DBKP’s list featuring the “Libertarian Top 50 Sites” has “missed” Barely a Blog (BAB), which is ranked 188,158th on Alexa, globally. That would make BAB number 28 (or thereabouts) on this list of 50. Not bad for a one-woman operation, helped a little by regular monetary and epistolary contributions (to the Comments Section).
Also left-off the DBKP “Libertarian Top 50 Sites” was IlanaMercer.com, which has been up since 2000. (This golden oldie against the invasion of Iraq was written in 2002, which was when many “top-rated” Beltway libertarians were whooping it up for Bush’s war and bubble economy.)
A ranking of 202,294th on Alexa should make IlanaMercer.com, also on the ascendancy, 31 on the list of 50 top libertarian sites.
That’s if it had been ranked; it was not.
IlanaMercer.com archives the “Return to Reason” column. “Return to Reason” is WorldNetDaily’s longest-standing, exclusive libertarian column.
The DBKP Report was apprised of these omissions (the relevant emails are: ginnavive@gmail.com & mondoreb@gmail.com). Still, it has no excuse. Perhaps the list privileges members of the “Libertarian Lite” community, which likes to pretend paleolibertarians are not part of the genus libertarian? I doubt it, as my good pal Vox Day is a paleolibertarian (who questions free trade, no less), and his Vox Popoli weblog has, I’m pleased to report, been listed.
The author of IlanaMercer.com and Barely a Blog has never sought what one wag called “the warm smell of the herd.” However, the problem with those who think they can wish-away an individual’s substantial, indubitably classical liberal, output (this work included) is this: One day not so far away, they’ll look bad. Maybe even a little malevolent. Their credibility is at stake, not my 14 years of writing in the cause of liberty.
Many thanks to my many readers for making the two sites, maintained single-handedly by myself, so popular.
TTFN (Ta-ta for now).
UPDATE (Aug. 10): Darn, Neboja (see comment below), you’ve alerted me to the fact that I gave publicity to the DBKP self-appointed outfit. However, this conduct is emblematic and all-pervasive when it comes to my work; so what I said above needed to be said: “One day not so far away, [a lot of people] will look bad. Maybe even a little malevolent.”
If this utterly independent public intellectual cared one bit about the various tribal establishments—libertarian or other, as the dynamics of all these factions are comparable—she would be sitting on the phone NOW, replying to a couple of recent inquiries from the producer of a major libertarian television talent. (A polite, appreciative email that provided a contact # was plenty good enough for me.)
Even some of my readers, so mired in the idea that what the herd does matters to me—and in general—think that because B (Mercer’s not on TV), she has to be A (a B-talent). Of course, reasoning backward is an error. However, I like RT, as they seem truly interested in ideas. In this RT segment, I was asked about the Freedom Fest (to which I had never been invited, naturally, like I care), where a couple of neophytes had been asked to expatiate about the vexing topic of Israel. That, when this Jewish, ex-Israeli, libertarian woman has been writing cogent libertarian tracts about Israel for over a decade, one of which was even solicited by the Paul Campaign (before said Campaign was apprised by an establishmentarians, presumably, against the practice of using Mercer).
My Israel tracts have always departed from the tinny, robotic, anti-Israel, hackneyed lines you hear from the paleo- and libertarian Regulars. Yet these columns are fiercely American-centered, patriotic, and belong squarely in the American classical liberal tradition.