Pro-Government Libertarians?

I'm not sure "Pro-government libertarian" is a sensible concept.

But I do like the idea of "Pro-liberty libertarian."

And there are some circumstances--we'd have to argue about which--where the existence of a state can enhance liberty. 

I'm not really a fan of either (1) the state is never right, or (2) the state is always right.  Both are religious observations, rather than policy prescriptions.

Liberty Defined

It's long, but it's quite interesting.  I don't agree with all of it, but Dr. Paul is an articulate spokesman for our side.  I don't really get the "End the Fed" stuff as the number ONE priority, though, I have to admit.  There are some fiddles that would improve the way the Fed works (like stop expecting miracles, and credible commitment), sure, but not "end."

Still, this is pretty cool.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, "On Liberty."  I had never seen that before. Kudos to my good friend David Hart, for this and all the great work he does at OLL

 7. The rights of man in the present state of society,
are only to be secured by some degree of coercion to
be exercised on their violator. The sufferer has a right
that the degree of coercion employed be as slight as
possible.
8. It may be considered as a plain proof of the
hollowness of any proposition, if power be used to
enforce instead of reason to persuade its admission.
Government is never supported by fraud until it cannot
be supported by reason.

But it's all good.  ATSRTWT.

Angus and Mungowitz are the new Black

Wow!  Some respect, from the WP.  Sort of.  Libertarians are cool!

Of course, EJ Dionne is predictably idiotic.  I really think that there is no set of empirical facts that could make ol' EJD recant his fervent mancrush on Obama.  Yo, EJ:  Libertarianism is a DIRECTION.  You are trying to defend your guy by fabricating criticisms about what you imagine to be the DESTINATION.

You are not a REAL Libertarian

It is true enough that I rarely go to Libertarian Party meetings anymore.  There are lots of reasons.  And about half of them can be found in this video...


Neanderbill and I were talking about this just the other day, in fact.  We are just not welcome.  Here's why...A whole lot of people have this view, literally, of the Nolan Chart.

And, yes, by that standard, I'm a socialist. To see if YOU are a socialist, take the quiz!

UPDATE:  Let's be careful.  1.  I'm a libertarian (small l). 2.  I consider myself a Libertarian (big L).  I'm registered LP, and I contribute to the party and to candidates.  3.  The point is that I often get TOLD by LP folks that I don't belong. 

We spend more time checking for "yo papiss, pliss!" at ideological checkpoints then we do actually trying to grow the party.  So I just stay home and write stuff.

Liberty

Had a great time working the green screen to get this done for the Jack Miller Center.



It's kind of long, 20 minutes, but there is a lot of good content there.  My worry is that you have to be pretty interested in the subject to stick it out.  So our political theory friends might use it.  But it's going to take some fireworks to reach the high school kids.

This is our competition, I'm afraid.  Pretty darned fun to watch...



Still, the Miller Center vid holds up pretty well, in SPITE of giving me the narrator role.  Next time:  music.  And, an EPIC VIOLIN SOLO!  

Robert Higgs, Libertarian

A really excellent, contemplative piece by my friend Bob Higgs.

Excerpt:


...after the more recent decades of my libertarian journey, I am now struck by a different aspect of this longstanding debate, which has to do with our strategy for winning people over to libertarianism. Strategy 1 is to persuade them that freedom works, that a free society will be richer and otherwise better off than an unfree society; that a free market will, as it were, cause the trains to run on time better than a government bureaucracy will do so. Strategy 2 is to persuade people that no one, not even a government functionary, has a just right to interfere with innocent people’s freedom of action; that none of us was born with a saddle on his back to accommodate someone else’s riding him.

In our world, so many people have been confused or misled by faulty claims about morality and justice that most libertarians, especially in the think tanks and other organizations that carry much of the burden of education about libertarianism, concentrate their efforts on pursuing Strategy 1 as effectively as possible. Hence, they produce policy studies galore, each showing how the government has fouled up a market or another situation by its ostensibly well-intentioned laws and regulations. Of course, the 98 percent or more of society (especially in its political aspect) that in one way or another opposes perfect freedom responds with policy studies of its own, each showing why an alleged “market failure,” “social injustice,” or other problem warrants the government’s interference with people’s freedom of action and each promising to remedy the perceived evils. Anyone who pays attention to policy debates is familiar with the ensuing, never-ending war of the wonks. I myself have done a fair amount of such work, so I am not condemning it. As one continues to expose the defects of anti-freedom arguments and the failures of government efforts to “solve” a host of problems, one hopes that someone will be persuaded and become willing to give freedom a chance.

I am reminded of H.L. Mencken's definition of "progressive democracy:"

"It [is impossible] to separate the democratic idea from the theory that there is a mystical merit, an esoteric and ineradicable rectitude, in the man at the bottom of the scale—that inferiority, by some strange magic, becomes superiority—nay, the superiority of superiorities. What baffles statesmen is to be solved by the people, instantly and by a sort of seraphic intuition. This notion . . . originated  in the poetic fancy of gentlemen on the upper levels— sentimentalists who, observing to their distress that the ass was overladen, proposed to reform transportation by putting him in the cart." (H.L. Mencken, from Notes on Democracy, 1926)

Libertarians Explained...

