News briefs for 3/13

Robert Murphy of Hillsdale College just posted a fantastic piece about free trade on Mises.org. He basically kills, skins, boils and devours any possible case to be made against globalization. It’s glorious-but then, what else could you expect from a professor at a college that accepts no federal funding whatsoever?

Meanwhile, it appears that the Libertarians in Greene County, Missouri had to deal with a white supremacist trying to run for US Congress under their label. Army veteran, truck driver and racist asshole Glenn Miller first tried to get on the ballot as a Democrat, but they rejected him. So did the Republicans. The Libertarians took their cue from the majors and did the same. Kevin Craig, the LP’s erstwhile candidate for the 7th Congressional District, seems to be a better, non-embarrassing candidate for the region.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Russ Feingold stands alone again. This time he’s trying to censure Bush, an action Congress hasn’t taken since the days of Andrew Johnson Jackson. Predictably, he got little support for the move from the Congressional Invertebrate Sheeple Caucus… but you can’t blame the man for trying. Hell… other than his staunch support for Soviet healthcare, the dude could probably be considered libertarian.

posted Mar 14th, 2006 by Stuart Richards
  • http://iliketocomplain.com Chris Monnier

    That post by Robert Murphy is really on the mark. He concisely rebuts all the claims made by opponents of free trade.

  • http://libertarianyouth.blogspot.com Nigel Watt

    Well, I’m glad the Green County LP has rejected the nutjob, unlike the LPTX’s response to my concerns over N. Ruben F. Perez (http://hammeroftruth.com/2006/01/09/libertarian-candidate-running-on-republican-platform/#comments).

    A quote from the email state Executive Director Wes Benedict sent me in response:
    “I am appreciative of Ruben Perez and anyone who makes an effort to grow the Libertarian Party regardless of whether they are perfectly knowledgeable about it all. I hope you will do your part to help grow the party. Perhaps you could invite one of our candidates from your area to speak at your school.”

  • http://swmolibertarianparty.blogspot.com Keith Rodgers

    Nigel,

    Not quite the same, IMO, as Miller is a man without a party. He has tried to ride the coattails of the three Missouri ballot-friendly parties, and we’ve all turned him away.

  • error

    Er, Russ Feingold is not a libertarian. Not even close. And I’d sooner run against him myself than vote for him.

    Like every other Democrat in Congress, he’s all about two things: socializing everything he can, and bringing home the pork.

    A brief reading through his issue positions on his web site will bear this out.

  • http://www.freedomdemocrats.org/ LoganFerree

    Just a note, the last President to be censured was Andrew Jackson, not Andrew Johnson.

    Michael, he’s into socialized medicine but he’s also similar to Proximire in having a very good record agaisnt wasteful spending. I’d say that he’s the most libertarian Senator in the Senate right now.

  • error

    Where is this record against wasteful spending? It certainly isn’t on his web site. Not that I can see, anyway. It’s all about bringing home the bacon (and cheese) for Wisconsin and setting up yet more socialist programs.

  • http://www.freedomdemocrats.org/ LoganFerree

    Michael, I tend to believe that you’ve already decided how you’re going to view Feingold and nothing is going to cause you to change your mind. The fact is that Russ Feingold has an strong record as a civil libertarian. He opposed the Iraq War from the start. He’s recently come around on the issue of gun control and I tend to approve of individuals who are willing to admit that they made a mistake. He is opposed to wasteful spending and has been hailed in the past by the Concord Coalition, Citizens Against Government Waste, and Taxpayers for Common Sense. He most certainly isn’t perfect (Health Care, McCain-Feingold) but he’s a hell of a lot better than most alternatives. And I think many libertarians agree. Ed Thompson, former Libertarian candidate for Governor of Wisconsin, supported his reelection campaign in 2004 and a simple analysis of the vote reveals that a lot of people who had voted for Ed Thompson in 2002 ended up voting for Feingold.

  • http://saltypig.com/blog/ charley hardman

    “The fact is that Russ Feingold has an strong record as a civil libertarian.”

    if the word libertarian means libertarian, you’re spewing meaningless rhetoric. “strong record”? i just checked his site and sponsor/cosponsor history. here’s what it says about your post:

    “‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’”

    alberto gonzales. i’ll bet his wife loves him. i’ll bet you can find somewhere in that devilish head a proposal some supposed libertarians might agree with. great. tell it to his victims. tell the millions of victims of russ feingold’s force about his strong record on liberty, “against government waste”. he’s a constitution-raping social engineer and economics moron, and you’re saying he has a “strong record as a civil libertarian”.

    shame that the word “libertarian”, just as “liberal” years ago, must be abandoned because of people like you claiming it for the opposite.

  • http://www.psychopolitik.com b-psycho

    Logan’s not saying Feingold IS a libertarian, people! He’s attacking this knee-jerk idea that if hypothetically forced to pick between the two “majors” a libertarian should vote Republican. Compared to the average GOPer Feingold makes more sense, his recent efforts against the Patriot Act & the warrantless wiretapping program should make that obvious.

  • http://saltypig.com/blog/ charley hardman

    “Logan’s not saying Feingold IS a libertarian, people!”

    interesting claim, considering he said exactly this:

    “The fact is that Russ Feingold has an strong record as a civil libertarian.”

