Saturday, April 23, 2011

Open Thread.

The last open thread has worked out pretty well, with some interesting questions still popping up.

So here's a new one! It would be good to keep them fairly fresh.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Question about the Libertarian Party

The LP has always been a creation of the Koch's, and has periodically been purged when attempts have been made to stray from Koch-approved dogmas.

Since the success of the Kochs of swaying the Republican Party with their Tea Party insurrection, have they ignored the LP? Is it possible that the reform caucus has a chance of freeing the LP from the tyrannical hand of the Kochs?

See the Libertarian Reform Caucus for a colorful display of pseudoscientific diagrams illustrating their general approach.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

I Pencil: A product of the mixed economy

I Pencil: A product of the mixed economy

The excellent John Quiggan puts up a response to Leonard Read’s I, Pencil.

I, Pencil is an extensive piece of invisible hand propaganda that by directing you only to the vastly complex network of market resources mobilized in creating pencils, misdirects you away from the equally complex network of government resources that enable those market resources.

Rand Justice For All

Rand Justice For All

A Slowpoke cartoon lampooning the limited definition of freedom preferred by Rand Paul and other libertarians.

Beingism response to economic conservatisms such as libertarianism.

Myths about Economic Conservatism

Beingism is a new, liberalish philosophy that describes itself as wanting changes that would be "consistent with some form of Libertarian Socialism".

The title strikes me as misleading: it would be more accurate to describe it as "44 Myths Spread By Economic Conservatives". It's long, and many of the points are compatible with my own criticisms in Critiques Of Libertarianism and those of the late Steve Kangas in Liberalism Resurgent.

Most of the myths are also discussed as inline YouTube videos.

Rand Paul humor

Rand Paul to Demonstrate Commitment to Ayn Rand Philosophy By Removing Under-Performing Parts of His Own Body

The title says it all. Hat tip to an email contributor. (I have to be careful about naming some contributors because they are concerned about conservative bosses. If you would like to be creditied, please let me know: I want to err on the side of caution.)

Monday, April 04, 2011

Non-Libertarian FAQ: the Belorussian translation!

Every now and then I get a request if somebody may translate my FAQ into another language. There should be a Chinese version out there somewhere, though nobody has told me where.

Bohdan Zograf has now translated The Non-Libertarian FAQ into Belorussian. Do alert all your Belorussian-speaking friends.

According to wikipedia, the Belorussian language is spoken by 4 to 9 million people.

Update 9/26: it's a scam, using Google Translate to fake human translation.  I've removed the links that were the apparent objective of the scam.