libertarians
Libertarians: wrong on immigration and much more: Page 2
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See the summary for this topic on the main Libertarians: wrong on immigration and much more page.
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Ed Morrissey, Glenn Reynolds, Newsbusters don't tell whole truth about Bell, California - 09/22/10
Eight public officials in the city of Bell, California were recently arrested regarding the pay scandal in that city (link).
Bell, California: see who isn't telling you the whole truth (hint: libertarians) - 08/25/10
The city of Bell, California has been in the news lately due to exorbitant salaries that city officials voted to give themselves. Most of those using Bell as an example of failed policies have failed to note that they themselves support failed policies, and those failed policies have played a role in Bell's situation. Two examples will be provided below, and the reader is encouraged to add more in comments.
Melissa Bean's "thug" vs. teaparty libertarian idiot at public meeting - 08/16/10
Gateway Pundit offers "It Begins… Dem Congresswoman Brings In Street Thug at Town Hall Meeting to Threaten Constituents (Video)" (link).
Bankrupting America's misleading government spending video ("Rebel Economist") - 08/13/10
Gretchen Hamel - formerly part of the Trade Representative's office in the George W Bush administration and now with the website Bankrupting America - offers the video entitled "REAL or FAKE: Can you tell which of these government spending projects are real or fake?" ( peekURL.com/v1mwxc7 ).
Rand Simberg's Darwinistic, anti-American citizenship policy - 08/12/10
It's time to reach into the Big Bag of Crazy known as the Glenn Reynolds / Pajamas Media universe. This time with the anti-American screed called "The Real Anchors / Anchor babies? Maybe we should worry more about native anchors" (pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-real-anchors) by one Rand Simberg. The fact that he's turning to Robert Heinlein to craft a new citizenship policy is actually the least of his sins.
Reason Magazine libertarian cruise to be massively state-subsidized - 07/06/10
Next year, Reason Magazine will be conducting a week-long cruise, complete with some of the "star" contributors of their publication on board and ready to dispense their "wisdom" (ad here: peekurl.com/v3dli5l).
Glenn Reynolds still promoting bad, dangerous, anti-American policies - 06/27/10
Glenn Reynolds names his "comment of the day" [1]:
A reason for the “wealth or income gap”: Smart people keep on doing things that are smart and make them money while stupid people keep on doing things that are stupid and keep them from achieving.
Sam Stein of HuffPost, lacking information, lets speculation run wild (Rand Paul, border fence) - 06/25/10
Sam Stein of Huffington Post offers "Rand Paul's Underground Electric Border Fence Baffles Cornyn, Libertarians" (huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/24/rand-pauls-underground-el_n_624535.html). It's one small step up from something you'd see on "Rock Bottom" (peekURL.com/vt2fh5z).
On his site, Rand Paul says:
Katherine Mangu-Ward doesn't think jobs in America are more valuable than jobs in China - 06/24/10
Megan McArdle of The Atlantic is on her honeymoon, leaving her blog in the hands of libertarians even more extremist and lunatic than she is [1]. One of those is Katherine Mangu Ward of Reason Magazine who, referring to a U.S. ironing board factory that was propped up with tariffs, says [2]:
Econ 101 aside, though, there's a more compelling moral reason to condemn this kind of tariff that should help break deadlocks like Matt's: Jobs lost at home are usually jobs created elsewhere, typically in poorer countries. If anything, jobs are likely to be gained when an industry moves to China, where...
Gary Johnson's immigration position disqualifies him for president or anything else (Our America Initiative, New Mexico) - 06/23/10
Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson started the "Our America Initiative" last year, possibly as a precursor to a presidential run. He's a libertarian and that means two things: a) he might as well save his donors the money because he's never going to get mainstream support, and b) he's wrong.
How he's wrong about immigration will be discussed below. First, here are two snippets showing his thinking, such as it is:
What personality trait causes tea partiers and libertarians to want to play dress-up games? - 06/14/10
I'm no psychologist, but there has to be some explanation why many libertarians and those in the tea parties think that playing dress-up games and putting on a show is an argument. The same isn't true of other political groups; the only two I can think of that come close are PETA and CodePink. The great majority of political groups try to make an argument or (as in the case of this site for the most part) try to show how the opposition is wrong. But, for the teapartiers and for libertarians, simply playing dress-up games is the argument itself.
For a recent example (link)
In Dallas, the [San...
