If you’re looking for more proof that bad ideas never die, Mark Ames — currently writing for PandoDaily, but I don’t think that’ll last — is covering the other alternative-politics convention this weekend:
Homophobia, racism and the Kochs: San Francisco’s tech-libertarian “Reboot” conference is a cesspool
Starting [Friday], San Francisco plays host to the Reboot 2014 conference. According to the event’s blurb:Reboot 2014 will bring together technical talent and policy advocates to turn ideas into deliverables for liberty.
The word “liberty” is the giveaway, of course. With “Reboot,” libertarianism is making its Big Pitch to Silicon Valley. The event features the movement’s superstar scion, Rand Paul, as keynote speaker; alongside Nick Gillespie, the leather-jacketed editor of Reason.com, the online edition of Reason magazine, the longest-running and most successful libertarian media outlet, backed by the infamous Koch Brothers. In fact, the entire event is sponsored by the Kochs.
Under the weird banner of “conservatarianism,” other key speakers include prominent republicans like Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Republican Conference, and Andy Barkett, CTO of the Republican National Committee…
At first glance it makes no sense to front a rabidly anti-gay candidate like McMorris Rodgers to sell the Kochs’ and the Paul family’s scrubland libertarianism to a Bay Area audience full of hip disruptors and “anarchist” practitioners of bohemia grooming fads.
But that’s because what Silicon Valley folks think of when they hear the word “libertarianism” actually has very little connection to what the libertarian movement actually stands for, and has stood for since the 1970s…
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Apart from reviewing the sordid history of the various “I Got Mine, Fck You” movements converging under the Libertarianism rock umbrella, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Open Thread: <em>Deliverables for Liberty!</em>Post + Comments (143)