libertarianism

Compromising with Reality

November 8, 2012

. I spent less than the usual time on social media yesterday – I took a kind of day-after breather – but I devoted most of what time I did spend to venting. You can see it in my twitter feed down on the right. It was not my larger self on display, but “moderation [...]

4 comments Read the full article →

The American Socialist Century

August 27, 2012

.   The Manchester Union-Leader, long an emblematic journalistic voice of the Republican Party, New England strain – before the advent of Tea Parties and general no-nothingism – isn’t quite that anymore. Do not say it is not trying to adapt, however.   President Obama and Mitt Romney, and the courses they propose for this [...]

7 comments Read the full article →

The Other Paul Ryan

August 13, 2012

. While the general media roll out of Paul Ryan as VP pick focuses on the GOP’s chosen narrative of Ryan as “smart” and “courageous” thinker about budgetary and Medicare matters, many more careful economists, like Paul Krugman, are offering the necessary corrective in even that area. Krugman reminds us that Ryan has never crunched the numbers, [...]

3 comments Read the full article →

Pride of a Partisan

June 26, 2012

. As much as some people might be apt to choke on the mere thought of it, ahead of the very thing itself, the central node of American political tendencies was to be found this past Friday, June 23, 2012 in a studio at Television City, in California, on Bill Maher’s Real Time. What? you [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

Libertarians: Call Them Irresponsible

January 18, 2012

. The full range of Ron Paul’s reeking extremism was exposed yesterday by The New Republic. Ron Paul has recently suggestedthere was only a “total of about eight or ten sentences” of “bad stuff” in the newsletters that he regularly used to publish under his name. This assertion was patently false: As TNR has shown, the newsletters [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

The Reactionary Libertarian

January 10, 2012

. I said in “Ron Paul and Cranky Libertarianism” that libertarianism is a disposition claiming an offense, a cranky warning to other people to bugger off. I closed by characterizing it as a rejection of modernity. This is so of most contemporary American conservatisms, but the libertarian rejection is different, not simply conservative in the [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

The Libertarian Delusion

January 5, 2012

. One of the signatures of the fallen human state is how precipitously and flat seemingly reasonable people can land on their cogitative rears. Accordingly, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on ourselves. You watch me, friend. I’ll be checking you. For now, we have Ron Paul. In addition to certain strains of [...]

7 comments Read the full article →

Ron Paul and Cranky Libertarianism

January 2, 2012

. Here’s the thing about Ron Paul – he’s not an outlier. I don’t mean that every libertarian is as bad as the worst of what is on the record of what Ron Paul has published in his name or believes or may privately feel. I mean that libertarianism by nature – which is to [...]

13 comments Read the full article →