More proof Justin Elliott isn't credible (Sharron Angle, public health concerns over fluoride) - 06/09/10
[SEE THE UPDATES TOO]
Sharron Angle [1] won the Republican primary against Harry Reid yesterday, and as could be expected Democratic Party proxies are already beginning their attack. One of those is Justin Elliot of TalkingPointsMemo, who offers "FLASHBACK: GOPer Angle Spoke Out Against Fluoride In Water Supply" [2].
It's a low-grade attempt to provoke a conditioned response that most people have: when someone says something against fluoridation, you're supposed to think that person must be nuts. As it turns out, the science of fluoridation isn't anywhere near as settled as some would have...
Clueless: Nick Gillespie can't see problems with massive illegal immigration (Mickey Kaus, Reason Magazine) - 06/04/10
The video at [1] has an interview Nick Gillespie of Reason Magazine did with Mickey Kaus. At the beginning they discuss immigration, and Gillespie, rather unbelievably, asks "what was the negative outcome of the 1986 immigration reform [bill]". Kaus responds with the obvious answer: we have millions of illegal aliens in the U.S.
Is Glenn Reynolds an anti-American extremist who hopes the "entitlement class" riots, or not? - 05/16/10
Glenn Reynolds ("Instapundit") excerpts "Arnold Schwarzenegger calls for state welfare to be ended in California" (instapundit.com/99408, article: link).
Shikha Dalmia still not credible on immigration (Part 2) - 04/28/10
Shikha Dalmia of Forbes shows once again why she isn't a trustworthy source, this time by offering "Arizona's Un-American Immigration Law" [1]. (Note: see the last link for our recent extensive coverage of that law).
Freedom Vigil: Beltway libertarians to restore U.S. liberty one glowstick at a time - 03/26/10
The latest hilariously stupid tea parties-style cheap stunt is a "Freedom Vigil" to be held in Washington DC tomorrow night. "Thousands" - make that more like a few dozen - will gather for a silent walk during which they'll raise glowsticks in the air in order to show their support for liberty (at least according to their definition). And, no, I'm not making that up.
Reason Magazine to "save" Cleveland, just not from libertarians (Drew Carey) - 03/15/10
The libertarian (or "libertarian" to some) Reason Magazine has launched a six-part video series called "Reason Saves Cleveland With Drew Carey", featuring that washed-up TV comic. On the series they'll outline some of the ways they think that city could be saved. The problem, of course, is that libertarian ideology has either played a major role in or offers no guidance on various aspects of the decline of the Rust Belt.
Confused over Alex Nowrasteh's interest in American workers; does he have one? - 02/26/10
Alex Nowrasteh [1] of the Koch family-linked Competitive Enterprise Institute offers "E-Verify is a Spectacular Failure and Should be Abandoned" [2], referring to this recent report. It contains several curious passages, such as:
While it cannot identify illegal/undocumented immigrants 54%, E-Verify could accomplish one thing: ossification of U.S. labor markets. With the official unemployment rate hovering around 10%, burdening employers and employees with additional workplace regulations like E-Verify will make matters worse.
1. Simply checking someone through a website isn't going to "...
Lindsey Graham: GOP isn't going to be "party of angry white guys" (+more ineffective townhall ranting) - 10/13/09
From this:
An often clamorous crowd blasted, grilled and occasionally cheered Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in a town hall meeting Monday that centered on health care reform but returned repeatedly to his positions on climate change, judicial appointees and immigration.
Graham returned the fire with a grin, at times shouting over his most boisterous critics and telling some who questioned his Christianity and party loyalty that their minority conservative views wouldn't succeed without the political coalitions he said are necessary to serve the majority of Americans and attract...
Grover Norquist group's loony libertarian immigration ideas - 06/01/09
On Friday, RedState front-paged the Brian Johnson article "Conservative Immigration Reform is Right Next to Unicorns and Leprechauns" [1]. At first you might think he's just some random libertarian loon, until you see the article in its original location at the "Alliance for Worker Freedom" [2].
Harmless beliefs pose imminent danger to all, non-expert warns - 02/07/09
Penn Jillette - one of the only two (2) Celebrity Libertarians to ever exist - draws (reason.com/blog/show/131559.html) our attention to a ludicrous website called "What's the Harm" (whatstheharm.net) which attempts to show the harm in beliefs and activities that most people - in their ignorance - would consider harmless. They say it "does not pursue any hidden agenda, other than promoting critical thinking" (whatstheharm.net/faq.html).
A challenge for Drew Carey/Reason Magazine (and other open borders hacks) - 05/29/08
Washed-up TV comic Drew Carey is now working on a joint venture with the pseudo-libertarians at Reason Magazine [1]. In various video segments he presents the "libertarian" view of things, and the latest is called "The Cost of Securing Our Southern Border" (reason.tv/video/show/434.html). Like everyone else, I didn't bother to watch it, but I feel safe in asserting that there are many things he forgot to mention.
