The True History of Libertarianism in America
Mark Ames, Senior Editor at Pando Daily and Author of #39;Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion from Reagan #39;s Workplaces to Clinton #39;s Columbine and Beyond #39; joins Thom to talk about the real...
By: thomhartmann
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Rand Paul used to be libertarian. Now he describes himself as libertarian-ish.
Its a slight distinction, but an important one.
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The senator is using his presidential campaign kickoff tour this week, including a Thursday afternoon speech at the U.S.S. Yorktown aircraft carrier in Charleston, to present himself as a kinder and gentler version of his father, long the movements standard-bearer, while also showcasing a scaled-back, sanded-down form of libertarianism thats more palatable to the Republican rank-and-file.
Theres no talk from the Kentuckian about ending the Federal Reserve, no quoting Friedrich Hayek and no laments about how the U.S. deserves a share of blame for terrorism all hallmarks of Ron Paul presidential campaign rallies. Doom-and-gloom has been replaced by sunny optimism; the language of revolution has been supplanted by something that sounds a lot more incremental and a lot less edgy.
The focus now is on humanizing Rand Paul. Glossy videos at his campaign events show him coaching little league soccer, traveling to Guatemala to give free medical care and visiting with African-American college students. His stump speech includes a poignant story about how his ailing grandmother inspired him to become an eye doctor. As her vision began to fail, I became her eyes, he tells crowds. Those introducing Paul at events repeatedly describe him as compassionate.
Libertarians of all varieties understand why the 52-year-old is bowing to pragmatism and playing the inside game. Most are okay with what they see as a delicate balancing act; they recognize that not enough libertarians are out there to win the Republican nomination. But others, especially those who identify with the Libertarian Party, have a word for Paul: sellout.
There are a lot of libertarians who will sit down and talk with you for hours on end about the Fed and macroeconomic theory and Hayek and so forth, said Bob Barr, who represented Georgia in Congress for five terms before running for president as the Libertarian Partys nominee in 2008. Thats great, but the average voter doesnt know who Hayek was, doesnt know who Milton Friedman was and doesnt know what the Federal Reserve does.
Rand is much more founded in the real world than his dad was when he was a candidate, Barr continued. Rand understands that if you want to win a national election as a libertarian that is with a small l you have to appeal to a lot of Republicans. We have, after all, a two-party system period, end of argument.
Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party presidential nominee in 2012, chastises the younger Paul for supporting a budget that includes sizable increases in military spending and for cozying up to evangelicals. Paul continues to personally oppose gay marriage and does not call for the legalization of marijuana.
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Five reasons why the Kentucky senator trails Ted Cruz in fundraising, but is still stealing the spotlight.
If youre a member of the Washington media, odds are youve spent at least some time over the past 48 hours discussing Rand Pauls entry into the presidential race and his testy exchanges about abortion with an Associated Press reporter. Reporters and pundits have covered Pauls debut for The Washington Post, NPR, The Huffington Post, and the Today Show. The Daily Beast offered space to the libertarian Cato Institutes David Boaz to argue that yes, Paul can do it. In The Hill, Dick Morris argued that he cant.
Meanwhile, the disclosure that Ted Cruzalso a declared candidate for presidentraised $31 million in a week, although certainly reported, seems to have aroused nothing like this kind of media excitement. Google News tallied half as many citations for Can Ted Cruz win? as for Can Rand Paul win? Chris Cillizza explained why Cruz chose to announce at Liberty University but had this to say about the candidates prospects: "Cruz badly needs social conservatives on his side if he wants to have any serious chance at being the Republican nominee in 2016and then went on to explain why that was unlikely to happen. Mark Halperin dismissed Cruz as a second-tier candidate.
Yet to the extent there are metrics, Cruz is outperforming Paul in the first phases of the presidential race. Not only has Cruz raised more money than Paul, but a National Journal survey of social media found that Cruzs presidential launch attracted dramatically more social media interaction than Pauls.
Neither man has an easy or obvious path to the nomination. Both men face powerful, perhaps insuperable, opposition within the party. Pauls path is probably even more emphatically foredoomed, but at a minimum it is surely no less foredoomed.
So why is Paul a favorite topic of media speculation, while Cruz cant make news?
Id offer five reasons. Theyre interesting in themselves, I think, but also interesting as examples of how news organizations can systematically mis-evaluate political realities.
