Free Republic

If I were a libertarian, I’d want my money back. No less an authority than the New York Times proclaimed the dawn of a “libertarian moment,” and the moment lasted a single month. There was no time to savor it. On August 7, when the journalist Robert Draper aired libertarians’ views favorably in a cover story in the paper’s Sunday magazine, advocates of a noninterventionist foreign policy surely felt vindicated. Draper declared that America was abandoning its role as guarantor of international security and embracing same-sex marriage and pot. No longer would the electorate be limited to Republicans and Democrats,...

In 2007, when the Charles Koch Foundation considered giving millions of dollars to Florida State University’s economics department, the offer came with strings attached. First, the curriculum it funded must align with the libertarian, deregulatory economic philosophy of Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist and Republican political bankroller. Second, the Charles Koch Foundation would at least partially control which faculty members Florida State University hired. And third, Bruce Benson, a prominent libertarian economic theorist and Florida State University economics department chairman, must stay on another three years as department chairman—even though he told his wife he’d step down in 2009 after...

Democrats often call themselves "pro-choice." Republicans defend "freedom." Unfortunately, neither party really believes in letting individuals do what we want. When Democrats say they are "pro-choice," they are talking about abortion. Some act as if a right to legal abortion is the most important freedom in America. But Democrats aren't very enthusiastic about other kinds of choice. They don't want you to have the right to choose your kids' school, work without joining a union, buy a gun, pay people whatever you contract to pay them if they choose to work for you, buy things you want to buy without...

PPP's newest North Carolina Senate poll finds the race steady compared to a month ago. Kay Hagan continues to lead by 4 points, with 44% to 40% for Thom Tillis and 5% for Libertarian Sean Haugh. Haugh's impact on the race is waning- since June his support has dropped from 11% now down to this 5% standing. He's also no longer disproportionately drawing supporters away from Tillis- when Haugh's supporters are reallocated to who they would choose between Hagan and Tillis, Hagan continues to hold a 4 point lead at 46/42.

I’m very depressed that my beloved Georgia Bulldogs lost to the South Carolina Gamecocks. So instead of writing about a serious topic, we’re going to enjoy some laughs today by reviewing some new anti-libertarian humor. I’m a libertarian, of course, as are all decent and humane people.But I appreciate clever humor, even when I’m the target. This video about Somalia being a libertarian paradise, for instance, is an excellent example of political satire. It takes a stereotype and milks it for some great laughs.I also have to tip my proverbial hat to the person who put together this image of...

Sen. Rand Paul said President Barack Obama made “one important point ” in his remarks on Wednesday saying that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was neither Islamic nor a state, but questioned the constitutionality of the president’s strategy. “Ultimately, civilized Islam will have to step up. We need to do everything we can to protect ourselves, I’m all in for saying we have to combat ISIS,” Paul said Wednesday on “Hannity.” “So I think it is important not only for the American public but for the world and for the Islamic world to point out that this...

Libertarianism isnÂ’t confined to caucasians anymore. The Pew Research Center recently released a study on who in America describes themselves as libertarian while being able to accurately identify what the label actually means. Of the total demographic, 12 percent of respondents who identified as libertarian were white, unsurprisingly the largest demographic population. However, Hispanics self-identified as libertarian at almost the same rate, 11 percent. By comparison, only three percent of blacks fell into the same category (other demographics were not included in the final results). Libertarians also tend to be young; Millennials are the largest group of libertarians, with the...

As Republicans contemplate the possible size of their November victory, outlier races may get interesting. Scott Brown, a few weeks ago considered certain to lose, may well win in New Hampshire. Most folks would not have thought that Republican Terri Land had a chance in a blue state like Michigan, but she continues to run close to Peters in the race. Al Franken also cannot pull away in his re-election fight, and all the polls show that race tightening. Surely the trophy in any general election is for one party to knock off a legislative leader of the other party....

s a de-facto declaration of war. The measure, which was introduced several months ago by Senators Lindsey Graham, Bob Casey and Joe Lieberman, supports continuing to pressure Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program. The resolution advocates using methods other than containment to stop Iran, including exerting economic and diplomatic pressure. Senate Joint Resolution 41 “rejects any United States policy that would rely on efforts to contain a nuclear weapons-capable Iran.” Senators expressed their fears regarding Iran’s nuclear capabilities. “We know that Iran would create access for terrorists – access for them – to these nuclear weapons, making the Middle...

Obama has made mistakes but so did Bush by invading. There's no good case for U.S. military intervention now. Though many claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan on foreign policy, too few look at how he really conducted it. The Iraq war is one of the best examples of where we went wrong because we ignored that.In 1984, Reagan's Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger developed the following criteria for war, primarily to avoid another Vietnam. His speech, "The Uses of Military Power," boils down to this: The United States should not commit forces to combat unless the vital national interests...

