The amazing things you find out about yourself on the Web

Maybe it's ego--OK, yes it's certainly ego--but every so often I google my name and "Libertarian" to see where I'll turn up. That's how I found out (albeit belatedly) that I had been quoted by Time.

Now I discover that my ditching of Bob Barr over his interview making DOMA a pillar of the new States' Rights Dixiecrat Libertarianism was actually carried over at Freedom Democrats, where--I am exceedingly pleased to note--I am carried in the same paragraph as Steve Kubby and Thomas Knapp:

Bob Barr's appearance on Fox News Sunday has triggered a backlash or sorts in the libertarian community, specifically with respect to Barr's comment regarding DOMA....

This prompted Steve Kubby to post “States’ Rights” is an Anti-Libertarian Concept. Steve Newton is now finished with Barr. Thomas Knapp posts that Barr is a Dixiecrat States Rightest in the tradition of Strom Thurmond and George Wallace.

Not that I'm in the habit of being a Barr apologist, but I believe this reaction is a bit over the top.

Imagine, lil' ol' me, famous for over-reacting.

Maybe I'm also over-reacting to Senator John McCain's homophobic views about gay adoption [h/t to Waldo for pouring through the transcript for this disgusting nugget]:

Q: President Bush believes that gay couples should not be permitted to adopt children. Do you agree with that?

Mr. McCain: I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no I don’t believe in gay adoption.

Q: Even if the alternative is the kid staying in an orphanage, or not having parents.

Mr. McCain: I encourage adoption and I encourage the opportunities for people to adopt children I encourage the process being less complicated so they can adopt as quickly as possible. And Cindy and I are proud of being adoptive parents.

Q: But your concern would be that the couple should be a traditional couple.

Mr. McCain: Yes.

OK, this officially places McKKK-cain behind Bob Barr in my estimation. I suppose that's over-reacting as well.

What's intriguing about all this brew-haha over Libertarian politics, is that amazingly enough in places as different as Freedom Democrats and Eric Dondero's Libertarian Republican I have somehow acquired a reputation as a radical Libertarian.

I'm not quite sure how that happened: I came out against Mary Ruwart's candidacy on the age-of-consent issue, supported George Phillies for the LP nomination, and strongly held a "wait and see" attitude toward Bob Barr for several weeks.

If you examine the archives of this blog, you'll find that my political and philosophical positions are much more pragmatic than radical, and Tom--my local anarcho-capitalist reader--will readily tell you that I'm not willing to ditch as much of the government as he thinks I should.

So how did I become a radical?

I think that it is possibly the result of having a few positions in my inventory from which I will hardly budge.

I can think of two at the moment.

If you're in favor of continuing an interventionist foreign policy, replete with an empire of military bases around the world and a defense-industrial establishment capable of wagging the dog, then I'm not going to vote for you.

[Bob Barr passed that one; Barack Obama and John McCain both failed miserably.]

If you're in favor of institutionalized governmental discrimination (at any level of the government) against American citizens based on their sexual orientation, then I'm not going to vote for you.

[Barack Obama seems to be passing this one; Bob Barr and John McCain both fail.]

This would seem to leave me with Cynthia McKinney, except for provisional intractable position number three:

If your IQ doesn't appear to be measurable in at least the high double digits, then I'm not going to vote for you.

[OK, sure, that was in bad taste, but this is a f**king blog for God's sake--get over it.]

Point being: apparently holding non-interventionism and non-discrimination as core values makes one a radical.

If I'd known that, I'd have applied for my card a long time ago.

Comment Rescue (?) and child-related gun violence in Delaware

In my post about the idiotic over-reaction to a New Jersey 10-year-old posing with his new squirrel rifle , Dana Garrett left me this response: One waits, apparently in vain, for you to post the annual rates of children who either shoot themselves or someone else with a gun. But then you Libertarians are notoriously ambivalent to and silent about data and facts and would rather talk abstract principles and fear monger (like the government will confiscate your guns). It doesn't require any degree of subtlety to see why you are data and fact adverse. The facts indicate we have a crisis with gun violence and accidents in the USA, and Libertarians offer nothing credible to address it. Lives, even the lives of children, get sacrificed to the fetishism of liberty. That's intellectual cowardice. OK, Dana, let's talk facts. According to the Children's Defense Fund , which is itself only querying the CDCP data base, fewer than 10 children/teens were killed per year in Delaw

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici

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