I thought I would share this brief clip from a recent Bloggingheads diavlog between Will Wilkinson of the CATO Institute and Andrew Gelman of Columbia University, author of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State. The topic is public attitudes toward anti-gay discrimination.
I’m not sure the inconsistency Gelman cites is all that surprising. The same kind of illogic that would allow someone to conclude, “No one should be allowed to discriminate against gays, so long as the perverts are kept away from my kids…” is exactly the same kind of illogic that would allow a California voter to convince herself that voting for Proposition 8 was not stripping gays of a civil right.
The single best argument against libetarianism is also the single best argument for libertarianism: the enduring truth that most voters are jackasses.