Please Throw Your Monies All Over Reason's Webathon, Because We Take This Liberty Stuff and Smuggle it All Over the Newspapers and Televisions!
What were you doing this morning at 11? I'll tell you what Reason.com/.tv Editor Nick Gillespie was doing–answering questions about libertarianism and Ron Paul over at WashingtonPost.com. Sample from that:
Q: If Paul does well in Iowa, will this lead to more liberty-minded GOP candidates gaining strength in the '12 Congressional elections?
A: Regardless of Paul's fortunes in Iowa and beyond, I think libertarian-minded candidates of either party are poised to do well. They did in 2010, as Ron Paul's son Rand, now a senator from Kentucky, could tell you. If you're selling a message of reduced government spending and reduced government control over your life, you'll do pretty well in most places.
We're coming off a decade-plus of massive overreach by first the Republicans and then the Democrats. We've got nothing to show for it but death (in wars), debt, and disillusionment. […]
Q: Once one understands the libertarian position, and understand the very notion of liberty, and how it benefits everyone, it is very difficult not to become a raving evangelist. However, we are always confronted with progressives who seem to argue that their "philosophy" is somehow morally superior because they "care about people." How does the be-leathered one shut this argument down?
A: Obviously a Reason reader!
I don't actually encounter many Progressives or liberals who insist they are morally superior and I try not to be a raving evangelist for my POV (though I try to be persuasive). It's pretty easy to stress that outcomes matter more than intentions and that giving people more freedom in their personal and economic lives leads to better material outcomes.
That was in the morning. In the afternoon, Gillespie took the train up to New York to record bits talking about crony capitalism on Real World W/ Cavuto, and about God knows what on Red Eye. Meanwhile, Reason staffers Katherine Mangu-Ward and Peter Suderman are in the same building taping for the next episode of Stossel. I did some live radio on WBAL-AM earlier today. We're a pretty damned small staff (crack open the print mag and look in the staffbox some time, keeping in mind that "Contributing Editors" do not work for the publication), and yet there we are all over the damned place, yakking about the issues (and with the point of view) you care about most.
This is an explicit part of our capital-M Mission, even though every moment spent on some else's media property is a moment not spent on our own (and believe me, the production maw does not get any less ravenous here at the Reason journalism manufacturing division). Judging by the responses we've heard back from y'all (not to mention my Dad's reaction tuning into Judge Andrew Napolitano's *Freedom Watch*), this has been time well spent.
Here, for example, is Nick Gillespie's (in)famous appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher:
And here I was on Fox Business Network's Varney & Co., talking up marijuana legalization:
Please donate money to our Webathon, so we can make more media appearances!
Head over to reason.com/donate, scroll over the (tax-deductible!) giving levels for the swag you'll get back (including a Nick Gillespie-signed black leather jacket!), and regardless of what (or even if) you can contribute, please help us out (and enter yourself into a free $100 Amazon gift card sweeptakes!) by filling out our online survey, which we are using to make still more improvements to Reason.com. Thanks!
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Is Gillespie picking that dude’s pocket?
So much shit on that show, they ought to change the name to Brown Eye.
I have to admit Red Eye is a guilty pleasure… at least when they have someone with..you know.. a sense of humor
Nick, I can only but admire your willingness to post embarrassing or unflattering pictures of yourself in order to beg for money. It reminds me of JW begging for sex from a prostitute.
That’s harsh, man.
It also reminds me of sloopy begging for sex from a donkey. The donkey said no.
I tee up a “paid a prostitute to shit on his chest, but failed” joke, but you just whiffed.
I am disappoint.
You don’t control me!
By you NOT doing what he tells you, you are allowing him to control you just as much.
No! It can’t be!
[rubs hands menacingly]
Muahahahahahahaha!!!!!
You’ll notice they’re not posting screengrabs of them with the ridiculous facial hair.
He’s not self-destructive, dude.
Have those been replaced in the archives yet?
Fire.
Cleansing power,
Etc. Etc.
Holy shit, did you give him your tighty whities to wear too?
He must be a librarian – right, rather?
NO. I’m a librarian.
NO. I’m a librarian.
If you ever got a man younger then 50 to take his pants off you would know we (men of all political stripes) do not wear tighty whities any more.
I don’t know any men who wear underwear
So which one is the libertarian side?
Imperials or Stormcloaks?
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen conservatives say that Ron Paul’s Israel position is anti-semitic but Rand Paul’s Israel position is principled even if they disagree. It’s tempting to not point out that their positions are pretty much the same because if they delude themselves into voting for Rand in the future that’s fine by me.
The difference being is that one is running for president, the other isn’t. I am willing to wager that the moment Rand accounces any presidential aspirations that the neo-cons will jump off that bandwagon right quick. Though by the time he does run perhapes we will be fortunate enough for enough of the polity in the republican party to shift that it won’t matter what the neo-cons do.
um, they look like they could be related. Cousins maybe. I wonder how many of my fellow commentors could also be related to the contributors….
I think it’s Nick’s clone done at 85% scale. Nick calls him “Mostly Me.”
So who’s the comments regular in the pic?
What does Matt Welch do for a donation
…and does it include his French wife?;-)
So who is that skinny dude with the excellent Jewfro?
Jewish- the only way to get an authentic fro without being black.
I would so grow a fro if I could. Garfunkel style bitches!
His name is Jesus Gonzales.
Note the non-jewish name.
Judaism is matrilineal, dude.
Shomer Shabbas!
don’t fuck with the Jesus.
There’s one commenter that lives out in the area and took some pics for an article, maybe one of Cavanaugh’s?
Juan Epstein?
I’ll donate when Jacob Sullum gets with the program and starts doing alt text.
Sullum kicks it old school. He doesn’t besmirch his posts with alt-snark.
Obviously a Reason reader!
If he had been a Reason reader, he would’ve called you “Fonzie with AIDS.”
Damn, that Bill Maher clip was pretty eyeroll inducing. I don’t see how someone could be so dumb yet so smug. And I’m talking about Donna Brazille.
I’d donate $2000 to Reason if Gillespie was taped giving Maher a wedgie backstage.
“Book tour attendee (and comments regular, amirite?) showing up at our Sunset Blvd. reading in appropriate garb”
who lives there?
I originally thought the photo there was of someone being offered to wear *The* Jacket, …. and that the caption would read…
…and he lasted a whole 45 seconds before melting into a pile of goo – a new record! Most souls are instantly consumed, bodies physically disintegrating on contact. Give it up for former Reason commenter Amir Leibowitz-Gonzales!
Man, what a bunch of odious crap. Just a reminder of why I loathe “progressives.” Maher books two toadies for his exercise in back-patting, and then tries to deride Gillespie as a Republican hack. Yes, Bill, you and your prog friends are truly the enlightened, rational party.
And, man, are these people that fucking insecure? You need, basically, 5 true-believing lefties to combat the power of Nick Gillespie? Are we that afraid or incapable of honest debate? It’s essentially 30 minutes of self-affirmation, of reveling in your tribal identity as the “smart,” progressive party. Mind-boggling. Nausea-inducing. Whew. Truly, you do the Lord’s work, Mr Gillespie.
Sunset Blvd? That photo was taken at the Oxford, OH presentation. I was in line right behind that guy. Then we went to Nick’s house for beers.