Reason Magazine planning another article on the newsletters

[MsDoodahs]

It sucks that bullshit like this affects the rest of us RP supporters that dont give fuck about the libertarians.

+1.

 

[melianthus]

Tom Palmer is definitely an attack dog, but there are valid reasons to question some of the things he does. I am not saying people should come to the same conclusions but there is stuff there to look at.

Your explanation of the difference basically says lifestyle libertarians support individual rights for all and equal treatment under the law. Paleos have a problem with that?

You could say maybe "cosmos" are more obsessed with drugs ( I would say they are more concerned with the government terrorizing drug users) and gay rights. Whereas 'paleos" are obsessed with States Rights and the Confederacy.

Fair?

I am just a regular old libertarian. If CATO is really "out to get Ron Paul" I'm not down with that. But on the whole I'm not going to buy into the bizarre sentiment here that LRC, LvMI, and their non-libertarian associates are some Angels beyond reproach while CATO and reason are some evil band of neocons.[/QUOTE

In one of my posts, I stated that the paleo wing would NOT support laws against lifestyle choices, but that it is not the highest thing on their agenda.

And Ron Paul is one of those people "obsessed" with states rights. Have you read the 9th and 10th amendments? People who are constitutionalist should be obsessed with states rights.

And their obsession is not with the confederacy, it is with the legitimacy of secession.

Even if Lew Rockwell was the biggest jerk on the planet, it wouldn't explain Tom Palmer's continuous and incessant attacks on Rockwell and the Mises Institute. Palmer has made it a regular part of his blog. The man seems to have a mania where Rockwell is concerned.

And the point is NOT whether one side is made of angels and the other of devils. The point is that the CATO people DID get those newsletters for the guys at the New Republic. I don't think their purpose is to bring down Ron Paul. I think their purpose is to continue their attack on Lew Rockwell.

 

[melianthus]

+1

I have been a long time Reason and Cato reader and contributer. I will continue to support them. Their philosophy is more consistent with mine than Ron Paul's.

I will continue to support Ron Paul so long as his contribution to a free society is positive. If he manages to associate Libertarians with racism in the minds of the general population, he will be a liability to the freedom movement. At that point I will no longer support him.

My loyalty is principle not party or person.

It's a shame that Cato and Reason have no loyalty to principle. They both sold out on the war.

 

[Mises]

I wanted to add some words on paleolibertarianism.

Libertarianism requires deference to the non-aggression axiom. This means that another person's actions cannot be interfered with unless they threaten your person or property. Thus, all voluntary and consenual activities must be respectd - including such things as drug use, sexual expression, religious views, and voluntary exchange. There is no justification, according to libertarian doctrine, for interference in these activities.

Paleolobertarians agree with this 100%. However, many mainstream or self-described cosmopolitan libertarians, see libertarianism as utilitarian in nature. While expressing belief in the non-aggression principle, they believe it should be the goal of libertarians to posit a certain outcome in society while promoting libertarian values. Namely, they wish to see sexual, racial, and cultural diversity celebrated while promoting "tolerance" of all lifestyles. Thus, they sometimes favor laws against discrimination (which paloes say are not justified according to the non-aggression axiom), and are hypersensitive to any issues connected with race.

Paleolibertarians apply the non-aggression principle universally, and would defend the right of a racist to be a racist, provided he does not violate anybody else's rights. They would defend the right of the bigot to be a bigot, the right of the religiously intolerant to be able to express their views, the right of the homophobe to rail against homosexuality - but not their right to aggress against any individuals.

Essentially, the difference between the two groups is one of preference: culturally liberal libertarians would like to see a celebration and general acceptance of alternative lifestyles. Paleolibs are generally culturally conservative in their personal views and do not accept as a tenet of libertarianism that they must alter their beliefs about lifestyles and attitudes they disagree with - only their actions and view of government policy.

True, paleolibs tend to be culturally more conservative, tend to be more religious, but there are numerous exceptions to this general rule. On the whole, however, cosmopolitan libertarians simply find it distasteful that a libertarian would say that homosexual behavior is wrong, or that drug abuse is morally decadent, etc...yet if one is a libertarian then one must agree that people are free to hold these beliefs.

And with respect to immigration - paleolibertarians are divided. The question being, what happens when you have a legitimate action occuring that is being facilitated by the state's welfare policies but is simultaneously harming people already under the thumb of heavy taxation? All libertarians agree that, ideally, there should be no restriction on immigration. But is immigration that is induced by government policy that effectively raises the financial burden on others desirable? What do we do in this case?