1. Home-Court Advantage
If you live and work in Washington, D.C., its easy to imagine libertarianism as a powerful national movement. Washington is home to Reason magazine and the Cato Institute, and to dozens of hard-working and talented libertarian writers, commentators, and policy analysts. Its easy here to lose sight of the extreme marginality of the doctrine in the nation as a wholeespecially because libertarianism as we see it in the capital looks a lot more like the preferred politics of the institutional media (socially permissive, fiscally cautious) than like the Lincoln-hating, bullion-believing, conspiracy-mongering politics of libertarianism beyond the Beltway at the Ron Paul Institute, Antiwar.com, or the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Journalists are consequently vulnerable to claims that libertarianism appeals to independents, Millennials, or some other demographically desirable groupno matter how overwhelmingly such claims are contradicted by the evidence. Meanwhile, the conservative Christian evangelicalism to which Ted Cruz looks for his base remains perhaps more underrepresented in D.C. media and culture than any other major American social group. D.C. journalists intellectually apprehend that evangelicals are important, but they have a hard time remembering that fact when they offer their commentary.
2. Media Management
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Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky announced his candidacy for the presidency yesterday in a hotel ballroom in Louisville. The hotel was aptly named: The Galt Hotel. Presumably, the name is merely fortuitous as the hotel predates Ayn Rands writing Atlas Shrugged in which her libertarian hero is named John Galt. Pauls candidacy will be a test of the power of libertarian ideas to persuade in America in the early twenty-first century and, just so, is a test for the truths of Catholic Social Teaching which could scarcely be in greater opposition to those libertarian ideas as was manifest at a conference at Boston College in which I participated on Monday.
Dan Balz, of the Washington Post, is an acute observer of politics, but his analysis of Sen. Pauls candidacy in this mornings Post suffered from his repeating a lazy meme. He wrote: Pauls announcement was a reminder of why he often has been called the most interesting politician in the country, with a libertarian message that seemed to sweep across the ideological spectrum and that challenged the establishment of both parties. Libertarianism is many things, but interesting is not one of them.
At the conference at Boston College, entitled, Why Libertarianism Isnt Liberal, the first keynote speaker, Princeton Professor and political philosopher Alan Ryan, took issue with the title of the conference. For him, libertarianism is to liberalism as heresy is to orthodoxy, a truth run amok. They focus so exclusively on property rights, they end up neglecting other important liberal values and insights. He identified quite rightly one of the challenges Sen. Paul will face in his candidacy, the libertarian schizophrenia about whether the movement is a saving remnant, a view held by Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard, or are they a natural third party, a view held by David Boaz at the CATO Institute, the leading libertarian think tank, and the Koch Brothers who have pledged some $800 million to test the proposition in the next two years. Professor Ryan also pointed out that Paul, like all libertarians, will have a hard time answering questions about market failure, which the nation and world experienced in 2008, leading a bewildered Alan Greenspan, longtime Secretary-Treasurer of the Ayn Rand Society in Washington, to admit he could not explain how the economic meltdown happened. The libertarian insistence on property rights as the only useful lens for evaluating public policy is similarly ill-suited to pressing concerns, such as environmental degradation. Much of the pollution in San Francisco, Ryan pointed out, originates in China and it is difficult to see how an assertion of property rights could resolve that problem for those coughing on polluted air in the City by the Bay.
The other keynoter, Alan Wolfe, delivered a trenchant indictment of libertarianism, root and branch. To him, the movement has more in common with the totalitarianism it ostensibly opposed than with liberalism. Libertarians like to place both Adam Smith and Friedrich von Hayek in their pantheon of heroes, but while both embraced laissez-faire economics, they did so in different circumstances and for different reasons. Smiths free market would liberate individuals from the caprice of an inflexible mercantilism, Wolfe explained. Hayeks free market would chain individuals to a system of rules over which they have no control and cannot, by themselves, fully understand. But, the problems with libertarianism are deeper than a misreading of their heroes. Liberalism raises questions. Libertarians seek answers, and always find the right ones, Wolfe said. Their philosophy is an antidote to the doubt, inconsistency, and vagueness that has always been built-into liberalism. There is nothing tentative, nothing haphazard, nothing weak-kneed about libertarianism.. If you believe in God, respect hierarchy, and venerate tradition you can oppose liberalism by becoming a conservative. If you prefer a social order that hides its authoritarianism behind opaqueness, you become a libertarian.
