*Of Course* Libertarians Are Leading the Charge Against Trump's Authoritarianism
Nobody should be surprised that the folks bent out of shape by Barack Obama's and George Bush's imperial overreach are taking Donald Trump to the woodshed.
The Guardian has pulled together five pieces from conservatives and libertarians who are critical of President Donald Trump's authoritarian tendencies and policies. I'm happy to be represented in the mix (for my commentary about Trump's awful, inhumane, and idiotic ban on refugees and travelers from seven countries tied to terrorism). It's a good mix of people, including some conservative critics (The New York Time's Ross Douthat, National Review's David French, Commentary's Noah Rothman) and Steve Horwitz of Bleeding Heart Libertarians along with yours truly. Here's a snippet from my piece:
That's certainly the case with Trump and his orders on sanctuary cities … and on immigration and refugee policy. The laws were not just poorly phrased and timed, they clearly will not work to address the basic issues they ostensibly are meant to ameliorate. As Anthony Fisher noted here earlier today, the US embassy in Iraq has said that Trump's action is a recruitment tool for jihadists, as pro-American Middle Easterners realize they're being hung out to dry. As for keeping America safe from terrorists entering the country as refugees, the fact is the country has an incredibly safe record.
Read the whole collection of pieces here.
Because no good deed or kind word can go unpunished, I'd like to add a bit of nuance to the way the writer, Jason Wilson, encapsulates his piece. Here's the headline and subhed:
Burst your bubble: five conservative articles to read as Trump riles libertarians
I think it's accurate to call Douthat, French, and Rothman conservatives, but it's clear that neither Horwitz or I have nothing to do with conservatism.
Yet the confusion is right there in headline: The "conservative articles" are the product of Trump "ril[ing] libertarians"? Wuh?
I just don't get the slowness with which people are fully grokking that libertarianism is as distinct from conservativism as it is from progressivism or leftism. I'm not trying to be pedantic or coy here, but there's a reason why libertarians (certainly those at Reason) were intensely critical of George W. Bush's executive branch overreach and Barack Obama's too, while conservatives and liberals generally stayed silent when their guy was doing the power grabbing. And so it makes total sense that libertarians are leading the attacks on Trump's attempts to be a one-man (or at least one-branch) government. Libertarianism is nothing if not the antithesis of authoritarianism. Always has been, always will be. Be sure to check out Reason's attitude toward whoever eventually replaces Trump. The minute he (or she) starts down an authoritarian road, we'll be on the case.
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The Guardian is the most godawful grubby little socialist fish wrap.
Whose views overlap with Reasons less or more frequently than say Breitbart would overlap with Reason.
Figures they’d sponsor a cuck circle jerk.
My last month paycheck was for 11000 dollars… All i did was simple online work from comfort at home for 3-4 hours/day that I got from this agency I discovered over the internet and they paid me for it 95 bucks every hour… This is what I do
=========================== http://www.4dayjobs.com
But you aren’t leading the charge. You especially are just add gloss to left wing media reports. In fact Peter Sunderman actually managed to get to the left of the Democratic Party and claim that immigrants are more deserving of welfare than citizens. So other than Sunderman’s audition tape for salon where’s the leadership.
“I just don’t get the slowness with which people are fully grokking that libertarianism is as distinct from conservativism as it is from progressivism or leftism.”
I can see why people will confuse Reason’s new brand of libertarianism for bland progressivism, considering the writers that you pass-off as ‘libertarian’
Well, seeing as most ‘libertarian’ commenters are really just conservatives, I’m not surprised they think libertarian is progressive.
Most ‘libertarian’ people that comment here are against abortion, against gay marriage, pretty far right on most social issues. They are also far right on most economic issues.
This just makes it sound like you have no clue what you’re talking about.
Or, being far right on social and economic issues makes you a conservative.
Which is kind of my point.
God, conservatives here are so dumb. They bitch about every article that doesn’t suck Trumps dick.
They’re courting people like you. You’re going to love it here.
You mean they’re courting libertarians? Yeah, that’s kind of the whole point of Reason.com.
Been here for years, It’s been flooded with conservatives through the Obama years, hopefully they get offended and finally leave.
Are you one of those shriek 8%er libertarians that think Obama was a good president and voted for Hillary?
Jahgro, being the sort of new ally Reason is trying to attract.
Great minds, Grinch.
Yeah, been here for years, nice try.
Go find another conservative safe space. Brietbart is probably what you are looking for.
Ooh, edgy.
Hey, don’t knock his many valuable contributions over the years.
thread reviving and telling people to go to Brietbart?
It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta put yokels in their place.
Find me one of my comments that isn’t Libertarian. Hint: You can’t. I’ve been bitching about you social conservatives on this website since 2014. But yeah, I must be a progressive in disguise. I’ve been playing the long game for 2 years.
https://reason.com/blog/2014/11…..nt_4874157
Pro-Gun post
https://reason.com/blog/2015/11…..nt_5725723
Small government post
Playing the king game for two years huh?
Cool stupid story bro.
Long game. Ah, fuck it.
It’s called sarcasm. Now that you know I’ve been here for 2 years, read all my past comments, and know I am a libertarian, I would expect an apology.
But I doubt I’ll get one from a conservative.
Hahaha
I clicked on three random articles and here are your comments:
(11.8.14 @ 5:17PM)
(7.14.15 @ 10:43AM)
(12.4.15 @ 6:56PM)
Whether or not you’re a libertarian, it’s pretty undisputed from your interactions that you’re a prick. If you can’t play nice, you get reasonabled.
In other words, yes, you’re right Jahgro, and my feelings get hurt easily.
No.
You’re a puppet account…That’s all I have to say about you.
*checks for strings to koch hq*
I must be a progressive in disguise.
Referring to leftards as “progressive” doesn’t help your case, sunshine.
-jcr
Ah yes, I must use childish language to get my point across.
Childish language like “suck Trump’s dick?” Hilarious.
Why are you still here? This is a libertarian website, all you’ll do is bitch about “unfair” coverage over the next 4 years.
They bitch about every article that doesn’t suck Trumps dick
I don’t give a flying fuck if they suck his dick or spit in his eye. Just be goddamn libertarians for most of the time and stop basing every choice of story and how to cover it on what every other goddamn site on the Internet is doing.
Be bullish on Trump. And then do something else for the other 39 work-hours of the week.
I’d also appreciate a little intellectual consistency but I’ll take variety at least.
Most ‘libertarian’ people that comment here are against abortion, against gay marriage, pretty far right on most social issues.
None of which disqualifies one from being a libertarian, if you define the term by the NAP rather than specific policy outcomes. Oddly, it’s mostly far left “progressives” who focus on policy outcomes to the exclusion of principle.
> Oddly, it’s mostly far left “progressives” who focus on policy outcomes to the exclusion of principle.
Is that why conservatives flocked to Trump, because he’s a bonafide conservative. It’s actually progressives who focus on principle, it’s why Hillary couldn’t get the votes.
Once they have a president, both progressives and conservatives let their leaders get way with murder, simply because they are jellyfish.
