UPDATED: The Kochtopus Convenes, Again

China, Free Markets, libertarianism, Liberty, Neoconservatism, Objectivism, Political Philosophy, South-Africa

Last year, RT interviewed me about “Libertarianism Lite,” in anticipation of what is supposed to be libertarian officialdom’s Event of the Year, Freedom Fest.

The Kochtopus is set to convene again. With the exceptions of Tom Woods and Peter Schiff, it’s the same old guard, bedecked with a bimbo version of Penn Jillette for hip value.

The Andrew Napolitano-Koch Connection has been established. (See LewRockwekll.com.) I was never a huge fan of Freedom Watch, which, in my opinion, had that distinct CATO/Beltway, left-libertarian bent.

By way of an example, take the “War Street Journal’s” Stephen Moore, a natural star of any Kochtopus Convention. Moore was forever appearing in furtherance of freedom on Judge Napolitano’s Freedom Watch.

No wonder Moore, like Neal Boortz, is Hannity’s in-house freedom fighter too. One of Moore’s books was “Bullish on Bush: How the Ownership Society Is Making America Richer.”

“Bush’s bailout society” was an instantiation of the principles upon which “Bush’s ownership society” was founded: credit for those who are not creditworthy. But not even a full-throated support of the Bush affirmative action in housing loans amounts to an indictment among America’s incestuous (oft-libertarian) teletwits.

If you’re after some dry-as-dust, dispassionate, desiccated disquisitions on conventional aspects of the free market about which we all agree—and which Mises and Rothbard already covered better—Freedom Fest is the “happening” place for you.

My guess is that a demonstration for George Zimmerman around the corner would draw a real crowd.

UPDATE: In Reply to a thread on Facebook, written by writers who can’t tell their Left from their Right. Both of the FF speakers lauded on the thread are open-border, left libertarians, and one belongs to an outfit that honored the decidedly anti-capitalism Desmund Tutu, with whom I once took afternoon tea, as he was a friend of my father’s, before “forgetting” father’s contribution to “The Struggle.” It’s in my book; a book about the reality in the New South Africa, as opposed to the parallel reality peddled by left libertarian think tanks.

The other chap is known for his anti-Israel irrationalism, exposed in “Libertarians Who Loathe Israel” & “FOAMING AT THE MOUTH OVER ISRAEL.” Being so “intellectually honest” (NOT), this one character has practically boycotted all my work from the shrinking forums he controls, even though it jibes with his, for the most (although mine is actually fun to read). Intellectual honesty, Yeah, right.

UPDATED: Plain IPO, Or A Planet Unto Itself?

Business, Capitalism, Democracy, Internet, Technology

I’ve been debating futilely with someone about the value of purchasing Facebook stock, pursuant to the IPO (Initial Public Offering).

In my opinion—and I am not a stockbroker or an expert; just a rational thinker who uses (as opposed to hangs-out on) Facebook—at $38 to $42 a share, Facebook stock is not that expensive.

You have to be bereft of an imagination, and/or someone who has never used Facebook to productive ends—not to realize that Facebook is no hot air, Dot.com financial balloon.

Facebook is a planet unto itself, a global, social and political tool; a revolution.

UPDATE: I would compare the invention of Facebook to the discovery of a planet. The products of many a dot.com come and go; Facebook is here to stay. I said that to my better half a short while after joining FB last year (2011). Bono might be “a chap who fronts a three-chord band of unimpressive droners,” but he knows a good business deal when he sees one.

UPADTED: Porno Mom And Her Freaky Family (The Noble Savage Model)

America, Celebrity, Ethics, Family, Gender, Psychiatry, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, Sex

The following is an excerpt from “Mother’s Day Disturbia: Porno Mom And Her Sucky Kid”:

“Unseemliness” is how Charles Murray might call the May 2012 Time Magazine cover, genuflecting to modern motherhood in America. In “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010,” the libertarian political scientist mentions the “collapse of a sturdy code” [of conduct] in American society, rendering the nouveau riche upper class indistinguishable in that sense from the ever-accreting lower class.

“Obscene” better captures the mien of the Madonna and child that brazenly stare into the camera—and at America. TIME’s cover-models are Jamie Lynne Grumet, 26, self-styled, “attachment” parent, and Aram, her chunky, garden gnome of a child. …

In any event, Aram is a real feeder, if you know what I mean.

