Tuesday, March 18, 2003

that slippery slope from rent control to genocide

Here's an important lesson for those trying to put together a successful conspiracy: things can get out of hand if your group of conspirators gets too large. (When your numbers get big, you want to put together a movement as distinct from a conspiracy). That's the lesson this week from the Volokh Conspiracy, I'm afraid: what has heretofore been a reliably thoughtful, even if too right-libertarian for my taste, blog has just seen (so far as I can recall) its first truly nutty post. It's courtesy of new conspirator Cramer, for whom some Santa Monica rent control debates seemed so reminiscent of Nazi totalitarianism and genocide, that he became a gun advocate and right-libertarian. Read it for yourself. Now, you might think that somebody who feared creeping totalitarianism in this country -- and was especially sensitive to its first little sproutings -- would be opposed to anything that tended towards the establishment of a state religion. Not so. You might think that somebody who feared creeping totalitarianism in this country would be in favor of universal suffrage. Not so: stupid people should not have the vote, he jokes(?). Rent control: the sign of creeping totalitarianism, and the reason for all good men and women to take up arms to defend themselves against the state. Rent control: it reminds him of the slaughter of millions in service of Aryan ideology. Rent control: even just the most striking governmental misconduct of his formative years? I am stunned.

posted by sam 8:03 AM 0 comments

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