    WTF does “civil libertarian” mean? is that code for “not libertarian”? if so, i’m calling BS on the use of the term at a supposedly libertarian site. if it doesn’t mean libertarian, then it’s clearly meant to score points via equivocation while others may claim with a straight face: “Logan’s not saying Feingold IS a libertarian, people!”

    if that’s what language means to you, maybe you should run for “office”; hurdle one has been jumped. well, make that two hurdles, since you seem to believe that voting in a laughably mild “libertarian” direction is an improvement. there is another answer, though it’s not as convenient.

  • http://www.freedomdemocrats.org/ LoganFerree

    Charley, maybe you haven’t heard the term “civil libertarian” before. Maybe you have been living under a rock. “Civil libertarian” tends to be someone who shares the views of the ACLU. They are generally people who are libertarian on social issues. Wikipedia has an article that does a generally good job of describing the term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_libertarian

    My statement was to indicate that Feingold has shown himself to be very good on a set of issues. In other areas, primarily economic, he’s not as good but still an attractive candidate.

  • http://swmolibertarianparty.blogspot.com Keith Rodgers

    Some people just want to run AS Libertarians, even though their ideology is vile and anti-libertarian:

    http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=30701

    Hell, read ANY of the threads. Glenn Miller is no libertarian, big-L or otherwise.

  • http://www.psychopolitik.com b-psycho

    Charley, what part of “hypothetical” do you not understand? I personally haven’t voted in YEARS, for my purposes it’s worthless.

  • http://saltypig.com/blog/ charley hardman

    “Charley, maybe you haven’t heard the term “civil libertarian” before.”

    oh, i’ve heard it. i know exactly why you chose that term to use here — because it’s a euphemism with the word “libertarian” in it that generally means the opposite.

    “In other areas, primarily economic, he’s not as good but still an attractive candidate.”

    if you’re a socialist, sure.

    “Charley, what part of ‘hypothetical’ do you not understand?”

    psycho, what part of “The fact is that Russ Feingold has an strong record as a civil libertarian.” do you not understand? if you want to sell untruth, you come across as something other than your dropped-in “hypothetical” (which didn’t apply to “knee-jerk”, as written) can imply. the appeasement mentality is a disease that is not only not benign, as claimed, but is a net negative. none of the supposed gradualists can show how they’ve helped increase liberty. they do increase the general approval of the sadistic state though.

  • http://www.psychopolitik.com b-psycho

    “civil libertarian” is a confusing term to many people, that I agree on. Civil liberal would be more direct.

    As for your crack about “supposed gradualists”, before any evaluation can be made between the effectiveness of gradualists & of purists first some of either have to actually be elected. You can’t blame the current situation on anyone but the people in charge at the moment, libertarians of any stripe have done nothing wrong as we haven’t even had the CHANCE to screw up.

    I’m not calling for “appeasement”, I’m acknowledging a rare moment when someone on the outside actually agrees with us on something. When we have Libertarians in the Senate, then we can dump on him all we want, until then isn’t it a bit much to direct the exact same criticism at someone who’s at the moment saying things we would like to ourselves on this?

  • http://www.freedomdemocrats.org/ LoganFerree

    >“civil libertarian” is a confusing term to many people, that I agree on. Civil liberal would be more direct.

  • http://saltypig.com/blog/ charley hardman

    psycho, it wasn’t a “crack” about supposed gradualists. i see no evidence of improvement via the gradualist method, but i see plenty of corruption of concepts such a libertarianism — to the point where somebody comes onto a board like this and quite seriously (apparently) offers the ridiculous notion that a libertarian should vote for a socialist. this gets liberty nowhere except further behind the 8 ball. i’ll probably write an article on this; it’s an epidemic lately, not only of “candidate” support, but of employment choices.

    “first some of either have to actually be elected.”

    somebody like feingold? that’s the point. tyrants supported by “gradualists” are elected all the time. and there never can or will be a substantial libertarian presence in the senate, though i agree there might be plenty of LP posers there eventually.

    didn’t understand the “someone saying things we’d like” part.

  • http://www.psychopolitik.com b-psycho

    “i see no evidence of improvement via the gradualist method, but i see plenty of corruption of concepts such a libertarianism — to the point where somebody comes onto a board like this and quite seriously (apparently) offers the ridiculous notion that a libertarian should vote for a socialist.”

    WTF? Who said we should vote for him?? Do you know what a hypothetical is?

    How’d you not understand what I was getting at? It’s simple: we oppose this warrantless-wiretapping & the Patriot Act, and at the moment someone already in congress is opposing this. Why are we not using the opening to slide in and say “now if you think that’s courageous you should hear what WE have to offer…” instead of sitting on the sidelines barking “SOCIALIST! STONE HIM!!”?

  • http://saltypig.com/blog/ charley hardman

    “WTF? Who said we should vote for him?? Do you know what a hypothetical is?”

    b-psycho, not everything i say in response to one of your quotes is directed at you. yeah, i got the word “hypothetically”. thank you. your use of the word doesn’t reframe the entire thread, which largely centered on the suitability of a candidate in general, and specifically whether people vote for him or should vote for him. yes, i understand that is not your position. however, you entered the thread in erroneous defense of one whose position it was.

    i didn’t understand what you were saying. it wasn’t an insult. thanks for the explanation. no, i don’t agree. most people are too stupid and brutal for that scheme to work. that duplicitous PR route is the reason i left the LP pronto when first learning political nonsense. they love trying that in their press releases, and they’re usually wrong in fact and tactics. stone the socialist? effing right. he’s trying to kill me.