The other speakers at the conference, approaching the topic from different perspectives, all took libertarianism to the intellectual woodshed. Boston College theologian Mary Jo Iozzio looked at how Americas happy, and largely successful, efforts to make life better for people with disabilities rests on a view of human society that is anathema to libertarians. Providence College theologian Dana Dillon noted the limits of rights as a political lens, asking how much more effective the Churchs opposition to the HHS contraception mandate would have been if Catholic institutions were at the forefront of efforts to provide liberal maternal leave policies, providing day care to employees, and other pro-family provisions. And, Mark Silk of Trinity College, who has happily published his talk, introduced a new phrase into the political lexicon: spiritual libertarianism. More on that tomorrow when I discuss the fallout from the Indiana RFRA fight.
The other panel featured Catholic Universitys Stephen Schneck, who explained in detail why John Locke and James Madison also do not fit into the libertarian pantheon despite their efforts to claim them as their own. Schneck is working on a book on this topic and his talk reflected the careful research and analysis we have come to expect from him. St. Johns University theologian Meghan Clark explained that libertarianism and Catholic Social Teaching are at odds at the root, with radically different conceptions of humankinds creation in the image and likeness of God, the universal destination of goods, and the purpose of government. And Harvards Mary Jo Bane, who described herself as a hopeless pragmatist, noted that liberals and Catholics could draw policy threads from libertarianism on issues like school choice, criminal justice policy and social welfare policy. An expert in these policy areas, Bane is familiar with the way establishment thinking can resist improvements to systems that are not working, and she can be forgiven for seeking allies where she can find them. Nor did she evidence any sympathy for libertarian values or ideas, saying, Both markets and governments can be exploitative and corrupt.
In the end, however, what became obvious in the course of the day is that libertarianism is not very interesting at all. It is little more than an effort to turn selfishness and self-assertion into a political platform. That is not to say it does not strike some deep roots with plausible misreadings of liberalism and specifically Americanism. But, the problems the nation faces, from income inequality to environmental degradation to the rise of Islamicist terrorism, none of these problems can be solved, or the issues even clarified, by someone schooled in libertarian thinking, even a senator speaking at the Galt Hotel. The reporters covering his announcement should have come to our conference at Boston College the previous day. They would not use the word interesting to describe him, more like scary and juvenile. I wish, too, that some of those Catholics who serve as fellow travelers for libertarianism, our friends at the Acton Institute for example, had been there too. They must confront these issues or admit they are undermining Catholic Social Teaching. And, they must confront something else, a point the shone through the varied presentations. There is a totalitarian itch at the heart of libertarianism, an itch that could not be more different from the complex, rich, nuanced understandings that emerge from both liberalism and from Catholic Social Teaching. I will give the last word to Alan Wolfe:
Libertarianism goes out of its way to reduce the complexities of the world to one thing and one thing only, whether it be how we make decisions, what decisions we make, and what our decisions imply for others. The often-noted attraction of libertarianism for young minds is, I believe, a reflection of this. There is something so satisfying when one is young about the Faustian idea that all of reality can be unlocked with one simple key. It is when we grow out of that fantasy and begin to understand just how complex the world actually is that adherents to libertarianism begin to understand the limits of what had once been so appealing to them.
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Sen. Paul Enters the Race & the Totalitarian Itch of Libertarianism
The debate over Sunday liquorsales burned on Wednesday, where backers and detractors of a repeal of the states 80-year-old ban stated their cases to lawmakers, with rationale ranging from profit margins to libertarianism.
The House Commerce Committee held an informational hearing on the bill by Rep. Jenifer Loon, R-Eden Prairie, though no vote was taken. Regardless, dozens of witnesses testified on the bill in a packed hearing room.
Dave Erickson, owner of DEricks Tower Liquors near Lake Vermilion said its frustrating to turn down customers year-round who stop in his adjoining bar and cant take a bottle of wine or six-pack home with them on a Sunday.
As a bar owner, I hate seeing all the visitors, the tourists if you will, come to Minnesota and not be able to enjoy what they probably enjoy at home, Erickson said.
In the midst of a struggling Iron Range economy, where hundreds of miners were just laid off, This would be just one little thing for a little economic growth, he said.
Other liquor store owners, like Terry Furlong, owner of Furlongs liquor in Oakdale, say staying open seven days a week will only create more costs without the profits.