Phone call for Mr. Overwater:  The UNauthoritarian personality is a Libertarian.

Interesting article in the WSJ, by Matt Ridley.  Excerpt:

In his recent book "The Righteous Mind," Dr. Haidt confronted liberal bafflement and made the case that conservatives are motivated by morality just as liberals are, but also by a larger set of moral "tastes"—loyalty, authority and sanctity, in addition to the liberal tastes for compassion and fairness. Studies show that conservatives are more conscientious and sensitive to disgust but less tolerant of change; liberals are more empathic and open to new experiences.

But ideology does not have to be bipolar. It need not fall on a line from conservative to liberal. In a recently published paper, Ravi Iyer from the University of Southern California, together with Dr. Haidt and other researchers at the data-collection platform YourMorals.org, dissect the personalities of those who describe themselves as libertarian.

These are people who often call themselves economically conservative but socially liberal. They like free societies as well as free markets, and they want the government to get out of the bedroom as well as the boardroom. They don't see why, in order to get a small-government president, they have to vote for somebody who is keen on military spending and religion; or to get a tolerant and compassionate society they have to vote for a large and intrusive state.

With a nod to MAG.

More Government? More Markets? Wrong Questions!

Here is the video of the gig I did up at GMU last week.  It's more than an hour, but the quality of the video is very good.  Thanks to FFF for setting this up, and producing the video.  Nice.

Several points to watch for:

1.  My laptop has a neon green "Eat at Flaming Amy's!" sticker.  I didn't really think that through, I guess.  Pretty distracting.

2.  Bart Frazier does an excellent Colin Farrell imitation, for the intro.

3.  Great audience.  Really enjoyed the talk!

Michael C. Munger "More Markets? More Government? Wrong Question!" from The Future of Freedom Foundation on Vimeo.

 

I kissed a boy, and I liked it....

Peter J does a nice job on Canadian tv.

Peter and I go way back. There are pictures. This may be my favorite, Peter's interpretation of the agony of man in a post-industrial world:

And then there was the kissing. That's all I'm saying. A gentleman doesn't tell.

Penn Jillette, Atheist

Links

VdR on the stimulus. Nice resource.

Jeff Miron on consequentialist and deontological libertarianism. Since no more than 2% of the US population knows what either of these words mean, it is an illustration of why libertarianisms' cultivated irrelevance is like to survive.

The "Battle for Brooklyn." Very cool, very interesting.

The Mitt-tator calls China out for being a currency manipulator. After we have implmented the Rogoff-Krugman plan and have 6% inflation, presumably the Mitt-tator will call out the U.S. for being a currency manipulator.

Bail-out? Fannie and the Fred have PLENTY of cash, thank you very much. And the Ben Bernank says there is more where that came from.

.

Flip The Bird

Libertarian bird movement growing!

Cholera is a small price to pay for Liberty!

Democracy is Overrated

(Update: This did come from a public speech. The laughter/applause is real, though of course undeserved. It is on YouTube; just click on bottom right of the embedded image, or use this link...

I had no role in making the video, which is nearly 3 years old. It was created by Libertyfizz from a speech I gave permission to use. Libertyfizz may or may not choose to identify him/herself; that's not for me to decide. But whatever claim or credit you want to give, it is Libertyfizz's, not mine. If you are interested in the text of the speech...this is pretty close.)



Some little stories... I was hoping to be funny, but I still want to be serious.

Tocqueville rocks, by the way.

Hurtful, MOST Hurtful.

Darn, that hurts.

I thought Paul and me was tight, ya heard?

But apparently NOT, since "ALL his favorite libertarians" write for one blog, JUST ONE BLOG.

That's aaight, Paul, I see how it is. That's cool, you go ahead on. I'll get over it. If you really think that that brazen hussy Zwolinsky is cuter than Angus and I, FINE.

What Is Classical Liberalism?

Nigel Ashford answers. A seven minute video.

As you can see/hear, Dr. Ashford tends to think of classical liberals as minarchists, and not anarchists. I agree, but that opinion is by no means universally held.

If This Be Critique, Give Us More of It!

S.T. Karnick assesses Christopher Beam's recent article on libertarianism.

Both articles worth reading. If this be critique, give us more of it. Beam at least drills down a couple of levels, and correctly concludes (a) the Founders had real libertarian motives, in SOME ways, and (b) the modern Republicans couldn't see a real libertarian principle if someone wrapped it around their big porky necks.

(Nod to the Blonde)

Two wrongs don't make a right

I agree with Tyler that the TSA's obsession with American genitals is not the worst thing our government is doing in the war on terror.

Warrant-less wiretaps, renditions, torture, assassinations, civilian deaths are all clearly worse, and I am strongly opposed to all those things.

But that doesn't make the TSA policies right, and it doesn't mean I cannot or should not rail against them.

That's the part of his argument I don't agree with.