Matt Welch, Thursday:
Who, precisely, is being intimidated with violence here? The dudes showing up to town hall meetings with licensed firearms are not brandishing them (contrary to the fantasia of Scripps-Howard columnists), not (as far as I’m aware) making verbal threats to anyone, and not getting anywhere near elected officials, thanks in part to law enforcement who are hyper-aware of their presence. The closest thing we have to town hall “intimidation” by an armed man is Ron Paul supporter (and onetime Hit & Run commenter?) William Kostric (pictured) displaying a Thomas Jefferson quote that I was first made conscious of by lefty opponents of George W. Bush.
Matt Welch, 27 hours later:
I just had the world’s most delicious Arizona Grille sandwich, complete with chicken, roasted red peppers, and chipotle mayo on a focaccia roll, washed down by some three-dollar carrot juice. It was at my neighborhood supermarket, a Whole Foods, where 10 or so protesters stood outside trying to make people sad and/or angry. On the way in, some shlub in a bright yellow “UFCW for Obama” shirt handed me a flyer with the following claims:
John Mackey is a right wing libertarian…
More on the pathetic boycott against the only supermarket CEO I’m aware of who advocates ending the Drug War, here and here. I’ll just make one observation: The liberal commentariat keeps telling us that we need to have a “serious debate” about reforming our dysfunctional health care system. Well, love ’em or hate ’em, Mackey came up with eight tangible ideas to do just that, and this is the reaction he gets.
To review, a systematic nationwide push to intimidate, shout down, and spread the misinformation and bullshit burped up by Betsy McCaughey, Newt Gingrich, and Dick Armey, while whipping the crazies into a froth so that they are packing heat at Presidential events, screaming “tyranny, socialism, death panels” to the point that no one can even do anything at the town hall meetings = Democracy in Action.
Ten people outside aWhole Foods who offended the delicate sensibilities of a Reason writer as he gets a sandwich= an abomination.
We’ve been down this road before:
dan at #15 makes a conjecture:
A libertarian is someone who thinks that a mandatory helmet law is for motorcyclists is a greater infringement on liberty than arbitrary detention, torture, warrantless searches. . . .
and kth at #23 also contributes:
[for libertarians] no-knock raids and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are categorically the same in terms of tyranny.
We now have a hypothesis. How shall we test it?
Lo! Who’s there? Why, it’s Matt Welch bringing proof!
Actually my opposition to the bailout was much stronger—I never came out one way or another on the Iraq war, until it was far too late.
Absolutely beautimous.
Indeed.
dmsilev
Can someone remind me as to how to distinguish between libertarians and doctrinaire conservatives? I know they claim to be wildly, hugely, different from each other, but they seem to have virtually identical plumage and mating calls. Is it something about the shape of the beak?
-dms
solarjetman
There are two types of libertarians. There are libertarians, and there are conservatives who call themselves libertarians.
Irrelevant,YetPoignant
“That’s libertarians for you – anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.”
– Kim Stanley Robinson
me
So, when is “Reason” going to get a name change.
Fulcanelli
@dmsilev: I think it’s the caliber of their weapon. You know, like certain Corvette owners we’ve all seen from time to time.
DFS.
@dmsilev: Libertarians wish buying weed weren’t so inconvenient. Otherwise, no difference.
IndieTarheel
In the movie chronicling the blogosphere, I guess Tommy Lee Jones gets to play Welch. After all, he’s done it before.
wasabi gasp
@dmsilev: Libertarians have a bong on the table, Republicans have a dildo in the drawer.
Fulcanelli
@wasabi gasp: And a wet suit.
Ambergris
@ 4: I’m just gonna go with it, because it’s funnily unfunny: How about “Treason”?
Comrade Luke
This is SO my favorite blog.
General Winfield Stuck
And then comes the double speak from the prince of bipartisan, Senator Baucus.
then later in same article.
The entire GOP caucus wants no part of passing any bill, and Grassely confirms it, and says he’s with his wingnut brethren, and Baucus navel gazes as even the people in his tiny population state tell him he’s full of shit.
A perfect script for the next Coen Brothers movie.
