Entirely too glib
I don't understand what Mark Kleiman is trying to get at here, either by labelling Glenn Reynolds a "Glibertarian", or by this:
So what's a good glibertarian to do when it turns out that the free market has been flooding the environment with de-masculinizing chemicals? Support regulation? Support tort lawsuits?As Tom Lehrer said in a different context, they have a hard problem, like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis.
Never fear: There's no problem so large that a real, manly glibertarian can't pretend it has a "free-market" solution. Didn't Ronald Coase prove there's no such thing as an externality?* Self-organizing complexity uber alles!
I don't think I've seen Instapundit argue that there was a free market solution to feminizing chemicals. Indeed, the post didn't say anything at all about what we should do; it just pointed out that it might be happening.
There is often an operating assumption that failing to vigorously suggest regulation, or to preface/postface any post about a problem in the world with a sarcastic remark about how if it weren't for all the jerks who don't vote for Democrats, this never would have happened, is actually equivalent to stating that anarchocapitalism works.
The failure to have a knee-jerk reaction is not, in fact, evidence of a knee-jerk reaction in the other direction. Personally, I haven't posted on this, but if I did, I probably would have posted about what Glenn did. I would have done so not because I think the government won't ultimately be involved in solving the problem, if it gets solved, but because I assume it will be solved in the standard boring way already in place, which is that the EPA will regulate the emission of these chemicals. There are some potentially interesting issues in how you do a cost-benefit analysis on loss of masculinity, but I don't have any ideas on that front.
I also really, really wish that liberals would drop the "Glibertarian" label. First of all, I don't like any variation on political labels designed to insult, and I doubt that Mark thinks the use of "Dimmocrat" reflects well on the person who employs it. And second of all, on the internet the label is usually deployed by liberals who have taken it upon themselves to define what a "real" libertarian is, i.e. a libertarian who has never publicly much disagreed with said liberals. We don't go around writing people out of the progressive movement, or putting block quotes around "progressive", no matter how foolish we think the people are, or how badly we think their stated positions betray the true goals of the movement. Why not put aside the juvenile name-calling and engage the arguments?
In this context it particularly makes no sense, because trust me, if anything "Glibertarians" like Glenn and me are closer to you on this issue than most of the "real" libertarians, who are a lot closer to anarchocapitalists or minarchists. The question is not "what's a Glibertarian to do", but "What's a libertarian to do". In my case, the answer seems easy: regulate it with as close to a market-type mechanism as you can. But you see, that's why I'm not a 'real' libertarian.