Category Archives: libertarianism

UPDATED: ‘Libertarian Top 50 Sites’ ‘Misses’ Mercer

Barely A Blog, Ilana Mercer, IlanaMercer.com, Israel, libertarianism, Media, Political Philosophy

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.

UPDATE II: ‘The Myth That Democracy = Freedom’ (Man Up As I Have!)

Constitution, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Democracy, Ilana Mercer, libertarianism, Political Correctness, Race, Racism, South-Africa

Written by Professor Tom DiLorenzo, author of The Real Lincoln, on the hugely popular, iconic, website of LewRockwell.com, there is a wonderful review of Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa.

“One thing that Into the Cannibal’s Pot demonstrates is that democracy alone is not at all desirable if it is not attached to a culture that highly values the protection of life, liberty and property. The new rulers of South Africa do not. South Africa competes with Iraq and Colombia for the title of ‘the most violent’ country of the world. The homicide rate in South Africa today is twenty times what it is in the U.S., as Mercer documents. A rape occurs every twenty-six seconds. The annual murder rate in South Africa has increased three-and-a-half fold since the ending of the reprehensible apartheid regime. There are more than 52,000 rapes/year in South Africa today, ten percent of which victimize infants because of the bizarre superstition that is widely believed there that sex with a virgin is a cure for AIDS…”

MORE.

A question that a reader had posed concerned secession. The reader took secession in the South African context (my book cites a classic book by that title published by the Mises Institute, and edited by David Gordon) to include only the Afrikaners. Of course, secessionists may include all people who are deemed desirable, no matter their color, religion or creed.

As I said on a radio show the other day, a secessionist state could incorporate any individual approved by by private property owners—blacks, whites, colored, Indians, pygmies, farmers, accountants, whomever—anyone with the skills and disposition property owners and their proxies saw fit to include in the arrangement. But a seceding state would defend itself vigorously against bad elements. I also wrote that it was not for me, an expat, to give territorial content to that state.

In addition, I made the point in the book that the much-revered South African Constitution is a horrible document; it has a section devoted to the “Limitation of Rights.” That section provides philosophical imprimatur to the destruction of property currently under way. I also make it clear that, whereby our overlords who art in DC flout the will of our Founding Fathers and our constitution—South Africa’s ruling, dominant-party-in-perpetuity is faithful, in a sort of sick way, to that country’s foul constitution and to the will of the majority.

UPDATE I (July 22): Westie: Would you put this exact comment you wrote hereunder on Amazon, please? The best way to raise awareness of the issues and the book’s angle is via Amazon. I appreciate and reply to every comment I get (a LOT!). But readers here already know the power of this pen. Let others know via Amazon.

UPDATE II (JuLy 23): MAN-UP AS I HAVE.

Cuan: As one of the few privileged individuals who’ve received a book for the purpose of writing multiple reviews—in the plural—is there any chance that you might actually finally share these insights where they will make a difference, on Amazon!!!??? That was an expectation that came with a review copy from a cash-strapped operation such is mine. It is the least a reviewer can do: simply copy and paste to Amazon these insights you keep posting on BAB (and others send to my email). On this forum, we understand what you and others keep repeating. What good does it do to speak in an echo chamber; to preach to the converted? What will it take to get you and the rest to do the right thing by this book and its mission?

This woman has manned-up. A few good men have. But where are the rest, especially the South Africans, who are best able to affirms their experience as captured in this book, at great cost (professional and other) to its author?

On RT (Russian Television), Thursday

Ilana Mercer, Ilana On Radio & TV, IlanaMercer.com, libertarianism, Liberty, Media

I’ll be on RT, the global Russian television news network, tomorrow Thursday, July 13, to discuss “Libertarianism Lite.” The segment is the daily newscast with Kristine Frazao. It airs at 4:00PM Eastern Time (1:00 PM Pacific).

Do click to “Like” the YouTube clip of the segment later, even if this scribe (who is not your typical SE Cupp-like circus animal) bungles it up.

RT, its hosts and producers, is the real deal when it comes to out-of-mainstream thinking.

More Mercer media announcements here.

Positive-Law Arguments For The Anthony Outcome

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Justice, Law, libertarianism, Natural Law

Of course, “Caylee’s Law,” Radley Balko points out, is a horrible idea. Stupid too. However, to neglect real evidence because one is against the death penalty is as horrible and stupid, if not more so. These are separate issues.

Alan Dershowitz has been arguing that the Casey Anthony verdict is an embodiment of “our legal system.” In making this case, Dershowitz alludes, curiously, to the positive law, not to any natural-law aspect of the American legal system, or to this woman’s prosecution.

To support his view of the impetus of America’s legal system, Dershowitz (on Huckabee), for example, touted the Exclusionary Rule as exemplifying his view of the impetus of America’s legal system. (I say “curiously,” because libertarians seem not to be distinguishing positive- from negative-law arguments in support of the jury’s innocent ruling.)

The Exclusionary Rule is a technicality tarted up as a real right. Hardly libertarian—at least not if one is a proponent of the natural law.

In the same vein, a procedural violation of the Fourth Amendment, say, an improper search, can get evidence of guilt—-a bloodied knife or a smoking gun—-barred from being presented at trial. Fail to Mirandize a murderer properly, and his confession will be tossed out. Such procedural defaults are very often used to suppress immutable physical facts, thus serving to subvert the spirit of the law and natural justice.

More minted “rights” are “consular rights.” A procedural default such as the failure to apprise a defendant of his consular contacts is never a violation of a natural right. “Consular rights” are of a piece with Miranda rights and the Exclusionary Rule. Again, these are technicalities tarted up as real rights.

Might these gaps of understanding between libertarians touch on the distinction, in our multi-factioned movement, between the hardcore, life-liberty-property classical liberal, and civil libertarianism and “libertarianism lite”?

Dershowitz is a civil libertarian who once conflated the natural law with the law of the jungle.