Hurry up September.
Warren Terra
1) How old is Matt Welch? How is it possible he never heard the “Tree Of Liberty” quote before George Dubya was President?
2) Has anyone other than Welch ever heard of a lefty protestor using that quote, or more generally metaphorically advocating the violent overthrow of George W Bush? And if there were such a nutter on the left, would they get approving coverage from the liberal equivalent of Fox News (if there were such a thing) and garner defenders in the liberal blogosphere?
3) What planet is Welch on where a civilian wandering around a crowd holding an assault rifle isn’t brandishing it, and where Mackey’s op-ed “came up with eight tangible ideas [to reform healthcare]”? As I remember it, those ideas included capping malpractice awards (which has been tested in, for example, Texas, and found – as predicted – not to reduce medical costs significantly; and which in any case is decidedly more pro-corporate and pro-wealthy than it is libertarian in any meaningful ideological sense) and buying organic (which may have environmental benefits but has no health benefits, and in this context serves mainly to benefit the health of Mackey’s pocketbook). I suppose there must have been six other items on the list, but I don’t recall them and would guess they’re at least as useless.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Matt Welch is a toolshed.
That is all.
steve s
“1) How old is Matt Welch?”
The only thing I know about him is that he’s a libertarian, so I would guess he’s a male, aged 17-24.
me
It’d be interesting to know how many of the self described libertarians who bring guns to rallies are pro-choice.
John Cole
He and I are approximately the same age- 38 to 39 or thereabouts.
I’m actually kind of surprised he didn’t go the full Limbaugh and call the ten protesters outside the Whole Foods “union thugs.”
mogden
Hello, I’m a libertarian. I support your right to have both a bong on the table and a dildo in your drawers.
General Winfield Stuck
This is a thing of beauty in the world of clueless stupid. It must be pondered and dissected to reach the inner essence of mindless contemplation devoid of any common sense.
And then to turn the table if this were happening to a wingnut presnit to get the full hyprocritic numbnuttedness.
Warren Terra
Oh, and from TPM yesterday, the guy Welch insists wasn’t brandishing his assault rifle is part of the same organization as the NH guy with the “Blood of Tyrants” sign.
Maybe Welch was full of it?
Derelict
Libertarians get righteously indignant when someone pairs them with rightwing Republicans. “How can you say that!?!?!” they exclaim. “We’re all about the liberty!”
Then you look at the most prominent libertarian voices–Glen Reynolds, Megan McCardle, Matt Welch and their ilk–and what you find is never-ending support for every rightwing intrusive government fantasy except where guns or drugs are involved. Warrantless wiretapping? No problem? Domestic spying on (left-leaning) political groups? Just peachy! Memo drafted by Bush justice department warning of right-wing lunatic violence? Oh! The horror that anyone should even suggest such a thing!
And libertarians wonder why nobody older than 12 takes them seriously. Fuck these people with a buttered bagel!
Linkmeister
@steve s: According to his résumé/bio he worked on his college paper at UCSB from June ’88 – June ’90, which would make him roughly 20-22 at the time. So his birth year is approximately 1968, which would make him 40 or 41.
jeffreyw
Why are you mean people always picking on the poor librarians? Librarians provide a vital community service and are never threatening, in my experience. (Aside from the occasional “shhh”.) And I like librarians…
What’s that sweetie?
Oh. *blush*
Never mind.
mogden
Any supposed libertarian spokesman who is in favor of torturing, domestic surveillance, and the never-ending abuse of the Constitution and the rule of law by all recent and current administrations isn’t really much of a representative.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@dmsilev:
This is not as much of a paradox as it seems:
Step 1: Docrinaire libertarians are opposed to govt. power, and only govt. power. They completely ignore the existence and impact on our lives of private centers of power – criminal mafias, giant mega-corporations, monopolistic industries, etc. Power is only worth fighting against when it is ostensibly being wielded on behalf of the public. Remember this point because it will come in handy below – public power is bad, private power is invisible/unpossible
Step 2: Right wing movement conservatives take over the govt.
Step 3: Right wing movement conservatives then proceed to run the govt as if it was a private power center – a criminal mafia, megacorp, etc.
