Give Paul a Chance
Ron Paul's unique and genuinely interesting candidacy deserves all the sympathy it can get from both sides of the aisle – especially during a primary season light on dissent, ideological diversity, and intellectual rigor.
On the Newsstand:Libertarians
Why I Don’t Vote
Christopher Oppermann outlines why he's more inclined to mock the vote than rock the vote.
Libertarianism, Part 2: Consequentialism
Consequentionalist libertarians are amoral in a goods way.
Weighing in: Rep. Peter King is a Threat to National Security
Radicalization may be a danger, but Peter King is making it worse.
Japan and Broken Windows
The myth of "productive destruction" in the wake of the disaster in Japan
Funding for Abortion; Libertarian Nuances
The Planned Parenthood controversy and how libertarians really see abortion
Weighing In: Giffords And Guns
Update concerning the Congresswoman: Fortunately, Rep. Giffords has continued her miraculously speedy recovery, and is starting rehab. We can only continue to hope and pray that all continues to go well, if not better. In the wake of the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords by a mentally deranged man – an attack which took the lives of six and ... Read More
Response to Sam on Racism and Rand Paul
Sam, I agree with you that Rand Paul is off base in his remarks about the Civil Rights Act, but I have a few quibbles about the way you make your argument. (I see that when you aren’t going after Ayn, you are going after Rand with equal intensity. Young libertarians seem to love the Rands as much as young collectivists seem to despise them!) Now I ... Read More
Couple More Thoughts on Rand Paul
First, I think Adam Serwer has really crystallized the basic problem with how conservatives (and a fair number of over-polite liberals) talk about race. It seems really weird to give Goldwater all this credit for not being personally racist while championing a cause supported by racists, and say this is the same thing as Kennedy and Johnson being racist but ... Read More
Rand Paul a Racist? I Think Not.
Sam Barr’s most recent post makes the rather shocking claim that Rand Paul, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky being vacated by the retiring Jim Bunning, is a racist, or at least that he is not a non-racist. Sam deduces this from the fact that Mr. Paul is not a “consistent libertarian,” that he “picks and ... Read More
Rand Paul: Against the Civil Rights Act
As I said yesterday, the Kentucky Senate race between Rand Paul and Jack Conway should be a real battle. Paul is probably not helping himself by insisting, as many libertarian ideologues but few Senate hopefuls do, that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was wrong to ban racial discrimination in private establishments like restaurants and movie theaters. INTERVIEWER: Would you have ... Read More
Business Rules
The U.S. Supreme Court may be about to render the most important business decision of the decidedly pro-business Roberts era, but one might not know it from the details of the case. The plaintiff is a small conservative advocacy group, not a major corporation; the focal point is a corporate-funded anti-Hillary Clinton documentary that was banned by the FEC, as ... Read More
