Reading the "Secret Service" thread got me thinking: how many dyed in the wool libertarians are reading and contributing to this forum?

Depends on your definition of a libertarian.

Btw, your question reminds me a lot of a question once posed by some attention whore...

One need not be a libertarian to be worried about runaway government spending. Hell, if you like all the government services, it sure would be nice to be able to continue to have a government. Fiscal collapse is always followed by social and governmental collapse.

I tend to tune all of that bullshit out and focus on food, family, porn, etc....

I'm not dyed but definitely off color.

have been leaning that way for some time now. Check out Reason. Great site. Yeah there is some shit i don't agree with. And it'd never fly up here in Canada. But it seems less government is really the way to go.

http://reason.com/

Small "l" here. Smaller government is better, but no government is...Africa, maybe. Some of the 4th and 5th World nations. It's a delicate balancing act.

I've always been a philosophical libertarian. About 10 years ago I finally left the GOP and am now a registered Libertarian.

I still don't know what a libertarian is. Does it have something to with books?

No government is Somalia (1991-....).

Yeah, it sounded like you were channeling Hayek / Friedman / Rothbard back on the secret service thread.

Completely meaningless term when both Noam chomsky and the Koch brothers consider themselves libertarians.....%99 of the time though it refers to just another hydrahead of the ultra far right anarcho capitalists who want to privatize the police (after all, the poor don't have anything worth stealing)..and multi million dollar think tanks like the cato institute that tries to then pass it's self off as the voice of the average man.....Generally people who tend to think of John Stossel and Pen & Teller as being smarter than Gore Vidal which in turn makes me generally want to see them plowed over with steam rolls and their remains scooped up and sold off to mexican rendering plants.

Who are you again Fat Bloody Fingers? Elaborator or Gunker?

Keep chompin those corporate cocks you filthy fucking animal......Look on the brightside...the south has become so economically depressed it's actually more profitable to re open factory's there than the expense of importing chinese garbage into the US....Now that we can get the amerikkkan dream job rollin across the good old Mason Dixon line we can finally REALLY kick things up a notch and get rid of those pesky minimum/child labor laws and get those gold bricking welfare mothers working again!

So I'm thinking Gunker.

I'm the man from famine.

Yeah, I thought I was in the same room man.

There must be something rational and logical about the whole philosophy if FBF hates it that much.

And there's the compassionate, peace loving Left we have all grown to know and love.

My dog is smarter than Gore Vidal. A pompous voice and affected accent does not a genius make.

Daddy, next tell us a fairy take about how wise Patty Murray is.

If a fiscally conservative/socially liberal party existed in the U.S. with some non-nutty candidates, they'd win every election in a landslide.

You're not saying Ron Paul's nutty are you?

FBF's comments are not "Left-ish", only violent. Every -ism has its violent faction (well, maybe not pacifism); they are usually made up from saboteurs and agent-provocateurs, who will, of course, be summarily dealt with when the time comes.

This reminds me of a pair of characters on Portlandia, the ones which seem to be made up to be the prototypical wholefood lezzies who are just miserable and absolutely passively aggressive. Hey, Fingers.

Nutty as a fruitcake. His only saving grace in this campaign is that he hasn't fucked things up completely for his kid, Rand Paul. Rand seems considerably less nutty.

Yeah, take away the accent and Gore Vidal doesn't have much going for him. His books suck. Has anyone who is under the age of sixty and is not a paid up subscriber to Mother Jones ever gotten through one of his doorstops?

Mother Jones. I love old hippies who can't get over the fact they were neither at Woodstock or 10050 Cielo Drive.

Ron Paul really has been amazingly lucid this time around. Maybe he's realized it just isn't going to happen and he's prepping the field for Rand.

This is the exact fucking problem. I think the left needs to start flipping the fuck out and institute some violent and vicious vanguarding. Shouting down and total marginalization of the enemy. Basically what conservatives do every day.

I actually support about %90 of Ron Paul says. He's a million times better than Obama who if you look at on paper is almost indistinguishable from George W Bush. I have a huge problem with his extension of states rights to the extreme. I'm all for states rights but not to the extent that for example if state b decides that if two consenting adults what to engage in homosexual activities the state would have it's proclivity to decide that this would be considered a crime punishable by 20 years in jail it would be the states prerogative to do so. Not to mention trying to have roe vs wade over turned.........It's pretty moot anyways because romney will win the delegation and won't be able to beat Obama anyways. If I thought Paul would have a chance of winning I'd rather vote for him than Obama who wants to but a gitmo on every corner.

There is no such thing as a true leftwing party in this country. You have two piece of shit parties one is just more upfront about their corporate whoredom and has managed to somehow convince envengelical idiots they actually give a flying fuck about them...the other party is composed of primarily spineless scum sucking cowards.

