This post is meant to rebut some of the common criticisms of libertarianism. Many such criticisms can be found by a simple web search and are mostly variants of a few recurring themes. Typically, libertarians are accused of being utopian, unrealistic, dogmatic, immoral, simplistic, nihilistic or simply extreme. Unfortunately, it is impossible to address these claims when phrased in such [...]
Posts Tagged ‘libertarian’
A libertarian response to Robert Locke
Posted in libertarianism, tagged economics, freedom, ideology, issues, libertarian, libertarianism, liberty, locke, philosophy, political ideology, response, society on August 14, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Late night incoherent rambling
Posted in personal, uncategorized musings, tagged change, Eliezer Yudkowsky, ideology, interests, libertarian, life, mathematics, people, political, society on August 2, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The posts on this blog are mostly socio-political commentary from a libertarian perspective which might lead regular readers (if any exist) to falsely conclude…
It is almost 2 am now. Having spent the last two hours reading old posts on “Overcoming Bias” and other excellent blogs (some of which, like this one, I just discovered), I am fatigued. [...]
Wrong in the right direction
Posted in quote for the week, tagged Eliezer Yudkowsky, ideology, libertarian, policy on July 28, 2008 | No Comments »
“The (top-billed) Libertarians are wrong, just like everyone else, but they are wrong in the right direction to correct several major problems. When the country becomes too deregulated, I’ll let you know.”
– Eliezer Yudkowsky
A paradox for the outraged libertarian
Posted in uncategorized musings, tagged anger, civil disobedience, disobedience, freedom, government, law, laws, libertarian, liberty, outrage, power, protest, rebel, thought on June 21, 2008 | No Comments »
If you are a rebel and the law comes in the way of your natural course of action, you would probably feel justified in violating it. But what if those in power decide they are going to stop you from doing something that you hadn’t planned on doing anyway? What do you do if there is [...]
The Kozinski affair
Posted in news and links, people, tagged alex kozinski, conflict of interest, controversy, court, humor, internet, journalism, judge, kozinski, la times, lawsuit, libertarian, obscenity, pornography, privacy, scandal, sex, volokh on June 14, 2008 | No Comments »
Since the Judge Kozinski story broke three days ago, I have frequently visited The Volokh Conspiracy hoping that Eugene Volokh — an outstanding blogger who I frequently cite — would post on the issue. My interest was piqued not only because I admire Kozinski — a brilliant judge with a libertarian streak — but because Volokh had once clerked for him. Here [...]
Libertarian blog
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 [...]
The politics of South Park
Posted in libertarianism, people, tagged ideology, interview, libertarian, matt stone, reason, reason magazine, south park, 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, [...]
Libertarian paternalism
Posted in libertarianism, tagged cass sunstein, choice, freedom, government, influence, libertarian, libertarian paternalism, liberty, paternalism, public policy, schemes, volokh on April 14, 2008 | No Comments »
A guest-blog at Volokh by Cass Sunstein on libertarian paternalism. Hopefully we will see more writings on the subject.
Unlike some hardcore libertarians, I am sympathetic to the idea of libertarian paternalism, particularly the “one-click” variety that Cass mentions. In any case, as even libertarian opponents of the idea will agree, libertarian paternalism is certainly a huge improvement over [...]