Notes from the Nick Gillespie/Matt Welch/Reason Magazine alternative universe (everyone's a libertarian!) - 03/21/08
The brain trust of Reason Magazine, Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, offer "Where the votes are". The laugh-a-minute article tries to pretend that the libertarian vote means something:
Andy Levy/Red Eye (Andrew) - 04/25/07
On a recent Reason Magazine thread (reason.com/blog/show/119840.html), Andrew Levy (Andy) of FOX's Red Eye TV program and dailygut.com made an off-hand, ad hominem comment about my Libertarian Quiz. I posted a comment asking him whether he could provide an actual argument, to which he replied, "nope".
"Am I a libertarian?" Take the fun online quiz! - 04/21/07
Many people are concerned that they, or someone they know, might be a libertarian. While the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) can be used to uncover libertarianism and other sociopathies, it takes a long time and requires expert interpretation.
Enter the World's Smallest Political Quiz!
This is an updated version of the classic that you may have taken already, and it can be used to determine whether you suffer from libertarianism, objectivism, dynamism, or other related afflictions.
Independent Institute: Somalia, the libertarian paradise - 12/27/06
Libertarianism - the political doctrine usually indistinguishable from satire - reaches one of its lows in a paper from Dr. Benjamin Powell called "Somalia After State Collapse: Chaos or Improvement?" He looks to be about 18 years old, but more telling is it's from the Independent Institute, the same group that gave us the Open Letter on Immigration.
Bryan Caplan descends into self-parody on immigration and... donuts - 12/21/06
Bryan Caplan - along with TCS/Insty fave Arnold Kling - is one of the contributors to "EconLog", a libertarian/"free" market-oriented site that, like other libertarians, can't seem to understand how massive illegal immigration violates the supposed libertarian support for national defense and their supposed opposition to subsidies.
Peter Bagge is an idiot (Reason Magazine open borders cartoon) - 10/12/06
The Reason Magazine cartoonist offers a fine slab of pro-open borders propaganda in the cartoon ending here: reason . com/0608/bagge4.shtml. Let's take a look at a few of his points and see what he doesn't know or isn't telling his readers. (I'm fisking a cartoon?)
Kos: I'm a "Libertarian Democrat" - 06/07/06
Subcommandante Markos "Kos" Zuniga has finally nailed down his exact political orientation: he's a "Libertarian Democrat". Now, that doesn't mean that he embraces the full lunatic/libertarian agenda, nor does it mean that the lunatics/libertarians have embraced the Lunatic World of Kos. However, as for the latter, we can pretend. And, be assured that I will every chance I get. (Ex.: "A libertarian? You mean, like DailyKos?")
Arizona libertarians collaborating with Mexican government official - 04/13/06
From this:
The marchers in the Immigration Rally in Phoenix, Arizona, will get some unexpected information during their protest outside the state capitol on Monday. Along with the many leaflets and flyers promoting one agenda or another, many of them received little cards, introducing them to the concepts of libertarianism, free society and open borders, in a sort of "reverse reconquista" maneuver.
Yes, I know the Watermelon Party and the Big-L Libertarians are odious, but... - 08/02/04
Here's something I support 100% (link):
Here is an idea that can be the activist centerpiece of the 2004 campaign. It can also be used in gubernatorial, senatorial and future campaigns. It will generate more excitement among activists than anything else we've done. It is a venture that will create bigger audiences, publicity and support at a fraction of the cost and effort of previous efforts.
What color is the sky in your perfect world? - 03/08/04
I scored a 20 on the Libertarian Purity Test (bcaplan . com/cgi-bin/purity.cgi). This is much lower than others: theagitator . com/archives/010681.php and reason . com/hitandrun/004561.shtml
The 20 score puts me in the "you just might have some libertarian thoughts, but you need to memorize Atlas Shrugged" category.
Here are the other categories:
80 - 100: Your libertarian ideals are quite remarkable. You are more Kirk than Picard.
100 - 120: Can you pinpoint the exact moment when you became estranged from the reality the rest of us share?
"Note to conservatives: Most immigrants aren't terrorists" - 02/19/03
The Reason Magazine article "Guilty by Association: Note to conservatives: Most immigrants aren't terrorists" is at [1]. I posted an excerpt from the article here [2], in the hopes of perhaps a letter or two being sent to Reasononline letting them know where they're wrong.