Oliver doesn't know what to do about Webb's association of states with large Scots-Irish populations and liberty. He more or less accepts it, then disputes it but doesn't offer anything more than anecdotal evidence.
The problem may be that Webb is writing ideal history -- giving people something idealized in the past to live up to -- and Oliver is pointing out the inevitable holes in any such conception of history.
Claims people sometimes make about the Scots-Irish can be exaggerated and deserve some criticism, but there's not much excuse for Oliver's snideness about meth, cars on cinder blocks and the rest -- especially coming from a libertarian publication. There's nothing like slamming those who agree with you to court those who never will.
Reason has problems that way. It tends to represent the "metrosexual" urban wing of libertarianism, and doesn't know what to do about the country cousins.
Good point. I wonder if their libertarian sensibilities would extend to a neighbor with a collection of junk cars in his backyard. Or who has a smelly dairy farm, and who was there before the metrosexuals moved into the new development next door so they could experience the country life.
I think that's why their commentary is often reclassified to blogs or chat from editorials.
"Reason has problems that way. It tends to represent the "metrosexual" urban wing of libertarianism, and doesn't know what to do about the country cousins."
Reason aspires to highbrow respectability, and tends to affect a sneering pose toward those kindred spirits who might happen to be, shall we say, a little on the embarrassing side, blowing right past the notion of their being natural allies. They'll grow up one of these days; they're like first-generation college attendees, ashamed of their own families.
Urban Libertarians of the Justin Raimondo strain....They can't deal with guns and God.
Damn, I wish I had said that!
Right, there's Reason and there's Liberty, the two libertarian magazines. In my libertarian days, I always preferred the frumpier, geekier Liberty (I hope I haven't gotten the two reversed). I always kind of felt like Reason was written for the more left-leaning libertarian crowd.