re: #383 EPR-radar

I’m still bemused by one libertarian I knew who had an amazing tendency to turn every conversation about politics to Pol Pot. It was like the underpants gnome version of libertarianism:

1) Policy proposal X would be a government regulation
2) The Pol Pot regime had lots of regulations
3) ???
4) Therefore proposal X is ***EVIL***

This was coming from a Stanford Ph.D. in physics (a surprising departure from the usual pattern of engineers being more susceptible to this crap).

Pretty common argument. Hitler had gun control, therefore if we have gun control, genocide happens. Hitler had a healthcare plan, therefore if we have a healthcare plan, genocide happens. Basically person X is bad, therefore anything person X did was bad. It’s as if what the person actually did in order to be considered bad has no meaning once they have been turned into the prime example of evil.