reason magazine

Reason Magazine

Pseudo-libertarian magazine directly or indirectly funded by the Koch family, a key part of the "Kochtopus". Run by Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie; former employer of Dave Weigel. Theirs is the Frat Boy, very Beltway- and Big Biz-friendly, "Cosmo" variety of libertarianism.

I've repeatedly challenged their contributors over several years to defend their very strong support for illegal/massive immigration and in some cases literal open borders, and they've repeatedly refused. Instead, almost all of the hundreds of comments I left there were simply met with vile ad hominems, and I may take legal action against at least one commenter at that site. Neither their contributors nor those who comment there are capable of making a valid, logical argument for what they support; in fact, I appended the following to many of my comments there:

P.S. In case anyone replies to this, their responses will almost assuredly be ad homs, thereby conceding my points and showing the childish, anti-intellectual nature of libertarians. Dozens of comments here have shown that the phrase "fascist libertarian" isn't an oxymoron.

In almost all cases, that was followed by exactly what I predicted and nothing more.

Other staff members include:

* Jesse Walker
* Radley Balko
* Brian Doherty
* Jacob Sullum
* Katherine Mangu Ward
* Michael Moynihan
* Damon Root
* Peter Suderman
* Ronald Bailey
* Peter Bagge

Contributors include:
* Shikha Dalmia
* Ed Krayewski
* Mike Riggs
* Adrian Moore (see this)
* Dave Kopel
* Alex Tabarrok
* Steven Greenhut
* Tim Cavanaugh
* Kerry Howley
* Steve Chapman
* David Harsanyi
* Cathy Young
* Michael Young
* Gene Callahan
* Jonathan Rauch
* Jeremy Lott
* Wendy Kaminer
* Greg Beato
* Sara Rimensnyder
* Virginia Postrel

Last modified Aug 2, 2018
Discussed in (click each link for the full post):

How the Reason Rupe poll misleads on immigration amnesty (Emily Elkins, Ed Morrissey) - 03/02/13

Ed Morrissey of HotAir will grasp at any straw to support amnesty, and the latest is "Reason-Rupe poll shows majority approves path to citizenship, oppose targeted drone killings of Americans" [1] referring to a poll by Reason Magazine [2].

Libertarian Steven Greenhut welcomes California's far-left overlords that libertarian immigration policies created - 03/01/13

You have to hand it to libertarians: they'll try to profit by setting your rivers on fire, then try to profit by selling you fresh water.

Why Ed Krayewski isn't credible or patriotic (Reason, immigration) - 02/08/13

In this post, I'll show why Ed Krayewski - an associate editor at Reason Magazine's "Reason 24/7" - isn't credible and isn't patriotic. The last is a serious charge, but keep reading because I'll make it stick. Krayewski offers "5 Reasons to Grant Amnesty to Illegal Immigrants/It's time to get serious and implement the only immigration reform that will work" [1]. One of his reasons is this:

Kim Severson of NYT, John Ross of Reason, Matt Yglesias scaremonger Georgia professional licensing to enable illegal immigration - 10/09/12

For decades, the media has printed "crops rotting in the fields" articles which scaremonger non-existent food shortages in order to help growers get as much cheap, illegal labor as they want.

Why is Fast and Furious an approved topic for establishment conservatives and libertarians? - 06/24/12

I was more than a bit surprised to see Nick Gillespie of Reason Magazine squaring off with Rachel Maddow over Fast and Furious - and taking the American side of that issue [1].

Reason TV misleads about green energy - 03/13/11

Reason Magazine offers the misleading video "Tilting at Wind Turbines: Should the Government Subsidize Renewable Energy?" attached below: 1. One of those chosen to represent the Voice of the People is an attractive blonde who says "I don't know much about green jobs, but I'm for it." This is a cheap technique designed to prejudice viewers against such jobs.

