I’m in the eighth circle of libertarian hell along with Reihan Salam. I had thought this was the place where I wander into the drugstore and just assume that CVS wouldn’t sell me any aspirin that’s actually poison because it would be bad for the brand’s reputation. In fact:
Eighth Circle — The Fraudulent: The Malebolge of public intellectuals — those who have a sphere of influence greater than most of us, and are negligent in their exercise of it by contributing to the darkness and confusion. This sphere contains everyone from know-nothing idiots like like Lou Dobbs of CNN and Bob Herbert of the NYT, to people who are really smart enough to know better yet resolutely avoid any systematic examination of their moral premises, like Matthew Yglesias and Reihan Salam. This circle is guarded by, who else, Friedrich Hayek.
I’ll have to plead guilty to resolutely avoiding any systematic examination of my moral premises. I spent some time doing this in college and it genuinely didn’t seem to lead anywhere productive.