Step 4: Combine steps 1+2+3 and you get the amazing invisible govt! Libertarians can’t see it, because it looks, feels and smells like a power center in the private sector.
Jrod
Under Bush: Protesters of any type must be kept at least a mile away from the President. Screening people before allowing them into town halls is prudent, because you never know what crazy lefties might do.
Under Obama: Protesters must be allowed to confront the President about his plot to execute your grandma while armed with assault rifles, because you never know what crazy lefties might do.
Let’s be honest here. If any left-winger showed up to a Bush appearance with a gun, that left-winger would still be rotting in Gitmo.
steve s
@Linkmeister:
Most Randroids grow out of it by their late 20’s or early 30’s. Poor Welch.
wasabi gasp
@mogden: How much supportin’ you up for?
Warren Terra
@ Steve S
Welch is being paid to be a Randroid, which as any free-market enthusiast can tell you means he’s got a disincentive to grow out of it, or for that matter to think about it seriously.
Warren Terra
@ mogden, #24
Ah, the “No True Scotsman” argument. Well, I’m convinced.
R. Porrofatto
Glibertarians. Gotta love ’em. The only people on earth who believe that countries like Sweden and France theoretically can’t exist, so as a consequence, they don’t.
lawnorder
Until those fuckers with libertarian thoughts give me a good excuse for staying quiet while Bush was ruining the country, they can go suck on Ayn Rand’s tits and leave us grownups alone to fix the country they helped ruin.
You want to talk to me about ideas ? Until you abandon the party that thinks the earth is 6,000 years old and global warming is a myth, you have no credibility whatsoever.
John T
@Irrelevant,YetPoignant:
I don’t have anything to add, I just wanted to repeat this because it’s about perfect.
b-psycho
@Derelict: That’s WHY they’re the most prominent “libertarian” voices. Because they don’t actually pose a challenge to the real power of government.
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Corporations exist because of a government grant of privilege in the first place. It is possible to oppose both — and more consistent.
wasabi gasp
Libertarians got all the yarn of a bitch ‘n stitch club, but nobody’s getting a sweater.
steve s
WingNutDaily is encouraging Sean Hannity to run for prez in 2012.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=107591
Please, Baby Jesus, make this happen.
Mark S.
@Warren Terra:
Yeah, they are just as worthless:
1. Loosen regulations so there is more high-deductible (junk) insurance
2. Make individual spending on health care tax deductible (not a terrible idea)
3. Repeal all state laws concerning portability (it’s worked so well for credit cards)
4. Repeal laws concerning what insurance must cover
5. Reform Medicare (oddly, no details on that one)
6. Rely on charity
cleek
@wasabi gasp: do not want
General Winfield Stuck
Sometimes Politico does some decent reporting. This fairly lengthy article by Jonathan Martin lays out the out-of-mindset of the southern wingnut teabagger.
Late in the article Martin slyly states the obvious cause that screams out above all the nutty diversionary mythmaking from these Hammer Sack Crackers.
Leelee for Obama
I know this is wrong of me, but I can’t help but hope that the invisible hand of the free market somehow wends it’s way into Welch’s shorts and squeezes his grapes till his eyes pop. What a pile of horseshit that was.
Leelee for Obama
@Jrod: Gitmo my ass, try Pine Lawn or Arlington.
General Winfield Stuck
@Leelee for Obama:
I’m just glad to be a soshilist.
Squirms in seat.
Leelee for Obama
@General Winfield Stuck:No worries, Stuck, you are always safe!
mogden
@Warren Terra:
It’s not an argument. It’s true by definition.
Michael Scott
https://balloon-juice.com/?p=25800#comment-1339896
If, say, President Dubya came to visit, in 2005, and let’s say the ACORN Stryker Division of the Black Panthers showed up at his local town hall rally with automatic weapons to “discuss” privatizing Social Security . . . Bush would have sent them to Gitmo.
And his base would have cheered.
JK
Matt Welch, Nick Gillespie, Megan McArdle, and Glenn Reynolds are proof that libertarians are every bit as full of shit as conservatives.