David Koch gave far-left, Mex. gov't collaborators ACLU $10 million - 02/25/11

Billionaire David Koch (see Koch family) joined with George Soros, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation to each give the American Civil Liberties Union $10 million to fight the PATRIOT Act [1]. Reasonable people can disagree on the PATRIOT Act, but fighting it or trying to reform it was probably the correct thing to do. Whatever the merits of opposing the PATRIOT Act, giving money to the ACLU is never the correct thing to do. The ACLU is a far-left group that strongly supports and enables illegal immigration and that's even collaborating with the Mexican government in...

What Koch defenders aren't telling you (Reddit, Reason, Glenn Reynolds, Powerline, Weigel) - 02/24/11

It used to be that only a small number of people had heard about the billionaire Koch family and the "Kochtopus" (those persons and groups funded by or otherwise linked to them). Now, because of the standoff between Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and public employee unions in that state, that's all changed and the Kochs are fast assuming the role that George W Bush played for the Left (and George Soros plays for the right). Sure as night follows day, various sources are rushing to defend the Kochs. But, oddly enough, all those defenses fail to point out two key items on the Koch's agenda: 1...

Yet another example of Teaparty being useful idiots for the Koch brothers? (Madison union protests) - 02/19/11

Are the tea parties useful idiots for an attempt by the billionaire Koch family to fight unionization in order to increase their profits? The latest example of the Koch family pushing an agenda that helps their bottom line and getting help from the teapartiers in that endeavor comes from the protests between public sector unions and Republican governor Scott Walker in Madison, Wisconsin. I haven't been closely following the issue, but at the very least it's clear that the Kochs are attempting to take advantage of the issue to push their agenda. And, pushing that agenda would help the bottom...

Reason Magazine misleads about Jared Loughner (+AllahPundit, Glenn Reynolds) - 01/18/11

Reason Magazine offers the deceptive video "The Week in Stupid: Cable Pundits on the Gifford Shooting" (below). If you trust anything Reason tells you, keep reading.

Anti-science, anti-American: Reason TV misleads, sticks up for illegal immigration (Delta Smelt, Paul Feine) - 01/13/11

Reason Magazine's TV unit offers the misleading, anti-science, and anti-American video "Delta Smelt & Undocumented Farm Workers: How Federal Policy Is Failing CA's Central Valley" (below and at peekURL.com/vfqmkCZ ). It begins with a sub-Sean Hannity discussion of the endangered Delta Smelt, but quickly becomes a plea for looser immigration policy and amnesty. As could be expected, Reason is either too intellectually dishonest or too dim to understand and admit the roles of externalities in what they promote. For an example, they interview Robert Silva, the mayor of Mendota and allow him...

Shikha Dalmia misleads again, promotes anti-American DREAM Act - 09/23/10

Shikha Dalmia of Forbes and Reason Magazine is misleading about immigration yet again, this time about the anti-American DREAM Act ("DA"). That bill was recently blocked in the Senate, but if passed it would have allowed those current illegal aliens covered by it to take college educations away from U.S. citizens. Needless to say, Dalmia strongly supports that anti-American bill and is willing to mislead to do it. She writes [1]: [Republicans] called the Dream Act – yawn! – amnesty, an accusation that Democrats deny. They shouldn’t. The Act, which would give children of illegal aliens who...

Example of Tea Party helping their opponents (immigration, "Restoring Honor") - 08/29/10

The video at peekurl.com/virmhi2 provides yet another in the long line of examples of how the tea parties are helping their opponents. The video features Nick Gillespie of Reason Magazine interviewing the crowd at yesterday's Glenn Beck event.

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.

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).

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...

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]".

Why Shikha Dalmia isn't credible on immigration (Part 1?) - 04/07/10

At Forbes, Shikha Dalmia of Reason Magazine offers "Obama Can't Handle Immigration Reform/The leading proposal will curtail liberties without making life better for immigrants" [1]. The article shows yet again why she isn't a credible source on this issue, at least for patriotic Americans. Those who put libertarian ideology or corporate profits ahead of the interests of U.S. citizens are quite welcome to consider her a credible source. In the article she comes out against the Graham-Schumer amnesty plan due to, among other things, its national ID card component. [2] She also suggests waiting...

