I’ve heard that some Republicans, including radio host Charlie Sykes, are upset that a few Democrats tweeted suggestions for good things Mary Burke might have said about Scott Walker in the first gubernatorial debate. Among those tweets was a suggestion from Lori Compas, formerly a state senate candidate, and currently a photographer and leader of…
Libertarians
Elections, Libertarians
Change the Presidential Debates
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Law, Libertarians, Liberty
Friday Poll: Libertarian v. Libertarian on the NSA Surveillance Scandal
by JOHN ADAMS • • 4 Comments
One might think that all libertarians would be equally outraged over revelations (for some, long-suspected) of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance, but it’s not true. In the video below, libertarian John Stossel contends that the surveillance isn’t as troubling as other government actions, including the Drug War. In reply, libertarian Andrew Napolitano contends that…
Libertarians, Liberty
Now More Than Ever
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
LIBERTY. It’s a simple idea, but it’s also the linchpin of a complex system of values and practices: justice, prosperity, responsibility, toleration, cooperation, and peace. Many people believe that liberty is the core political value of modern civilization itself, the one that gives substance and form to all the other values of social life. THEY’RE…
Economy, Immigration, Libertarians, Liberty
Immigration as Voluntary Exchange
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
It’s not only markets in capital and goods that should be free. It’s markets in labor, too. What’s immigration, at bottom? It’s a voluntary and peaceful transaction between employer and employee. Government interference in these many transactions is presumptuous, oppressive of individuals, and stifling of economic growth. One hears, more often since Gov. Romney’s defeat,…
Libertarians, Politics, Presidential race 2012
Libertarian Nick Gillespie on Why the GOP Lost in 2012
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Gillespie gives a quick – but representative – expression of libertarian thinking on where the GOP went wrong. There was much about which to disagree over Pres. Obama’s policies, but in the three areas Gillespie mentions, a decidedly more libertarian direction (truly smaller, less intrusive government) would have helped Republicans. As for social conservatism, profound…
Libertarians
Radley Balko Sets The Nation Straight
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Over at The Nation online, Patricia Williams offers a conflation of libertarians, Republicans, Objectivists, Paul Ryan, and Ayn Rand. Radley Balko succinctly cuts through Williams’s ignorant mess: A few minor points: Paul Ryan is not a Randian, nor would Ayn Rand have approved of Paul Ryan. Ayn Rand was not a libertarian, and libertarianism is…
Libertarians, Presidential race 2012
Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson @ PAUL Fest
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
One major-party convention over, and another yet to go. Outside the GOP convention in Tampa, at PAUL Fest (People Awakening and Uniting for Liberty), Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson spoke about his campaign: Nothing glamorous, of course, but something sincere, dedicated, and hopeful. Also posted on 8.31.12 @ Daily Adams.
Economy, Free Markets, Freedom of Speech, Libertarians, Liberty
Happy Birthday, Dr. Friedman
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Law, Libertarians, Liberty
Justice Kennedy the….Libertarian
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The Cato Institute’s David Boaz teases the venerable Time magazine about its cover story on Justice Anthony Kennedy’s supposedly inscrutable jurisprudence. (Time is a survivor – it’s really the only remaining newsmagazine of its kind; it’s fared far better than rival publications.) Massimo Calabresi and David Von Drehle write in that magazine that Efforts to…
Libertarians, Presidential race 2012
LP Pres. Candidate Gary Johnson on the Daily Show
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Libertarians, Liberty, Unions
A Libertarian Case for Organized Labor…
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
…from Herbert Spencer. As a balance of power: “Everywhere aggression begets resistance and counter-aggression; and in our present transitional state, semi-militant and semi-industrial, trespasses have to be kept in check by the fear of retaliatory trespasses.” Via Reason (originally appearing in The Freeman). Generations later, we’re still in that transitional state. There are other justifications,…
Libertarians, Presidential race 2012
Is the 2012 Libertarian Party National Ticket the Strongest Ever?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Connor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic thinks so: A former governor of New Mexico, he was re-elected by that state’s voters, left office popular after two terms, and therefore has the most executive experience of any Libertarian Party presidential nominee. He can also cite the state he ran as evidence that nothing radical happens when he’s…
Libertarians
The Libertarian View: Why are you a libertarian?
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Libertarianism.org offers a series of videos entitled, The Libertarian View: Why are you a libertarian? In the recording embedded below, John Tomasi of Brown answers why he’s a libertarian (and so holds a view that millions of other Americans hold). Tomasi is the author of the recent Free Market Fairness (2012). He ends his remarks…