It is wholly legitimate for libertarians to have differing views on the solution to this matter. If the state (according to the federal and state constitutions) is charged with the administration of public property, then the owners of such property are justified in asking the stewards to regulate who may enter that property. Or, do the people not own the property? I'm not saying I agree or disagree with either side - just trying to illustrate how some issues are not as clear cut and libertarians might come down on either side of the matter.

 

[melianthus]

I wanted to add some words on paleolibertarianism.

EXCELLENT POST!

 

[loupeznik]

It's a shame that Cato and Reason have no loyalty to principle. They both sold out on the war.

post a link for a pro-war Reason article. I'd like to see it.

I am not saying that Reason is infallible. I am saying that thus far I support what they have written. ...mostly

 

[Hook]

post a link for a pro-war Reason article. I'd like to see it.

I am not saying that Reason is infallible. I am saying that thus far I support what they have written. ...mostly

I agree. I haven't seen many pro-war articles in Reason, and I have been a subscriber for 4 years.

Maybe I missed an issue?

 

[LinearChaos]

I think some people need to go back and watch the interview with Blitzer on CNN again, only this time have your dictionary open and you can figure out the reason why Paul is not "throwing Lew Rockwell under the bus", or anything up the sort. The two key words are "Witch hunt", in case you missed them:

Witch Hunt:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Witch+hunt

witch-hunt also witch hunt (wchhnt)
n.
An investigation carried out ostensibly to uncover subversive activities but actually used to harass and undermine those with differing views.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt

The term "witch-hunt" is often used to refer to similarly panic-induced searches for perceived wrong-doers other than witches. The best known example is probably the McCarthyist search for communists during the Cold War.

Political usage

In modern terminology 'witch-hunt' has acquired usage referring to the act of seeking and persecuting any perceived enemy, particularly when the search is conducted using extreme measures and with little regard to actual guilt or innocence.

Political Confirmation Process The term has also been used to describe allegedly harsh treatment or investigations of those undergoing the political confirmation process of U.S. presidential appointees.

Or go and read Arthur Miller's famous play The Crucible.

 

[courtney]

Is Tom Palmer running for President of The United States?

If he was, then you can rest assured that his "sordid" activities would end up in the public eye.

Especially if over the course of decades he were publishing a newsletter under his name about those festivities....

 

[Young_Apprentice]

I wanted to add some words on paleolibertarianism.

Libertarianism requires deference to the non-aggression axiom. This means that another person's actions cannot be interfered with unless they threaten your person or property. Thus, all voluntary and consenual activities must be respectd - including such things as drug use, sexual expression, religious views, and voluntary exchange. There is no justification, according to libertarian doctrine, for interference in these activities.

Paleolobertarians agree with this 100%. However, many mainstream or self-described cosmopolitan libertarians, see libertarianism as utilitarian in nature. While expressing belief in the non-aggression principle, they believe it should be the goal of libertarians to posit a certain outcome in society while promoting libertarian values. Namely, they wish to see sexual, racial, and cultural diversity celebrated while promoting "tolerance" of all lifestyles. Thus, they sometimes favor laws against discrimination (which paloes say are not justified according to the non-aggression axiom), and are hypersensitive to any issues connected with race.

Paleolibertarians apply the non-aggression principle universally, and would defend the right of a racist to be a racist, provided he does not violate anybody else's rights. They would defend the right of the bigot to be a bigot, the right of the religiously intolerant to be able to express their views, the right of the homophobe to rail against homosexuality - but not their right to aggress against any individuals.

Essentially, the difference between the two groups is one of preference: culturally liberal libertarians would like to see a celebration and general acceptance of alternative lifestyles. Paleolibs are generally culturally conservative in their personal views and do not accept as a tenet of libertarianism that they must alter their beliefs about lifestyles and attitudes they disagree with - only their actions and view of government policy.

True, paleolibs tend to be culturally more conservative, tend to be more religious, but there are numerous exceptions to this general rule. On the whole, however, cosmopolitan libertarians simply find it distasteful that a libertarian would say that homosexual behavior is wrong, or that drug abuse is morally decadent, etc...yet if one is a libertarian then one must agree that people are free to hold these beliefs.

And with respect to immigration - paleolibertarians are divided. The question being, what happens when you have a legitimate action occuring that is being facilitated by the state's welfare policies but is simultaneously harming people already under the thumb of heavy taxation? All libertarians agree that, ideally, there should be no restriction on immigration. But is immigration that is induced by government policy that effectively raises the financial burden on others desirable? What do we do in this case?

