“I had catfish for the second time. It was delicious, just like the first time.” – Mitt Romney
“And I’m really enjoying this so called … ‘iced cream.’” – Montgomery Burns
Tag Archives | Democracy
Anarchists Under Ron Paul’s Bed
One of the makers of the Anarchism in America video (about which I’ve previously blogged) has a piece up at HoughPough on Ron Paul, Libertarianism, and the Anarchist Connection. Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner, Ezra Heywood, Angela Heywood, Emma Goldman, Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Karl Hess, and Murray Bookchin all get name-checked.
The friendly words quoted from Bookchin do not reflect his later views (on which I’ve blogged glancingly).
Happy Abolish-the-Presidency Day!
Thickness Gone Strange
Walter Block, who has long resisted the idea of thick libertarianism, now seems to have embraced it. In a recent piece, Walter writes: “I distinguish between being a libertarian, and agreeing with (virtually all) libertarian principles. The former implies that you act so as to promote liberty.”
Now clearly one can abide by the non-aggression principle without acting to promote liberty; the NAP is a purely negative duty, while an obligation to promote liberty would be positive. So Walter now thinks that being a libertarian involves commitments beyond non-aggression! (Indeed, that makes his libertarianism even thicker than mine, as I’ve never made acting on such commitments a condition for being a libertarian.)
Alas, Walter invokes this distinction in order to show that Wendy McElroy is not a libertarian – on the grounds that she does not support the candidacy of Ron Paul. Walter makes this argument despite the fact that Paul supports a number of policies that Walter would agree with Wendy are anti-libertarian (including anti-abortion laws, anti-immigration laws, and most notoriously the existence of the state itself). If we anarchists can lose our libertarian credentials for refusing to support a statist, something’s gone wrong somewhere.
Caffeinated Free-Market Anti-Capitalism
Book Talk/Signing:
7:00 p.m., Wednesday, 30 November 2011, at the Gnu’s Room bookstore/café in Auburn, Alabama
Co-Editor Charles Johnson and major contributor Roderick Long to the book Markets Not Capitalism (2011) will be at The Gnu’s Room for a discussion of the topics addressed in the book. The economic crisis needs fresh new responses, which emphasize the ways in which poverty and economic inequality have resulted from collusion between government and big business, which has enriched a few corporate giants at the expense of the rest of us. Rather than turning back to politics, the authors argue that working people must begin to free themselves of the mistakes of the past, and work together to take back control over their own lives and livelihoods through individual freedom, mutual exchange, and nonviolent grassroots social activism.
I’ve Found a Candidate I Can Support!
(CHT Tennyson.)