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.

2007: Dick Armey sticks up for illegal aliens, "bless their hearts" - 09/04/09

The attached video is from October, 2007 and features Dick Armey of FreedomWorks (also a tea parties organizer) sticking up for illegal aliens. He claims "I don't like illegal immigration", but then engages in indirect baby-waving in order to in effect support it. While the video is a recent upload to Youtube, it's been available for a while at Reason Magazine (including a couple comments from me: reason.com/blog/show/125183.html). Not only that, but FreedomWorks hasn't been trying to hide his comments and has Reason's post re-printed at their site: freedomworks.org/news/dick-armey-on-illegal...

John Stossel /ABC: "Bailouts, Big Spending, and Bull" (TV, libertarian, Drew Carey, Reason, cosmos, rainbows...) - 03/13/09

Briefly emerging from Galt's Gulch, ABC News host John Stossel will offer a segment called "Bailouts, Big Spending, and Bull" on tonight's 20/20 TV show airing at 10:00PM Eastern and Pacific. During the show he'll discuss various topics of interest to libertarians, such as pot, the stimulus plan, pot, did I mention pot?, and so on. And, he'll be joined by washed-up TV host Drew Carey. Carey will discuss his dramatic political enlightenment thanks to Reason Magazine. Yes, that's right: the "cosmotarian" publication that helped block the Ron Paul movement is having their big TV break. If you...

"Tea Parties": an astroturfed Koch family movement (FreedomWorks, Instapundit, Rick Santelli) - 02/28/09

[SEE UPDATE 2 BELOW] Now I know why Rick Santelli disgusts me: the "Tea Party" stimulus protests may be an astroturfed project of the wealthy Koch Family (called "the Kochtopus", see this).

Does Glenn Reynolds really oppose the stimulus, or is he just playing a game? Let's ask. - 02/10/09

Glenn Reynolds (instapundit.com) currently gets almost 400,000 visits per day, and he's posted several anti-stimulus plan blurbs. But, as with his election coverage in which he supposedly opposed Barack Obama, the fire just doesn't seem to be there (see "Instapundit, or The Strange Case of the GOP Hack Who Didn't Shill During the Election").

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).

Dave Weigel /Slate /Reason Magazine lies about Obama birth certificate issue - 12/04/08

Dave Weigel of Reason Magazine takes to the webpages of Slate to offer "Change They Can Litigate/The fringe movement to keep Barack Obama from becoming president" (link). It contains at least one lie and several misleading statements (I didn't read the whole thing, so there's probably more).

Reason Magazine tries to pretend they opposed Barack Obama - 11/05/08

The "libertarians" at Reason Magazine offer a list of their recent coverage of Barack Obama (reason.com/news/show/129922.html), and from that list those who don't read their Hit and Run blog frequently might think they actually opposed him. In fact, they served as a bit of a cheerleader for him and almost always showed a clear bias towards him and against McCain (as pretty much every visitor to their site knows, their editor Matt Welch wrote an anti-McCain book).

How *you* can help Barack Obama finally win this thing - 10/24/08

A lot of people aren't content to simply sit back and wait for Obama to win. Instead, they want to get involved and help him finally seal the deal. Here's a list of ways that you can help: 1. Simply bringing a stuffed monkey bedecked with Obama stickers to the next McCain/Palin rally isn't enough. Make sure that CBS News gets it on tape. 2. On your website or TV show, just keep asking, "why won't the MSM cover this?" Because, eventually someone from the MSM is going to come along and do something. Just wait, they'll be there eventually.

