Category Archives: libertarianism

Ann Coulter Offers A Corrective To Judge Andrew Napolitano

Ann Coulter, Constitution, IMMIGRATION, libertarianism, Liberty, Neoconservatism, Paleolibertarianism

I’ve been following Judge Andrew Napolitano long enough to know he is a Reason-type, left-libertarian, who supports Civil Wrongs legislation, even coming down occasionally against the most basic of liberties: absolute freedom of association and the rights of private property.

Therefore, I like not only that Ann Coulter is finally naming names, but that she has offered a serious corrective to the Judge’s ideologically skewed facts, in “Fox News anchored in stupidity on 14th Amendment”

… Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox’s senior judicial analyst … at least got the century right. He mentioned the Civil War – and then went on to inform Bream that the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to – I quote – “make certain that the former slaves and the native Americans would be recognized as American citizens no matter what kind of prejudice there might be against them.”

Huh. In 1884, 16 years after the 14th Amendment was ratified, John Elk, who – as you may have surmised by his name – was an Indian, had to go to the Supreme Court to argue that he was an American citizen because he was born in the United States.

He lost. In Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not grant Indians citizenship.

The “main object of the opening sentence of the 14th Amendment,” the court explained – and not for the first or last time – “was to settle the question, upon which there had been a difference of opinion throughout the country and in this court, as to the citizenship of free negroes and to put it beyond doubt that all persons, white or black … should be citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.”

American Indians were not made citizens until 1924. Lo those 56 years after the ratification of the 14th Amendment, Indians were not American citizens, despite the considered opinion of Judge Napolitano.

Of course it’s easy for legal experts to miss the welter of rulings on Indian citizenship inasmuch as they obtained citizenship in a law perplexingly titled: “THE INDIAN CITIZENSHIP ACT OF 1924.”

Yeah, Trump’s the idiot. Or as Bream said to Napolitano after his completely insane analysis, “I feel smarter just having been in your presence.”

MORE.

Incidentally, it is true that since “Adios!” Ann Coulter can do no wrong. That she has recovered recently and magnificently does not mean that you should forget the years of neoconism, lauding the lovely Bush wars (calling them magnificent), ignoring immigration, and being wrong on too many things. I didn’t read her column for years (except on court cases and feminism) until now. I bought only “Treason,” which is a great book. The rest of her books were witty riffs on the theme, “Liberals this; liberals that,” seldom considering that Repubs are liberals too. To forget what neoconism’s most bright and beautiful representatives had wrought is unforgivable.

However, the always-adorable Ann is fast making up for past sins.

Wendy McElroy On The Invasion Of The Libertarian Body Snatchers

Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Political Philosophy, Race, Racism

Libertarian theorist Wendy McElroy worries that she might have to leave the movement she practically founded, because, to use a biblical quote, “there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph.” A new generation of self-styled libertarians that doesn’t know the meaning of libertarianism has arisen, according to which Wendy, and certainly myself, are deemed “brutalists.”

I wrote “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fem, I Smell The Blood Of A Racist” about one of their luminaries, before I understood the extent of the revisionism in which the “humanitarians” were engaged.

So numerous are the libertarians who condemn me that I have long since stopped giving a damn. Most are like the proverbial (or metaphysical) tree falling in the woods. We know they say stuff, but nobody wants to stick around to hear them make the tedious sounds they make.

Over to Wendy, who is heartbroken over “the attempt to change the ground rules of libertarianism through introducing left-leaning attitudes and concepts”:

… the absurd and manufactured debates [is] about “”thin” and “thick” libertarianism – the “humanitarians” versus the “brutalists.” It is an attempt to introduce political correctness into libertarianism so that it is not enough to advocate nonviolence; you have to advocate it for the right reason, as defined by those who provide themselves as moral filters. They call me a brutalist. This means I will never violate your rights; your children, your property are safe in my presence because I respect your right to live in peace. But I don’t protect your children for the right reasons. For this, I am to be excoriated. This is the second approach to a new definition of libertarianism: People wish to analyze society not according to whether it is voluntary but in order to ferret out signs of power and privilege which they self-righteously condemn. Consider open source software. It has been castigated as a realm of privilege because it predominantly consists of white men. Open source software is source code that is thrown into the public realm so that anyone can modify and enhance it. It is a pure expression of free speech; the product is available to everyone for free; there are no entry barriers or requirements other than caring enough to learn code. Learning code is also available and free to all.

