Category Archives: libertarianism

Updated: Ron Paul Raises Over $5 Million

Elections 2008, Journalism, libertarianism, Media

A miserable Norah O’Donnell of MSNBC just broke the splendid news that Ron Paul has raised over $5 million. She repeatedly tagged him an “isolationist,” which we know is a pejorative intended to discredit individuals who do not support recreational, unprovoked wars. Yet more nonsense on stilts from the malpractitioners in mainstream media; Paul is no isolationist; an advocate of free, unfettered trade is never an isolationist.

O’Donnell had Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter on to confirm that, having surpassed the mummified McCain, Paul was now officially a player. You don’t say, toots.

Update: on his show, Tucker Carlson mentioned Ron Paul’s high-water mark fund raising. The ubiquitous empty dress, A.B. Stoddard of The Hill, called Paul a “spoiler.” That kind of comment, meant to indicate Paul was taking votes from a bigger ticket, is the standard shallow, smart-alecky quip one has come to expect from the commentariat. Meaningless fluff.

Bill Press, to his great credit, put her in her place perfectly. Press said Paul was the real deal; that he was raising money because he had a message people craved. It took Press, a left-liberal, to galvanize the smart but smarmy Tucker (a conservative), who then vaporized a bit about how he liked Paul, but how Paul hadn’t a chance, “Given we are all socialists now, believing government should do most things for us.” Then he muttered incongruently how he still liked Paul.

Once again, if Tucker wants to see freedom prevail and socialism defeated, why not muster some courage and stand by the man who promulgates this? That is, if you really like what you hear. Why keep up this, “I’m so witty and cynical” façade—one moment mocking the man and his chances, the next, conceding Paul’s principles are the better ones.

I can’t respect such dissembling. These commentators have no yen for freedom. I guess, feeding so close to the trough as they do, they are free. Being part of what I call the Military-Media-Industrial-Congressional-Complex, they are free. It’s you and I who lack freedom, not the connected punditocracy. They benefit from power; we don’t.

Rest in Peace ‘My President’

Federal Reserve Bank, libertarianism, Liberty

In the warm e-mail exchanges we had over the years, and until a few weeks ago, I’d always refer to Aaron Russo as “my president.” In 2004, Aaron vied to become the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate, but was unseated by ugly subterfuge, not uncommon in a party dominated by leftists.

Aaron passed away after a long battle with cancer. The column “Aaron Russo: A Choice, Not and Echo,” best encapsulates how I felt about this warm, captivating and larger than life personality. Aaron was never a tinny ideologue, whose ideas on liberty exist in the arid arena of pure thought. Rather, he was a flesh-and-blood warrior for freedom.

I was very fond of that lovely man.

Robert Rector Of the Heritage Foundation On the ‘Transfer State’

libertarianism, Political Economy, The State

Robert Rector, Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, has this to say about the illiberal, lemming’s lunacy of open-border libertarianism:

“I very much enjoyed your column on WorldNetDaily today. You hit the nail on the head. As I pointed out in a recent response the Wall Street Journal, the issue is not merely the “welfare state,” narrowly defined, but the much broader transfer/redistribution state, and, more fundamentally, the right to use the ballot box to pillage other people’s bank accounts. When you confer citizenship on a low-skill immigrant, you are granting them the right to use the electoral process to access your income.

I had a recent debate with Dan Griswold of Cato in which he actually said that we should have amnesty and open borders now and then work on limiting welfare later. (Not that Cato has ever had the least practical effect in limiting welfare spending). I think we could borrow a concept from the recent debate about “enforcement first.”

If libertarians are intellectually serious, they should eliminate the transfer state first along with the right to use the ballot box as an instrument of pillage, and then talk about open borders. At present, there is one potential vote for eliminating the welfare state in the U.S. Congress, so they will have their work cut out for them.

Again, great column.

Robert Rector
Senior Research Fellow
The Heritage Foundation

Machan/Mercer Exchange

Founding Fathers, Government, IMMIGRATION, libertarianism, The State

Tibor Machan posted a brief reply to “The Work Open-Border Libertarians Won’t Do” in the Comments Section of Barely a Blog. The meat of Machan’s reply:

“Refusing to extend welfare to illegal immigrants will amount to an arbitrary, indeed mean-minded policy based on nothing more than nationalism or even worse, such as preference for members of one’s own race or age group or some such nonsense.”

Machan’s line of reasoning proceeds from the premise that limiting the size and scope of the Welfare State no matter how is not necessary the most urgent—and hence the most ethical and moral—imperative. Rather, according to Tibor’s reasoning, given the reality of the Transfer State, apportioning welfare based on egalitarian, “fair,” and consistent criteria is the most pressing matter.

The premise of Machan’s reply seems to be that egalitarian treatment (of the world) is the proper purpose of policy. As a strict propertarian, I could not disagree more; As I see it, the imperative of policy is to limit theft, not extend its spoils fairly.

I also wonder about the worldview held by libertarians. The founders clearly recognized that some people were the responsibility of a limited, American, republican government; others not. What, after all, did John Quincy Adams mean when he counseled that America not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy, but remain the well-wisher of the freedom and independence of all, but the champion and vindicator only of her own?

Machan’s reply, on the other hand, seems to suggest that “We Are the World”—that since we have the misfortune of laboring under the transfer state, we are obliged to extend its “benefits” to all who enter its orbit.