Our current regulations are a fine balance between the desires of consumers, public health and public safety, he said.
Loons Sunday sales bill, like many of its House and Senate companions, failed to receive a hearing before committee deadlines passed, and there is no full Sunday sales repeal in the House liquor reform billthough its possible that it may come up as a floor amendment when the bill is debated on the House floor.
Loon thanked Committee Chair Rep. Joe Hoppe, R-Chaska, for giving the bill a hearing, although absent a vote. She said she respects the opinions of liquor store owners that do not want a repeal in the interests of having a day off, but added that her measure would not force stores to be open. (Liquor store owners insist they would have to remain open to keep up with competition.)
This is not such an easy cut-and-dried issue, she said. Its not my goal to say that every small business who sells liquor has to be open on Sunday. I would never say that. This is just to give other businesses that opportunity.
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Sunday liquor sales debate burns on in House, absent a committee vote
Since riding the tea party wave into the Senate in 2010, Paul has carefully built a brand of mainstream libertarianism -- dogged advocacy of civil liberties combined with an anti-interventionist foreign policy and general support for family values -- that he bets will create a coalition of younger voters and traditional Republicans to usher him into the White House.
The test of that theory began Tuesday when the Kentucky senator made official what has been clear for years: He's running for president.
"Today I announce with God's help, with the help of liberty lovers everywhere, that I'm putting myself forward as a candidate for president of the United States of America," Paul said at a rally in Louisville.
Paul immediately hit the campaign trail for a four-day swing through New Hampshire, South Carolina, Iowa and Nevada -- the states that traditionally vote first in the primaries and caucuses.
A poster from the Rand Paul for President campaign.
READ: Can Rand Paul escape his father's shadow?
In his speech, he called for reforming Washington by pushing for term limits and a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. He argued that both parties are to blame for the rising debt, saying it doubled under a Republican administration and tripled under Obama.
"Government should be restrained and freedom should be maximized," he said.
The line-up of speakers who introduced Paul sought to paint the senator as a nontraditional candidate with diverse appeal, and by the time he got on stage, he was the first white man to address the crowd.
The speakers included J.C. Watts, a former congressman who's African-American; state Sen. Ralph Alvarado, who's Hispanic; local pastor Jerry Stephenson, who's African American and a former Democrat; and University of Kentucky student Lauren Bosler.
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Rand Paul: 'I'm putting myself forward as a candidate for president'
For Rand Paul, it's all led to this moment.
Since riding the tea party wave into the Senate in 2010, Paul has carefully built a brand of mainstream libertarianism -- dogged advocacy of civil liberties combined with an anti-interventionist foreign policy and general support for family values -- that he bets will create a coalition of younger voters and traditional Republicans to usher him into the White House.
The test of that theory began Tuesday when the Kentucky senator made official what has been clear for years: He's running for president.
"Today I announce with God's help, with the help of liberty lovers everywhere, that I'm putting myself forward as a candidate for president of the United States of America," Paul said at a rally in Louisville.
Paul immediately hit the campaign trail for a four-day swing through New Hampshire, South Carolina, Iowa and Nevada -- the states that traditionally vote first in the primaries and caucuses.
In his speech, he called for reforming Washington by pushing for term limits and a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. He argued that both parties are to blame for the rising debt, saying it doubled under a Republican administration and tripled under Obama.
"Government should be restrained and freedom should be maximized," he said.
The line-up of speakers who introduced Paul sought to paint the senator as a nontraditional candidate with diverse appeal, and by the time he got on stage, he was the first white man to address the crowd.
The speakers included J.C. Watts, a former congressman who's African-American; state Sen. Ralph Alvarado, who's Hispanic; local pastor Jerry Stephenson, who's African American and a former Democrat; and University of Kentucky student Lauren Bosler.
"He goes everywhere. It doesn't matter what color you are. Rand Paul will be there," Stephenson said, firing up the crowd.
Excerpt from:
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (CNN) -
For Rand Paul, it's all led to this moment.
Since riding the tea party wave into the Senate in 2010, Paul has carefully built a brand of mainstream libertarianism -- dogged advocacy of civil liberties combined with an anti-interventionist foreign policy and general support for family values -- that he bets will create a coalition of younger voters and traditional Republicans to usher him into the White House.
The test of that theory began Tuesday when the Kentucky senator made official what has been clear for years: He's running for president.
