PGlenn,

I’ll work through your message backward:

“Btw, please remind me: as a leftist ‘market anarchist,’ what is your purpose in frequenting the comment section of this blog?”
Personal recreation. I know Stacy (at least to the extent of 26 hours cramped up in a van with him), I enjoy his writing, and an election cycle is, for me, the equivalent of a season at the dog track. The comments section of this blog is one of the places where I mark up my handicap sheet.

On your interesting set of alternatives:

I don’t know that I have “profound moral courage,” but I’ve gone to court over a speeding ticket before when I knew I wasn’t guilty.

I also don’t know that I have “a lot to lose” per se. The things  it would hurt me to lose (wife and kids) aren’t things that something like a false sexual harassment complaint could take away. The things that I could lose (physical possessions), I tend to discount the value of above and beyond the bare minimum, in part because of my religious beliefs.

As to whether or not I think Cain is a liar, I generally assume that any politician is a liar until I have reason to think otherwise, and Cain’s given me no reason so far to re-examine that assumption.

BUT: Keep in mind that I don’t “wish to apply [a standard]” to politics in the sense that you’re implying. I don’t greatly care whom the GOP nominates, or who wins the general election, nor will I until and unless I decide to put some money into one or more bets on the matter. The whole affair to me is no of no more moral/practical importance than any given greyhound race at the West Memphis track.

Apparently that rebuttal is a work in progress as HC remembers a new detail in each subsequent interview. All that does is keep the story in the news when it could have and should have been quashed as soon as it appeared.

You are surprised that they are talking to their lawyers, the NRA lawyers, probably Politico’s lawyers and trying to determine the best approach?

You have a standard for Herman Cain that God himself would have trouble reaching.

Herman Cain was absolutely on his game today.  I don’t know of any politician who handled such a situation so well.

The only thing you can criticize is that his spokesman should not have called Geraldo last night.  However, it was a reasonable, emotional response.  They got word that the story was dropping a few hours earlier and thought they had a few more hours to work on their response. 

They obviously wanted to attack these false allegations head on….which they did….and which credit is due for.

Sorry, I just can’t square your role as a disinterested analyst with your ideological agenda. Actually, I often enjoy reading your analysis and I appreciate the importance you place on neutrally weighing the evidence/facts and making calcuated political predictions. Facts are important to you.

What’s especially important to me is logic. And it’s illogical for someone who believes in the abolition of the state to simultaneously be an indifferent analyst with no interest in political outcomes - one or the other “proposition” must give way.    

PGlenn,

You write:

“it’s illogical for someone who believes in the abolition of the state to simultaneously be an indifferent analyst with no interest in political outcomes”

Not at all. The “political outcomes” we’re talking about here are:

1) Outcomes of internal state beauty contests; that

2) Differ so little in their essentials as to be inconsequential in the long run.

The whole plausible range of American “major party” electoral politics is the equivalent of maybe 10 degrees on a 360-degree compass,  and the two-party establishment has done a pretty effective job over the last 120 years or so (starting with adoption of the Australian ballot and proceeding through ballot access laws, etc., that in some states make the ballot less accessible to outsiders than, for example, Iran’s) of precluding substantial electoral movement outside that range.

But, I’m a junkie. I still do behind-the-scenes political campaign work on a cash and carry basis or for friends, because it’s fun. And I enjoy handicapping the game and making the occasional bet, for cash or bragging rights. I just don’t let myself fall into the fantasy that any of that will change anything important.

Then how did they get their statement out the same evening Politico posted their leak?  

Is you all starting to understand now why Palin said the hell with this shit?

Cain has now admitted the truthfulness of the Politico report: he was indeed accused of sexual harassment, and his employer did indeed pay to settle the accusations. For this to have been a liberal plot against Cain, as PGlenn suggests, his accusers would have had to know 15 years ago that he would eventually become a potent conservative Republican candidate for president. That’s tin-foil hat thinking. Even the people who’ve been watching as the race unfolded have been surprised by Cain’s sudden surge to the front, but “liberals” saw it coming a generation ago? Get real. If anyone dug it up for Politico, it was another Republican campaign.

knappster, thanks for the clarification. I hear what you’re saying about the realities of politics – to a certain extent, I share much of your cynicism about them. From now on, I’ll no longer question your purpose when you offer your gruff analysis and handicapping.

But then I still wonder how serious you are about your bigger-picture political goals and ideals. In theory, you’re wasting your time, one way or the other . . .  

1. On the one hand, you’re fatalistic concerning the deeper currents, in which case treating American electoral politics as a handicapping exercise makes perfect sense; however, your utopian market anarchism project would not. Why reach out to other anarchists now – why write about current affinities among various strands of anarchism? Etc. – when the state is eventually going to devour everything, including itself, on its own? When writing theoretical material, why not focus exclusively on the aftermath of that devouring – i.e., how market anarchism can ultimately position itself to be the dominant model after all the otherwise inevitable processes of state collapse happen? 

2. On the other hand, if in your hopes for a different future, you believe that ideas are constantly reshaping the world, that would explain your commitment to market anarchism and the current thrust of that project. In that case, however, expressing political cycnism and/or philosophical fatalism would either be illogical or perhaps tactical. No matter how flawed the American system, no matter how seemingly imperceptible the differences among people in that system, the market anarchist would attempt to “handicap” a path toward a future in which the “devoured state” would not be replaced by another state.