New at Reason

David Weigel | August 23, 2006

Journey along with Brian Doherty, down the gnarled and winding paths of 20th century conservative and leftist intellectual movements.

Comments

|8.23.06 @ 4:07PM|#

The Sudan comment reminds me of a story from one of PJ O'Rourke's books... he had been in apartheid South Africa, and was talking to a divinity student from Soweto who had just come back from the US, and was extremely enthusiastic about the wealth and racial harmony of the States. Impressed, PJ asked the student where he'd been. The answer - the South Side of Chicago. (Although perhaps he had only been in Hyde Park, my current stomping ground, which actually is quite pleasant for the most part.)

(And might I add - I want a pet cougar, dammit!)

|8.23.06 @ 8:56PM|#

I had a student from Sudan many years back who longed to return to get away from the racism he experienced here in the US. He was a middle class dark skinned muslim and found the discrimination against him profound and unsettling. He actually stated "we do not have discrimination in Sudan."

Of course when I pointed out the conflict between religious and cultural groups in his home country, he responded with "but the Christians and tribals have made the wrong choice, and therefore deserve their fate."

This was years before Darfur became the mess it is now.

|8.23.06 @ 9:45PM|#

Thanks for a terrific article Mr. Doherty. A great one to link to the next time some unprincipled centrist wuss says he could never be libertarian because it's just "so extreeeeeeeme..."

|8.23.06 @ 9:49PM|#

There was a girl in my class in high school who was a close relative of al-Bashier, the Sudanese dictator... her branch of the family was, ahem, on the outs with him, which is why they were living in Egypt.

|8.24.06 @ 12:54AM|#

The idea that it's libertarians who laid down the groundwork for Republicans to now be able to talk about ending Social Security is interesting, and maybe even pleasant to consider, but it's impossible to prove: one other change that's happened since the 60's is that changing demographics have put the system in much worse shape than it was before. That, and not a set of Milton Friedman editorials, seems to me the more convincing reason why Social Security's no longer the proverbial "third rail". But who knows.

|8.24.06 @ 1:14PM|#

"Eisenhower, Burnham�s perfect example of the �most conservative electable candidate,� was sure that no party would ever speak of ending Social Security and live; thanks to ideological groundwork laid by �off-the-reservation� radical libertarians for decades, the idea is now a real part of the policy debate."

A real part of the policy debate? The Republicas don't even dare to talk about "partial privitization" of Social Security--it has to be called "personal accounts" (they object even to the term "private accounts"). And even with that, they not only can't get it through a Republican-controlled Congress but don't even dare have an actual vote on it.