Is that why conservatives flocked to Trump, because he’s a bonafide conservative.
Assumes facts not in evidence. Most of the establishment conservative movement tried to torpedo Trump at every step of his process to becoming president. Besides, in your partisan zeal you’ve utterly missed the point. Holding particular moral stances does not automatically disqualify one from being a “libertarian”, and supporting authoritarian means to achieve nominally liberal policy goals does not automatically qualify one as a “libertarian”. It is theoretically possible, for example, to believe that homosexuals will burn in hell for all eternity yet not wish to do them physical harm or use the coercive force of the government to change their behavior. It is equally possible to pass no moral judgment at all on homosexuality – or to hold homosexuality in high moral esteem – and also wish to use the coercive force of government to make religious people to serve gay customers. Or to pass no moral judgment at all on abortion and also wish to use the coercive force of government to make others pay for abortion services. The first position is a libertarian one, if we define libertarianism by the NAP, even though you find the viewpoint distasteful. The latter two are not libertarian, if we define libertarianism by the NAP, but have policy outcomes in line with what you think libertarians as a matter of course ought to believe.
It’s actually progressives who focus on principle, it’s why Hillary couldn’t get the votes.
Lol. Yes, she just wasn’t pure enough for the progressive base of Democratic party politics. It wasn’t because she’s a toxic, scandal ridden cunt who unaffiliated voters didn’t like. It isn’t like she was strongly endorsed by numerous progressive groups and individuals.
I don’t give a fuck about Hillary, the fact that Trump is just as toxic as Hillary, yet Trump got all conservative votes is my point.
But being a Trump voter, you don’t want to hear facts.
he’s a bonafide conservative.
Bullshit. Bonafide conservatives didn’t give money to the Clintons.
-jcr
That’s my fucking point genius. God you fuckers are retarded.
> None of which disqualifies one from being a libertarian, if you define the term by the NAP rather than specific policy outcomes.
You can’t explain away being anti-gay marrige with NAP, sorry.
False.
“I don’t wish to bake a cake or to be forced (under threat of violence) to participate in a ceremony with which I don’t agree.”
You don’t need a cake or a ceremony to get married.
You can’t explain away being anti-gay marriage with NAP, sorry.
I’m just anti-marriage. How about that?
What does “right” on economic issues mean?
Correct.
Racist death camps, but they run a profit.
And yet most of those people don’t think the government should force their social views on everyone else.
But not Shikha Dalmia. She just wants her own version of authoritarianism. The kind where a person peacefully exercising his free speech rights should be denied them by acts of terrorism.
I posted this in the PM lynx, but I’m posting it here, too.
Whoops! My apologies, ZSG. Didn’t mean to make this a reply.
It’s all fuckupery.
All that attention paid to the commentariat when they wanted money sure evaporated as soon as they had it in the bank.
Of course it did.
Never mind that Sloopy donates a pretty decent amount every year… and they love running stories about the romance between him and his wife, who (I think?) met here, in these very forums. Or the fact that they have a child named…REASON. I mean… what the actual fuck, Reason?*
*the publication, not the toddler
Looks like someone’s going to be put up for adoption.
That’s messed up
Sorry to hear that.
On all accounts
It is messed up.
So I’m taking my (admittedly not that fat) wallet and page views and going elsewhere.
I wonder what she means by that, exactly.
It’s not like Reason has trouble criticizing cops.
I asked for clarification from her. Radio silence
Has the whole magazine gone bonkers?
They even profiled sloopy’s baby daughter for a fundraising post.
They showed video of a cop making vague threats but not actually doing anything.
But his mother’s case is not relevant?
You can understand my outrage, then!
I share your outrage.
But I’m also entirely unsurprised by the editorial decision.
It’s like George Soros bought the magazine or Tom Steyer, at least
I thought I had found a permanent internet home with Reason. Obviously, that is not the case.
You and me both.
Really, the commentariat is what’s kept me coming back the last year or so, but this is just too much for me.
And we’ve got a group set up anyway for anyone interested.
http://steamcommunity.com/grou…..Commenters
Anyone wants in, send an invite.
Who do I send the invite to?
Yeah, I have no idea how that works. Signed up for an account but there doesn’t seem to be a way to request to join.
Log in, add one of the group admins to your friends list and ask them to send you a group invite.
That i can do
Done.
Do I have to install Steam to log in?
You need a Steam account, I honestly can’t remember if you need to actually install Steam itself to make one on the web. I assume you do though.
Bookmarked and awaiting some kind of instructions.
HilarysItch would like an invite.
Hmmm… I sent a friend invite to rhywun, since it was the only name I recognized.
What is KWM?
Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor in chief of Reason.
Wow
By now I believe this is payback for our bitching. It’s Reason vs. the commentariat. Maybe we should just go away.
Either that or they think basketball trumps decent behavior. Like if they side with the lady not to get beaten up & jailed, they’re anti-basketball.
Absurd? What other reason can you think of?
I just don’t get the slowness with which people are fully grokking that libertarianism is as distinct from conservativism as it is from progressivism or leftism.
If there is an uglier sounding more unnecessarily obscure word than Grok, I would be hard pressed to name it. And no, Nick they are not fully understanding anything. They know exactly what Libertarianism is. And they are only pretending to think it is better than conservatism because its convenient. Are you this naive or do you just think your readers are?
And Gillespie is confusing someone not agreeing with his conclusion as the same as not understanding it.
But he has his self image to maintain.
Has he ever written anything interesting? I have my problems with some of the staffers but there is no denying that I have learned things reading articles written by Welch, Bailey and Walker in particular. Name me one thing you have ever learned from reading a Gillespie article other than Nick thinks it is pretty fucking great to be Nick?
Fuck you man, grok is a perfectly crommulant word.
I suppose so. But ti still ugly sounding and unnecessary.
Sweeeeeet.
Would it help or hurt if I told you “grok” is the Serbian onomatopoeia for pig’s grunt (i.e. “oink”)?
It’s not obscure. Stranger in a Strange Land.
Smegma?
If you haven’t read Heinlein, you’re no Libertarian.
-jcr
I have no problem with criticism of Trump per se. To whatever extent he violates libertarian principles or people’s rights, he should be criticized for doing so. The appropriate place for a libertarian is always in opposition to the emperor.
However, I’m seeing a lot of cheap shots and horse shit, and that’s unnecessary.
Here’s a post by Robby, from yesterday:
“Yiannopoulos’s old Breitbart boss, Steve Bannon, is now a top advisor to President Trump. I wonder whether Bannon would rather Yiannopoulos’s speech go off without a hitch, or be shut down by violent protesters? Which outcome is better for the law-and-order policy positions of the Trump administration? It’s not actually a question: the president’s narrative is obviously better served when irate students resort to violence to silence an alt-right speaker.”
—-Robby Soave
https://reason.com/blog/2017/02…..pus-on-fir
That isn’t going after Trump for his authoritarianism. I’ve seen better arguments on Ancient Aliens.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for you, personally, Gillespie, but other writers here are hurting your brand.