"Today I announce with God's help, with the help of liberty lovers everywhere, that I'm putting myself forward as a candidate for president of the United States of America," Paul said at a rally in Louisville.
Paul immediately hit the campaign trail for a four-day swing through New Hampshire, South Carolina, Iowa and Nevada -- the states that traditionally vote first in the primaries and caucuses.
In his speech, he called for reforming Washington by pushing for term limits and a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. He argued that both parties are to blame for the rising debt, saying it doubled under a Republican administration and tripled under Obama.
"Government should be restrained and freedom should be maximized," he said.
The line-up of speakers who introduced Paul sought to paint the senator as a nontraditional candidate with diverse appeal, and by the time he got on stage, he was the first white man to address the crowd.
The speakers included J.C. Watts, a former congressman who's African-American; state Sen. Ralph Alvarado, who's Hispanic; local pastor Jerry Stephenson, who's African American and a former Democrat; and University of Kentucky student Lauren Bosler.
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Video will begin in 5 seconds.
CERN restarts 'Big Bang' Hadron Collider
Kenyan survivors recount university attack
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UN seeking consensus on Yemen resolution
Castro in public for first time in over a year
RAW VIDEO: US Senator Rand Paul launches his 2016 presidential campaign with a combative address against both Washington and his fellow Republicans, declaring "we have come to take our country back."
Washington: As supporters cheered and waved banners reading "Defeat the Washington Machine", Rand Paul, a senator and son of a congressman and presidential candidate, announced his own candidacy for the Republican nomination for the White House at a rally in Kentucky on Monday.
Despite his long and powerful ties to the capital and its politics, Senator Paul insisted he would be an outsider candidate.
Senator Rand Paul, in Kentucky on Tuesday, announces he would like to be president of the US. Photo: AP
Continued here:
Video will begin in 5 seconds.
CERN restarts 'Big Bang' Hadron Collider
Kenyan survivors recount university attack
Stunning views of Earth from space
UN seeking consensus on Yemen resolution
Castro in public for first time in over a year
RAW VIDEO: US Senator Rand Paul launches his 2016 presidential campaign with a combative address against both Washington and his fellow Republicans, declaring "we have come to take our country back."
Washington: As supporters cheered and waved banners reading "Defeat the Washington Machine", Rand Paul, a senator and son of a congressman and presidential candidate, announced his own candidacy for the Republican nomination for the White House at a rally in Kentucky on Monday.
Despite his long and powerful ties to the capital and its politics, Senator Paul insisted he would be an outsider candidate.
Senator Rand Paul, in Kentucky on Tuesday, announces he would like to be president of the US. Photo: AP
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Updated: Tuesday, April 7 2015, 10:09 AM EDT
Louisville, Kentucky (CNN)- For Rand Paul, it's all led to this moment.
Since riding the tea party wave into the Senate in 2010, Paul has carefully built a brand of mainstream libertarianism -- dogged advocacy of civil liberties combined with an anti-interventionist foreign policy and general support for family values -- that he bets will create a coalition of younger voters and traditional Republicans to usher him into the White House.
The test of that theory begins Tuesday when the Kentucky senator is expected to make official what has been clear for years: He's running for president.
"I am running for president to return our country to the principles of liberty and limited government," Paul said on his new website.
A formal announcement will come at a rally in Louisville and he'll immediately hit the campaign trail, swinging through New Hampshire, South Carolina, Iowa and Nevada -- the states that traditionally vote first in the primaries and caucuses.
Read more:
For Rand Paul, it's all led to this moment.
Since riding the tea party wave into the Senate in 2010, Paul has carefully built a brand of mainstream libertarianism -- dogged advocacy of civil liberties combined with an anti-interventionist foreign policy and general support for family values -- that he bets will create a coalition of younger voters and traditional Republicans to usher him into the White House.
The test of that theory begins Tuesday when the Kentucky senator makes official what has been clear for years: He's running for president.
"I am running for president to return our country to the principles of liberty and limited government," Paul said on his new website.
A formal announcement will come at a rally in Louisville and he'll immediately hit the campaign trail, swinging through New Hampshire, South Carolina, Iowa and Nevada -- the states that traditionally vote first in the primaries and caucuses.
His wife, Kelley, and former Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma will be among the speakers introducing Paul at the rally Tuesday.
So far, Paul joins only Texas Sen. Ted Cruz as a declared candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. "His entry into the race will no doubt raise the bar of competition," Cruz said in a statement welcoming Paul into the race.