It is wholly legitimate for libertarians to have differing views on the solution to this matter. If the state (according to the federal and state constitutions) is charged with the administration of public property, then the owners of such property are justified in asking the stewards to regulate who may enter that property. Or, do the people not own the property? I'm not saying I agree or disagree with either side - just trying to illustrate how some issues are not as clear cut and libertarians might come down on either side of the matter.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it further in depth.

 

[LinearChaos]

Especially if over the course of decades he were publishing a newsletter under his name about those festivities....

What are you still doing here? Still trolling the rEVOLution I see... Shouldn't you be on the Obama forums?

 

[courtney]

What are you still doing here?

Looking for answers, LinearChaos, looking for answers....

 

[LinearChaos]

Looking for answers, LinearChaos, looking for answers....

liar.

 

[MsDoodahs]

I agree. I haven't seen many pro-war articles in Reason, and I have been a subscriber for 4 years.

Maybe I missed an issue?

You haven't been a subscriber for quite long enough. Search at Reason.com for this guy's name.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/32065.html

No more 9/11s
The case for invading Iraq

Brink Lindsey | October 29, 2002

John Mueller tries to make light of Iraq. "Feeble," "inept," "pathetic," and "daffy" are some of the adjectives he uses to describe the blood-soaked, predatory regime now in power there. The implication is that only the paranoid could find in Saddam Hussein's buffoonery any cause for serious concern.

Well, I beg to differ. Iraq is no joke: The crimes that the Baathist regime there has committed and may intend to commit in the future are deadly serious business. Under the reign of Saddam Hussein, Iraq has invaded two of its neighbors, lobbed missiles at two other countries in the region, systematically defied U.N. resolutions that demand its disarmament, fired on U.S. and coalition aircraft thousands of times over the past decade, and committed atrocious human rights abuses against its own citizens—including the waging of genocidal chemical warfare against Iraqi Kurds. In short, this is a regime that is responsible for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of deaths.

Meanwhile, Iraq has a long record of active support for international terrorist groups. Indeed, it has apparently staged terrorist attacks of its own directly against the United States—here I am speaking of Iraq's likely involvement in the attempted assassination of former President Bush in Kuwait in 1993.

Most ominously, Iraq has been engaged for many years in the monomaniacal pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. It reportedly has significant stockpiles of biological weapons, and its aggressive, large-scale nuclear program is thought to be at most a few years away from success. The fact that Iraq has been willing to endure ongoing sanctions—and thus the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars in oil revenue—rather than dismantle its WMD programs shows the ferocity of its commitment to maximizing its destructive capabilities.

In light of the above, I would support military action against Iraq even if 9/11 had never happened and there were no such thing as Al Qaeda. After all, I supported the Gulf War back in 1991 in the hope of toppling Saddam Hussein's regime before it fulfilled its nuclear ambitions. Unfortunately, quagmire was plucked from the jaws of victory in that earlier conflict, and so today we are faced with concluding its unfinished business. In my view, standing by with "patient watchfulness" while predatory, anti-Western terror states become nuclear powers is irresponsible and dangerous folly.

As to the headline question, "What's the rush?," my reply is: North Korea. In 1994 President Clinton, with the help of former President Carter, swept the Korean threat under the rug and trusted that "nature," or something, would deal with that "devil du jour." Now North Korea's psychopathic regime informs us that it has nuclear weapons—a fact that vastly complicates any efforts to prevent the situation from getting even worse. We can look forward to similar complications with Iraq unless we act soon.

The case for action against Iraq is further strengthened by the unfortunate facts that 9/11 did happen and Al Qaeda does exist. Here is the grim reality: Radical Islamism is in arms against the West, and its fanatical followers have pledged their lives to killing as many of the infidel as they possibly can. American office workers in New York and Washington, French seamen in Yemen, Australian tourists in Bali, Russian theatergoers in Moscow—nobody is safe. However exactly this conflict arose, it is now in full flame. And let there be no mistake: This is a fight to the death. Either we crush radical Islamism's global jihad, or thousands—or even millions—more Americans will die.

Iraq occupies a strategic position in the war against Islamist terror along a number of different dimensions. First, Iraq's WMD programs threaten to stock the armory of Al Qaeda & Company. Saddam Hussein's regime has a long and inglorious history of reckless aggression and grievous miscalculation. The decision to use terrorist intermediaries to unleash, say, Iraqi bioweapons against the United States strikes me as an entirely plausible scenario—assuming that Iraq's leadership can convince itself that the attack could be made with "plausible deniability." Given that more than a year has gone by since last fall's anthrax letter scare and we still have absolutely no idea who was responsible, the threat posed by Iraq's WMD programs is far from idle. It is, in fact, intolerable.