Mike G
According to his résumé/bio he worked on his college paper at UCSB from June ‘88 – June ‘90
Ugh, another right-wing tool from my alma mater.
Duncan Hunter went to school here, and Sean Hannity got his first radio gig on the college station, although he wasn’t a student. He was kicked off the air and used this ‘notoriety’ to launch his career.
dan
I wrote that comment six months ago, and now, as part of a real post, there it is! How cool!
cs
Will no one say a word in defense of Reason or Libertarians? No? Up to me? Ok..
I read Reason, both their blog and the magazine, pretty consistently from 2004 to just after the 2008 elections when I gave up on them. I honestly can’t remember Welch’s point of view on the war, etc., but I remember Reason in general was against it and posted all sorts of things about the Bush administration’s abuses from wiretapping to torture.
Basically Reason’s main reason for existing back in those days was to be a chronicle of government abuses, ranging from small abuses like some states requiring all florists to acquire an expensive license to the bigger things such was the War on Terror and the War on Drugs.
This was and still is a valuable service and they were, at the time, notably non-partisan. Republicans and Democrats would get the same overall treatment, though the Republicans did get the lion’s share of attacks since they were in power at the time.
And the magazine wasn’t a monolith editorially. I think people here are lumping it in with ideologically rigid publications such as the National Review or the Weekly Standard. But the magazine employed both right-leaning Libertarians, Cathy Young and Michael Young for example, and those on the left side, David Wiegel and Julian Sanchez, while being edited by Nick and Matt, Libertarian “centrists”. There was a wide range of views written by people who often didn’t agree with each other.
Which reflects the state of libertarianism in general. For such a relatively small group, I think their tent is bigger than the Democrats, in terms of the spectrum that ideology represents. You have libs who are basically republicans who want to smoke pot, those that are essentially anarchists, and those who go along with the movement mainly for their viewpoints on civil liberties but still think government has a role in regulation and the economy. It’s much too big a brush to paint them all as willing tools of big business.
I think they’d make a much better opposition party than the bunch of Republican idiots we currently have. I wouldn’t want them in power but I would like a group to consistently oppose the government’s efforts to exapnd its power, even on issues like health care where I agree with the DFH’s. With a consistent, even-handed opposition, at least some of the abuses (drug war, aggressive foreign policy, torture, etc.) could be curbed or possibly even stopped. The national debate would improve greatly.
MikeJ
He doesn’t remember that it was on Tim McViegh’s t-shirt when they arrested him?
Notorious P.A.T.
“What planet is Welch on where a civilian wandering around a crowd holding an assault rifle isn’t brandishing it”
We’re told that we need laws like that, so that people can carry guns and warn off all the bad guys. Until a guy starts carrying his gun around a political rally, when the song is that openly having a gun sends no message to anyone at all. I’m terribly confused.
Lesley
One for Welch: Idaho Republican [Charliss E. McAffee] who pulled a gun was on “9-12 Project” steering committee
The 912 Project is Fox News host Glenn Beck’s organizing project. Members were fixtures at the anti-stimulus tea parties earlier this year and recently at healthcare town halls.
Notorious P.A.T.
“Oh, and from TPM yesterday, the guy Welch insists wasn’t brandishing his assault rifle is part of the same organization as the NH guy with the “Blood of Tyrants” sign.”
Not only that, but the guy carrying a pistol who interviewed assault rifle guy was a member of a militia that was found with dozens of guns and hundreds of pounds of bomb-making materials, after which most of its members were arrested.
steve s
“What planet is Welch on where a civilian wandering around a crowd holding an assault rifle isn’t brandishing it?”
well brandishing is kind of vague. The free dictionary:
I carry a pocketknife and so I’ve read several specific laws relating to weapons to make sure I don’t unknowingly run afoul of weapons laws, which can happen and be more severe than you might think. And in those laws, brandish is used as in the first definition above. So I would agree that the guy was not brandishing the rifle. Although you could use the much vaguer second definition and say he was.
