Jumping In Pools requested an interview with me last week and they published it tonight.
We talked about Scott Brown, New England, Massachusetts, Republicans, Libertarians, blogging and more.
I just added Jumping In Pools to my blog roll.
You would be well advised to do the same.
Libertarian TV!!!
Don’t forget to check out the John Stossel show which premieres tonight at 8 pm on the FOX Business Channel. You can always watch Bill O’Reilly at 11.
The show is called “Stossel” and the first show will feature Nick Gillespie of Reason.com discussing the relevance of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, global warming and how to fix health care – from a free market perspective, no doubt.
Don’t miss it!
“Anderson resident Brock Glaze clutched two copies of Palin’s book, hoping to get one signed for himself, and one for a co-worker. Although he considers himself a Libertarian, Glaze said Palin is an exemplary Republican. “I think she’s absolutely brilliant. She’s the only one with the guts to say what needs to be said. Her gender has absolutely nothing to do with it. She has more guts than most of the men in her party. I think she’s not afraid to stand up for her conservatism, her Christianity, for pretty much everything that’s necessary for a free nation.”
What a stark contrast between that quote and the words of Steve Chapman, who one might presume to be a libertarian since he writes for Reason.com. Chapman isn’t buying Palin’s libertarian appeal one bit. In fact, he thinks it’s a great big sham. In an article titled “Sarah Palin and the Decline of Conservatism” he asks “What happened to the party of Goldwater and Reagan?”
“Who needs policy? In her world—and the world of legions of conservatives who revere her—the persona is the policy. Palin is beloved because she’s (supposedly) just like ordinary people, which (supposedly) gives her a profound understanding of their needs.”
“That attitude used to be associated with the left, which claimed to speak for the ordinary folks who get shafted by the system. Logic and evidence about policy, to many liberals, were less important than empathy and good intentions. Now it’s conservatives who think we should be guided by our guts, not our brains.”
Chapman then does his best to disassociate Sarah Palin from the memory of Ronald Reagan.
“When Oprah asked if she had felt any doubts about her readiness to be vice president—which requires the readiness to be president—Palin replied breezily, “No, no—I didn’t blink. … I felt quite confident in my abilities and my executive experience and I knew that this is an executive administrative job.” (The audience tittered.)”
“Contrast that with Reagan, who after learning of his victory on Election Night 1980 told his supporters, “There’s never been a more humbling moment in my life.” Palin doesn’t do humble.”
Funny. Ronald Reagan’s son, Michael Reagan, had a completely different take on Sarah Palin in September of 2008 when he wrote a piece about her called “Welcome Back, Dad.”
“I’ve been trying to convince my fellow conservatives that they have been wasting their time in a fruitless quest for a new Ronald Reagan to emerge and lead our party and our nation. I insisted that we’d never see his like again because he was one of a kind.”
“I was wrong!”
“Wednesday night I watched the Republican National Convention on television and there, before my very eyes, I saw my Dad reborn; only this time he’s a she.”
“And what a she!”
“Like Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin is one of us. She knows how most of us live because that’s the way she lives. She shares our homespun values and our beliefs, and she glories in her status as a small-town woman who put her shoulder to the wheel and made life better for her neighbors.”
“Welcome back, Dad, even if you’re wearing a dress and bearing children this time around.”
I was truly puzzled as to why Steve-Chapman-the-libertarian has such a problem with Sarah Palin but then I checked his bio at Reason.com and suddenly it all made sense.
“Steve Chapman is a columnist and editorial writer for the Chicago Tribune.”
Figures.
Nick Gillespie of Reason.com points out that government has a deep interest in the war between UPS and Federal Express.
Federal Express is a private enterprise. UPS has heavy union support. Guess which team the Obama Administration is rooting for…
I think I just invented the term “Libertarianapalooza.” Talk about a Libertarian round table, though. Here’s Judge Andrew Napolitano sitting in for Glenn Beck with guests John Stossel and Peter Schiff.
