Category Archives: libertarianism

UPDATED: V-Day For Vagina-Centric Libertarians? Not So Fast. (‘Brutality’ Alert)

Feminism, Gender, libertarianism, Liberty, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, Pseudo-intellectualism

At EPJ, where “V-Day For Vagina-Centric Libertarians? Not So Fast” is now published, Lila Rajiva and myself exchange opinions about whether I was right or wrong to avoid naming the individuals discussed in the column.

Lila Rajiva March 28, 2014 at 12:37 PM

I think we should be truthful. She and Tucker ARE widely published so what’s the point of saying they are non-entities?

They are not. It just makes you sound as over-emotional as they are.

That was one thing with which I disagreed in this otherwise excellent piece.

Dispassion and professional standards entail that when you read someone, you should cite them. Leave “vanishing” people to the state and to propagandists and hypesters.

Reply
ILANA MERCER March 28, 2014 at 2:18 PM

Respectfully, you’re wrong. You are looking at this storm in a C-Cup from the insular world of the libertarian. My piece was written for a wider audience. Good or bad, the bigger picture is that the two alluded to are insignificant, the one more so than the other. The one has the run of a publishing house, and, unethically in my opinion (as it involves a conflict of interest), uses the imprint to publish some of his own books. Yet these books have hardly any buyers (Amazon rank #649,120). My contention that in the bigger picture these people are unknown entities is correct. The female of the duo is certainly a non-entity. Given her aptitude, no matter how well promoted she is, and no matter how much she suctions face to camera, she will never muster an opinion or an analysis that isn’t second-hander material. She’s not working with much. To properly gauge the significance of these two one has to exit the libertarian orbit. Thus, addressing non-entities by name is unnecessary in a piece meant for popular consumption. On this topic, my dear friend and mentor, the influential and talented Walter Block, demeans himself and his stature by constantly addressing nobody bloggers by name, rather than just dealing with their arguments, to the extent these sorts make these.

Reply
Lila Rajiva March 28, 2014 at 2:40 PM

@Hi Ilana,

I agree with you in the wider world. But, in the wider world, since they are unknown, they don’t need to be rebutted at all.

However, in terms of libertarian in-fighting, everyone knows who Tucker is…

Still, it was an excellent piece. I am sick of this waving of the V. I actually thinks it’s some kind of propaganda offensive that began in 2012 with Naomi Wolf’s book.

Get us to talk, one way or other, about genitals all the time. Mainstreams the stuff, like the Lewinsky trial did.

Reply
ILANA MERCER March 28, 2014 at 3:16 PM

I see what you’re saying, Lila. As expected, we both make valid points. “Respec,” as Ali G. would say.

Ms. Rajiva is funny in the comment below. A woman with a sense of humor. Wicked (or “brutal”). Lila has to admit, though, apropos our exchange above, that the “brutal” wordplay (or swordplay) on this and other libertarian sites is an example of “inside baseball.” Everyone on here knows what is being mocked. But few outside our orbit will understand. This goes to my point about not needing to name names when addressing a wider audience.

Lila Rajiva March 28, 2014 at 10:15 AM

I think it’s grossly BRUTALIST and a violation of the civil rights of Tucker, Reisenwitz & the rest
to pit one whole Mercer in full throttle against them.

It’s downright violent and violence will not be tolerated… unless we’re for it.

I call for UN sanctions, economic sanctions (no more blintzers for you, Ms. Mercer), and carpet-bombing…..

Let the humanitarianism begin…..

UPDATE: VIA FACEBOOK:

David Colpo writes:

If the names of writers obscure to the general population aren’t worth publishing, then why bother refuting their equally obscure arguments to that same audience?
59 minutes ago · Like

Ilana Mercer replies:

David Colpo, b/c I care about truth and reality. And as a libertarian I care about Mises. I care about libertarianism. I don’t care for–or about—the people who are trying to make libertarianism appealing to throngs of bimbos by lying about white, old men in order to make them palatable and politically correct. As if, there was anything wrong with Mises the way he was.

Libertarian Feminists Make A Move On Von Mises

Gender, History, libertarianism, Private Property, Reason, Socialism

“Libertarian Feminists Make A Move On Von Mises” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“As I paged through the dog’s breakfast of an essay titled “The Feminism of Ludwig von Mises,” I found myself wondering:

What does midwifery have to do with Mises? Both find their way into the stream-of-consciousness non sequiturs that is the article. I suppose midwifery is an occupation dominated by women. Mises was an old-fashioned, European economist whose legacy women are attempting to occupy. That must be it!