Lesley
2. To display ostentatiously
This certainly qualifies.
max hats
The left-leaning libertarians you cite are gone, and much reviled in the current comment threads still. There is nothing “even-handed” about Reason at all these days. It is pure kitchen sink, all the time. They have run blog posts decrying Obama as the new Carter, weak an ineffectual, side by side with blog posts castigating Obama as muscling socialism on an unwilling populace through dirty tricks. Comments on blog posts about twitter or lemonade stands quickly devolve into angry venting about Obama or his kids. I’ve been reading them for years, but there’s nothing even-handed in any of it. They disliked Bush’s stances, but they fucking hate Obama.
They’re useful as a good right-wing perspective without the authoritarianism of mainstream republicanism, but there is no doubt they are on the right wing. They wear their sympathies on their sleeves. Half the Reason crew seem to be openly auditioning for gigs on Fox News these days, and the other half write for Big Hollywood.
Lesley
in case anyone’s unclear on the meaning of “ostentatious”
–adjective
1. characterized by or given to pretentious or conspicuous show in an attempt to impress others: an ostentatious dresser.
2. (of actions, manner, qualities exhibited, etc.) intended to attract notice.
Yeah, he just threw on a weapon so large it obscures his back, no big deal. Hah.
max hats
messed up the blockquote there. trying it again:
The left-leaning libertarians you cite are gone, and much reviled in the current comment threads still. There is nothing “even-handed” about Reason at all these days. It is pure kitchen sink, all the time. They have run blog posts decrying Obama as the new Carter, weak an ineffectual, side by side with blog posts castigating Obama as muscling socialism on an unwilling populace through dirty tricks. Comments on blog posts about twitter or lemonade stands quickly devolve into angry venting about Obama or his kids. I’ve been reading them for years, but there’s nothing even-handed in any of it. They disliked Bush’s stances, but they fucking hate Obama.
They’re useful as a good right-wing perspective without the authoritarianism of mainstream republicanism, but there is no doubt they are on the right wing. They wear their sympathies on their sleeves. Half the Reason crew seem to be openly auditioning for gigs on Fox News these days, and the other half write for Big Hollywood.
General Winfield Stuck
@steve s:
That’s from the liberal Free Dictionary. The Wingnut Free dictionary prolly ain’t free and every word meaning says “Die Libtard Die”
max hats
messed up blockquoting above. tried to fix it and post was deleted. fuck it.
max hats
gaaah.
This lack of a preview function is positively killing me.
steve s
@General Winfield Stuck: LOL. The way things are going with Texas’s social studies, It wouldn’t surprise me if they have a conservatard dictionary soon. And filters in the school so that you can only look at Conservapedia. Which of anybody out there has never encountered Conservapedia, it’s like Wikipedia, but 50 times smaller and written by Special Needs children.
Anne Laurie
@wasabi gasp:
I not only LOLed, I read this aloud to the Spousal Unit — thnx!
And here is Wikipedia’s definition!
Problem with a self-sealing argument, it cuts off the oxygen supply to the brain…
JK
It’s a complete waste of time to debate the definition of brandishing. Matt Welch is being a dickwad when he starts parsing words to defend the behavior of these sick bastards. There’s simply no rational reason to bring a gun to a presidential event. These gun carriers are fucking assholes plain and simple.
bellatrys
@Warren Terra:
Warren Terra, the greatest irony about that guy in Portsmouth is – turns out he’s an expat Arizonan who moved to my state because he thought the gun laws in AZ were too restrictive.
Ponder that thought for a moment.
Is it possible to be more out of touch with reality? Isn’t being out of touch with reality a steady state, or is it something that can be modulated? We don’t know, but the constant attempt to reach the Fapture will surely reveal whether or not it is possible to break the anti-reality barrier.
I have, btw, never in 30 years seen ANYONE carrying a rifle around a town in NH, AR-15 or other sort. Not even during hunting season, not even in the back woods regions (and there is a lot of hunting here, much of it for food as well as sport.) It’s just Not Done. So now everyone here w/ the possible exception of the 9/12ers (and I think based on DougJ’s postings that there are more 9/12ers in upstate NY than in NH) thinks he’s a scary whackjob, whereas if he’d stayed in AZ he could have found a whole little boys’ club of fellow rootin’ tootin’ gun toters to hang with!