This story should have received more write-ups by Reason staff than the one lonely story that Robby wrote. This is not an isolated incident. It continues to occur. If you oppose authoritarianism, like you say, that you should be opposing the violent mob that is imposing ‘right think’.
It’s just one recent example.
Ya, its right think with an under current of fascism and statism wrapped in anarchism (as the tactic to achieve statism). Double think comes to mind where only one definition is accepted and its the polar opposite of the common accepted meaning, like “free speech”.
Ken,
You realized Reason had a link that posted to Obama not attending Scalia’s funeral like it was news? And then commentators agreed with Reason and said Obama was “pissing on the country.”
And you are just now seeing cheap shots and horse shit? lol.
Got a link?
No, I don’t hold commenters here to the same level of scrutiny. I don’t hold staff here to the same level of scrutiny when they post in the comment section either.
That being said, I think some of the commenters posted comments that were on par with some of the best you would get from the staff. I think RC Dean was like that, and I’m sorry he won’t be commenting here anymore.
I think of all the really interesting people that used to comment here. Thoreau, the physicist, fyodor, the indie music pioneer, Justin Raimondo, Kevin Carson, remember the contractor working from Afghanistan, and now. . . RC Dean, the attorney. Some of us commenters, the smart ones, aren’t going to be as smart or informed as we would have been now that RC Dean won’t come around anymore.
We lose people for various reasons over the years. I just hate see them chased away for stupid shit like Robby wrote. That could have been posted to Salon. What does that say–if your supposedly libertarian article could have just as easily been posted to a progressive website?
The commenters have become the mirror image of the writers though. Everyt dick headed thing the president does is met with at worst some tu quoque about Obama or ‘he’s an epic genius at trolling the elites!’ “Libertarians” condemning free trade agreements and calling for halting all immigration.
Remember 2010 when the Dems had the White House and both houses of congress and were cranking shot out, and the biggest thing they were talking about was some guy’s sign at a tea party rally? Well that’s basically at least half the reason comments section re Trump. It’s like a slightly more lucid version of the breitbart comments.
Everyt dick headed thing the president does is met with at worst some tu quoque about Obama or ‘he’s an epic genius at trolling the elites!’ “Libertarians” condemning free trade agreements and calling for halting all immigration.
That is not true at all. Trump hasn’t gotten any support from the comment section on trade except with regard to TPP, which is a crony payoff not a free trade agreement. And Trump hasn’t banned immigration. He banned immigration temporarily from seven countries.
The magazine is catching hell not because it is criticizing Trump. It is catching hell because its criticisms are so false and idiotic.
Beat it into the ground, Ken.
It was relevant–spoke directly to the point of Gillespie’s post.
if Hillary were the President, I doubt you would be offended by the same cheap shots in the name of fair play.
Hillary Clinton accepted money from foreign governments while she was the secretary of state.
I don’t need cheap shots when I can just keep saying that over and over–and it’s true.
“In all, governments and corporations involved in the arms deals approved by Clinton’s State Department have delivered between $54 million and $141 million to the Clinton Foundation as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the Clinton family, according to foundation and State Department records.”
—-Mother Jones
“Hillary Clinton Oversaw US Arms Deals to Clinton Foundation Donors”
http://www.motherjones.com/pol…..arms-deals
I have almost 15 years here, day in day out, being fair, outrageous, fair, absurd, and . . . fair.
Check the argument I made about Trump below:
“Setting the rules of naturalization is an enumerated power of congress, and all those people who have already obtained green cards and achieved legal residency have due process rights that Trump’s executive order violated.
What he did there was unconstitutional and wrong.”
I’ve been fair about Trump’s downsides over the past three months even as I’ve been criticizing various Reason staff for being unfair. Why wouldn’t I be fair about Hillary?
I was fair about Obama–for eight years, every day, on this site. I even took on all comers to defend his policies when I thought he was right. And I despise Obama. Why wouldn’t I be fair about Hillary?
It’s the new meme around here. Reason has been invaded by hordes of republicans, and the valiant progressivetarians are back to vanquish the GOP evil and take their rightful place in the commentariat. See, we’re all just crypto-Trumpkins, no matter how much we criticise him. Any criticism of the new direction Reason is taking is just sour grapes from a bunch of Trumpkins.
Hmmm i am willing to bet the guardian didn’t bother worrying about “authoritarianism” under the obama admin.
This is another word that is becoming meaningless. At this point i am not sure you can classify what trump has done as “authoritarian”.
The EO for travel and refugee ban was botched for sure with the green card and immigrant visas. But it sounds like this was quickly restored. Going after sanctuary cities is not really either since they are defying federal law to begin with. Now should the federal law perhaps be changed? sure.
I don’t think it is a good idea to have a bunch of laws and then pick and choose which ones are ok and to enforce. Then rule of law becomes meaningless –> will be applied to favorites.
Much of Nick Gillespie’s views on immigration is based upon his socialist view that the public’s property is public to the world – which is what open borders is about. My view of property rights is that the property belongs to the public which at best is comprised by citizens and guests only.
Of course Gillespie can claim public property is really state property which the state has the right to control; but then he has to accept the view that state property is a valid and moral concept when many libertarians know all property the state has is property it has taken from others.
For now, libertarians IMHO should treat public property as what the state and the left has always claimed – that it is really the property of the public. For the state to provlaim open borders would violate the idea that the public ultimately owns the property.
Hahaha, this is great. Pro-immigration is socialist, anti-immigration is capitalist. Terrific!
So, if I invite someone from Syria to come stay at my house, or if he chooses to buy a plane ticket here, gets a job, finds a place to rent with the money he earns, and the government not arresting him is socialist?
But if the government asserts that I don’t have the right to rent space to or hire someone born on the other side of an imaginary line, effectively telling me that my property is not mine but the state’s and the state can tell me who I can rent it to or sell it to, and I’m really just borrowing it conditionally, that’s the capitalist position?
Do tell me what your mother took when she was pregnant with you?
no
Open Borders is socialist
Wasn’t that clear ? Or are you making the absurd claim that to be pro-immigration one has to support the concept of open borders.
Gillespie needs to be called out for supporting an openly socialist idea of allowing people to enter the U.S. unrestricted on the public’s property merely by state proclamation.
I guess the theoretical policy where the only immigrants are sponsored and don’t use public schools and tax dollars is fine. Considering I’ve never heard anyone advocate for such a policy I’m skeptical that it isn’t some ad hoc thought experiment to justify repeating Europe’s idiotic plan to import immigrants and extract money from citizens to pay for it.
That immigration model you’re suggesting would likely be far more restrictive than anything Trump has planned but I’ll go with it I guess.
What is with this desire of people acting like they are leading some sort of resistance when not many know who you are and haven’t actually done anything? I don’t think trump or advisors come to reason to get advice on policy.
I really don’t understand why journalists act like they have more importance and influence than they actually do. It is a bit bizarre.
It’s the journalistic equivalent to the dipshit from Stranger Things thinking that starring on a decent Netflix program is the modern day equivalent of signing the Declaration of Independence or rowing the boat for Washington as he crossed the Delaware.
