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It must be cool to be a Libertarian because you are an immediate expert at everything.

by Chriky 9y ago

matthewmacleod 9y ago
That was a detailed comment that didn't say "government is bad." It laid out a pretty reasonable interpretation of why that decision might have taken place, including quite clearly pointing out that some governments care less about the effects of airports on local populations, which could explain why some markets still have hub airports. It definitely tallies with the impression I have – looking at London Heathrow, for example, where the controversy about expanding the airport has been rumbling on for an age, and governments are consistently jittery about taking an obvious view on it. I'd say there are pretty good reasons for avoiding expansion, but obviously this other comment disagrees. There's nothing here that screams "libertarian," just a possibly inaccurate, but hardly unreasonable, point of view.
- matt4077 9y ago
  > that didn't say "government is bad." Yet it did start with "The problem is government".
  - maehwasu 9y ago
    It turns out, shockingly enough, that there are many situations in which government creates problems. If a poster lays out his/her reasoning as to WHY the government is the problem in a specific instance, simply yelling "libertarian" as a refutation doesn't look great.
    - mcv 9y ago
      > It turns out, shockingly enough, that there are many situations in which government creates problems. True of course, but not in this case. Many governments want their airports to expand, but they simply can't, because there's no space for it, and they're not totalitarian enough to screw over the millions of people living in those areas. It's not a case of governments being unreasonably obstructive, it's a case of governments actually caring about the interests of the people for a change.
dsr_ 9y ago
To be fair, there are lots of ideologies which provide "for all problems P, X is the answer". Capitalism, Marxism, many flavors of religion. Fanatic behavior adds that "no problem Q can be as important as problem P (for which we know the answer is X), so we don't need to discuss it except to figure out how Q is related to P".
Coincoin 9y ago
You get that with any ideology really. If you can reduce all the scope of all the problems in the world into a single variable, you can now blame everything on that single variable. Everything seems so easy and simple while in fact you are just being lazy.
dang 9y ago
Ideological flamewar isn't allowed here regardless of how wrong someone else is. Same for personal attacks. We ban accounts that do these things. Fortunately, from your recent history it looks like you don't have a habit of doing this on HN, but would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site to heart? The idea is something like this: If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do.

It must be cool to be a Libertarian because you are an immediate expert at everything.

by Chriky 9y ago

It must be cool to be a Libertarian because you are an immediate expert at everything.

That was a detailed comment that didn't say "government is bad." It laid out a pretty reasonable interpretation of why that decision might have taken place, including quite clearly pointing out that some governments care less about the effects of airports on local populations, which could explain why some markets still have hub airports. It definitely tallies with the impression I have – looking at London Heathrow, for example, where the controversy about expanding the airport has been rumbling on for an age, and governments are consistently jittery about taking an obvious view on it. I'd say there are pretty good reasons for avoiding expansion, but obviously this other comment disagrees. There's nothing here that screams "libertarian," just a possibly inaccurate, but hardly unreasonable, point of view.

matt4077 9y ago
> that didn't say "government is bad." Yet it did start with "The problem is government".
- maehwasu 9y ago
  It turns out, shockingly enough, that there are many situations in which government creates problems. If a poster lays out his/her reasoning as to WHY the government is the problem in a specific instance, simply yelling "libertarian" as a refutation doesn't look great.
  - mcv 9y ago
    > It turns out, shockingly enough, that there are many situations in which government creates problems. True of course, but not in this case. Many governments want their airports to expand, but they simply can't, because there's no space for it, and they're not totalitarian enough to screw over the millions of people living in those areas. It's not a case of governments being unreasonably obstructive, it's a case of governments actually caring about the interests of the people for a change.

dsr_ 9y ago

To be fair, there are lots of ideologies which provide "for all problems P, X is the answer". Capitalism, Marxism, many flavors of religion. Fanatic behavior adds that "no problem Q can be as important as problem P (for which we know the answer is X), so we don't need to discuss it except to figure out how Q is related to P".

Coincoin 9y ago

You get that with any ideology really. If you can reduce all the scope of all the problems in the world into a single variable, you can now blame everything on that single variable. Everything seems so easy and simple while in fact you are just being lazy.

dang 9y ago

Ideological flamewar isn't allowed here regardless of how wrong someone else is. Same for personal attacks. We ban accounts that do these things. Fortunately, from your recent history it looks like you don't have a habit of doing this on HN, but would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site to heart? The idea is something like this: If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do.