With the introduction of Cap & Trade, ObamaCare and corporate bailouts, you can practically taste the surge of of interest in libertarian ideology in the air. It’s no accident that Tea Parties are springing up everywhere, Ayn Rand is more popular than ever and Glenn Beck’s ratings continue to rise.
This hasn’t gone unnoticed by the Wall Street Journal where Steven Kurutz recently interviewed Ayn Rand biographer Anne C. Heller.
“When Anne C. Heller set out five years ago to write a biography of Ayn Rand, she was intrigued by the fact that though Rand’s novels like “The Fountainhead” continued to sell well, the libertarian writer was barely spoken about. One near-Depression later, however, Rand’s anti-socialist beliefs championing individualism over collectivism are suddenly striking a chord with critics of the government’s recent nationalization of banking and other industries.”
“The Wall Street Journal: Ayn Rand has been invoked at town hall meetings across the country. Why are Rand’s fiercely libertarian ideas — and novels — back in the news?”
“Her sales and reputation bubble along under the radar quite consistently. But certain opinion makers like Glenn Beck rediscovered her because there’s a strange parallelism between her visions in “Atlas Shrugged” and the Obama administration — namely, government taking over private industries. In periods of economic downtown “Atlas Shrugged” strikes a chord in people who are afraid of economic collapse.”
This liberty driven zeitgeist hasn’t escaped Reason Magazine either. A well known Libertarian outlet, Reason is producing a video series on the suddenly increased relevance of Ayn Rand’s work.
Ed Morrissey of Hot Air wrote a great post on this subject today where he tied it all together in this brilliant quote:
“Who would have guessed that the era of Hope and Change would have produced Rand as a counter-cultural phenomenon?”
“Well, perhaps Rand herself would have foreseen it — and in fact she did, in Atlas Shrugged.”
Libertarians and conservatives are old political friends. Although there have been a few bumps in the road over the years, we should all give credit to President Obama for making us more solid than ever.
Maybe that’s what Obama meant when he said he was a “uniter.”
If you have any interest in Libertarianism, this is a must watch series of videos. If you’re reading this at work, bookmark this page and watch the videos when you get home. Perhaps you work for a government bureaucracy, in which case you have the time to watch them all now.
Here’s a minimal amount of background. These videos are from a 1999 episode of a program called Uncommon Knowledge hosted by Peter Robinson, a member of the Hoover Institution who cut his teeth as a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and wrote the speech which contained the famous phrase “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
Robinson’s interview subject is Milton Friedman, who was also a member of the Hoover Institution and was the recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Economic Science.
Libertarianism is often misunderstood. If you wish to learn more about it, this is a great place to start.
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
You’re at a social gathering. The conversation rolls around to politics. You are asked whether you are a Republican or a Democrat. You say you’re a libertarian. Three people instantly respond by asking “What does that mean?”
Ask any libertarian and they’ll have a personal variation of the above scenario. I’ve always liked comedian Drew Carey’s suggestion that libertarians are simply Republicans who smoke pot.
David Boaz at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank, wrote an interesting blog post today which points to the public’s lack of awareness on libertarianism and suggests more Americans would identify as libertarians if they knew what it meant.
In reference to Gallup polls, Boaz says:
“Gallup consistently finds about 20 percent of respondents to be libertarian.”
You can see this in the chart below but the real money quote from the article is this:
“If you tell people that “libertarian” means “fiscally conservative and socially liberal,” 44 percent will accept the label.”
Hear hear, David. Well said.
More discussion on this subject can be found at Memeorandum.
This is why libertarians can’t and don’t vote Democrat.
Democrats want the government to have more power and control which inevitably leads to a loss of liberty for the people.
Barney Frank remind us of that when he says things like “We are trying on every front to increase the role of government.”
Can. Not. WAIT. For John Stossel’s new show.
I have a friend who always busts on me for being a libertarian. He has a theory for why no one knows how many libertarians there really are in the country. It basically goes that libertarians can’t be polled because we all have signs on our houses that say “no solicitors” and “beware of dog.”
Watch this interview, it’s much better than my friend’s joke.
I really like Bill O’Reilly but Stossel makes him come off as an angry parent asking the age old question:
Are you on dope?!