I look forward to and fully expect them to go after Trump in their articles. But I’d like more meat and less articles about boorish or ridiculous comments made by the POTUS. There’s plenty of good stuff out there.
Yep good post.
David French doesn’t let his wife email other men. That is all.
Isn’t that the weirdest thing? He tried to deny it and get all “how dare you” after it came out but it was in his book apparently. And it was mentioned by Kathryn Jean Lopez, his collegue at NR, in a fawning profile.
The guy goes to Iraq on deployment. His wife was emailing with a Christian DJ about faith issues and he tells her to knock it off because those kinds of things lead to sin or so such. Then he tells her she can’t be friends on Facebook with men who are not family members and can’t email with men while he is gone.
Apparently French, who appears to me to be a perfectly upstanding woman, is such a whore she can’t be trusted to email with anyone other than relatives lest the devil get between her loins. What a freak.
French is basically a Muslim-lite.
‘or my commentary about Trump’s awful, inhumane, and idiotic ban on refugees and travelers from seven countries tied to terrorism’
Where were you over Obama’s awful inhumane and idiotic ending of the wet foot dry foot rule on Cuban refugees?
I don’t remember a wall of outrage from Reason over that.
https://reason.com/blog/2017/01…..-scrambles
Thanks, That’s the article I remember, it wasn’t by Nick and it broadly welcomed it.
Hypocrisy confirmed.
That’s a good point.
I believe Sullum argued it was a positive development because of welfare abuses of the policy.
Which may be the only time a Reason writer has been against a lenient immigration policy for that reason.
That was a giant reveal. Send back the nasty Cubans wrongheadedly fleeing Communism, but keep all the Muslims hell bent on Sharia law.
What was slightly Libertarian about any of it?
I criticized Trump’s executive order on asylum seekers myself.
Setting the rules of naturalization is an enumerated power of congress, and all those people who have already obtained green cards and achieved legal residency have due process rights that Trump’s executive order violated.
What he did there was unconstitutional and wrong.
I have two big problems with criticizing the executive order for being about keeping out Muslims.
1) It isn’t about Muslims.
2) Criticizing the executive order for being about Muslims creates an opposition to support it–that support it because they believe it’s about keeping out Muslims.
In other words, making Trump’s executive order about Muslims turns the whole issue into a referendum on the First Amendment–and there is no way doing that can serve the interests of libertarians.
When Trump is wrong, it’s because the things he does are wrong. They aren’t wrong because they’re done by Trump. I read an awful lot of Reason, and I’m not sure that fact is obvious to some of Reason’s staff. If you don’t want the rest of Reason’s staff undermining your authority, Mr. Gillespie, you’ve got some work to do. You might want to start preaching to your choir.
3) It really does feed the perception that the person pushing that argument just cares about Muslims.
We have one of the most oppressive and horrible regimes in the world 90 miles off our coast. For over 50 years the US has welcomed anyone who escaped from there. Obama ends that practice and reason doesn’t say shit beyond “it was always unfair that Cubans got a break and others didnt'”. Trump stops accepting refugees from seven failed states half way around that world and suddenly it is the worst thing ever.
And everyone on here has a fit when I say the Reason staff thinks of Muslims as sacred. Maybe not sacred but they sure are special and a hell of a lot more special than Cubans in the staff’s view.
Not everyone thinks of you so. I may disagree with you on some individual topics, but this isn’t one of them. The rabid imbecility of the staff on account of third-world malcontents is unbelievable, and it’s only becoming worse.
Indeed, #muslimban was a really moronic pr move. Like #atheistban or #scientologistban, possibly half or more of Americans wouldn’t get upset about the idea.
The surprising thing here is that he’s still surprised.
Reason as a publication did criticize Obama’s abuses of power fairly regularly. There is no denying that. But, I can’t recall Gillespie personally ever doing so a single time. Can anyone else? All I seem to recall Gillespie writing for the last 8 years was a lot of “pox on both houses” false equivocation. So where does Nick get off with this “I criticized” bullshit? It looks like to me, you didn’t do shit Nick. Your staff did a few things but you never did despite many opportunities to do so.
On mass surveillance, war policy, nationalizing GM, ObamaCare, and all sorts of other things, I remember Gillespie going after Obama.
I remember Gillespie going out with a camera on Reason.tv to talk to Tea Party people when everyone was smearing them as a bunch of dangerous racists, too. He made them seem like . . . the everyday people they were rather than monsters.
Most importantly, I remember Gillespie being fair and pro-liberty. We all have preferences and biases, and if Gillespie comes across as more civil libertarian than paleo-whatever, that doesn’t really matter to me. I think his style may shout “hipster” to certain people–but what about Gillespie the fiscal conservative and his work with de Rugy?
If I disagree with him or his aesthetics run contrary to mine or his personal preferences run contrary to mine, that’s hardly the issue. The important thing is that Gillespie is an intellectually honest guy, and his work is intellectually honest. And fun to read!
On mass surveillance, war policy, nationalizing GM, ObamaCare, and all sorts of other things, I remember Gillespie going after Obama.
I remember Reason doing that but I don’t remember Gillespie doing that. And I don’t consider doing a safari piece on the Tea Party and explaining how they are actual human beings to be worthy of much praise.
And I wouldn’t call Gillespie dishonest so much as just so immersed in leftist cultural thinking that it prevents him from thinking clearly on a lot of things.
+1 Gorillas in the Mist
And I also agree that Fonzi was far too quick with the ‘pox on both houses’ approach to commenting on leftist malfeasance.
I remember his being both of those things, & better journalistically, until some time between 3 & 5 yrs. ago, hard to remember exactly. He was one of my favorites. The change was not sudden, but striking.
Reason was better when he was Editor in Chief – the whole Reason.tv was a downgrade.
Reason was better when he was Editor in Chief – the whole Reason.tv was a downgrade.
Reason was better when he was Editor in Chief – the whole Reason.tv was a downgrade.
Reason was better when he was Editor in Chief – the whole Reason.tv was a downgrade.
+4 squirrels
Their criticisms of Obama were decorous and restrained, and oftentimes reticent. Many of his misadventures were ignored entirely.
Their criticisms of Trump are apocalyptically hyperbolic, inane, and disingenuous.
The Reason staff’s varieties of partial libertarianism are becoming subsumed under the progressive umbrella in the eyes of the readership, and understandably so. Countless different stances the writers of this publication have heretofore espoused are practically indistinguishable from the noxious blather outright progressives spew.
Progressivism is by its nature an irredeemably degenerate, diabolical ideology, and this magazine’s incremental transition to its tenets has condemned it to being but one more nondescript, stagnant pool of leftist claptrap.
Dalmia demonstrated a new and astounding moral decrepitude with her latest Tweets. How many more of you will cross the line?
#ResistTRUMP
Look i am leading the charge!!
“Oh, no, the Guardian thinks libertarians are conservatives, people will look at us funny at cocktail parties.”
Look, no matter how much you try to appease the Left, so long as your organizing political principle involves limiting the government, then you’re much closer to the conservatives than to the progs, and you may as well face it.
