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.
Naw, your completely free to be as perverted as you want to be.
Not in your perverted 'utopia', little brother tex.
BTW isn't it a libertarian position that states and communities can pass such laws just not the feds?
Sure, they can regulate *public* actions, -- as long as they don't violate the constitution in doing so. - Simple concept, why can't you 'get it'?
You don't sound too libertarian to me.
And to me, you sure aint no 'conservative', tex.
Well to you, the Pope is not a catholic either.
Yah, Yah, Yah, you can live in your world of incest, bestiality and consensual pedophilia but do it some where else. Try it in Amsterdam, smoke your pot, have your same sex “unions” and make your civilization what you want. We don’t want your society here, now go home, watch your porno and leave us alone.
Willie, I get sick of you and others who consistently ignore the facts.
Yes, SOME libertarians are pro choice, but so are SOME pubbies and many dems. Most libertarians that I know are strongly pro life because abortion violates the principle of non-initiation of force.
If you would put away your broad brush, it might be a little easier for you to see the truth. Or aren't you interested in dealing in the truth?
Just playing down to the competition. I thought pictures the best media in which to converse with you. You have a lot of trouble with those big words.
This is my country, bub. I'm not going anywhere. Oh, kewl name. Heh. Real moral.
Well he broke our date to the prom and I can never forgive him for that.
Okay...stop the heavy drinking.
Every single libertarian that I know understands that responsibility is just the other half of Freedom.
So...maybe you can stop with the 'automatic propaganda answers'.....and actually listen to those who consider themselves 'Libertarians'.
You might find that most are pretty sensible people...but with one major difference that separates them from the mainstream of politics.
They still BELIEVE in the words and concepts that this Nation was founded upon.
redrock
As do Republicans.
No one in Congress,from either party to be fair, is standing up and demanding that the unborn be protected.
So...pray tell...is the moral conviction of the Republican Party??? (won't ask about the Democrats..they don't have any morals)
redrock
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