But seriously, all the consternation in the media about Tiger being in some sort of slump is dumb. (I don’t mean to say that anyone here is engaging in that.)

He’ll be back. Remember 2004-ish, when he wasn’t doing so hot? He hadn’t won a major in two years. What happened? Laser show. Relax. Specifically, he made top 5 in ten of the next twelve majors, winning five of them. (Never mind that one where he missed the cut.) He tied for 4th at the Masters and U.S. Open this year, so he’s clearly still Really Good At Golf.

This liability cap poses a problem because $1B isn’t nearly enough to cover all of the things that BP is clearly responsible for. At this point the usual suspects come out, congressional actions in the form of bills of attainer and ex post facto laws, much the same as the financial system bailout situation. While we could probably structure a law to sidestep around these issues there are no guarantees that the courts wouldn’t (rightly) strike it down.

In this case though there are some additional tools that are probably much better than unconstitutional laws.

Since 2000 BP has received $9B in defense contracts and operates around 22,000 oil and gas wells in United States controlled areas. This represents $16B in revenue. This financial relationship makes a much different situation from financial firm executive compensation. These significant economic ties make it very easy for the US government to make life hell for BP. A wide range of actions are possible from moving defense contracts to other suppliers to shutting down BP operations for safety violations (of which there is no shortage of legitimate concerns). BP is much smaller than the two other major players in the oil industry, ExxonMobil and Shell, so it’s not like it’s even a two way street. BP needs us more than we need them.

In other words, we have a wide and wonderful variety of methods to make avoiding paying cleanup liabilities more expensive than actually paying out. Whether the Feds have the balls to do it is another story, it would likely take some serious housecleaning in the EPA and MMS to get rid of the people loyal to BP, which seems to be part of the regulatory problems that got us into this mess.

The question here is, what can we do about it? It’s obviously not in the interest of most nations to have a bunch of religious crazies with The Bomb. There’s the argument to be made for the freedom of soverign nations, but that’s another discussion, let’s assume we have no moral qualms about doing what we can to ‘fix’ the problem.

1. Bomb nuclear research facilities. Assuming they’re not underground we can take them out, probably flare up hostilities in the area and perhaps provoke some terrorist attacks here. Best case, we set them back a few years in development and they move underground where we can’t bomb them. Worst case, we don’t accomplish anything and now we’re in open war with them.
2. Skip to the open war part first. Move in and liberate the country Iraq style. Cue indefinite occupation, destabilized country, chaos, American casualties,and maybe add half a trillion dollars to the national debt. Nukes problem is solved, new problem is worse.
3. Destabilize the country CIA style. May or may not work, it certainly looks like we’ve been trying at this for a while with minimal success. Seems to have the fewest downsides of the options. Worst cases, either nothing happens, or the new government hates us even more (is that possible?).
4. Do nothing. Iran successfully develops a small number of nuclear weapons and starts a MAD situation in the area with Israel. While MAD ‘worked’ between the US and the USSR it seems like tensions run a little hotter in the middle east and the situation may collapse badly. The prospect of real consequences may also cool down the constant simmer of conflict. Who knows when religion is involved though.

• Should business owners be shielded from liability? What if the business ends up negligently killing people?
• Is it okay for a doctor to allow me to bleed out because I can’t pay him, or for any reason? Should we as a society allow this if it’s within our power to stop?
• If it is, does that mean the doctor’s right not to help me is more important than my right to live?
• Is a life that’s less than perfectly free worth living? Is there an optimum somewhere?
• What is my recourse if a contract is broken? What if the act of breaking this contract has taken all my resources? What if the act of breaking this contract has killed me (the contract said these toys wouldn’t have cyanide in them)?
• Can the argument that trying to save lives through regulation outweighs the inefficiency that regulations bring?
• Should we grant patents? If patents are handled by an industry cooperative wouldn’t that tend to be an anticompetitive cartel? How is a business with high startup costs ever supposed to get started?
• Should I be allowed to buy the land next to your house and build a chemical plant? Can I buy the land completely surrounding your house and build a cage?
• Can I use my resources to spread damaging lies about someone?

I’m trying to not speak to any particular implementation of libertarianism, feel free in considering these questions to use any theoretical perfect system you can think of. I make no claims on being informed on the issues beyond some mediocre philosophy classes in college, but definitely welcome having these questions torn apart. It would greatly help my understanding of the underlying issues.

I will propose the premise that to be a legitimate political school of thought requires both a guiding ideology and a basis for implementing that ideology through policy.  For example, as a first order approximation, I would say that modern progressivism is based on an ideology that places the greatest value on social liberty and equality.  Policy is sought that increases governmental capacity to enforce social liberty at the expense of economic liberty (e.g. general welfare programs and death panels funded by progressive taxation).  Modern conservativism, on the other hand, might be described as based on the idea that personal freedom is the paramount value of a society, and is implemented by reducing the role of federal government in peoples lives (e.g. cutting welfare programs and reducing taxes).

Okay, now libertarianism.  I suppose the ideology is that the promotion of all freedoms and liberties (rather than the prioritization of social/personal/economic) should be sought.  I think it’s safe to say, at least in reference to current political climates, this is a fairly extreme stance.  How, then, does one propose to implement this in policy?  What you seem to hear fairly frequently from people claiming to be libertarians is that all policy is bad, in that there is always increased restriction of freedoms as a result.  How, then, is this distinct from anarchism?  Without some guiding principal towards policy, libertarianism should be strictly relegated to crackpots like Rand Paul.

Not all is necessarily lost.  Though I’m not aware of such a policy directive of libertarians, that’s not to say one does not or cannot exist.  If I were a libertarian (which I’m not.. usually), I would say that not all freedoms and liberties are equal — there are different values that the individual or society places on its various freedoms.  For example (here’s where Paul comes in again), consider the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Yes, that limits my freedom to racially discriminate.  Yes, technically, I will grant that that does in fact represent a restriction of liberties.  However, at that expense, all persons now have the freedom to, say, sit anywhere on a bus, or drink from whatever water fountain they please, or become the God-Damned President of the United Fucking States.  If I were a libertarian, I would say that was a net gain.  I would say, fuck yeah, let’s get us some more of that.  (As it turns out, that’s what I say anyway, because I’m, you know, sane.)

So back to the original question.  When someone says they’re a libertarian, what exactly do they mean?  What are the stated goals and policy directives of American libertarians?

(…and I don’t mean upper-case ‘L’ Libertarians.. them bitches be crazy.)