You can preach up “gay marriage recognition,” you can run articles from open-borders advocates, you can signal your loathing of right-wingers…at the end of the day, so long as you have some semblance of libertarian principle governing your coverage you’ll be nothing but a corporate shill in their eyes.
And you’ll still have more in common with the hated conservatives than you wish to acknowledge.
It’s like some silly girl hanging out with the lazy hippie with the Che shirt who keeps cheating on her, rather than with the salt-of-the-earth construction worker who is looking for a real relationship.
It is fairly obvious that many conservatives have no interest in extending the full range of liberty sought by libertarians, be it either in matters of type or degree.
The distinction is that, on the issues where they do recognize your liberty conservatives are substantially more apt to recognize that that freedom exists outside the pale of government purview.
Unlike the left who, while they may be willing to extend to you a broader array of permitted activities, will never ever concede that the scope and reach of government is in any way permanently limited.
*Of Course* Libertarians Are Leading the Charge Against Trump’s Authoritarianism
When did Nick get crowned king of the libertarians? I must’ve missed that day.
Nick, you don’t represent Libertarians any better than Dalmia does and if anything you’ve been a complete embarrassment to those who believe in individual liberty. The absolute tripe you’ve written about Trump belongs at Mother Jones and not at Reason.
Your pathetic virtue signalling makes it even worse. Turn in your jacket! You don’t deserve it anymore!
Yeah, don’t criticize dear Leader.
Nick, why are you having principles? We should all lap up any piss that Donald rains down on us.
This would be a strawman
It’s not that there isn’t anything to criticize, of COURSE there is, but Nick gets so full of himself that his criticism sounds like a whining SJW and not a libertarian.
Some libertarians believe that Friedman was right in that you can either have a welfare state or open borders, not both.
Reading Nick one might believe he wants no borders at all. He may want to get rid of the welfare state but he never seems to mention that in his quest to rid the world of borders. He makes terrible arguments that don’t hold up to reasonable scrutiny and it’s ridiculous to think he’s “leading the charge” of anything but his own ego.
“but Nick gets so full of himself that his criticism sounds like a whining SJW and not a libertarian.”
Yeah, I wonder why, maybe it’s because Trump is president. He criticized Obama just as much when he was president.
Just because you don’t like what he has to say, doesn’t mean he isn’t libertarian. Perhaps you should look at yourself, and why you get so upset about his criticisms.
Tman’s point is the whining is misplaced and not well thought out…it is directed at trivial things like some joke he made regarding arnold.
Examples of Nick being a bad journalist-
Updated! Hey, Here’s That Obviously Fake ‘Dossier’ Claiming Trump Is Into Golden Showers!
You Do Realize that if You Keep All the Jobs in America, the Mexicans Will Return?
Or this line from the “Who are Reason Writers Voting For”-
Nick Gillespie-
“What will you miss most about the Obama years? The foolish, momentary optimism some people had that nothing could be as bad as the Bush years”
Nick has not had much of a “foolish momentary optimism” about Trump despite the fact that he just nominated a more pro-liberty justice than Gary Johnson would’ve.
Nick is being a hack.
Also arnold joke thing.
No as a matter of fact Nick does not want to get rid of the welfare state.
I happen to be one of those Libertarians who think Friedman was right, so there it is. That position puts you at odd’s with virtually everyone, I might add. The arguments put forward by the ‘open borders’ types I don’t find to be particularly compelling or well reasoned, but that’s just me.
Perhaps it would work in Libertopia, but this ain’t it.
At Reason the jacket turns in Nick.
So let’s go thru the list of authoritarian actions:
pipelines –> nope
hiring freeze –> nope
SC nominee –> nope
Obamacare regs ease –> nope
Travel/refugee ban –> bad roll out and issue at first with green card/visa, other than that within purview of law
Wall–> nope though i do think this is a waste of money and symbolic. don’t agree with it
regulations EO –> nope
sanctuary cities –> nope. federal law prior to trump. change the law if you dont like it…not pick and choose enforcement
lobbying EO –> nope
justice department fire –> nope
yemen plan –> maybe
Other than that, Trump actual actions have been pretty meh. There have been no bills i have seen that he has signed.
Could there be actual actions? Sure but at this point not really.
Stick with substance
I don’t know, his green card ban was a pretty big fucking deal. His hesitance to follow the court ruling against it was pretty alarming as well.
In my understanding the green card was put back in place quickly. The issue then was immigrant visa.
Could be wrong on that
Good summary. I would add, his pulling out of TPP has been questionable, but not necessarily bad as TPP was itself flawed and only marginally “free” trade; further, he has proposed, pushed for, and actively talked with legislators about the brutally bad idea of a 20% border tax, but that has not yet come to fruition in any concrete way.
But on all the things you’re mentioned, as well as the majority of his cabinet picks, I’ve been very pleased relatively to my extremely low expectations. What I’ve been seeing with my own judgment of Trump’s effects on liberty and the size of government have been neutral to fair, not the apocalyptic hellscape that’s been painted by the editorial staff here.
Trump is just as retarded as Bernie Sanders when it comes to trade. Pulling out of NAFTA? More Tariff’s? It’s hard to deny that Trump isn’t a friend of Libertarians, but this last election was a ‘choose the form of the destructor’ election so I don’t know what people around here expected.
The only consolation, and it’s a thin one at best, is that Hillary would have been worse. It’s become fairly clear that at some point the lesser of two evils is going to be impossible to discern, and when that happens it will be hard to tell the difference between ourselves and Russia.
I think it’s accurate to call Douthat, French, and Rothman conservatives, but it’s clear that neither Horwitz or I have nothing to do with conservatism.
Meh. I think I have a pretty good idea how the word “Cuckservative” came to be coined.
Regarding the yemen thing:
focusing on civilians killed is the emotional argument. In war there will always be civilian casualties
Rational argument focus on why the mission is needed or not in first place, what is the benefit, what are the risks of not doing it
Better to argue and easier to convince someone if you use the latter and not the former. the former you can also convince people the other direction with emotional argument that we will killed some terrorist who might have harmed you.
Just once, I would like them to focus on the fact that terrorists hide within the civilian population for the specific purpose of making it impossible to kill them without also harming the civilians. I understand their abhorrence of civilian casualties. It would be nice, however, if occasionally they would show some adherence towards the practice of using human shields.
I just don’t get the slowness with which people are fully grokking that libertarianism is as distinct from conservativism as it is from progressivism or leftism.
I’m starting to think they know better, but choose to needle libertarians by calling them conservatives.
I guess it is hard for me to take people seriously that say they are leading a resistance or charge or whatever against some X….when you can’t ever show actual progress.
For example: we have had bush, obama and now trump which on a high level are relatively the same (in trumps case will appear to be). There has not and will not be a libertarian president for a long long time if at ever. So how can you act like you are leading some charge when the populace just ignores it while continuing on with the same thing over and over?
It comes off more as a look at me for my image type thing.
This Amsoc guy is smart.
