Posted on 07/30/2002 6:46:04 PM PDT by RANDomScout
In this, my last scheduled contribution to Editor’s Links, I want to say a few nice words about libertarians – a much-maligned, funny, quarrelsome lot of people who were kind enough to foot my bills this summer.
One of the great things about laissez-faire types is that they’re not in power and – truth be told – they have no desire to be. This is seen by some as a bad thing; a sign that libertarians aren’t “serious people.” But the approach is not without its benefits.
Right- and left-wingers are tethered to partisan political movements or political parties, which can be a weights of albatross-like proportions. Advancing a party’s propaganda and interests often contorts and warps reality all out of recognizable proportion. For instance, a recent Washington Monthly review of right-wing bomb thrower Ann Coulter’s new book Slander relayed her claim that “for about twenty years now, all new ideas have bubbled up from the right wing.” The incredulous reviewer asked “All new ideas? All? Air Jordans? The Macarena? Pizza Hut's Stuffed-Crust Pizza?”
Across the aisle are odious pundits like Joe Conason who, in his Salon blog today credited “big government” with saving the Pennsylvania coal miners, reminded readers that Ted Bundy was a young Republican (only one step removed from Ralph Reed), and compared the Bush administration’s attempts to have hiring and firing flexibility in the newly created Department of Homeland Security to the anti-union “obsession[s] of totalitarian regimes and their imitators.” He justified this last charge by explaining – I am not making this up – that if Ann Coulter could be nasty then so could he.
Libertarians are sometimes damned as purists, but at least they aren’t as predictable or as boring as their sniping counterparts on the right and left. They’re also – and I say this from experience – a whole lot more fun. They lack the anti-corporate nervous tics of progressives (“Oh, I couldn’t order Dominos. Do you have any idea what kind of causes they finance?!”) and the woe is us moralistic hang-ups of conservatives (“There was sex on TV last night! We’re doomed.”).
A startlingly diverse group, the only common ground that all libertarians share is a desire to live in a society in which people are truly free – of wars, of petty government regulations, of a creeping Puritanism that holds suspect any fun activity. That might be a pipe dream, but it's one I’ve come to share.
Jeremy Lott is Reason's 2002 Burton C. Gray Memorial intern.
LOL The libertarian poster boy shows up to prove the point.
If they were social conservatives, ie moralists, lifestyle police,
etc., then they wouldn't be very good libertarians. Libertarians
are usually fiscal conservatives, socially liberal.
I'm sure the small "l" libertarains are not like this to a
large extent, but regardless it overshadows the entire movement with a black cloud.
No, it isn't a black cloud. It's what distinguishes them from
those who would enshrine their morals in the laws of the
land and dictate how everyone else should live, for
their own good, of course.
Yeah we are a real socially repressive society alright. I guess you mean the religious police that knock down your door to drag you to church every Sunday?
Go away BushBOT.
Oh, I don't know. How about the ones that
will come to your door, put a gun in your
face, and haul you away for something you
put in your body? Or maybe you mean the ones
that will arrest you for what you do in the privacy
of your own bedroom, though common decency
seems to be putting a lot of those laws in the
trash where they belong. Of course,
you could be referring to the ones that
send you to jail for engaging another
adult in sex for an exchange of value.
I'd not say anything about it but there are standards which should be recognized and other things that should be stigmatized... like beastiality, homosexuality, pedophelia--clerical or otherwise--and drug use for example. I don't care if the libertarians think I'm preaching at them. I'm not going to cower in the corner while they destroy our culture along with the liberals.
And let me guess what your next post will be: An indictment of religion and my church? =)
I am going to be generous and assume by " putting something in your body" you mean drugs. I thought drugs were so easy and plentiful to get that the WOD is a farce..... Which is it? I don't know what you do in the "privacy of your bedroom” but I haven't seen any arrests lately for consenting adults. You may have some to share?
Libertarians lack the moral conviction to defend the fundamental right-to-life for the unborn.
That alone is sufficient to discredit any claim they might make regarding defense of our Constitution.
Furthermore, their convoluted policies regarding trade and immigration would serve to undermine the Constitution.
And who gets to choose? I gotta tell you, I came into this
world red-faced kicking and screaming. And I don't plan
on letting someone else who came in the world in precisely
the same manner tell me what is moral for me to do.
Other than my using force on someone else,
nothing I do is up for judgement by anybody else.
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