Mimi & Eunice: Libertarian Debate

Humor
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[Here’s another strip that isn’t about IP but we picked it out anyway because it’s good for a movement to laugh at itself once in a while. This strip brings to mind the famous incident related by Milton Friedman in which Ludwig von Mises — during a discussion about the progressive income tax at a Mont Pelerin Society meeting in 1947, comprised of Friedrich Hayek, Friedman, and others — stood up, announced “You’re all a bunch of socialists!” and stormed out. (Also recounted in Lew Rockwell’s Mises and Liberty; Long’s Mises as Radical, and in Guido Hülsmann’s Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism, p. 871.) — GAP]

The Libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute produces some of the finest, most lucid writing against Intellectual Pooperty anywhere. This cartoon is more about what happens in its blog comments.

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This is a syndicated post, which originally appeared at Mimi and Eunice. View original post.

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Weigel’s Parallax View

The Left, Vulgar Politics
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David Weigel, late of the Washington Post‘s blog, now writes for Slate, where he posted, yesterday, about a possible “purge” at the Cato Institute. Personnel changes at Cato are of only scant interest to those not employed by Cato (or so it should be, partisan obsessions aside), but something Weigel wrote deserves attention:

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Glenn Beck Is a Statist, Not a Libertarian

Imperialism, The Right, War
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At the beginning of his show this morning, Glenn Beck started ripping into the imam that all the talk-radio hosts love to hate, because the imam has (correctly) pointed out that the U.S. has killed many more innocent non-Muslims than al-Qaeda has.

Beck went on to defend the U.S. embargo against Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people during the 1990s, argued that we should have fought the Iraq war “full on” from the beginning (meaning we shouldn’t have been so squeamish — as if “we” were — about killing innocent people), and claimed that the current U.S. government is the only one in the history of the world that has ever fought wars in a manner that avoided killing civilians.

Last year, Beck promoted a rally in Washington to protest the federal government’s taxing and spending.  This year, he’s holding a rally to glorify the U.S. military.  Can there be any doubt that by the time the Republicans regain control in Washington, Beck and his many followers will be right back where all the conservatives were during the George W. Bush years?  Only it will be much worse, because they’ll have much bigger, more powerful government at their disposal, which they will not reduce one bit.  And one shudders to think of what the apparent growing extreme, irrational hatred of Muslims may lead to.

Unless, that is, Ron Paul and other true libertarians can steer the Tea Party movement onto the right track before it’s too late.

As a good first step, it’s time for everyone — including some people who should know better — to stop suggesting that Glenn Beck is any sort of libertarian.

(Cross-posted at LRC and my blog.)

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Tasers don’t kill people

Police Statism
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But cops armed with Tasers sure as hell do:

The Denver coroner has ruled that the July 9 death of an inmate at the new jail was the result of homicide.

Marvin Booker was being processed on a charge of possession of drug paraphernalia when he got into a scuffle with jail deputies. He was shocked with a Taser device, placed in a chokehold and held to the floor as jail deputies piled on top.

Other inmates said Booker, 56, who was listed as 175 pounds in Denver court records but was actually 5-foot-5 and 135 pounds, was then carried to the holding cell at the Van Cise-Simonet Detention Facility and dropped face fir5 st. He never recovered.

The coroner’s finding means simply that another human being caused Booker’s death, rather than from natural causes, suicide or an accident. It is not the coroner’s role to determine who might have caused the death or whether the homicide was justifiable.

The Denver district attorney’s office is investigating Booker’s death to determine if criminal charges should be filed against the deputies involved, who are on paid vacations until the matter is settled.  I would like to believe that someone will be held responsible for this man’s senseless death, but I’m not holding my breath.  If it had been private citizens who dog-piled a homeless person and caused him to suffocate, they’d already be in jail and facing murder charges.  But when it’s five deputies who are caught on video smothering a small man who had been arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia (itself a non-crime), suddenly it’s more important to “review policy.”  And maybe they’ll, you know, be disciplined.

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