Hornberger vs. Fake Incrementalism

From Jacob Hornberger's blog at the Future of Freedom Foundation:

 

The modern-day libertarian movement is besieged by statist proposals to reform the welfare-warfare state way of life in which Americans live. Included among such reform proposals are things like Social Security 'privatization,' school vouchers, health-savings accounts, immigration 'reform,' and many more. ... To overcome objections by libertarians who insisted on adhering to principle, the disenchanted conservatives came up with the idea of 'incrementalism' as a way to convince libertarians to join up with them in support of reform measures. They said that all that libertarians had to do was to say that their reform measures were incrementally leading to freedom and, therefore, that such reform measures were consistent with libertarianism.

If Hornberger wants to argue against incrementalism, I'd be interested in seeing what he's got on the subject. But that's not what he's doing. Like the man who drops his keys in the darkness, then looks for them under a street light because the light is better there, what he's doing is re-defining incrementalism to mean something other than incrementalism, so that it's easier to argue against.

Interestingly, he's doing the same thing as his "reformer" opponents. Here. Maybe this will help.

I'm Thinking of Buying a Shotgun ...

 ... and would welcome any recommendations for an inexpensive (but not "cheap") 12-gauge. Pump preferred, but "breakdown"-style single shot or double barrel aren't out of the question.

My reasons:

1. The raccoons in the area seem to be getting bold lately. I hadn't even seen one in several years (since they killed off all our chickens and I gave up on that project), but I've encountered two in the last two weeks. One was actually in my front yard. I didn't see it at first. It may have been under our car. I took the dogs out at night, heard the "ettt .... ettt" sound a coon makes when it's telling you to back the f*ck off, and the dogs came running for the door. A little later I saw its eyes back in the treeline near our road frontage. The other I saw bounding across a neighbor's yard after crossing the street in front of a vehicle.
   
   I don't mind the rabbits, possums, armadillos, etc. that frequent our property. I've only ever seen one coyote out back, and it took off when I hit it with a flashlight beam. I've heard a fox, but I'd go out of my way to avoid killing one of them. But raccoons can be downright dangerous, and if they're getting that brave now, I expect it might not be long before until they're trying to get in the garbage dumpster, etc. And that could lead to a dog or a human getting hurt. I want something that will put a raccoon down hard, at close range, without having to worry too much about shooting out a neighbor's window (or shooting a neighbor), so a rifle or pistol aren't ideal.
   
   
   
2. I don't place a lot of stock in the "civil war" talk I've been hearing, and I doubt any post-election unrest will make its way as far out of town as I live. But we've been talking about a shotgun for home defense for years.
   
   Without discussing the family arsenal in detail, we don't have much for up close and personal permanent knockdown use. I think I could hit a black balaclava or a MAGA hat with one of our rifles at the maximum ranges we have a clear field of fire for (and I'd aim center mass rather than at such identifying garb anyway), and there are pistol options as well, but this is a wooded area and any encounters would more likely be at very short range, or even possibly inside the house if there was a break-in (not a lot of crime out here so far as I can tell, but ...).
   
   I've shot a 12-gauge. Tamara's a little thing, but she says she has too and can handle one if she needs to. The 19- and 22-year-old would need a familiarization and a few practice shots. It seems like the most reasonable pick for the two prospective uses.

Spoiler Alert!

"While establishmentarians continue to push two-party conformity," reads the tag line on Matt Welch's piece at Reason today, "there remains little evidence that other parties are having any sort of "spoiler" effect."

I hope he's wrong.

It's usually hard to tell, because there's not universal and rigorous exit polling to find out which candidates third party voters would have supported if they hadn't had third party candidates to vote for. When that kind of polling is done, it often indicates effects opposite of those assumed (for example, the complaint that Libertarian candidates always take their votes "from" Republican candidates).

In 2000, Libertarian Harry Browne racked up enough votes in New Mexico that, if he did "take" most of his votes from George W. Bush, cost Bush the state. And if Bush had carried New Mexico, Florida (where Browne knocked down, IIRC, 12,000 votes or so) wouldn't have mattered.

In my opinion, Libertarian candidates should EMBRACE the "spoiler" role, whether it's plausibly true in any given case or not.

But our asses to "cover the spread" by enough to seemingly matter, then let the Republicans and Democrats scream about it. It makes them look like whiners, it makes Libertarians look more powerful than perhaps we are, and it forces "major party" candidates to think about what they might offer Libertarian voters to reduce that "spoiler effect."