BOTWT: Libertarians = Hinckley
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James Taranto, editor of the increasingly embarrassing "Best of the Web Today" feature at OpinionJournal, continues his descent into hopeless unsalvageability:
And of course Taranto can't even get that part right:
That's not being a libertarian, that's being an economist — or simply a rational, informed thinker. This is somehow deserving of ridicule? Perhaps Kern's analysis is accurate; perhaps it's flawed. But why exactly should he be dismissed as "marvelously kooky" for even contemplating the issue in the first place?
Call me "relentlessly logical in the service of utter insanity," but I score that round to Kern.
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Meanwhile, Rolling Doughnut critiques another portion of this same edition of "BOTWT."
As regular readers of this column know, we especially enjoy making fun of libertarians. Of course, some people who call themselves "libertarians" are just normal folks who don't fit the "conservative" or "liberal" label because they're on one side on economic issues and the other on social ones. But a true libertarian ideologue is marvelously kooky: relentlessly logical in the service of utter insanity, sort of a cross between Mr. Spock and John Hinckley.His sole piece of evidence: an economic analysis of airport security waiting times put out by Tim Kern of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Because of course trying to put some numbers on TSA policies and inefficiencies is somehow analogous to trying to assassinate a president.
And of course Taranto can't even get that part right:
[I]n our experience the total amount of time it takes to go through airport security is well under an hour, except when there is a long line (which happens maybe 15% to 20% of the time).Yeah, so? The cost of the TSA process is of course not the actual wait time for any given flight, but the potential wait time for every flight. Would anyone dare suggest that it is rational not to assume the worst delay but rather the average delay? Especially when the penalty for guessing wrong is a missed flight? Do the airlines and the TSA advise us to "take a shot and take your time," or to "give yourself plenty of time to get to the airport and through security"? If I show up early in anticipation of a lengthy security line and end up breezing through the process, is my time no less wasted?
That's not being a libertarian, that's being an economist — or simply a rational, informed thinker. This is somehow deserving of ridicule? Perhaps Kern's analysis is accurate; perhaps it's flawed. But why exactly should he be dismissed as "marvelously kooky" for even contemplating the issue in the first place?
Call me "relentlessly logical in the service of utter insanity," but I score that round to Kern.
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Meanwhile, Rolling Doughnut critiques another portion of this same edition of "BOTWT."
Posted by Kip on
30 May 2006
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