PZ Myers is one of the blogosphere’s big boys. For those not in the know he’s a biologist and professor at the University of Minnesota in the US. He’s also the author of probably the biggest atheist blog on the net, Pharyngula and has a deservedly devoted following. As well as his delightfully sharp writing he hosts some of the most fascinating comment debates on the net, where evolutionists are regularly skewered. I’m very much a fan.
It appears that recently some chaps calling themselves libertarians kicked up a stink in those same comments and that has resulted in a couple of posts in which PZ makes some rather negative comments about what he describes as a pathology (I say apparently as the link posted on his site doesn’t seem to be working). A number of commenters go much, much further before the whole thing devolves into an argument about global warming.
I made my own views on climate change clear last year, and received a fair bit of flack from other libertarians for it. I’ve read a fair bit on the subject since then, and my views have not changed. I think that human activity is most likely to be the most significant cause of climate change and that it is incumbent on us all to do what we can to stop that. However it does not therefore follow that the state should force us all to act accordingly, especially when it has such a poor track record on such matters. I am deeply suspicious of those who seek to exaggerate the threat of climate change in order to control society or to meddle in the affairs of other. I see little difference between that and the other fear triggers such as terrorism or immigration. A lot of libertarians would disagree with me, but certainly not all.
Which leads us to the issue I must take with PZ Myer’s posts. I imagine he’s quite right to poke fun at the particular commenters he does, but he is dead wrong to equate all libertarians with the loons he has been dealing with. This might be more to do with the vagaries of political definitions between the US and the rest of the world. In most of the world the political views I espouse could pretty neatly defined as liberal, but in the US, and more and more in the UK, this becoming to mean centre-left statist. Certainly the US tea-baggers and disciples of Glenn Beck are not what I would consider libertarian. They love it when the government gets behind their chosen causes, and cry foul only when it is something they do not like being promoted.
I’m fully aware that this will appear to be a ‘No True Scotsman’ argument, or playing with semantics, but that is just not the case. Pharyngula commenter Walton explains why much more eloquently than I can. In short, just because someone chooses to co-opt the language of liberty to suit their own agenda does not make them the real deal, be they a caricature demagogue of the Religious Right, laughing all the way to the bank, or a lost and deluded weak man hell bent on retaining power at any cost.
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I used to read the Pharyngula blog but got put off after one too many posts were libertarians were misrepresented and lumped in with conservatives, then dismissed as a bit dastardly and/or stupid.
It’s a shame as I should be enjoying posts by an atheist and biologist.
The problem, I think, is that PZ and his commenters far too easily slip into lazy arguments. They create a straw man and lampoon it. I’ve read a large number of fairly calm and sensible comments from people identifying themselves as libertarians, but he only highights the handful of extreme ones. It’s a shame, but I suppose he is popular for his loon-baiting so only to be expected.