Pay up shit brick
I think now is the time to capitalize. I think more and more moderate people from both the right and the left will start to realize that their parties have been hijacked by the extremes, and gravitate to libertarianism. I know many conservatives who are at least moderately liberal, and same goes for dems being moderately conservative, especially fiscally and on single issues versus an entire platform. If the libertarians could stop the insults of those new to the party, this could be the opportunity to truly create a real third party that has the chance to truly change government, and not just by one or a few elected politicians.
The L party should really reach out to both party members who are becoming disenfranchised, and realizing that even by giving the middle finger to Washington and voting for Trump because they wanted change, that he is not the change they wanted, and will likely do more harm than good. Many people just voted against the other candidate or voted for their candidate begrudgingly. There are so many moderates who feel truly lost between all of the utter nonsense of both sides going on right now, and this is the absolute perfect opportunity to attract them to Libertarianism. I think far more people would join the party than they realize.
STEVE SMITH AGREE TIME TO CAPITALIZE!
There should probably be some pro-libertarian balance in Trump-news, too.
Milton Friedman didn’t want to have a federal reserve, but if we were going to have one over his objections anyway, that didn’t prevent him from having an opinion on what the federal reserve should do. If the federal reserve did something right, he didn’t pretend it was all wrong all the time.
60 days from now, it would not surprise me if both the individual mandate and Dodd-Frank will be gone–and those are highly pro-libertarian developments on fundamental libertarian issues attributable to Trump. Just because we don’t like seeing the President act like an emperor with executive orders doesn’t mean we can’t have an opinion on whether what Trump does with his orders is pro-libertarian.
They seem to like Goresuch. And that is good.
…taking Donald Trump to the woodshed.
Either Nick hates us or he blew a perfect chance to use “woodchipper” in an appropriate sentence.
I just don’t get the slowness with which people are fully grokking that libertarianism is as distinct from conservativism as it is from progressivism or leftism.
Just hours after one of your magazine’s regular writers tweets that people who engage in free speech are just as much to blame for their being silenced by thugs as the thugs themselves, you might want to be a little more reticent on exactly who “groks” libertarianism, Nick.
GLLMORE above is the real amsoc—> he is wandering aimlessly around without a body
This is from shika’s twitter feed…. WTF does this mean?
“Did I call this one or did I call this one? Minority Activism Will Save the Constitution in Trump’s America […]Minorities not whites will save the Constitution in Trump’s America”
Something that really grinds mind gears is people who posture and say things that make no sense or have any applicable example in real world. People who are focused on putting on a show that really has no substance behind it.
It is nauseating
I saw that tweet too. I have no idea what exactly she’s referencing RE: minorities are stopping Trump.
But, you don’t remember that fucking article? Man that was like rock bottom. It was right after she had to retract her article that was just a bunch of non sequiturs and a tweet by a parody Trump twitter account.
God was that thing bad.
I went back to it today after stumbling across it in her tweet.
The title alone is really too much to handle. That thing should’ve gone in some far left journal.
Whoever is running around with the Fire Shikha handle really has it right.
I don’t understand why they hired her and I especially don’t understand why they haven’t’ given her any adult supervision once they did.
I was having a conversation the other day about the implosion of National Review. National Review offended so much of its long time readership during the election, I really wonder if it is going to survive. I went there the other day for the first time in a while and the pop up ad was for a free two year subscription. They are giving away their magazine now. They never did that even in the recent past. Anyway, the person I was talking to pointed out that this generation of people who work at NR inherited this insitution from WFB who built it from scratch. So, they don’t understand what it took to build it and are thus casual about telling its readers to fuck off because they don’t understand that it might not be there one day. They think because it was there when they got there, they can’t do anything to destroy it, whereas the person who built it did.
I think something similar is happening with reason. They just don’t understand that reason didn’t come from nowhere or appreciate the give they have been given and the responsibility they have by being put in charge of it. So they casually piss all over their readership thinking there are no consequences.
So, they don’t understand what it took to build it and are thus casual about telling its readers to fuck off because they don’t understand that it might not be there one day.
Very good point and a story as old as time.
National Review offended so much of its long time readership during the election, I really wonder if it is going to survive.
I posted these awhile back, but they’re relevant here.
National Review’s recent page rankings and statistics.
RedState followed a very similar trend.
Conservative sites that went never-Trump got reamed.
Reason’s recent stats.
Not that reason is a conservative site. But they’re pissing off their readers with the TDS, just like the conservative sites did.
For controls:
New York Times
Breitbart (Not sure what’s up with that weird spike, but it was otherwise pretty flat).
Yes NR survives by corporate donations too. But if no one is reading your site and you are not influencing opinion, those donations go away. The Never Trump sites totally fucked up.
Yeah, they really should of just gotten behind Trump and blown him for the page ranks. What a bunch of losers.
Principals not principles, amirite Johnny boy?
Reading comprehension, do you speak it?
Jesus Christ. I bolded that sentence for a reason: so that everyone with TDSDSDS would see it.
The other thing is that some of the staff are just careerist shits who are putting in their time to hopefully happily move on to the Post or some other bigger publication like Weigal did and wont’ give a flying fuck if Reason ends up dying or losing its readership under their watch.
She called it alright. Minorities are doing a helluva good job of stopping President Trump.
That is some straight up racist shit right there Shikha. Some years ago I looked at your pic and thought ‘Would’. Now I am thinking you should take care of that yourself.
Whoa where did all the GLLMORE posts go?
amsoc if you want your name back…pay up!!
“Jumping on the bandwagon” isn’t the same thing as “leading the charge.”
There is no charge if nothing comes of it…unless they are putting lawsuits in court or something. Putting out statements or articles or rioting =/= actual resistance. It is just meaningless burfle
So they can’t be arsed to change the CSS for the site to make lowercase L stand out from uppercase i but they can make comments vanish into the ether so it looks like people are going crazy. Wonderful.
Legititmate trump articles (criticism)….spell out in facts the who, what when where and why and then commentary
– any military actions
– tariffs and repercussions
– wall (why is a waste of money and won’t accomplish much in my opinion)
– EO regarding the implementation, greencard/immigrant visa violation of law
– DOJ picks and other cabinet
– law and order (cite specifics)
– not bothering to reform entitlements and what this means for the deficit/inflation/borrowing
– infrastructure bill and potential boondoggles
These are good reads.
TDS
– dead grandmas, trump doesn’t like immigrants cause supporters want more SS/medicare (wtf?), arnold joke and tweet, focusing on trump tweets, hypotheticals on what may do without much evidence, TP campaign logo
These make the website look like people magazine
School choice. Neutering the EPA and the DOE, probably closing down the OCR. Cutting regulation so that small businesses can open and operate again. Dramatically cutting taxes and simplifying the tax code. Nominating an originalist to the supreme court. He wants to stop the USA from playing global policeman. Firmly standing by the second amendment.
I will give credit where it is due Nick, you did point out that Trump will present the liberty minded with many opportunities as opposed to some of your hysterical colleagues. The guy is handing us one holy grail after another, things we never thought we would see. He’s turning the ratchet back in many ways. He may not be a libertarian but he’s the closest thing to it you are going to see in the oval office.
