Is Ann Coulter REALLY that stupid?

[richardhutnik]

badgenome said:

richardhutnik said:

Libertarians have as much of an agenda as anyone else.  They may not be on "the other side" but they are on a side.  The reach ideological conclusions based on what they believe, and then argue in support of these ideological beliefs.  They shape their conclusions based on what they have as their intention, not changing their intention, based upon what the reality would say.  Like, for example, if someone showed numerous information on how a single-payer run system for healthcare produces superior results to the best intentioned free market solutions, in no way would Reason EVER go with it.  They would just keep looking to try to spin the argument their way.

Of course they have an agenda. Basically anyone who is going to bother to run a political website does. But at least it's an ideological one in their case rather than a partisan one, so their arguments tend to be rather more substantive than the usual reflexive naysaying. They don't change their tune according to whatever is the stupid party line of the day, and they even take apart the Libertarian Party since it's a hopeless mess and they don't feel beholden to it.

While one can argue that politically biased, driven by building a coalition to gain and maintain control over political offices is the near the bottom of the barrel as far as good goes (maybe just doing it for the money and having no ethics is worse), it doesn't mean being ideologically driven doesn't have its own problems and isn't good.  Libertarians are a prime example of this, as would about any ideologically driven group.   The problem is a denial of reality, which ends up doing biased filtering and seeing what is going on and adjust to it.  And apparently Reason is even more ideologically driven than the Libertarian Party is, based on what you said.  The ideologically driven person really doesn't do much in the world at all.  MAYBE if they have a business, they can do things, but what they do has little to do with their ideology and more with how they serve and solve problems.  There is the religious angle, and they have agendas.  But I would say very likely anything they do that would fit the agenda would have to be tied back to actually serving people and doing things pragmatically.