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Larks comments on Counterfactual Coalitions - Less Wrong
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Comments (28)
Obviously, some of these are real historical coalitions
It's not clear to me what you mean by "counterfactual" and "prima facie plausible" for these.
When you talk about real historical coalitions (like, say, anti-slavery evangelicals), in what way is that a "counterfactual" rather than, say, a "factual"?
Likewise, the one that you put on the list twice (pro-homosexual nationalists and anti-family nationalists) strikes me as prima facie implausible (if you have to grow it in competition, rather than having it in isolation and hoping it's stable).
Some of the combinations do highlight real intellectual divides- "libertarians for conscription" calls to mind Hayek's potential acceptance of a conscription law so long as it didn't impede the ability of individuals to plan. (Mandatory two-year service would work, whereas lotteries might not.) This was seen as a major disagreement by natural rights libertarians, who view conscription as slavery (and thus objectionable). But there seems to be a lot more chaff here than wheat.
I'm not sure why this one seems included. Evangelical Protestants such as they existed in the 19th century were a major part of abolitionism. The only reason this doesn't completely work is that modern evangelicals as we understand them were different in many ways from the closest thing in the first half of the 19th century.
This does however seem like a potentially interesting idea overall. The animals-rights/pro-lfe example is particularly striking. Pro-life/pacifists might be another possibility.
One thing that is actually similar to this is how often people presume that coalitions in other countries line up in ways that match one's own. For example, one common misconception among Americans about Israeli politics is that the nationalist/Zionist sentiment is coming from the ultra-Orthodox(charedim), when in fact many of the charedim don't want a Jewish state at all and it is the moderate Orthodox who are strongly nationalist.
I think most young Catholics are pro-life and pacifists.
I've actually met one... or someone who claimed to be one, anyway. I think what he said was: "It's in the Constitution; if the government wants you to go kill some people, then you've got to go kill some people."
I met a libertarian who was allegedly in favor of the poll tax. It was sort of a Poe's law situation.
They were probably serious. Extreme libertarianism (as well as many other ideologies) judges the terminal value of a law based on the law alone; the system by which the laws get made (absolute democracy? constitutionally-limited democracy? benevolent dictator?) is then just a means toward that end. The belief that a financially-limited franchise would infringe less on liberty might still be wrong, but it's not inherently self-contradictory.
We tend to lump ideas like "freedom", "democracy", and "self-government" into a big halo effect box of happiness, despite there being serious historical and modern conflicts between any pair of them. If a majority of people desire to ban flag-burning, under what conditions is it right for a minority to ignore that desire? If a large majority of people in some locality want strict enforcement of a particular religion's edicts there, does it matter if they're greatly outnumbered by non-locals who disagree? Does the answer to the previous question change if I insert "don't" before the word want?
Sort of:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-strange-strange-story_b_136697.html
He has an odd notion of what a fascist is if he thinks someone like Pim Fortuyn was one.
Generally speaking anyone to the right of me is a fascist, anyone to the left a dirty commie.
It is quite a normal notion. It just happens to be historically problematic.