A lot of the fears people are having range from misguided to deranged. I am guardedly optimistic about his trade policies, certain that he won’t unleash Duarte-style cannibal rape gangs on the populace, and actually kind-of relieved about his immigration policy. Prioritizing groups that are facing possible genocide is the moral thing to do. I am also pretty sure we won’t have any camps for adults where people will be allowed to concentrate.
I am concerned about his spending plans, the Trumpwall, and especially his law and order stance. There are legitimate things to criticize him for. What is beginning to get under people’s skin are the unhinged, spittle-flecked rants that attack the man for every breath he draws. That’s not leading the charge against authoritarianism. He is not the guy who said he wants to rule a country like China, not the one who said she would crush news organizations that have no right to exist, or the one who said all rights are subject to reasonable restrictions. He never said ‘you didn’t build that’. When you find yourself with even one foot on the same side of the fence as the people who did you might want to think about how you got there and reevaluate your position.
certain that he won’t unleash Duarte-style cannibal rape gangs on the populace,
Wait, what?
Do you know how hard it is to find a car that can support both net launcher and a flame cannon? Plus welding all the spikes…
Thanks, Debby Downer.
You think you are disappointed? I welded a swiveling turret on the top of my jeep and mounted two Saiga 12’s side by side in it. Now I am gonna have to take all that down.
just mount them in the engine bay. James bond style.
I dunno, once hunting season opens, you can really clean up.
It makes a person miss the days of the passenger pigeon.
Well said but they’ve decided to court the left, a fool’s errand if there ever was one.
They should be courting libertarians, but hardly any read the site.
WTH? Some kind of victim’s syndrome? Determined to always be on the outside? The left is on its way out. They are circling the crazy-drain closer and closer by the day. Hell, just last night they rioted in protest against civil rights.
I believe it might just be sheer stupidity and a miscalculation of the left’s motives on issues where we desire similar results (drug war, police misconduct, etc). It looks like things have finally come to a head here but it was just a matter of time.
Oh, it’s a miscalculation of the left’s motives alright.
The left wants to end the wod? They just had an 8 year long chance to do just that. The nitwitted fuckhead they had in the whitehouse wouldn’t even reclassify MJ and gave us a ‘fuck you’ lie about it on live television.
Police misconduct is something they see as a pretense to agitate and foster divisiveness. they don’t really care anything about police misconduct. They are just stoking racism and resentment.
If Reason really is thinking of throwing in with them…I have no words.
Police misconduct is something they see as a pretense to agitate and foster divisiveness. they don’t really care anything about police misconduct. They are just stoking racism and resentment.
.this.
Many leftists do support ending the wod and were strongly against police misconduct, but the party was hijacked by the socialists and alt-left and the party members had no power. I think libertarianism appeals to moderates on both the left and the right since both parties have been hijacked by the extremes.
“He wants to stop the USA from playing global policeman.”
I wouldn’t assume that so quickly. At least one of his personalities wants to ‘bomb the shit’ out pieces of the Middle East.
And as for his trade policy, he’s a full fledged protectionist. If that doesn’t make pessimistic, then you may as well be a Bernie Bro. 20% tax on imports from Mexico would be one of the worst policies in recent history.
Is this 20% tax in effect?
Read ‘The Art of the Deal’.
In other words, we gotta pass it to find out what’s in it. We can’t believe what Donald says, so we gotta wait until Donald does.
These types of statements really make me reflect on what people have said about Obama for the past 8 years, and I see a lot of Samuel Clements around these days. To paraphrase; history may not repeat itself, but it certainly does rhyme.
i agree.
they will likely be 2 separate gangs – one for raping, the other for cannibalizing. #BringingBackAmericanJobs
No wonder all the trolls go on about “Trumpkins” around here.
Approaching Peak TDS-DS
The left isnt really against the drug war or police abuse or how many people in prison
Clawing back any centralized control terrifies them. They just want people they dont like locked up at same rate. Look at uber and their fretting about being unregulated…they dont care about personal freedom
Progressives are puritans
Progressives are the arch enemies of liberty. they have never been anything else. That is the sum total of their agenda; power.
I’m incapable of putting this into words that adequately match my passion on the subject. But they are not merely enemies of liberty, that goes without saying. They are the enemies of civilization and all things decent in human existence. There’s no doubt in my mind about who those people are and what they want to achieve.
Says the Big Cheese leading this magazine into leftist pandering oblivion. You’re not going to make the left more libertarian, you and by extension the left are going to make this magazine more leftist.
I’m not sure that libertarians are leading “the charge against Trump” because the dominant ideological forces in the charge against Trump are people breaking windows while their journalistic fellow travelers shit their pants on cable news and on the pages of formerly respectable libertarian publications. I’m not sure who speaks for libertarians, but it’s not Nick Gillespie who is marching Reason deeper into the cesspool of everything that’s wrong with modern journalism.
Yes, conservatives and liberals tend to both be infected with TEAMitis. However, the idea that ideological conservatism is as far away from libertarianism as ideological progressivism is insane. Ideological progressivism is based on the premise that it is the government’s job to shape and mold society to fit a set of morals held by the elites. Ideological conservatism is the belief that government has limited, defined roles. We may disagree with conservatives on some of those roles, but we’re in a completely different universe from progressivism.
Teamitis is just as big for Reason, only they do it for the Libertarian party. They constantly shilled for Gary Johnson, even when he was being stupid and worse, un-libertarian.
Yep. If you want to see where the seeds for the current commenter revolt were sown, it was there. People don’t like being pissed on and told it’s raining, and that exactly what Reason tried to do with GJ.
Ideological progressivism is based on the premise that it is the government’s job to shape and mold society to fit a set of morals held by the elites.
So how again is this not a description of traditional conservatism? Perhaps if you substitute “morals held by the elites” with “morals held by the common citizen” or “morals held by our ancestors”. But it’s still about wanting to reshape society to fit some type of preconceived idea of how people ought to behave. For instance, why did conservatives fight so hard against gay marriage? Because marriage had traditionally been only defined in one way, and that’s the way it ought to stay forever according to them. If the evolving standards of society have a different view, then tough noogies – the past definition ought to prevail. It is true that on many issues, conservatives and libertarians are often on the same side. But the *reasons* are often quite different.
Because ideological conservatism =/= social conservatism. Also, modern social conservatism is an offshoot of the Progressive movement from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
I make no defense of socons because they are ideological progressives. I do make a defense of ideological conservatism (limited government, Constitutional originalism, laissez faire free market economics).
I think you are trying to have your cake and eat it too.
What you describe as “ideological conservatism” is really just libertarianism.
What distinguishes conservatism from libertarianism is the appeal to tradition. Conservatives will, broadly speaking, defend something because “that’s the way it’s always been done”. And there is a logic to that, traditions that have survived and been handed down over time have withstood the scrutiny of the ages, and who are we to mess with this temporal vetting process? But that isn’t good enough for your typical libertarian, if it doesn’t promote and defend liberty to the maximum extent possible.
