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libertarianism

  • SOURCE: The Nation
    3/17/2021

    The History of Freedom Is a History of Whiteness

    by Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

    "A conversation with Tyler Stovall about his recent book White Freedom and whether or not the legacy of liberty can break away from racial exclusion and domination."

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    10/15/2020

    In Fights Over Face Masks, Echoes of the American Seatbelt Wars

    The fight over seatbelt laws in the United States was fraught with trying to strike a balance between individual and public interests. Those concerns have also been reflected in similar matters of health and safety, including vaccinations, helmet laws — and masks.

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    10/13/2020

    The Town That Went Feral (review)

    by Patrick Blanchfield

    In a United States wracked by virus, mounting climate change, and ruthless corporate pillaging and governmental deregulation, the lessons from one tiny New Hampshire town are stark indeed. Plus, bears.

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    9/21/2020

    The Libertarian Ideas That Wrecked the Fed

    by Bruce Bartlett

    Friedman’s ardent libertarian faith was central to his monetarist thinking; like all libertarians, he was always extremely wary of anything that would cause the size of government to grow.

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    9/23/2020

    Is Freedom White?

    by Jefferson Cowie

    In American mythology, there exists a gauzy past when white citizens were left alone to do as they pleased with their land and their labor (even if it was land stolen and labor enslaved). In the legend, those days of freedom and equality were, and still are, perpetually under assault. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
    8/20/2020

    No, There Isn’t A Constitutional Right To Not Wear Masks

    by Helena Rosenblatt

    Libertarian arguments against compulsory mask-wearing to fight COVID-19 claim the mantle of individual liberty but ignore the way that liberal theory has focused on both rights and duties as the core of the social contract. 

  • SOURCE: The Nation
    3/30/2020

    All the President's Crackpots

    by Jeet Heer

    Richard A. Epstein’s crank theories about the coronavirus are influential thanks to a powerful network of right-wing legal activists.

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    3-25-14

    Rand Paul Doesn't Stand a Chance

    by Michael Kazin

    Libertarianism may be on the rise, but it has no real chance of taking over the Republican Party, much less the nation.

  • SOURCE: The Root
    7-22-13

    Rand Paul aide with racist past resigns

    (The Root) -- Jack Hunter, the controversial aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), has resigned nearly two weeks after his previous ties to a white separatist group were revealed. Hunter announced his resignation in an email to the conservative news site the Daily Caller.He expressed embarrassment for some of his previous racially inflammatory behavior, although he stopped short of acknowledging it as racist. His email read in part:I've long been a conservative, and years ago, a much more politically incorrect (and campy) one. But there's a significant difference between being politically incorrect and racist. I've also become far more libertarian over the years, a philosophy that encourages a more tolerant worldview, through the lens of which I now look back on some of my older comments with embarrassment....

  • SOURCE: Salon
    6-11-13

    Michael Lind: Libertarians' Weak Grasp of History

    Michael Lind is the author of Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States and co-founder of the New America Foundation.My previous Salon essay, in which I asked why there are not any libertarian countries, if libertarianism is a sound political philosophy, has infuriated members of the tiny but noisy libertarian sect, as criticisms of cults by outsiders usually do. The weak logic and bad scholarship that suffuse libertarian responses to my article tend to reinforce me in my view that, if they were not paid so well to churn out anti-government propaganda by plutocrats like the Koch brothers and various self-interested corporations, libertarians would play no greater role in public debate than do the followers of Lyndon LaRouche or L. Ron Hubbard....