Make Or Break Views Of Libertarianism

Part of the "Critiques of Libertarianism" site.
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html

Last updated 09/15/10.

Many libertarian statements take consistancy to such extreme positions, that it can make or break the acceptance of the ideas. These sites border on self-ridicule.

Links

National Platform of the Libertarian Party
The 2004 platform is still as ridiculously extreme as its predecessors. It calls for legalization of baby selling, polygamy, secession, child prostitution, all drugs, insider trading, etc. It calls for abolition of public schools, medicaid, and Social Security, patents, and copyrights. And even privatization of air. All that and lots more, cloaked in vague statements of "liberty", and now carefully sanitized so that non-libertarians won't realize how truly extreme it is.
Neo-Tech ZonPower for Romantic Love, Power, Money.
Ayn Rand meets L. Ron Hubbard for multi-level marketing complete with cosmology, physics, eternal life, abundant sex, tax avoidance, universal civilization, true psychology, "integrated honesty", and more! This is not a parody.
"Why Did it Have to be ... Guns?" by L. Neil Smith
This popular libertarian author thinks that libertarianism can be boiled down to guns. Period. That's his litmus test. Page down to the middle, where this rant starts.
Lizard's Political FAQ
Concludes with "Greed is God". Gets there with deep ontological tools like "Deal with it."
Assassination Politics
Convicted tax evader Jim Bell proposes a system of anonymous ecash awards for the murder of "aggressors", such as IRS agents. See also Crypto-Convict Won't Recant. What he misses is that his system, if tolerated, would merely force government to operate secretly rather than openly.
Scrooge Defended.
Michael Levin's Austrian Economics perspective on Dickens, so Panglossian and full of stacked assumptions that it is howlingly funny.
No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority
A famous rant by 19th century lawyer Lysander Spooner, highly regarded by many anarchist libertarians. He calls government a collection of thieves and murderers at least 75 times. No wonder they like him!
How to Run a Successful "Operation Politically Homeless" Booth
A detailed statement of manipulative strategy used at libertarian propaganda booths.
Environmentalism Refuted
Modern Austrianism at it's finest: sainthood for von Mises, socialism versus reason, conspiracy of "intellectuals", and strawman "essential claims of the environmentalists".
The Political Economy Of Monarchy And Democracy, And The Idea Of A Natural Order
"First, the idea of democracy and majority rule must be delegitimized." A Ludwig Von Mises Institute article by Hans-Herman Hoppe that calls for a return to aristocracy. This guy is a MAJOR Austrian crank.
True-blue bids for Senate
Libertarian candidate Stan Jones turned himself blue. Permanently. Gives new meaning to "local color". "They'll have to pry my colloidial silver from my warm blue fingers."
Discover Freoland: Welcome To The Land Of Laissez-Faire
Libertarian propaganda targeted at 9 to 12 year olds. No kidding. Funny how much it all sounds like fairy tales.
Libertarianism is radical -- deal with it.
Anthony Gregory is proud of radical libertarian beliefs that moderate libertarians attempt to conceal and make palatable to the public.
Why Christmas Should Be More Commercial
An unconscious objectivist self-parody by the big cheese himself, Leonard Peikoff. "It is time to take the Christ out of Christmas, and turn the holiday into a guiltlessly egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration."
The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey
Indoctrinate your children! If they're not readers yet, you can use the crude animation to hammer home the ideology!
The pomposity of George O. Smith. Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
A typical evasive discussion with a libertarian/objectivist, with the author of "Why Atheism?"
Why and How to Conquer the Savages
Ron Pisaturo, an unabashed Objectivist, writes that we should nuke "foreign savages" (ie. non-objectivists.) From ARI's Capitalism Magazine.
End States That Sponsor Terrorism
Leonard Peikoff, the big cheese himself, says 10/2001: "The choice today is mass death in the United States or mass death in the terrorist nations." Never heard of police work, I guess. From ARI's Capitalism Magazine.
NEW 1/06: Why We Fight: An Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto (2.0)
Eric Raymond, Open Source self-promoter and self-appointed libertarian savior, seeks new levels of pomposity and foolishness. He declares that people who don't worship his views are his poopeyhead enemies.
NEW 2/06: The Scourge of Public Libraries
Jeff Landauer somehow concludes that public libraries are failures because one of their minor sidelines, video tapes, doesn't do the volume of Blockbuster Video. Come see the violence inherent in the library!
NEW 2/07: Good for the Goose, Bad for the Gander: International Labor Standards and Comparative Development
Austrian economists Joshua C. Hall and Peter T. Leeson claim developing Sub-Saharan African nations are up to centuries from being able to afford labor standards. By their logic, Sub-Saharan Africa should reinstitute slavery for another 62 years and indentured servitude another 89 years. Can't you just feel the liberty we'd be granting them by avoiding western labor standards?
NEW 10/07: Strange Bedfellows
The libertarian Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has a wacky set of positions against the FDA, public health, evidence-based medicine, Medicare, the new world order, abortion, evolution, handgun safety, homosexuality, illegal aliens, fluoridation, environmentalism, vaccination, etc. From Kathleen Seidel's neurodiversity weblog.
NEW 11/07: This Choir Does The Preaching!
The Milton Friedman choir sings of how corporations are amoral and have no choice, so let us rejoice in privatization. Bizarre!
NEW 8/08: The Madness of King Leonard
Leonard Peikoff appears on Bill O'Reilly's show and rants so appallingly that O'Reilly looks sensible in comparison.
NEW 3/09: The Libertarian From Nazareth?
Jesus was a libertarian? This guy is serious! What did JC say about freeing slaves then?
NEW 4/10: The Road to Serfdom in Cartoons
Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" is comical enough without being actually a comic book. It just hasn't happened anywhere, let alone in places like Sweden.
NEW 7/10: Stateless in Somalia, and Loving It
Yumi Kim (at Mises Daily) praises the customary clan law in Somalia, because cheap luxuries are available to the elites. No mention of piracy and kidnapping trades, and warlords are downplayed. At best, shows that warlordism may be better than centralized kleptocracy. Libertarians should move to Somalia!
NEW 9/10: The Economic Lessons of Bethlehem
Lew Rockwell takes the nativity story and pretends that it is an anti-government screed. He doesn't notice that the whole god-as-monarch thing is violently anti-libertarian, including tithes to god.

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Copyright 2007 by Mike Huben ( mhuben@world.std.com ).
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