Wednesday, November 07, 2018

Win One, Lose One

My prediction of the election outcome was wrong—it turned out about as the polls predicted. On the other hand, I got my preferred outcome, with the House controlled by one party, the Senate by the other, making it less likely that Congress would do things.

The one negative outcome was the defeat of Dana Rohrabacher. Fifty years ago he was a young libertarian troubador and babe magnet and a friend of mine. I have a verse from one of his songs at the beginning of my first book.

But he's seventy-one, so perhaps due for a rest.

5 comments:

Perry E. Metzger said...

Dana Rohrabacher didn't seem all that libertarian in recent years anyway.

Modern Mugwump said...

Re evil vs. stupid, I've long held that thoughtful partisans on each side are firmly convinced that their own party is the “Stupid” party, while the opposition is the “Evil” party.

(If you think the situation is less symmetrical than that, I submit that this is an indicator of your partisanship.)

Anonymous said...

I grew up in Rohrabacher's district and never liked him. However libertarian he may have been when you knew him, these days he's a shameless partisan hack. He was also a friend of Putin back when most of the GOP was opposed to him.

Never would have pegged him as a poet though. Mind sharing some of his work?

Godfrey Miller said...

Why can't you see?
We just want to be free
To have our homes and families
And live our lives as we please.
DANA ROHRABACHER WEST COAST LIBERTARIAN TROUBADOUR
[And, much later, Republican Congressman]


From The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism (Kindle Locations 30-35)

David Friedman said...

I haven't followed Dana's career in Congress much, but I believe he was coauthor of a bill forbidding the government to spend money prosecuting people for marijuana use in states where it was legal, and I think I remember him proposing some way of using volunteer amateurs in an astronomical context, I think to detect asteroids that might collide with the Earth.