John Thacker: please don't lie about me

John Thacker is a libertarian and blog commenter who uses johnthacker *at* gmail.com, and here's an example [1] of him replying to a comment I left with a couple of lies:

Oh, shut up LoneWacko. Just the other day you were saying that though you were against immigration, you weren't a libertarian because you thought leaving things up to the free market and cutting welfare and spending was "immoral."

That's a reference to two comments I left at [2].

1. I never said I was against immigration in general, only massive immigration; see the first comment at [2].

2. In the second comment at [2] I said that I find the "econ side of libertarianism morally abhorrent". Note that I never said I was against "leaving things up to the free market" or "cutting welfare and spending"; John Thacker is lying on the second, and may or may not be lying on the first depending on how anarchistic the specific libertarian reference point is. I am against completely "leaving things up to the free market", but then again so are most libertarians. All but the looniest among them (not exactly a high bar) realize there's a role that only a federal government can play.

And, I'm certainly not against cutting many forms of spending, and it may be justifiable to cut back some forms of welfare. My prefered option would be to reduce the numbers of illegal aliens in the U.S. in order to free up jobs for unemployed U.S. citizens who might be on welfare, but that's somewhat beside the current point.

In brief, John Thacker is lying about what I wrote.

[1] meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/06/
can_we_really_bail_out_califor.php#comment-208583
[2] reason.com/blog/show/133764.html

Thu, 06/11/2009 - 13:38 · · Importance: 1