Posted in politics, tagged barr, bob barr, conservatives, election 2008, government, ideology, jurisprudence, libertarian, mccain, obama, supreme court, unitary executive on July 18, 2008 | No Comments »
Bob Barr, the Libertarian nominee for president, speaks out on the jurisprudence on the two major presidential contenders and argues that people who will be voting for McCain because of worries about a possible left-turn of the supreme court under an Obama administration will be making a mistake.
The judiciary is becoming an important election issue. John [...]
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Posted in quote for the week, tagged life, ideology, quote, belief, fitzgerald, mind, convictions, youth, age, thoughts on July 7, 2008 | No Comments »
“At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.”
–F. Scott Fitzgerald
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An interesting article about the relationship between science fiction (the hard variety) and libertarianism.
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Posted in uncategorized musings, tagged agreement, blogging, blogs, cass sunstein, cyber cascade, dissent, echo chambers, human, ideology, internet, opinions, philosophy, views on June 3, 2008 | No Comments »
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Let’s talk about the echo chambers that you specialize in. These are the chambers that exist, both small and large, in cyberspace.
CASS SUNSTEIN: Yeah. The internet has many great advantages from the standpoint of democracy, ’cause people can expand their horizons, but one thing that’s happened is that many people use the internet [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, news and links, tagged blog, growth, hard cases, ideas, ideology, libertarian, libertarian party, personal philosophy, writing on May 29, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I discovered this blog the other day. It has very few posts currently, but I really like all of them. The blog is called “Hard Cases: A Critique of Pure Libertarianism” and serves as a preview of an identically-titled book the author is writing.
My favourite post is probably this one, where the author describes his personal [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, people, tagged ideology, reason, reason magazine, interview, libertarian, south park, matt stone, television on May 25, 2008 | No Comments »
An excerpt from an interview of South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker by Reason Magazine.
Reason: Each of you at various points have called yourself libertarian. Is that an apt description?
Parker: People started throwing that word around to describe us right around the second or third season. They would sit us down and go, [...]
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Now, affirmative action based on political ideology!
The University of Colorado is considering a $9 million program to bring high-profile political conservatives to teach on the left-leaning campus.
CU officials want to create an endowment for a Visiting Chair in Conservative Thought and Policy.
The program would bring a rotating cast of scholars, historians, politicians and media personalities [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, tagged freedom, liberty, ideology, beliefs, objectivism, libertarians, objectivists, bryan caplan, ayn rand, philosophy, gus van horn on May 1, 2008 | 7 Comments »
Libertarianism and objectivism have always shared a somewhat uneasy relationship. Most libertarians, while acknowledging the importance and influence of Ayn Rand’s ideas, nonetheless feel a certain degree of discomfort with the more simplistic or dogmatic aspects of her message. In the words of Nick Gillespie, former editor of Reason Magazine, Rand is “one of the most important figures in the libertarian movement” and she ”remains [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, personal, uncategorized musings, tagged religion, growing up, freedom of speech, personal, liberty, science, life, ideology, government, change, reason, faith, coming of age, beliefs, coercion, scientific spirit, rationality, force, maturity on April 28, 2008 | No Comments »
Apropos of nothing…I remembered myself from ten years back.
When I hated all mongerers of superstition; when I simply could not fathom why the government did not declare the practice of astrology, quackery, faith-healing and all related unscientific mumbo-jumbo illegal; when I would have liked all religious extremists and preachers of hate put behind bars; when the ultimate [...]
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A subtle, highly readable article by Virginia Postrel on Barack Obama. Obama she says, has brought glamour — that special combination of mystery and grace — back into American politics. Indeed, Obama’s exceptional combination of charisma, intelligence and vagueness makes people want to project their own ideology onto him.
Plenty of candidates attract supporters who disagree with them [...]
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The New York times opines that if Barack Obama is elected, it will mark the first time that the president of the United States is a civil libertarian. Hmm…I’m not so sure.
Don’t get me wrong. There is no doubt that Obama stands closer to the ideal of individual freedom than either Clinton or McCain. But that’s [...]
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Posted in libertarianism, news and links, tagged freedom, liberty, volokh, somin, ilya somin, academics, ideology, political ignorance, rational irrationality, political ideology, academia on February 4, 2008 | No Comments »
Libertarianism has an obvious moral appeal to those who value freedom (and I believe most of us do). However libertarian policies also often have huge political, economic and social advantages which while not obvious at first glance are nevertheless apparent to those who are have studied the matter in some depth. Thus, I have often [...]
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Bobby Jindal has been elected the governor of Louisiana. He is the first Indian American governor in US history.
He also supports the teaching of creationism in American schools, favours a blanket ban on abortion, opposes stem cell research and is one of the staunchest supporters of the Iraq war.
Sigh..
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I.
Any one who has tried to change another person’s position on a political issue (and I use the word political in the broadest possible sense) will attest to the immense difficulty of the task. Human beings are rational creatures, or at least we like to think we are, and it is expected that two rational [...]
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