Second, the resolution—one way or another—of our longstanding conflict with Iraq will have vitally important repercussions in the larger war against terror. If we proceeded to remove the Baathist regime from power, we would make it extremely clear that the United States means business in dealing with terrorism and its sponsors. All those countries that continue, more than a year after 9/11, to demonstrate their incapacity or unwillingness to root out the terrorists in their midst (e.g., Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, etc.) would have newly strengthened incentives to do the right thing. On the other hand, if all the tough talk against Iraq turned out to have been hot air, U.S. credibility would sustain a major blow. Al Qaeda would be emboldened by perceived American weakness, and countries that have to balance fear of the United States against fear of Islamists at home would all take a big shift toward taking U.S. displeasure less seriously.

Finally, regime change in Iraq offers the opportunity to attack radical Islamism at its roots: the dismal prevalence of political repression and economic stagnation throughout the Muslim world. The establishment of a reasonably liberal and democratic Iraq could serve as a model for positive change throughout the region. Of course, the successful rebuilding of Iraq will not be easy, but we cannot shrink from necessary tasks simply because they are hard. And we cannot simply assume that "nature" will bring freedom to a region that has never known it on a time scale consistent with safeguarding American lives.

Mueller's "What, me worry?" attitude captures perfectly the prevailing opinion about Afghanistan circa September 10, 2001. The Taliban were more a punch line than a serious foreign-policy issue; only the most fevered imagination could see any threat to us in that miserable, dilapidated country. The next day, three thousand Americans were dead.

We can't let that happen again.

------

Pro war enough for ya?

"I would support military action against Iraq even if 9/11 had never happened and there were no such thing as Al Qaeda. After all, I supported the Gulf War back in 1991"

<shudder>

Here's his bio ... from where else? Cato

http://www.cato.org/people/lindsey.html

 

[Matt]

I wanted to add some words on paleolibertarianism.

Libertarianism requires deference to the non-aggression axiom. This means that another person's actions cannot be interfered with unless they threaten your person or property. Thus, all voluntary and consenual activities must be respectd - including such things as drug use, sexual expression, religious views, and voluntary exchange. There is no justification, according to libertarian doctrine, for interference in these activities.

Paleolobertarians agree with this 100%. However, many mainstream or self-described cosmopolitan libertarians, see libertarianism as utilitarian in nature. While expressing belief in the non-aggression principle, they believe it should be the goal of libertarians to posit a certain outcome in society while promoting libertarian values. Namely, they wish to see sexual, racial, and cultural diversity celebrated while promoting "tolerance" of all lifestyles. Thus, they sometimes favor laws against discrimination (which paloes say are not justified according to the non-aggression axiom), and are hypersensitive to any issues connected with race.

Paleolibertarians apply the non-aggression principle universally, and would defend the right of a racist to be a racist, provided he does not violate anybody else's rights. They would defend the right of the bigot to be a bigot, the right of the religiously intolerant to be able to express their views, the right of the homophobe to rail against homosexuality - but not their right to aggress against any individuals.

Essentially, the difference between the two groups is one of preference: culturally liberal libertarians would like to see a celebration and general acceptance of alternative lifestyles. Paleolibs are generally culturally conservative in their personal views and do not accept as a tenet of libertarianism that they must alter their beliefs about lifestyles and attitudes they disagree with - only their actions and view of government policy.

True, paleolibs tend to be culturally more conservative, tend to be more religious, but there are numerous exceptions to this general rule. On the whole, however, cosmopolitan libertarians simply find it distasteful that a libertarian would say that homosexual behavior is wrong, or that drug abuse is morally decadent, etc...yet if one is a libertarian then one must agree that people are free to hold these beliefs.

And with respect to immigration - paleolibertarians are divided. The question being, what happens when you have a legitimate action occuring that is being facilitated by the state's welfare policies but is simultaneously harming people already under the thumb of heavy taxation? All libertarians agree that, ideally, there should be no restriction on immigration. But is immigration that is induced by government policy that effectively raises the financial burden on others desirable? What do we do in this case?

It is wholly legitimate for libertarians to have differing views on the solution to this matter. If the state (according to the federal and state constitutions) is charged with the administration of public property, then the owners of such property are justified in asking the stewards to regulate who may enter that property. Or, do the people not own the property? I'm not saying I agree or disagree with either side - just trying to illustrate how some issues are not as clear cut and libertarians might come down on either side of the matter.

Great post!

 

[dougkeenan]

Thanks for the link MsDoodahs.