Chad N Freude
@steve s:
SHannity for President! Unfortunately, even the Republicans aren’t that idiotic. The nominating convention would be fun, though.
Chad N Freude
@lawnorder:
Be fair. And balanced, while you’re at it. I don’t think the Reason-reading Libertarians believe the religious morality and fake science stuff. And I don’t think the religious basers read Reason, which, after all, makes it hard for them what with all that grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Chad N Freude
@General Winfield Stuck:
Merriam-Webster says
The American Heritage Dictionary says
I think there’s a pattern developing here.
And the second quote is part of our American heritage. Also.
dcBill
Face it, libertarianism has become just another dodge for being a jerk.
JK
@bellatrys:
I’m very thankful that I don’t live in New Hampshire or Arizona because their gun laws are seriously fucked up.
brandon
Welch has had a pretty strange journey. i think he just gravitates towards political fringe groups. He was basically a Naderite in 2000.
IndieTarheel
And as for the “brother” who was trotted out with the AR-15 so as to “diversify” the movement, This sums him up.
gwangung
@Chad N Freude: Yeah, you hear the same kind of crap from gang members.
They even have gang colors, you know…..
Chad N Freude
@gwangung:
Thank you. I was not aware that gang members quoted dictionaries.
John Cole
@brandon: We’ve all had our own weird political journeys. The question is- do your current political viewpoints make sense?
I made a ton of mistakes and supported a lot of wrong-headed shit in the early Bush years. I’m a helluva lot more skeptical of the Obama administration than I ever was of the Bush admin- I’m not trumpeting their health care plan by any means, most of all because I don’t have any idea what it really is right now. But I do know that what I see from the Reason folks the last few months is nothing more than the same Bush era bullshit with better spelling than you would get at Red State.
JoePo
I will never stop being irritated by people who think I give a shit about all the delectable items they put into their sandwich.
Lesley
Remember when liberals were arrested for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts?
And yet wingnuts get to carry loaded firearms near town halls, even ones the President attends.
Chad N Freude
@Lesley:
Thanks for the memory. Your linked-to report links to a later (3 years later) report on the settlement of the case by
Read that carefully: the Bush administration settled to avoid the
Shorter version: We’d lose this one in court.
Martian Buddy
I guess when your head is jammed that far up your own ass, it’s hard to see the threats that have been made to groups like SEIU about “coming up against the second amendment.” I suppose it only counts for Welch if you can actually tie a specific threat of gun violence to a specific gun-toting teabagger at a town hall–otherwise, no amount of menacing allusions to armed revolt qualify.
brandon
Oh, I wasn’t making excuses for Welch’s current commentary, just pointing out what I know of his political history – IOW, he’s not someone who fell in love with Rand at age 17 and never grew out of it, but instead appears to have fallen in with a crowd of libertarians and absorbed their views over the past six years or so.
Chad N Freude
@Martian Buddy:
I had missed the “verbal threats”thing. So prominently displaying the weapon is harmless self-expression if the bearer of the arms doesn’t actually say he might use it. This is not Libertarianism, it’s Lewis Carrollism.
OriGuy
I accidentally clicked on the ad for the Newt Gingrich newsletter. The web page contains the slogan “Real Change requires Real Change.” Deep. How long did the geniuses at the RNC take to come up with that one?
Steeplejack
@Jrod:
Let’s be honest here. If any left-winger showed up to a Bush appearance with a gun, that left-winger would
still be rotting in Gitmobe pushing up daisies.Fix’d.
Chad N Freude
@OriGuy:
I think you’re reading it wrong. I think it means “Genuine alteration requires non-counterfeit nickels, dimes, and quarters.”
John Harrold
Lesley
So prominently displaying the weapon is harmless self-expression if the bearer of the arms doesn’t actually say he might use it.
Yeah, it’s like say a guy with no clue and no common sense and an inflated sense of self-importance shows up at a party with his fists balled and his face contorted in an angry knot, it would be premature of your instincts to tell you to get the hell out of there or call the cops. Hell, wait until he SAYS SOMETHING before judging him, ok?