Obama accuser Larry Sinclair arrested; very questionable celebration follows - 06/18/08

Larry Sinclair is a currently Duluth-based man about town with a long rap sheet (link) who claims that he had homosexual sex with Barack Obama in 1999 (link). At the same time, Sinclair claims that - after he gave him the money to go run for it - he used powdered cocaine and BHO smoked crack.

It it The Onion, or Reason Magazine? - 06/15/08

Notice anything interesting about this libertarian-themed "American Voices" feature from The Onion? Yes, that's right: by an odd coincidence, those last names are the same as the last names of several cherished staffers from Reason Magazine: reason.com/staff As pointed out here many times, it's often difficult to tell the difference between

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.

Immigrant assimilation study: low scores for Mexicans; other results mixed (N.C. Aizenman/WaPo, Yglesias, Drezner, Atrios, Weigel) - 05/13/08

N.C. Aizenman of the Washington Post offers "Study Says Foreigners In U.S. Adapt Quickly", an article about a new Manhattan Institute report called "Measuring Immigrant Assimilation", authored by economist Jacob Vigdor of Duke University. He constructed an "assimilation index" based on economic, cultural, and civic assimilation. One of the issues with the index is that it probably doesn't include a question on whether those immigrants subscribe to our laws or whether they think they don't apply to them, and it probably doesn't cover irredentism-related issues. It's also a mixed bag; while the...

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:

Will Wilkinson/Cato openly promotes North American Union - 01/09/08

A tactic used by those who seek to deny that powerful forces are pushing for a North American Union is first to deny that such a plan exists, and then to say something like, "but, if it did, would it be such a bad thing?" One of those trying to retail the idea of a NAU is Will Wilkinson of the Cato Institute, who, speaking on the radio show Marketplace, says: There are some who believe a grave threat

Ken Belson/Jill Capuzzo/NYT: corruption, illegal activity are great! - 09/26/07

Ken Belson and Jill Capuzzo of the New York Times offer a slab of pro-corruption, pro-illegal immigration propaganda in "Towns Rethink Laws Against Illegal Immigrants". Apparently, Riverside, New Jersey has suffered economically after enacting an anti-illegal immigration ordinance (which they recently rescinded), and the NYT offers the most dire portrait they can: With the dep

Live coverage, GOP presidential debate, June 5, 2007 - 06/05/07

11: I'm going to go practice my track-standing. Back later... 10: Three minutes with Larry King commence now... 9: Hunter mentioned pardoning Ramos-Compean, and even bringing back the Reagan Democrats. 8: John McCain warns that having 12 million illegal aliens - 2 million of them being criminals - is dangerous. His solution is his bill, which would give them a wave-of-the-wand legalization, with the government having only 24 hours to deny an application. 7: Ron Paul is pointing out that massive illegal immigration is subsidized...

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".

Lou Dobbs on media immigration bias; David Bosco/FP downplays - 04/25/07

Lou Dobbs offers "Big media hide truth about immigration". This site has hundreds of examples of that bias in the archives, so that won't come as a surprise to regular readers: ...the mainstream media are complicit in advancing this thinly veiled blanket amnesty.

Let's help Katherine Mangu-Ward find some Reason - 02/20/07

Katherine Mangu Ward of Reason Magazine discusses Bank of America's credit card for illegal aliens in "Credit Where Credit Is Due" [1]. Let's help her with her thinking:

Ramos/Compean: who's on the Bush administration's side? - 02/08/07

I have a feeling that it won't be too very long before even more truth comes out about the case of the two Border Patrol agents (Ramos/Compean) who strongly appear to have been railroaded by their own government. So, let's take a look at the short, select list of some of those who've supported the Bush administration's side of things:

Kirk Caraway now opining at 3rd grade level (libertarians on immigration) - 01/28/07

Kirk Caraway is the Internet Editor of the Nevada Appeal and apparently he's spent too much time alone in his cubicle reading old copies of Reason Magazine since he offers "If you can't stop illegal immigration, then legalize it": First, you have to stop the black market for labor.

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