Don't Drink and Tweet (Monica Potts & Conn Carroll)

[breadcrust]

Originally Posted by messwithtexas

The way libertarians tend to respond to this obvious short-coming is with some tortured logic about why that isn't applicable to the efficacy of their ideology. If you consider yourself a libertarian I'd love to hear your thoughts on what the growth pattern in Houston says about the role of government.

Libertarians don't tend to think that what you're talking about is much of a short-coming... if it is at all. Progressives see something that looks less than optimal to them and think "we need to point guns at someone to stop this." No! Bad Progressive! We don't need some politicians deciding to iron all of the kinks out of something they couldn't possibly understand.

That is (just one) big problem with libertarianism. No real world example is ever good enough if it doesn't support libertarian preconceptions.

This is literally retarded. Even hyper-progressives like Brad DeLong can think of many cases where greater libertarianism lead to better outcomes: Cuba vs Mexico, North Korea vs South Korea, East Germany vs West Germany. To become wealthy, countries don't need a billion niggling decisions made by thugs with guns (politicians, you) but a simple framework.

In Texas, libertarians are confronted with the obvious example of how no zoning regulations in Houston has led to jumbled, sprawling mess of a city.The response to this predictable failure of libertarian ideology in practice tends to be that it wasn't pure enough to the libertarian ideology throughout history to be a "controlled experiment".

"Jumbled, sprawling mess of a city." According to whom? You haven't even made your case that Houston is a worse place to live because of the things you seem to dislike about it. Before you start expounding about libertarian failures, tell me what is actually wrong with Houston's layout that I as someone to whom "sprawl" is not a dog-whistle should even care about.