Phillies, Blunt

David Weigel | May 28, 2008

Ex-Libertarian Party presidential candidate George Phillies has disputed my quote from our conversation on Monday, which I blogged back here. I quoted Phillies as saying his "delegation" was majority pagan, when it's actually the Massachusetts LP committee that's majority neopagan. It's actually an important distinction. Phillies wasn't on board with the complaints he was hearing from the party; he was just passing them on.

Phillies also claims that he "most certainly did not" mention L. Neil Smith as a candidate that the party might suggest as a replacement. He's misremembering: Phillies did mention Smith, in order to make it clear he didn't like the idea.

Comments

Ben|5.28.08 @ 3:55PM|#

What exactly does pagan mean when used to describe libertarians?

|5.28.08 @ 4:25PM|#

Ben,
Pagan is a set of theological beliefs and practices, libertarian is a political ideology and social philosophy. As far as I know, adherence to either one, neither precludes nor necessitates adherence to the other.

Gene Berkman|5.28.08 @ 6:01PM|#

Aside from the neopagan reference (I am an atheist, after all) I was actually impressed by George Phillies when he made his statement after being eliminated in the voting.

|5.28.08 @ 8:36PM|#

Ben,
He's talking about actual pagans, not any special brand of libertarian thought. Some Pagans happen to be libertarians. They are understandably concerned about the Barr nomination since he has demonstrated an overt hostility to their religion in the past and launched a mini-crusade to rid Pagan Religious practice from the US Military.

|5.28.08 @ 9:45PM|#

launched a mini-crusade to rid Pagan Religious practice from the US Military.

Exaggerate much? He was trying to keep it from being recognized as a religion, not trying to ban its practice. Basketball isn't recognized as a religion either, but soldiers are still allowed to practice it, no?

|5.28.08 @ 9:52PM|#

libertarian is a political ideology and social philosophy.

It's just a political ideology -- that's as far as cosmos and paleos can agree. There's no single social philosophy held by libertarians, and I like it that way.

b-psycho|5.28.08 @ 11:17PM|#

Eh, I prefer Garcia Vegas myself...

|5.29.08 @ 7:24AM|#

gv's are great. I'm a dutchmasters man, myself.

PC|5.29.08 @ 10:09AM|#

Well Barr should just have his staff buy him some fur leggings and he should come speak at one of their virgin sacrifices.

Steve|5.30.08 @ 9:33AM|#

What's his problem with L. Neil Smith?