Carnival of Liberty XXII

Below the Beltway's Carnival of Liberty XXII, a compendium of various libertarianish musings, is up and at 'em and includes shout-outs to Wal-Mart, John Locke, Harry Potter, and Reason's former editor Virginia Postrel.

Check it all out here.

Comments

[The Winecommonsewer]

Rowling may be writing subversive stuff but she was a welfare recipient herself if I recall correctly. That doesn't take away from the message but it does cast a different light on it.

[The Winecommonsewer]

An interesting observation I found over at Below The Beltway:

Following the naive foreign policy advocated by the Libertarian Party and its pacifist allies is, quite frankly, a prescription for suicide.

[Daniel]

Winecommonsewer, I?m not sure how the fact that Rowling was on welfare at one time casts a different light on it. To me, the best crituqe of a bureaucratic system would come from someone who was one of its ?beneficiaries??

[BLG]

1) I'm not sure what the big libertarian hard-on for WalMart is about. Their success is largely dependant on handouts from local government, funded by taxpayers, and in the form of sidewalks, sewers, and other misc. 'tax incentives'. It's been studied, it's been documented. Just because they are victimized by a bunch of protectionist populist yahoos does not mean that they are anything like worth idolizing.

2) The books are about a group of teenagers that conjure things and ride broomsticks ... and that's fucking all ... no double-secret anti-state messages ... period.

[mk]

no double-secret anti-state messages ... period.

Have you even read the books? There's nothing double-secret about it. The message is pretty obvious.
Just because the meaning of a book is lost on you doesn't mean it wasn't there.

[BLG]

mk,

I've read them and I enjoy them. Just because you read your own axe to grind into the stories doesn't mean that that is "the meaning of a book". If the stories were as one-dimensional as you seem to think, they wouldn't be nearly as well-received.

[BLG]

OK, I've vented.

I just get frustrated when I hear people beat the 'anti-state' drum when talking about Harry Potter. I believe VERY strongly that the libertarian message in the HP books IS NOT THE meaning of the books, it is PART of the meaning of the books. It is PART of the world built in the books. Rowling wrote a story ... a WHOLE story, with an honest-to-god plot and everything ... about this kid Potter. And Potter is a 3-D kid living in a 3-D world. Part of that world ... PART ... is a bloated, self-interested government (of that there can be not doubt).

But the completeness of Rowlings books is in sharp contrast to Rand's books. Mme. Rand employs a paper thin plot containing 1-D characters cobbled together to bash you over the head with her politics (much of which I agree with ... I just HATE the books). But, beyond a shadow of a doubt, THE point of Rands books is to drive home her political beliefs. Rowling is telling a story ... plain and simple.

I don't know ... maybe I've just talked myself out of my POV. Perhaps that there are so many facets from a set of books speaks highly about the quality of the writing. It's the quality of her story that allows such passion. Huh. Well mk, you were right. Something was definitely lost on me ... just not what you thought it was!

[mk]

BLG,
well I didn't think that HP was one-dimensional. My problem was with the assertion that there was NO anti-state message in the books. Of course, they are nothing like a Rand books. I wouldn't have enjoyed them if they had been 🙂

When I read the books to my daughter, I always imagined the Minister of Magic as "humpy" from Yes, Prime Minister. Am I the only one?

[The Wine Commonsewer]

Daniel, there are two kinds of people graduating from the welfare lines, those who learned the correct lesson and those who think that if the system was administered correctly it would fine. I'm not sure we know which of those Rowling is. And I've read all the books.

[Stevo Darkly]

well I didn't think that HP was one-dimensional....Of course, they are nothing like a Rand books. I wouldn't have enjoyed them if they had been 🙂

Wait for the next installment: Harry Potter and the Shattered Hearth.