But the field is certain to grow in the months ahead with Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Lindsey Graham and others eyeing a campaign. Marco Rubio, a Florida GOP senator, is expected to launch his campaign next week.
For now, the nomination is up for grabs with no clear front-runner. Paul came in third place at 12% in a CNN/ORC International Poll of Republicans. Bush led the pack at 16% while Walker came in second at 13%.
Ron vs. Rand Paul
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That the masters of the tech universe jumped so forcefully into the middle of the Indiana gay rights imbroglio was, as many have noted, a marked change from business as usual in Silicon Valley, where the digerati had previously been reluctant to involve themselves in political issues not directly related to their bottom lines.
As Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of the cloud computing behemoth Salesforce, told the New York Times, Were wading into territory none of us is comfortable in, which is social issues, he said. But it was crystal clear that, by all of us going in together, it was going to be O.K.
Only time will tell, of course, whether this was a harbinger of political activism to come, and, if it is, whether or not thats a good thing. The engineers of Silicon Valley are far from the first of their kind to have been relatively uninterested in the nitty gritty of political engagement.
In the early decades of the 20th century the growing powers of industrialism bestowed upon engineers previously thought of as the guys with greasy overalls whose expertise extended only as far the workshop door a new measure of power and prestige. Academia responded with a massive increase in engineering programs. The number of American engineering graduates increased from 100 a year in 1870 to 4,300 a year in 1914. What had been a trade became a profession.
Meanwhile technological advances were producing growing political, economic and social complexities that politicians seemed increasingly unable to handle. What was needed was better planning and efficiency, which is what technicians did best. A rising chorus of opinion suggested it was time to let the engineers take the helm of the ship of state, and some agreed. One of them was the engineer, editor and manufacturer Henry Goslee Prout, who in 1905 lectured Cornells first class of civil engineering graduates on the enormous responsibility they carried on their shoulders.
My proposition is that the engineer more than all other men will guide humanity forward until we come to some other period of a different kind, Prout said. On the engineer and on those who are making engineers rests a responsibility such as men have never before been called upon to face, for it is a peculiarity of the new epoch that we are conscious of it, that we know what we are doing, which was not true in either of the six preceding epochs, and we have upon us the responsibility of conscious knowledge.
Among the more forceful technocratic voices to emerge during this period was that of the economist and social critic Thorstein Veblen. Best known today as the man who coined the phrase conspicuous consumption, Veblen relentlessly attacked the wastefulness of American business. Overproduction and overselling of useless goods were ruining the country, he argued. The solution was to turn policy and administration over to skilled technologists who would exercise systematic control over the economy.
Somehow the ascent of the engineers that Veblen and others envisioned never materialized. Despite their growing professional confidence, they seemed personally reluctant to pursue broader political power. Veblen couldnt conceal his disdain. [B]y settled habit, he fumed, the technicians, the engineers and the industrial experts, are a harmless and docile sort, well fed on the whole, and somewhat placidly content with the full dinner-pail, which the lieutenants of the Vested Interests habitually allow them.
The idea that engineers could successfully run government, even if they wanted to, took a beating with the presidency of Herbert Hoover, the nations first and so far only Engineer in Chief. A further blow to engineering credibility came several decades later when uber-technocrat Robert McNamara unleashed mountains of precision analysis against the pesky guerrilla fighters hiding in the jungles of Vietnam. In 1962 McNamara returned from his first tour of the Asian theater brimming with confidence. Every quantitative measurement we have shows we are winning this war, he said.
Its likely that the hacker mind-set rebellious, but narrowly focused explains why the programming elite of Silicon Valley havent been, heretofore, especially active politically, which isnt to say the technocratic mind-set isnt alive and well there. Googles Eric Schmidt and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen are among those who believe that technology is well on its way to solving all our problems, if only government will get out the way, and government increasingly shows signs of agreeing with them.
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Beware the Silicon Valley elite: Ayn Rand, Google libertarianism and Indianas religious freedom
Libertarianism and Transaction costs
"If I own a private business, why shouldn #39;t I have the freedom to serve or not to serve who I want?" In short, because of transaction costs.
By: True Facts
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Larry King on Drugs, Cryonics, Airplane Sex Orgies, Half-Libertarianism
Radio and TV legend Larry King has been broadcasting since the late 1950s. He #39;s best-known for his long-running CNN Show Larry King Live, which helped define long-form talk TV as he interviewed...