Fencedude
@John Harrold:
Way to miss the point of the comparison.
Shygetz
I’m gonna pile on with CS@49, but I’d like to add a little more. Much like the spate of Democratic ratfuckers that show up every election cycle, right-wing Republicans started taking the “libertarian” label so they could spout authoritarian right-wing talking points while still claiming to be “non-partisan”. The most visible case of this is probably Tucker Carlson–that choad to this day claims to be a libertarian, even though he mimicked Bush talking points pretty reliably. As a left-libertarian who believes in government involvement in the economic interactions but believes strongly in a presumption of liberty, I’d just like to weigh in on the side that says that libertarians include a wide variety of people, including people like myself (social libertarians) all the way to people (and I use that term lightly) who pine for the days of debt slavery but who beg the government to do whatever it takes to keep them from tinkling themselves at the thought of a swarthy brown man in a turban. While English requires us at the moment to lump them all together, don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Some self-identified libertarians find Ayn Rand to be as disgusting and trite as the rest of you, and say so often.
gorb
anybody who claims that they were first made aware of that Thomas Jefferson quote by lefty opponents of President Bush needs to go back and re-watch The Rock stat.
Herb
I always judge a libertarian’s seriousness by their willingness to move to Somalia. Not willing to move to Somalia? Not a real libertarian.
Enlightened Layperson
I’m pretty sure Matt Welch would say there was no intent to intimidate; the only problem is that Obama supporters are such wusses as to be intimidated by an AR-15. The answer is not to infringe on peoples Second Amendment rights for for all demonstrators on both sides to show up packing heat.
Just the way he would have been much more comfortable if the UFCW supporters had been packing.
Johnny Pez
A libertarian is someone who likes apples but hates apple trees. Libertarians dream of an ideal society where apples grow and ripen while hanging suspended in mid-air.
Martian Buddy
@Enlightened Layperson: A few days ago, someone linked to a RedState posting where one of their own was trying to convince them that showing up with rifles slung over their shoulders was making them look entirely too much like banana Republicans. One of the posters there replied, in apparent seriousness, that they needed all the guns to protect themselves from the ACORN thugs and SEIU purpleshirts. I could only think that teabaggers made an apt choice when they picked yellow as their color.
YellowJournalism
I’m sure a lot of you saw the interview on Hardball earlier this week with Ron Reagan and some spokesman from a second amendment support group. The spokesman (can’t remember the group or his name, only that he reminded me of those “yes, dear” cartoon characters from a WB cartoon) was defending the “right” to have the guns present outside the town hall meetings. Reagan basically asked him why it would be necessary to carry an assault rifle around in such a large, wound-up crowd. When the guy claimed it was probably a political statement, Reagan asked, “Then why was it loaded?”
I think that’s the bottom line when it comes to these guns showing up at public events where the President is present. I don’t always like Chris Matthews, but I love it when he goes after the supporters of the gun-toters or has a great guest who really understands the severity and danger of the issue, like Ron Reagan, whose father was shot at.
The Libertarian Guy
“no-knock raids and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are categorically the same in terms of tyranny.”
Basically, yeah. What’s the problem here?
As someone who has voted for two – count ’em, two – Republicans in the last two decades (and, begrudgingly, three Democrats) – and only because there were no Libertarian candidates in those election slots – I get pretty damned tired of this “Libertarians = Republicans” crap.
Get another mantra.
The Libertarian Guy
“leave us grownups alone to fix the country they helped ruin.’
Who’s going to fix the country after your party is done ruining it further?
Anne Laurie
@bellatrys:
To be fair, IIRC, Kostric was a member of some on-beyond-libertarian “Freeman” on-line group that decided they’d all move to the same state and start
inciting secessionincreasing freedom en masse. They took a vote, based on various complex metrics involving taxes, gun laws, employment opportunities, chances of escaping the NWO black helicopters, and I think the ratio of single women to men, and New Hampster “won”. (As a Masshole, I congratulate you lucky duckies, yes I do!) I also seem to recall that out of the several hundred voters who’d sworn to go “Live Free or Die” in 2009, only a dozen or so have actually managed to achieve that goal, so in that sense perhaps the bullet has been dodged, if that’s not too sensitive an analogy here.Anne Laurie
@bellatrys: Whoops, here we are…
And from William Kostric’s wiki-page:
The Free State Projector’s annual summer camp-out is called “Porcfest”. The jokes kinda write themselves, eh?
