The Post-Hope Politics of ‘House of Cards’
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Perhaps the most convincing argument for libertarian worldview to come out of the pop-culture.
Who would want 'House of Cards' politicians to run their lives?
Re-watch the series and look at what a citizen of this land would get from the White House. It is not a great picture of an administration we would want.
Of course, no TV administration is going to be a good thing. Drama requires conflict and over 7 seasons a lot of rules get broke in a heroic manner. In real life, we call that abuse of executive privilege.
The only thing I can say is President Santos and his education plan is worse for every rural area and budget.
1) Although in later seasons, most of the writers wrote the Republicans as villain of the week instead of honorable adversaries
2) Martin Sheen is amazing in that too
3) not to mention the whole lying about the President's health and never mind the Vice President
Libertarianism recognizes the value of governance, don't get confused, but it asserts that certain individual rights as inalienable.
Please. Anarchists (esp. anarcho-capitalists) have made up a significant portion of libertarians in the US since the Vietnam war. The 1974 Libertarian National Convention intentionally made the Libertarian Party platform ambiguous on the desirability of the state's existence (the Dallas Accord) in order to stave off a full scale war between anarchists and minarchists for goodness sakes.
Plenty of libertarians would be happy to abolish government altogether and truly believe that we'd all be better off for it.
And how do you suppose rights are to be enforced if not the constituted government? By saying please? Or everybody shooting it out? Hope you're a good shot or your 'rights' go out the window.
And, how do you square an appeal to the framers of the Constitution for limited government with the actual decisions of those framers over the first 30 years of the US Government?
In establishing a process that allows for the orderly application of the input of the governed, of "clearing the channels" for democracy, the Constitution has been an extraordinarily effective instrument. In establishing the fundamental principles and values of that government --- something it barely even tries to do --- it is much less effective. Searching the Constitution for principles and values inevitably involves an element of tea leaf reading; pretty quickly you're out of the text of the Constitution and into the Federalist Papers, and now we're talking about a rule by three dead guys.
Note that the U.S. Constitutional scheme is not one of minarchist government. The powers of the federal government are limited to those enumerated, but the scheme presupposes the existence of state governments, whose powers are nearly unlimited.[1] Moreover, the Constitution guarantees that these state governments will have republican form.
[1] More or less, the states were considered to have inherited the sovereign powers of the British Parliament, which were limited only by unwritten British constitution (i.e. the historical rights of Englishmen).
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but on your view, limiting the government's ability to spy on its own citizens without warrants is tantamount to an anarchist's topsy-turvydom in which people are free to kill and steal from one another with impunity.
Is this what you mean?
Libertarianism maintains that government is not supposed to solve all your problems. That is the job of the free market: voluntary associations and mutually-beneficial transactions. Government's role is to secure the liberties that underlie the free market.
When politicians offer to "solve" people's problems, they are usually offering to steal for their constituents. "Don't have enough money for healthcare, retirement, food, housing, education, [insert your particular problem here]? Vote for me and I'll take it from your countrymen by force of government and give it to you." Voters for such politicians are thieves by proxy. It's a shame that people resort to thievery to solve their problems. But it's not a mystery as to why abolishing such a system would be unpopular.
How can you be so sure that the world, properly understood, is all shades of grey? That you are so certain of nothing but that the world is grey - is that not itself a "black and white" perspective?
My comment was in response to the suggestion that government was popular because it solved people's problems and that therefore libertarianism or anarchism is unworkable. "Yep, the world really is that simple - abolish government and things will get better. It's a shame so many people don't realize how easy it is to fix all of their problems."
My response was that government does solve problems, just in an illegitimate way. Government solves people's problems by giving them benefits that they would not otherwise have, at least not without a lot of work.
The situation is like slavery of pre 1860s in the southern United States. Slavery was obviously wrong, but it survived because it "solved problems" for its constituents.
In both cases eliminating the injustice would result in making the lives of many of the system's beneficiaries worse off. Specifically, in this case, people are willing to accept the rule of evil people like those portrayed in House of Cards because it makes their personal lives more pleasant than it would be otherwise.
And what are the odds that I've just started a huge political argument...
The West Wing and House of Cards are popular for the same reason: exceptional writing, production and acting.
To make an analogy to start-up land: having the great idea is only the first part—actually executing the great idea is actually the more important (and difficult) part.
Also Hank wouldn't have been able to walk again without the treatment paid for with drug money.
I wouldn't say it is the central theme of the show but it is certainly there.
Also, both Walter and Hank's successful healing hinges on them getting the absolute top end of treatment. These don't magically become available under universal coverage. Hank is a career federal employee and must be assumed to have good insurance, but the plot explicitly places his needs outside its capabilities.
Universal health care makes sure that you don't get ruined by health expenses and that you can get patched up pretty good in the vast majority of cases. This is a good thing. But it's not a panacea that makes the top-end care that Walter and Hank receives available to the masses.
[1] Conservative