This is indeed OK, if “OK” means “ignorant, silly, and obnoxious”.

There are reasons why fascists, like Communists, are hated, and Wilkinson isn’t aware of any of them. Liberalism is not pristine and without flaws, but it isn’t fascist.

We’re falling off the bottom of the page, so goodbye, all!

Well?

I believe Jonah’s book DOES succeed in exposing, to a wider public, the liberals’ and/or left’s “faith in unproven scientific fads, faith in technocratic elites, and faith that those who share progressive ideology have superior wisdom and moral standing that justifies ruling over others. I believe that the best way to insulate oneself against romanticizing the state is to recognize these faiths and their dangers.”

Now you say:

It is not, per se, about a supposed link between modern liberalism and bad science as it is between the historic tendency of government to use bad science so as to further social control.

Those seem to be rather different positions. The first seems to allege Goldberg has uncovered some fundamental truth about “the left”; the second makes the generalized claim about coercive government in general.

jcasey,
It is not, per se, about a supposed link between modern liberalism and bad science as it is between the historic tendency of government to use bad science so as to further social control.

And of course science and scientists isn’t just one block. It just seems pointless to whine about science fads when one doesn’t have the intellectual basis for determining which ones are fads and which ones are not.

It’s pretty nasty to claim that an angry response to a lying insult is somehow excessive or silly. Anger is the normal, appropriate response to them, and anything less is wrong.

And Goldberg really is stupid, though with the help of his enablers, he’s been doing very well for himself.

1. I’m not quite sure how to respond to your belief that “the only people who have standing to question scientific fads are scientists.” For one, I disagree. I believe anyone has standing to question whatever they damn well please. And anyone has standing to question such questioning. Secondly, you write as if “scientists” exist as one block.

2. “Politics is by its nature coercive. That’s what you do with your vote. You decide how you think others should live.” Precisely. It is for this reason many theorists have proposed political (anti-political) dispensations, mostly involving free-market, federalist and localist mechanisms, so as to maximize the diversity and optimize the opportunity of various living. Given the fact democracy is fundamentally majoritian, it is a very unflexible thing. The market is far more responsive to the needs/desires of everyone, not just the 51 percent of the 10-40 percent of the nation’s populace that shows up on election days (and this doesn’t even touch on the unresponsive relationship between what the voters decide in the voting booth and what is actually implemented by the politicians once elected). To return to Kling: http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=101007A

You’ve gotta be kidding, Zinaida. There’s absolutely nothing outside total anarchy that you would find appealing, nothing at all? Any form of government is the equivalent of totalitarian fascist state? With all due respect, that’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?

I still maintain it’s just arguments over labelling. And that Goldberg now has a best-seller because people are shrieking about him.

What distinguishes a libertarian world where a government won’t intrude on various things from practical examples of governments that can’t intrude on things?

1. The only people who have standing to question scientific fads are scientists. No one would endorse following scientific fads, obviously. So that doesn’t say much. Having a government, however, you have to make policy. And if it turns out in some study that asbestos is bad, for instance, then maybe that ought to be a consideration.

2. Politics is by its nature coercive. That’s what you do with your vote. You decide how you think others should live. You decide, ultimately, what things should be coerced. So claiming some view is coercive is to say nothing more than that someone thinks he’s right. The question, the one we ought to waste our time on, is whether that person is right.

jcasey,
When Kling refers to “faith in scientific fads,” he is thinking of nefarious examples in history (particurly those touched on in Jonah’s book) when questionable science has been employed on behalf of coercive politics. In any case, of all the complaints you bring forth—concerning “faith-based” politics, sex, abortion, drugs and “national security” excesses—there is little a standard libertarian, even many libertarian conservatives would disagree with (Kling himself is a libertarian). In other words, none of these complaints make you a liberal or leftist. The problem, in Kling’s view and mine, is that most liberals/leftists seem to believe as long as the government isn’t intruding with regards to sex, drugs or national security, intrusion is allowable, if not preferable. (We could go on and about Jonah’s own inherent inconsistencies, given the fact he’s not a libertarian. I’d agree with you.)