The obvious and undeniable point is that this indicates an alliance and some level of tolerance. When someone runs a libertarian website that posts articles by paleoconservatives, this clearly reflects that they are presumably comfortable enough with how those articles mesh with the theme of the website. The website clearly reflects a bias for conservative writters when it “reaches out”, and this isn’t purely coincidental. StrikeTheRoot, despite having a shitty and primitive web design, is a better site for purely libertarian material.
Agreed. If Buchanan is good on an issue, why not print his work? His views on foreign policy are usually very good. He was certainly the only commentator on MSM that supported the secession of South Ossetia and Abkhazia some months ago. You’ll notice they dont print his protectionist or extreme border nationalism work, just his good stuff.
How about the other laughable claim, that Rothbard was secretly a left-libertarian during his much touted ‘alliance with the left’ that lasted all of about 3 years and accomplished absolutely nothing.
You’re correct, he did denounce modals, but that came later. To be fair, I admit LLs are not usually the same breed as modals. Modals populate the LP, and regularly post at Reason which to me is modal central HQ. To the contrary, I think modalism is one of the biggest libertarian plagues. But Rothbard wrote 2 (or 3? I will have to look them up) essays during 69 or 70 about the ‘ultra leftism’ of some of early LLs, bordering on promotion of anarcho-communism. I will admit he did not write much about LLs after this time period, although he does seem to group LLs with modals alot later on.
Carson at times sounds more socialist than libertarian, and I dont see how one can ignore that. We should all join thug gangs like the IWW? They are criminals who should be ejected from the property, not encourged. But that is just one example.
The problem is that you can’t legitimately impose your own definition on other people’s philosophies that you don’t know or understand, because all you’d be doing is engaging in misrepresentation. It is simply not true that all ideologies that call themselves socialism have the use of force built into them. An ideology that advocates, say, cooperative management is not coercive by mere virtue of advocating cooperative management.
You’re also defining socialism so broadly that all forms of state control are socialism, which leads to absurdities such as “socialist monarchy”. But both capitalism and socialism can be state-backed systems or non-state-backed systems. Any system can be voluntary or coercive depending on the context in which participation and membership is formed and takes place.
The bulk of the history of anarchism has been the history of socialist anarchism, and simply writting it off wholesale without knowing about it is simply ignorant. To arbitrarily claim that somehow anarcho-capitalism is the only legitimate form of anarchism is a declaration of monopoly and implicitly assumes a single model for a society, which isn’t consistant with anarchism.
Your position reduces to semantics over the word socialism. It’s absurd to say that someone isn’t a socialist because they chose to be one. If someone voluntarily forms a cooperative in a libertarian society, this doesn’t make them “capitalists” any more than working for a boss makes one a “socialist”.
Ok, I think I’ve heard it all now.
The rest is all newspeak garbage as usual. What you think is not what is, but what I think is. What you understand is wrong, what I say you understand is right.
What a pantload.
My point is perfectly valid. It is irrational to have a particular definition for a word, and then argue against someone who has a different definition for that word that what they truly advocate is what your definition is by virtue of them using the same word. At such a point, one has to define one’s terms by breaking it down into the relevant concepts, or you’re just misrepresenting people by acting as if the way they label themselves means what you define that label as, as opposed to how they define it for themselves. And happy xaxlebax day to you too. What does xaxlebax mean? Who cares!
Yeah. Do as I say, not as I do. I am Brainpolice. You are a know nothing.
You just pwned yourself better than I could ever hope to do.
Why are you acting irrational and rude? I didn’t pwn myself, I pwned you. It is not rational to make proclaimations about the details of what other people think by mere virtue of a label that they attribute to themselves, you have to argue against the content of their ideas. To act as if all discussion ends and the specifics of their viewpoint is established as soon as they use the label is silly.
Please stop, we’re still laughing from the first time you stated this like you actually followed/believed it.
the xaxlebax is dead! long live the xaxlebax!
Quick, someone call chomsky!
Then it is now impossible to argue over ideas. A athiets can now proclaim himself to be Christian and be offended that you infered, from the label he attributed to himself, that he was a thiest. From now on all debates are subject to semantic anarchy!
A social conservative who supported abortion. Oops. Never mind. And no, Rothbard’s social conservatism had nothing to do with political pandering, no sir…
Next time you decide to unleash such an ad hominem with little (if any) utility to the conversation other than to aggravate your opponents, I suggest that you back it up with evidence.
Here’s an interesting article from Lew Rockwell in which he seems to acknowledge that the pandering to, sorry, alliance with conservatism was a not-so-good idea…
Sorry, your post isn’t very clear. You’re asking for evidence to back up what ? Rothbard’s support for abortion ? Or ?
Generally in debates it is an accepted virtue to attack people who can respond. And if that is not possible to pack it up with some evidence. Are you suggesting that Rothbard was a closet social liberal pretending to be a social conservative for political brownie points? If Rothbard was willing to do this for political brownie points, why, o why, didn’t he become a Reaganite? Why didn’t he soften points in FANL if he was so willing to dig for political brownie points? And why would he go so deep undercover as a cultural reactionary as to obtain a knowledge about 20s & 30s Jazz and Church Architecture?
I don’t care if you want to be a libertarian-leftist or an authoritarian platypus or whatever. This isn’t the kind of fight I will be too involved in, but to quote Judge Judy “Don’t pee on me and tell me it’s raining.”
A socon can support abortion. I did, then briefly didn’t but do again. You guys attach all sorts of nonsense to your false labels, and then get mad when someone complains that you’re not being intellectually honest.
If you read up on Rothbard, he was a conservative for a long time, and he may have finished up pandering to conservatives and liberals, but that doesn’t mean his personal values ever changed.
Any questions?
O give me a break. An alliance is not the same as joining something. Rothbard did not cut back on anarchism, legalizing drugs, prostitution or anything else that seperated him from conservatives when he allied with them. An alliance is just that. It’s an agreement with a group who is almost there on a lot of important issues of the day (paleos are still great on war, better than neocons and some members of Reason magazine on cutting government, and some (Richard Spencer & Daniel McCarthy come to mind) are open to libertarian ideas on the economy). Some are also better than average bear on the War On Drugs,takimag.com publishing a pro-repeal editorial this week. Are they perfect? No. But if someone has 60% of issues right is it wrong to work together for that 60% and try to convince them of the other 40%? I should think not. Now at the same rate I would defend Rothbard trying to win New Lefties over to the light side and Antiwar.com publishing lefties just as strongly. Strategical alliances do not mean ideological sellouts per se.
Pandering emplies changing something or being intellectual dishonest. Rothbard never did this.
So what if Pat Buchanan is published in LRC? So is Glenn Greenwald! So is Gabriel Kolko! So is Murray Polner! Is Lew Rockwell a secret leftie now too? I have nothing against Roderick Long and other such Libertarian-Leftists of such stripes. But “don’t pee on me and tell me it’s raining”.
O wait I quoted Judge Judy! And she’s a New York liberal (I think)! Jeez, I must be a no good panderer appealing to New York liberals who might read what I say! (sorry if someone already made this point)
No. If you don’t see the pandering of Rockwell and Rothbard to conservatism, I won’t bother illustrating it. And if Rothbard was really a ‘social conservative’ I frankly couldn’t care less. Hm. Was Rothbard an agnostic…? Never mind.