By: ReasonTV
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Larry King on Drugs, Cryonics, Airplane Sex Orgies, & Half-Libertarianism - Video
Sean Gabb: The Cultural Desert of British Libertarianism - A Study in Failure
A speech given on Tuesday the 17th March 2015 in London to the other Libertarian Alliance. Sean argues that libertarianism has had no impact in Britain since the 1980s because libertarians...
By: seangabb
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Sean Gabb: The Cultural Desert of British Libertarianism - A Study in Failure - Video
saturday morning libertarianism EP 10
Episode 10.
By: henrythecow100
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Ep. 75: How Does Libertarianism Deal with the Problem of Pollution? (with Matt Zwolinski)
Matt Zwolinski joins us to talk about libertarianism and pollution. What does it mean for libertarians to treat pollution as a violation of property rights? Matt Zwolinski joins us this week...
By: Libertarianism.org
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Ep. 75: How Does Libertarianism Deal with the Problem of Pollution? (with Matt Zwolinski) - Video
Silk Roadthe darknet site that blended techno-libertarianism, unexpected pathos, drugs, and that sweet elixir of larceny Bitcoin into what has already been one of recent historys most entertaining legal proceedingsis not done with us yet! Like all Silk Road related news, the charges against DEA agent Carl Force and former Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges are incredibly implausible and circuitous, but Sarah Jeong does as good a job explaining them as anyone could hope for. Keywords include, but are not limited to: murder for hire (simulated), intimidation (failed), theft (flagrant), and LinkedIn contact request (regrettable). Lauren Smiley has a step by step guide in Matter for Feds interested in catching the Bitcoin-laundering wave, and Kashmir Hill collected 5 of Forces wackiest side-projects for Fusion.
Facebook is in trouble again for algorithmically dredging up painful memories. Who could have predicted this?
In Pacific Standard, Susie Cagle makes a case that the VC funding system does more harm than good. If youre on the fence about that, please do see this Twitter thread where prominent venture capitalist Harry Potter, from the blue-chip Silicon Valley firm of Egg & Rapgenius, "argues with Twitter user "fart" about the definition of electricity."
April Fools is stupid, but its also the day Carnegie Mellons Association for Computational Heresy holds SIGBOVIK, which is one of those nerd events where there are so many layers of in-joke that you cant exactly tell how much (if any) of it is real, or what "real" might mean in this context, but the Proceedings, at least, are very funny. Notably, Tom Murphy made a portmanteau of every English word, which he calls a "portmantout." Just watch the video, its good.
I enjoyed this Colson Whitehead tab about our narcissistic culture because I love reading about myself. You do you, Cols! Alana Massey is right: "Chill" is stupid. The police must be huge Chris Rock fans! Across the land, the question rings out: Can a gay wedding even have pizza? If you dont already know what that post is about, trust me, youll be happier staying that way. And finally: read this boring tab.
Its intern Averys birthday! Today she turns 27! At 27 I was a married home owner and one year away from the birth of my first child, but being a newsletter intern is great too! Happy Birthday Avery!
Today is my twenty-seventh birthday (please, hold your applause). Two decades ago, on this date, I woke up and found a childs snooker table set up for me in our dining room. Not something Id asked for, but still one of the best gifts Ive ever received.
The popularity of snooker is a weird part of British culture. It hardly seems a thrilling spectator sport, but for weeks at a time in the winter you can switch to BBC2 and watch hours of snooker in the eveningtime slot after time slot of the same old static shot. We even had a bizarre snooker-based game show, Big Break, which ran for ten years.
My snooker table got a lot of use at first, but then I returned to the books one could always find me in as a child. I was not destined to be a Ronnie OSullivan, who is profiled in the New Yorker this week. Its a terrific featurea classic story of a shining talent dogged by vice and familial sin.
I remember looking at my snooker table in the garden with the trash, warped and broken-down by rain. Happy birthday.
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Unitarian Universalism: Religious Liberalism, Not Religious Libertarianism
Rev. Andy Burnette - January 4, 2015 As we begin the new year, we will talk about the important distinction between a faith in which you can #39;believe whatever you want, #39; and the liberal faith...
By: Valley Unitarian Universalist Congregation
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Unitarian Universalism: Religious Liberalism, Not Religious Libertarianism - Video