It's a hypothetical.
Which doesn't matter in a debate on mind-killing, discourse, etc. Suppose I made a meta argument like his (which is actually decent, connotations aside) accompanied by a "hypothetical" that ridiculed proponents of capitalism by describing them as "people who believe that using 2000s technology on luxury goods and high-tech weapons while there's poverty even in the developed world is sane and logical... but that Evil Insane Tyranny would ensue if governments made a concerted effort to distribute resources differently.".
Because I'd be (rightly) torn apart by reducing all apologetics of capitalism to this - everyone would point to it as a prime example of mind-killed strawmanning - and yet it's not so different from how VB just described mindsets skeptical of the "free market".
I see your point but I still think you're being unfair. Viliam_Bur's hypothetical leftish ideologue reads to me as only a little more strawmanish than his hypothetical libertarianish ideologue. I can imagine a right-libertarian Multiheaded from a parallel universe reading VB's post and complaining (for example) that "I expect government to introduce bureaucracy and pervert good ideas" is a terrible strawman on the grounds that all right-thinking right-libertarians are well aware that using "bureaucracy" as a derogative is an unreflectiv...
I was thinking about the hazards of bad government, and wondering if there was a way for the LW community to do something to oppose them, and it occurred to me that we might be picking up the problem by the wrong end.
The usual way of thinking about political action is to start with one's political identity (progressive, libertarian, whatever), and that's likely to put one at odds with people who have opposed identities.
Instead, I believe there are projects which could appeal to rationalists across a wide range of the political spectrum. A couple I can think of are opposing the war on drugs and improving judicial systems. Any other suggestions?