Re-posting from previous thread:

re: #124 RadicalModerate

One question for these “libertarian” idiots.

How many people would have likely died if there was no federal infrastructure (NOAA, FEMA, ACoE, among other fed agencies) in place to warn and coordinate evacuation, and reduce damage levels of high-risk areas?

Actually, according to Pat Michaels, the question should be how many bodies would have been “coughed up.”

From experience in dealing regularly with these folks on the Interwebs, I can tell you what the most common responses I’ve encountered are:

(1) Local response is more effective (they seem to ignore the notion that thousands of local municipalities trying to predict storms and coordinate response would be incredibly redundant and inefficient). Evidence for that lunatic believe was provided by Charles at the head of this post.

(2) Unintended consequences and moral hazzard. For these folks, apparently the only possible unintended consequences and outcomes from an act motivated by a moral intent, are negative. For example, the unintended consequence of a federal agency saving someone’s life is that the will then re-locate in a risk prone area. The thought never occurs to these folks that maybe an “unintended consequence” could be that economic development in risk prone areas might, oh, I don’t know, stimulate economic activity.

(3) All phenomena are either all good or all bad. The logic is that any inefficiencies or redundancies in any federal agency proves that the federal agency, in fact all federal agencies, are completely worthless.

Just to rephrase a bit - I think that almost uniformly, libertarians base their outlook on a binary mindset: Because there are things about the federal government that are sub-optimal, therefore government should be drowned in a bathtub.

This is why I view libertarianism as a belief based in a valid skeptical outlook on federal overreach - but that those beliefs are almost always held by people who stopped developing cognitively when they reached jr. high school.