Ash Can
The problem is that we don’t subscribe to your religion.
Derelict
@The Libertarian Guy:
If you don’t like being lumped with the Republicans, get better people to be the public face of Libertarianism. Because the people who DO show up as “Libertarians” in the media reliably support all of the right-wing agenda, and have for the last 10 years.
So until you find better spokespeople, you’re stuck with being lumped with the right-tards.
Burke
Libertarians are like lefties in many ways. They hate America’s foreign wars because they are America’s foreign wars. Their hatred for government has degenerated into outright anti-Americanism.
Ayn Rand was not a libertarian. She despised them and said so many times.
Properly, you go to war to protect yours or someone else’s rights, which means that your enemies are rights violators themselves. As such, they have no rights, just as criminals have no rights. If killing or torturing them, etc. will serve to protect the rights of others, then it should be done.
In fact, it would be immoral not to do it. Moral cowardice.
Lefties are collectivists. As such, they have no regard for individual rights, and their pretentions to the contrary are disingenuous.
Lefties are like criminals in jail who become SO outraged that their “rights” are being violated.
b-psycho
@Burke: …kinda late for a spoof, eh?
@The Libertarian Guy: Wow, I completely disagree with that. While I don’t approve of either, if made to choose only one to get rid of I’d pick the no knocks, easily.
bellatrys
Annie Laurie, you know they all got stuck down in the south of the state b/c there’s no snowplows in the unincorps, right? And apparently they didn’t grok that when you get 20″ of snow at a go (with or w/o freezing rain on top of it) , it doesn’t melt in an hour or two the way a snowfall does in warmer parts?
So instead they all hang out in Derry & Londonderry & Manch-Vegas (where the White Flight/Tax Flight Massholes have already congregated and drive their neighbors nuts these last 30+ years, at least not being stupid about *snow*!) and *bitch endlessly* about how *wrong* it is that they have to pay taxes to be able to live in a place where it’s possible to drive to work or get taken to the hospital in an ambulance!
There was a small earlier batch of Libertarians who moved up to an unincorp and tried to resurrect an old Gilded Age vacation town from when there were still trains here, but the last I heard, North Conway had cut them off from freeloading off their emergency system and plows and they didn’t know what they were going to do…OMG! We’re! Going! To! Have! To! Form A GOVERNMENT! And PAY for Shit! AAAAAAAHHHHH! I laughed so hard I had to clean my screen after reading about *that* one.
Oh, and how dare the state tell them that they need to follow the rules about taking adequate care of their animals if they’re going to move here? Whine, whine, whine, how *persecuted* are we!
Yeah, the irony is hilarious, or it would be if they weren’t too stupid to understand that, say, Bioshock, is a mockery of Objectivism and insist on trying to RPG it fer reals here…
joe from Lowell
I used to read Reason Hit & Run regularly.
Matt Welch is one of those people who thinks burley, Democrat-voting males are going to give him a wedgie.
You should have seen how he wet his pants over EFCA.
Anticorium
The problem is that one of these things is heavily-armed men in body armor bursting into your house in the middle of the night, shoving guns in the faces of your wife and children, shooting Topper (your eight-year-old labradoodle) in the head because he stirred from his sleep and barked, screaming at you to reveal where you’re keeping the methamphetamies, threatening that if you make a move the next bullet will be put through your wife’s head and don’t even think they’re kidding, they will totally kill your wife if you don’t cooperate.
Meanwhile, the other thing is an Antiques Roadshow rerun.
AnnaMay
You’re awfully smug for someone who hasn’t really made a point, John.
I mean come on, you caricature someone’s political views by comparing two different posts on two different subjects, and you somehow think that you’ve proven something about libertarians? Give me a break.