Ha I brought MJ and Utne Reader etc in a little debate after posting one of the Reason articles that wasn't about the insane war on drugs or the absurdity of bombing brown people in far away countries.
It was the typical "blah blah blah KOCH BROTHERS blah blah blah RACISTS blah blah blah DYING IN THE STREETS" rant that leftists throw out at the very whisper of any libertarian idea.
You don't think these magazines aren't pushing somebody's political agenda?

Yes, the left needs to get more violent & vicious. And more vocal. How do you propose doing that when your side is already involved in 100% of all protests and control 90%+ of the media, except maybe FOX News & Drudge.

Look, you are in the minority. You have always been in the minority. You have a false sense of reality because people who think exactly like you have been spoon feeding you B.S. through the news media for basically your entire life. You need to be welcomed into the real world.

His early book Messiah is a very good novel (not too long either), his early teleplays are great and his essays are very good stuff as well. He's a mediocre novelist but so is Joan Didion.

Most libertarians are full of shit.

They want absolute freedom as they define it, and they want to impose their will on everyone else, even if it contradicts their definition of freedom.

Yeah never mind that the US Constitution left those rights in the State's hands, purposefully, where they rightfully belong. After all, we dispensed with the Constitution to carry out the Civil War so why not set it aside for fags to get married.

I liked Live From Golgotha. That was a nice, zippy, fun little read. But his high WASP patrician manner is irritating, at least when I see him being interviewed on television. If you were to recommend a collection of his essays, where would I want to start?

Matt Welch got his big break writing for the National Post. Reason is a pretty good read, and the staff are a fun bunch. I've attended a few of their parties. Always a good time.

I love this Revolution stuff. What about the children? People dying in the streets. Old folks eating cat food...which, if you own a cat, would know is spendier than people food.

Good luck with your violent vanguarding. Keep in mind that everyone's blood is red, no matter how righteous the ideal. I'm curious tho. Could you let us know which conservatives are causing violence in the streets? Are even calling for violence in streets. That damn conservative Sharpton? He shouts down, calls for violence. Must be a conservative by your way o' thinking.

I'm sorry, but your technique of violence, at least in civilized nations, is as dead as the dodo. You can't force beliefs into people at the point of a gun or the taste of the lash. First they ignore you. Then the laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. Get a sub to the Revolution. Fantastic mag. Donate and advocate. Bring your ideas to the streets at the point of a bayonet. Then we win.

I'd argue most people are full of shit, Jason.
Nassim, had no idea about Welch starting there. I'm pretty sure most knee-jerk lefties don't even bother to read any of the Reason stuff I send them; they're to busy making remarks about how roads will never be built and restaurants will start banning blacks.
Gillespie and Welch aren't into screaming their heads off or running 'gotcha!' stories and I guess that doesn't sell anymore.

Gillespie and Welch both got their start writing for trade publications and not the op-ed section. It usually makes for better journalism.

hahah, yeah this mythical "liberal media" when %99 of the media is owned by megacorps...where did you hear that shit rush limbaugh? give me a fucking break you waterbrained pile of garbage.

you goddamned fucking stupid piece of shit....you like fucking women in the ass right? What if the state you lived in decided it was punishable by chopping off your left arm tomorrow? You are a fucking piece of human shit and I'm ashamed to be part of the same species you are from

Bullshit. Your comment doesn't merit a more expansive response.

You are all so fucking goddammned near sighted. The enemy is kicking you in the face constantly while shoving a hot poker up your ass and has COMPLETELY INGRAINED it into your brain to beg for more and anyone who says "this is wrong" is shouted down as a lunatic...You've read 1984 right and are familiar with the concepts of doublespeak/thought? You people aren't worthy to eat the corn out of my shit.

The media is well left of center. There are numerous academic studies that bear this out, as well as surveys of journalist party affiliation.

^^^ He doesn't care. If it doesn't fit with what he already believes, it just causes him to reply with angry, demented rants without actually stating any facts.

haahah yeah. I'm sure you guys have some awesome "facts" to back up your useless horseshit "everyone just KNOWS the media is left wing".....please post your graphs and pie charges

yes! and look at the libertarian utopia it has become!

You can always tell a thread has degenerated into bullshit when people start talking about 'numerous studies.'

I know what you mean about his manner, I get the same annoying vibe from Margaret Atwood, who is the Canuck equivalent, in terms of being WASPy old money, if not talent.

As for his essays, depends on whether you want to read his literary criticism or his more political writing. I've got his Collected Essays which covers everything up to the early 90s, his best stuff I think, but the Selected Essays is good. His essays 'Pornography' and 'The Pink Triangle and Yellow Star' pissed off a lot of people are are a good place to start.

What's the point of this thread? A liberals idea of limited government involves banning big macs and cigarettes instead of porn and crack cocaine. You might as well be showing your dog calculus equations hoping he'll figure it out eventually.

At least 88% of the journalists in the White House press corp have voted Democrat in every presidential election since at least 1992.