5 Comments

Small-l libertarians fall naturally on the "left" as per the original connotation, that of being for individual liberty and opposed to centralized rule. As Sheldon Richman famously said, "Bastiat sat on the left". https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/libertarianism-left/.

If Trump hadn't been ousted, it's easy to imagine that the alignments of party with covid policy would be almost exactly opposite of what it is now.

Expand full comment

You can't deny that the covid hysteria originated on the left and the resistance from the right. With exceptions of course. I don't think it's as simple as people choosing a side simply because it's in opposition to one's opponent. This would mean we're all aimless idiots with no ideology at all, just adversarial. It seems saying "it's not about left-right" requires ignoring what's in front of our eyes. Maybe we have more to learn about left and right.

Expand full comment

Disagree entirely. At the start, all the Right was going Karen. And libertarians. Trump blocked flights from places including Europe and the Left claimed he was going way overboard to the threat. Trump’s folks created the recommendations for lockdowns. Other countries with different dynamics ended up on the opposite side: e.g., Sweden, Israel. Even Boris is a Tory. But then in the U.S. especially it slowly veered and became more clearly Left-Right correlated. When such “veering” happens in communities, they come up with justifications for why it’s a totally 100% sensible thing given the principles we have always had blah blah. So it feels like we have always been at war with East Asia.

Expand full comment

You're a rare genius, and I've learned a lot from your work, but with all respect, I disagree with your assessment. From my perspective, it was the left driving this hysteria from the start. Neither Trump, nor Boris are purely aligned with right-wing individualism, so I'm not drawing philosophical conclusions from the actions those two idiots. I agree there have been those identifying on the left who have stayed "aloof" and resisted the hysteria. But not nearly enough to alter any conclusions.

Expand full comment

We’ll disagree, but — more narrowly — perhaps you might agree that “left” in the diagram sense (the 2D diamond space with axes personal and economic freedom) doesn’t per se entail being pro draconian, useless, lower class devastating interventions.

Expand full comment