The Kentucky senator is trying to tell us he’s not an isolationist. That dog won’t hunt.Rand Paul insists he’s not an “isolationist.” Writing this week in TIME, he says, “I look at the world, and consider war, realistically and constitutionally.”But in reality, the Kentucky senator has advanced a brand of neo-isolationism and appeasement that is as short-sighted as it mistaken. Despite his recent, and frantic efforts to recast himself as not completely ridiculous on national security issues, the truth is his record often puts him in league with Barack Obama—or even to the president’s left. Anyone who truly cares about...

Over the weekend, Rand Paul said something entirely out of character for him, and as Aaron Blake of the Washington Post commented, “almost nobody noticed.” "If I were president, I would call a joint session of Congress," Paul told the AP. "I would lay out the reasoning of why ISIS is a threat to our national security and seek congressional authorization to destroy ISIS militarily." The quote didn't really make the rounds and was buried deep in the AP story, but it's a pretty telling little nugget. Why? Because, to date, it's one of the most hawkish things that any potential...

The GOP just keeps getting weirder.

I have argued before that, in their fullest, libertarianism and Catholicism are incompatible -- but to what degree are they so? Leaders of the libertarian movement have certainly said silly, anti-Catholic things. Ludwig von Mises, for example, compared Christ to the Bolshevists and also said, "..[I]t is the resistance which the Church has offered to the spread of liberal ideas which has prepared the soil for the destructive resentment of modern socialist thought" (Socialism, Chapter 29). Translation: opposition to liberalism of one stripe must be blamed for inspiring liberalism of another. Huh? Much of the conflict between libertarians and the...

It was not so much the announcements that David Cameron made in his press conference about the terror threat to the UK that were significant, but what he looks like he’s going to have to announce on Monday. The Prime Minister confirmed that the threat level to the UK has been raised from ‘substantial’ to ‘severe’. But he also said that on Monday he will be unveiling new measures to address ‘gaps’ in the UK’s ‘armoury’: [SNIP] Those gaps won’t just cover passports, though. Labour is calling on the government to look again at its decision to scrap control orders....

The target was Hillary Clinton. Calling the famously liberal former Secretary of State “a war hawk,” Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) added in a recent Meet the Press appearance: “You know what? We are tired of war.… We’re worried that Hillary Clinton will get us involved in another Middle Eastern war, because she’s so gung-ho.” ADVERTISEMENT One has to wonder. Was Rand Paul’s real target Hillary Clinton? Whom he correctly blames for the Benghazi fiasco? Or was it, as it strikes… Ronald Reagan? Not to mention conservatism and the timeless idea of what Reagan termed “peace through strength.” Reagan’s formulation long...

Just as Hillary's "What difference at this point does it make" remark about Benghazi during a Congressional hearing will come back to haunt her, Rand Paul's politically correct spasm over Ferguson (his August 14 essay in Time Magazine) should preclude the possibility of Son of Ron getting anywhere near the GOP nomination in 2016. When the left starts swooning over a Republican, it's a dead-giveaway. A posting on the Washington Post's politics blog gushes, "Rand Paul's (Time) op-ed on Ferguson shows why he is the most interesting voice in the GOP right now." In this context, translate "interesting voice" as...

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is an intriguing figure on many counts. As Americans and as conservatives we owe the Senator heartfelt thanks and applause for bringing vital issues of privacy and governmental overreach to forefront of the national debate. He, better than most Republicans, has been able to reach out beyond the tradition party base, specifically among black, libertarian and younger voters. However, his continued insistence of playing the role of "dove" on foreign policy renders him unqualified to be our Commander-in-Chief and therefore Rand Paul should not be given the 2016 GOP Presidential nomination. In comments made...

In the wake of the shooting death of a young black man by a white Ferguson, Missouri police officer, it is to no one’s surprise that the usual suspects on the left are screaming “racism” from the rooftops. Infinitely more disturbing for the lover of liberty is that ever growing legions of “libertarians” are regurgitating this same talking point. Moreover, the libertarian’s obsession with “the State” has endowed him with boundless sympathy for the hordes of violent black criminals that have been violating every principle that he claims to hold sacred while attributing the assault against civilization on display in...

Many in America’s freedom movement still hope that the Libertarian Party will one day become a power on the political scene to challenge the Democrat-Republican monolith. But in 42 years it hasn’t happened, and it probably won’t happen. There are some very distinct reasons why the LP and all other alternative / independent parties fail. This essay will examine them. Let’s take, for example, the top independent parties out there: the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party. Even though each of them haveappeared at times to be a start toward genuine political reform, they repeatedly fail because they have structured...