken
- Marc Stephens Threatens Me Some More - February 3rd, 2012
- Now I Belong To The Ages - January 31st, 2012
- The Road to Popehat: The Oracle At Popehat Edition - January 27th, 2012
- Step Right Up For The Thursday Censorious Asshat Roundup - January 26th, 2012
- Only State Senator Ralph Shortey of Oklahoma Is Vigilant Against Fetus-Eaters - January 25th, 2012
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