Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Ideological incoherence

Libertarians for forcible confiscation and redistribution of property. Who knew? Apparently, when the President excercises unconstitutional powers to seize people's property and engages in collective punishment, David Boaz of the CATO Institute is just peachy with it.

Seriously, to call the destruction of the slave trade (which, let's remember, took the world's largest and most destructive war until WWI) a "libertarian" triumph means that libertarianism is exactly what any serious person always thought it was -- a bad joke. "Liberal", maybe, but in no possible coherent fashion can the end of slavery be called "the most important libertarian accomplishment in history."

Just so we're clear, I'm totally cool with the unreasonable seizures and unconstitutional powers in the case of the Civil War. (See the Emancipation Proclamation.) But then I'm a dirty Commie.

1 comment:

Mike said...

Bah, Boaz and the CATO Institute are examples of what Kevin Carson calls "Vulgar Libertarians" (he's a friend of Larry Gambone and Pierre Ducasse)...they try to use the words of libertarians but in the end, are not much more than apologists for corporations and the existing power elite.