A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Libertarianism

  • Why libertarians are not “social liberals”

    Politico ran a story today from conservative writer Kevin Williamson on why Senator Rand Paul’s brand of libertarian-inflected conservatism will have trouble appealing to voters. I don’t know about the politics, but Williamson makes an interesting point about the difference between libertarians and social liberals. Libertarians are sometimes described as “fiscally conservative and socially liberal,” Read more

  • Best of the week

    I end up sharing a lot of links on Twitter, so I thought it might be worth collecting what I think were the stand-out pieces of the week. (“Stand-out” doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with every word, just that these were the most interesting or thought-provoking items I came across). Anyway, here goes: –Elizabeth Stoker, Read more

  • The ACA, social insurance, and human solidarity

    Most liberals and Democrats admit that the rollout of the Affordable Care Act has been a mess. How serious this is for the long-term success of the law is a matter of debate, but no one thinks this has been anything other than a rocky start. The most visible problem, of course, has been the Read more

  • Romney vs. the 47%

    The big political news of the day, of course, is the video released by Mother Jones of Mitt Romney speaking to a room of wealthy donors in which he essentially wrote off half the American public as moochers who will never be convinced to take responsibility for their lives. Romney’s remarks are a version of Read more

  • Rand Paul’s top-down conservatism

    Continuing the grand congressional tradition of monkeying with local D.C. affairs, supposedly libertarian G.O.P. senator Rand Paul has introduced amendments to a bill granting the District budget autonomy that would dictate city policies on guns, abortion, and unions. From the Washington Post: One Paul amendment would require the District to allow residents to obtain concealed Read more

  • Foreign policy and the Golden Rule

    Even though I argued in my previous post that liberals are under no particular obligation to support Ron Paul (e.g., vote for him), I do agree with those who say that he is raising important issues and has a perspective that needs to be heard, particularly with respect to foreign policy. In a recent post Read more

  • What would it mean for progressives to “support” Ron Paul?

    There’s been a bit of back and forth recently in the left/progressive blogosphere about whether people who meet that particular description should “support” libertarian Texas Republican congressman Ron Paul’s candidacy for president. Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Greenwald, and others have expressed varying degrees of support for Paul’s candidacy, noting that his stances on civil liberties and Read more

  • Libertarianism and the politics of human frailty

    Jim Henley, who’s long been one of my favorite bloggers, has been writing a really interesting series of posts touching on aspects of his defection from libertarianism toward a more liberal/social-democratic politics. In his most recent post, Jim wonders if libertarianism is “an inevitably temporary political outlook.” He notes that many people seem to “outgrow” Read more

  • The Christian politics of Mark O. Hatfield

    Former senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon passed away this week at the age of 89. He was one of the last of the liberal Republicans–someone who bucked his party on many issues. But Hatfield wasn’t simply a liberal Republican in the Nelson Rockefeller mold. He was a devout evangelical Christian, a virtual pacifist, and a Read more

  • Friday Links

    –Ludwig von Mises versus Christianity. –20-plus years of Willie Nelson’s political endorsements. –The media has stopped covering the unemployement crisis. –The Stockholm Syndrome theory of long novels. –An interview with Edward Glaeser, author of Triumph of the City. –Why universal salvation is an evangelical option. –A debate over Intelligent Design ensares an academic journal of Read more