Grumet junior is large for his tender age of four. His gaze is cunning, never cute. The miniature man already reaches up to his non-gnomic mom’s waist. To help Aram reach the prized pair—mom’s perky breasts—TIME’s artistic director has used a stool.

All the better to satisfy mom’s “maternal” urges, “Nudge nudge, wink wink. Say no-more, say no-more.”

One other tender touch: Porno-mom’s pelvis is tilted slightly in the direction of her gnome’s grubby hands.

At this stage, bullying would be the best corrective intervention this kid could hope for. In a better world—one in which propriety had not been pulverized—odious Aram would be taunted mercilessly at play school. Were he to make it that far, boob-boy is sure to be smacked about the head by a few manly college boys, later in life.

For now, Aram remains the play thing of bigger bullies, caught as he is in a maelstrom of mommy dearest’s making. Horrified, television spectators watched the advocacy for the onansim known as “attachment parenting,” with the fascination with which you’d watch maggots crawl in-and-out of a CSI corpse.

“A lot of people say, you know, you can’t really be intimate with your husband if you’re co-sleeping and … those are kind of myths, too,” vaporized Mrs. Grumet on NBC’s Today show, to the leering approval of the mad-hatter behind Jamie Lynne Grumet’s Method Parenting.

Dr. William Sears was on set to dispense Delphic advice to moms who don’t measure-up. “These are tools, not rules,” this tool of a doctor effused.

Viewers of this uniquely American vaudeville were assured by Mrs. Grumet that…

Read the complete column, “Mother’s Day Disturbia: Porno Mom And Her Sucky Kid,” now on RT.

If you’d like to feature this column in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

Support this writer’s work by clicking to “Recommend,” “Tweet” and “Share” “Return To Reason” on WND, and the “Paleolibertarian Column” on RT.

UPDATE: THE NOBLE SAVAGE MODEL. There is no way that what this “boob of very little brain” is doing is right. She has conditioned the boy to be a nuisance and a cling-on to satisfy her (possibly not maternal) needs.

Somehow people defer to Third-World women as a models to emulate. Why? Is it because backward is more natural? As I point out in my book, Into The Cannibal’s Pot, these women often breast-feed their toddlers even when they themselves are HIV positive, for fear of being stigmatized by their tribesmen and women. Is this model of magical, irrational thinking one that the morons of the western media are promoting?

Besides, in primitive, poor societies, what you see are women who are forced to let starving toddlers, who might weigh what a one-year-old western toddler would, hang on their shriveled breasts—breasts that yield very little by way of fluid. This “practice” is dictated, mostly, by starvation.

The Noble Savage argument is ignoble. It is no model for advanced, western societies. All Arguments from Primitive Cultures for the “onanism” of “attachment parenting” are plain pathetic.

Blending In With The Girls

Barack Obama, Celebrity, Conservatism, Hollywood, Intellectualism, Media, Pop-Culture

BARACK OBAMA IS. So says one of Bill O’Reilly’s resident junk-science experts. For once, Bill’s body language bimbo makes sense. In demeanor (and dentition), Obama is one of the girls. He’s blending in, said Tonya Reiman, down to the way he crosses his legs, lady like.

O’Reilly, who devotes a large part of the program to recounting his many appearances on mindless forums like The View—and is among the conservatives who considers batty Bawbawa Walters worth courting—pointed out that he seldom crosses his (very long) legs when he visits the ladies. And he always leans in aggressively.

No doubt, O’Reilly, who is über-manly, has swagger. Obama, more of a metrosexual, saunters.

Rex Murphy, easily Canada’s finest political writer, has furnished us with the best description of the Bill O’Reilly Show: “the Shangri-La of Socratic disinterest.”

O’Reilly is intellectually incurious, chronically so. For scary, however, nothing beats a president who knows the ins-and-outs of the Kardashians, the most rear-ended reality stars on American TV.

BHO has more than once demonstrated—and made excuses for—how closely he watches a family that is repulsive, freaky, morally rudderless, inappropriately sexual and depraved. In the past, he had also entertained the big-boned sister (please don’t me make Google her name) and her basketball husband at the White House.

UNRELATED UPDATE: To Nick: BAB is a low- or close-to-no-budget operation, written and “programed” by me, with the help of donations from a few generous readers. Unless our fortunes change here—not least that this scribe is no longer the sole “programer”—we’ll have to make do with the BAB format as it stands, I’m afraid.