I think it was the condemnation of open source software that made me crack. Out of the goodness of his heart, my husband has devoted substantial time to what amounts to an intellectual charity. He pursues it for the same reason he repairs and gives computers for free to underprivileged children; he believes in the power of technology to lift people out of poverty. (BTW, I strongly suggest no one criticize my husband to my face on this point; I am likely to render the most Irish of all responses.)

Open source software is condemned for no other reason than it involves few women or minorities. This reflects nothing more than the choice of those women and minorities. It costs nothing to learn coding. Tutorials are available for free to all and everywhere. Correction: It does cost time and effort. The individual has to exert him or herself. I’m not willing to make the investment but neither do I blame the first white guy I see for my own inertia. If there is something in the culture of women and of specific minorities that prevents them from rising, then blame the culture. Don’t blame a white man like my husband who is falling over himself to provide a free service. (Correction: my husband is Hispanic … but that won’t give him a free pass. I mean, after all … the genitalia. And the grand critics of society don’t really care for accuracy.)

Last night, I contemplated my exit from a movement that considers me to be a “brutalist” after years of unpaid work promoting nonviolence. I found myself engaging in an emotional release that I’ve used for many years. I wrote a letter to my father. My dad died when I was ten years old. I loved him. …

Read “A Letter to My Father” By Wendy McElroy

Rand Paul Looks Down At The Little People, Too

Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Republicans, Ron Paul

Rand Paul (R-KY) has the eyes of a dead fish. The man is charmless; antipathetic. Not surprisingly, he has a nasty streak. Rand, too, looks down on the little people for finding merit in Donald Trump.

“Wolf,” whined Paul to the CNN reporter, “if you would give [sic] some other candidates time from eight in the morning until eight at night all day long, every day for three weeks, I’m guessing some other candidates might rise as well.”

“I think this is a temporary sort of loss of sanity,” he added, “but we’re going to come back to our senses and look for somebody serious to lead the country at some point.”

Like Rand Paul, another dynastic politician, who, like liberal and Republican regimists, looks down at the little people?

The rest.

Related: “Liberals Look Down At The Little People*

Yes, The ‘Banksters’ Are Bad, But So Is Greek Profligacy & Sloth

Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Federal Reserve Bank, Labor, libertarianism

After midnight, tonight, Greece will turn into a pumpkin. The Eurozone nations won’t be bailing the country out again after the deadline. Or so they say. For the life of me, however, I can’t understand why some ostensibly rational libertarians have joined Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert at RT in shaking the fist at the “banksters,” on behalf of the Greeks robbed.

Because EU manipulations have hurt Greece the most, some libertarians have concluded that Greece is the most victimized. That’s but part of the picture. True, the “apparatchiks of the EU” have aimed to create “one nation under inflation.” The EU superstate is especially bad for the unproductive Greeks. The same can be said for the effects of the European central bank and its beneficiaries: they harm the Greek people most.

But why discount the simpler realities of Greek’s political economy? As even this (unhinged) article concedes, “Greece had been on a steady path toward bankruptcy for 25 years.” Why not Germany, the workhorse of Europe?

Greece is among the least productive and most profligate EU countries. It’s a messy habit of mind that ignores this reality in favor of an analysis of macroeconomics alone. Thus, for example, Greece has a population of about 11 million, close on one million of whom were in the employ of the public sector, in 2009.

Is that 10 percent?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Do you know what kind of liability that creates in perpetuity in terms of pensions and perks? The sovereign debt crisis has since forced the government to fire some parasites, but you get the drift.

As far as I know, Greeks have not voted to leave the EU and restore their own currency. This would indeed make them more competitive. And the Greek people have elected a socialist government that is resisting cuts to the public pension system, changes in the parasites’ retirement age (ridiculously young), and flexibility in sclerotic labor markets, socialized by the people’s choice. Would the Greeks rather starve than work? It seem so.

More Greece facts: “Greece deal: Seriously, what’s holding it up?”