Incidentally, naming the solipsistic feminists (a redundancy, I know) who’ve made a move on the Austrian-School economist is unnecessary. “Avoid naming names when dealing with marginal characters,” I was once instructed by a veteran journalist, who was responding to a devastating critique I had penned in reply to some self-important, insignificant sorts. Joseph Farah e-mailed one of his lacerating missives: “Good job. But who the hell are these people? Their arguments are of a piece with Yasser Arafat’s. Next time, tackle the Arafat argument instead,” he admonished.

Alas, “The Feminism of Ludwig von Mises” is devoid of argument to tackle. From the fact that Mises taught and mentored capable lady scholars, the FEE.org* feminists have concluded that the Austrian-School economist “actively promoted the interests of women in academia” and “saw women intellectuals in Vienna as an undervalued human resource.” …

… Indeed, it takes a degree of provincialism unique to our country’s feminists to claim that a European gentleman, born in Austria-Hungary in the late 1800s, was one of them—a rib from the feminist fraternity’s ribcage. This writer grew up in Israel at a time when quite a few elderly, highly educated Austrian gentlemen were still around. Grandfather, a master chess player, hung out with these men in Tel-Aviv chess clubs and cafés. Having actually encountered this creature in his natural habitat, I put this to you, gentle reader:

The proposition that Ludwig von Mises was a feminist is an apodictic impossibility. …

… Read on. The complete column is “Libertarian Feminists Make A Move On Von Mises” now on WND.

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Comments On ‘Higher Education Is A Hard Row To Ho’

Education, Family, Feminism, Gender, libertarianism, Military, Morality, Ron Paul, Sex

Boundaries protect kids. Passing judgment is a very good thing indeed.

Here are replies to comments on EPJ, where “Higher Education Is A Hard Row To Ho” has been posted:

WRITES Nick Badalamenti, March 14, 2014 at 12:41 PM

“That’s private. Only for you to see and touch. To do that, you have to go to your room and close the door.”

That validates that my response to my four young girls, which has been almost identical to yours when they get curious about their privates- Thank you!

ILANA:

Glad, Nick. The thought of exposing these little kids to the corruption of full-on sex-ed (rampant in all schools, private too) is frightening. Kids show a fleeting interest. It’s not a signal to bombard them with the proverbial condoms, HIV-ed, the glories of diverse sexuality, etc. Let them be babies. At this age, they need to understand what is private and what is proper social behavior. That response conveyed both respect for the child’s person and for society’s codes of conduct (you don’t want your kid touching self in front of your guests—or imperiling herself with what some perv might take as lewd conduct). Boundaries protect kids.

Anonymous March 14, 2014 at 1:49 PM

A few things came to mind when reading this:

1) Ron Paul was a military doctor.

2) “Indeed, daddy’s girl is an open book. We know what the 18-year-old does and that she does it for the love of it.” Regardless that she also happens to enjoy it, didn’t she say she’s doing this to raise money for tuition?

3) I feel like the 2 comments below are pretty judgmental on your part. Isn’t the idea of freedom of speech that people are free to comment on things that the average person disagrees with? As Ron Paul said (paraphrasing) “we don’t have freedom of speech to talk about the weather”

“As corrupt as Miriam’s morals are, better to have been a ho for sale than a mercenary for Uncle Sam.”

“Thankfully, this writer’s adult daughter has never delivered so imbecilic a soliloquy and has taken care to be discreet about her private life.”

-Kevin

Reply

Anonymous March 14, 2014 at 4:33 PM

1) Ron Paul was drafted
2) So you are against speech that is judgemental?

Anonymous March 14, 2014 at 4:47 PM

Just as I suspected – you had no comeback for my 2nd point!

As far as your point on Ron Paul being drafted – Fair enough, though I guess one could argue that Dr. Paul could’ve tried to be a “conscientious objector” (though maybe he did try?)

On your point “so you are against speech that is judgmental?” – Nope. To be honest, I only mentioned it because clearly the point of the article was to talk about the liberty aspects of this story rather than the author’s opinion of right and wrong. In other words, saying her morals are “corrupt” adds nothing to the main point.