No, not really. Just because some libertarians are Constitutional originalists doesn’t mean that Constitutional originalism is a solely libertarian concept. As somebody who grew up conservative and knew/knows tons of politically active conservatives, I can tell you that conservatism does not necessarily imply social conservatism. The core tenet of conservatism is adherence to the Enlightenment era traditions and principles espoused in the Declaration and the Constitution. They practically worship the documents and people of the 18th century that created this country.
Where I think you’re the most right is in the pragmatism of conservatives. Most of them will say something like “well, I don’t like that the fedgov has control over XYZ, but since they do, they should do it my way.” Libertarians do similar things, but not as often. We’re more likely to say “no, fuck you, cut spending.” This creates the TEAM atmosphere with conservatives (because they become focused on the pragmatic control of the reins of government they don’t even believe should exist), and the ideological atmosphere with libertarians (since we’re not in control, we have no problem taking the principled stand.
The problem isn’t criticism of Trump. It’s how Reason been doing it.
I want reasoned, logical, thoughtful pieces – not the repetitive emotional trash you’ve pumping out for the past couple of weeks. Generally repackaged liberal talking points , often laughably wrong.
Have some intellectual and journalistic standards.
I’m not sure how it’s bursting your bubble to read articles that essentially confirm your beliefs that Trump is an evil moron, albeit from writers who have different ideologies than you. Maybe the Guardian should recommend articles that make the best arguments for positions their readers don’t already hold.
The Guardian is garbage, I can’t even tell the opinion pieces from the main articles anymore. They also now “premoderate” all my posts after I shared the Hymn of Hate and told them the left has the same derangement syndrome the Germans had for the English but theirs is against the political right (Republicans). Premoderating is basically a nice way of saying we might post 1 in 5 of your posts half a day later, if your lucky. And only If you say nice things about Progressives.
They are pre-moderating you? Obviously you aren’t doing it right. I was easily able to get banned from: The Guardian, HuffPuff, Vox, Salon, Slate and half a dozen more I cant remember after only one or two comments. I did not curse or troll or insult anyone. I made what I thought were serious, reasoned arguments and *poof* my comments disappeared and I was banned. It made me proud.
Nazi is the abbreviation for NAtional soZIalistische – National Socialist. The Nazi party’s full name is NAtional soZIalistische deutsche arbeiter partei – which literally translates from German to be the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.
Socialists such as the Guardian hate the fact that the Nazi party was a socialist party with the same gun control agenda, the same strong social programs and the same emphasis on government jobs and worker’s rights as modern socialists. So they frequently try to mislead (lie) by referring to Nazi as right-wing whereas in truth Nazi is actually liberal left-wing and socialist…
Conservatives want to use government to control people, and libertarians don’t. That seems like a pretty significant difference.
However, to many left-wingers, if you’re not left-wing you must be right-wing. And (as a lot of Reason commenters demonstrate) vice versa.
FTFY
Like that big fat liberal in the White House who’s banning people from entering the country because of their religion?
Woodshed huh? Is that where Reason keeps their woodchipper? Be careful Nick, the Man didn’t like it the last time Reason brought up wood
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I bet u r Reason’s P R guy.
Nick, if you help the establishment National Socialists bring down Trump, then you’ll reinstate the establishment RINO’s who are against him. Why make the perfect the enemy of the good – or of the considerably better than all the alternatives?
You need to think about who he’ll be replaced by if your misguided carping were to be successful…
Fyi, I’ve been a committed libertarian for over fifty years, far longer than you…
The majority of libertopians voted for Trump. You lead us INTO this freaking mess, and have no right to brag about trying to bail us out after you realized how badly you FUBAR’d things.
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Not murdering people who pose no threat?
Amsoc =
stop what you’re doing right now.
So, you’re a conservative then?
Since Obama did that on a regular basis for 8 straight years and we survived, yes I think we can survive Trump doing it too. Nice to see you are suddenly concerned about such things now that being so no longer requires criticizing Obama.
What does that even mean?
hugh,
do a Ctrl-F for “gllmore” versus “gilmore”
you’ll note the person above is not actually me.
Saying “this was going on before he got here” is not the same thing as saying it is justified. If Obama had done none of that, and the price for Trump hopefully going after the regulatory state was him whacking people by the thousands, then it would be a fair debate to question if it was a good trade. Since Obama spent 8 years whacking people and expanding the regulatory state, Trump’s reducing the regulatory state while still whacking people is not a trade off. It is an improvement.
It’s most likely American Socialist with an i.
Too much work. I’ll just have to shoot you both.
This fad is getting old.
So it is not enough that the staff has gone nuts. Now we are invested with a new round of trolls.
The EPA has killed a lot of people. Not as many as the FDA but it has certainly killed its share.
You don’t think regulations cost lives? Moreover, what is your position here? Are all improvements in liberty irrelevant unless they are accompanied by an end to the US use of force abroad?
You seem not to have any rational point here or purpose other than to demonstrate that you have become a massive dickhead for some reason.
I don’t know what you mean. That doesn’t even make sense as a snarky insult. Did you fall on your head or something?
The drone strikes under Obama were the same. And many of them were justified and legal. Some were not, the Al Alwalaki one in particular was horrible. But not all of them. Many of them were perfectly legal and justified. I have never said otherwise. it is a complex issue and one Obama wasn’t always wrong about.
If you would like to have a serious conversation about the issue of bombing, terrorism and civilian casualties, i would be happy to. Otherwise, you might think about seeing a doctor, because something is seriously off with you.
Nope if you search it is the real american socialist…i confiscated his name.
My bet is this is Amsoc, operating under what’s good for the goose being good for the gander.
That’s funny, wait this must be a fake Hugh…
Not the real gilmore. its gllmore.
You know the 8 year-old girl killed in the raid is Al Alwalaki’s daughter right? Why was killing his son horrible in particular but not this one?
I have lost the ability to perceive sarcasm. Reality has rendered it impossible.
Sorry John, but you’re gettin’ Am-socked again.
As far as I know they didn’t target this girl. They were targeting someone else who was a combatant. So it is on the combatant for the girl getting killed. He used her as a human shield.
What, did you think there were libertarians around here?
Was the son targeted? I thought he was also collateral damage as well.
I agree that collateral damage is going to happen, which is why the criticism should be directed at the executive for being involved in wars in the first place. Trumps obviously got a long ways to go to have as much blood on his hands as Obama but if he doesn’t start ratcheting back the interventionism soon he owns it just like Obama owned his actions even if they were a continuation of Bush’s.
Nope. If you know there are civilians in the house or the neighborhood and deliberately blow it up because you think there’s a terrorists in it too, it’s still on you for killing civilians.
Otherwise, Osama may as well have picked some asshole who who happened to be in the twin towers and said ‘we are aiming for him’ and poof, it’s not terrorism, now it’s just an act of war.
Same bullshi reasoning was used in the bombing of Dresden. The obvious military targets were outside the city or aloof from it. Burning the city and its people wasn’t a double effect, it was tacitly the goal.
I think the son was collateral damage. But they knew he was there. This case may be just as bad. The thing about the Yemen strikes is that up until a couple of years ago Yemen had a government. And they were just whacking people as a way to avoid having to try them.
Who were they getting? I can’t judge this strike without knowing the circumstances.
FTFY