-Kevin

ILANA:

Anon: I’m not quite sure who’s who in the comments above, but, yes, Ron Paul was drafted. However, even if his military service were voluntary, from the fact that Dr. Paul served Uncle Sam it doesn’t follow that it is right, or that we all must support such service. I thought libertarians were supposed to be skeptical of ALL politicians, even the good ones.
Point # 2 about judgment is spot on (whoever made it). Why reach for the smelling-salts when you encounter judgment, as liberals do? Judging means to discern; “the formation of an opinion after consideration or deliberation.” The human species would not have survived so far if not judgment.
As to the comment about, “the point of the article was to talk about the liberty aspects of this story rather than the author’s opinion of right and wrong.” The point of the article is to talk about the points in the article, not only what is legal or illegal in libertarian law. Why the queasiness about the moral judgment in the column?

March 14, 2014 at 6:45 PM

Ideologues Battle Intellectuals Over ’12 Years a Slave’

Intellectualism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Literature, Political Correctness, Race, Ron Paul

Libertarian gush and tosh over the film “12 Years a Slave” is worse than juvenile; it’s anti-intellectual.

Anyone who asserts that the book is “one of the greatest autobiographies [he’s] ever read,” as this libertarian educator does, can’t be serious, and if he is serious, should not be taken seriously. (And what does the choice of this lackluster “literature” say about the Ron Paul Curriculum? Maybe The Curriculum should confine itself to economics and leave the teaching of literature to those who know and love the canon of English literature.)

White Americans—liberals, conservatives and libertarians—appear constitutionally primed to convulse hysterically over all things racial. (Check out how Ann Coulter’s C-SPAN CPUKE audience goes wild when she insists the GOP is the party of blacks and Hispanics.)

Since “the 1852 publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “the slave-narrative craze” has been going strong.

An ideologue is not necessarily an intellectual. The responsibility of a public intellectual, in this case, is to provide an intellectual appraisal of a cultural product. The ideologue who isn’t an intellectual will struggle with the task (not that his readers or students will know the difference).

Not suffering the foregoing deficit, Steve Sailer nails “12 Years a Slave,” about which I ventured that “I’m no more inclined to turn to [its star] Lupita Nyong perform reruns of ‘Roots,’ for entertainment, than I am to subject myself to Oprah Winfrey and her M.O.P.E. (Most Oppressed Person Ever) ‘Butler.’”

If to go by Steve Sailer’s superb review, truth too has been lost in the gush and tosh over “12 Years a Slave.” (Gary North glosses over these “few discrepancies.”)

Writes Sailer: “12 Years a Slave is hailed by critics as a long-awaited breakthrough that finally dares to mention the subject of slavery after decades of the entertainment industry being controlled by the South. Yet as cinema encyclopedist Leonard Maltin notes”:

12 Years A Slave is a remake. What’s more, the original television film was directed by the celebrated Gordon Parks. Why no one seems to remember this is a mystery to me, yet all too typical of what I’ll call media amnesia. It first aired on PBS in 1984 as Solomon Northup’s Odyssey, reached a wider audience the following year when it was repeated as an installment of American Playhouse, and made its video debut under the title Half Slave, Half Free.

“You can watch the 1984 version online for $2.99.

The remake has more whippings, though.”

AND,

… it’s built upon a fourth-rate screenplay that might have embarrassed Horatio Alger. Screenwriter John Ridley’s imitation Victorian dialogue is depressingly bad, reminiscent of the sub-Shakespearean lines John Wayne had to deliver as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror.

The message behind the ongoing enshrinement of the rather amateurish 12 Years a Slave is that the cultural whippings of white folk for the sins of their great-great-great-great-grandfathers will continue until morale improves.

Steve McQueen (an art-house filmmaker who is a black Brit of West Indian background) directs 12 Years a Slave in a sort of minor league Passion of the Christ manner. (Incidentally, it’s obnoxious for anybody involved with movies today to call himself “Steve McQueen” instead of, say, “Steven McQueen.” In contrast, there were two 20th-century writers named Thomas Wolfe, but the second had the good manners to call himself “Tom” to minimize confusion.)

Some of the appeal to critics is that Northern whites are shown as saints of racial sensitivity in the film’s preposterous first 20 minutes. 12 Years a Slave opens in 1841 with Solomon Northup (stolidly played by the Anglo-Nigerian actor Chiwetel Ejiofor) being effusively admired by his white neighbors in Saratoga, New York. Northup is a model of prosperous bourgeois respectability, always doffing his top hat to his white peers while out riding with his wife and children in an elegant carriage. (Watch 0:24 to 0:35 in the trailer.)

How could he afford that?

Well, actually, he didn’t and couldn’t.

A glance at Northup’s ghostwritten 1853 memoir makes clear that in 1841, rather than being a pillar of this Yankee community, he was an unemployed fiddler dragged down by his own “shiftlessness”: …

READ THE REVIEW.