Kenneth Minogue

I recently revisited a clipping from the WSJ I had on my desk.

"Most Western governments hate me smoking, or eating the wrong kind of food, or hunting foxes, or drinking too much, and these are merely the surface disapprovals, the ones that provoke legislation or public campaigns. We also borrow too much money for our personal pleasures, and many of us are very bad parents. Ministers of state have been known to instruct us in elementary matters, such as the importance of reading stories to our children. Again, many of us have unsound views about people of other races, cultures, or religions, and the distribution of our friends does not always correspond, as governments think that it ought, to the cultural diversity of our society. We must face up to the grim fact that the rulers we elect are losing patience with us. . . . Some may forgive these intrusions because they are so well intentioned. Who would defend prejudice, debt, or excessive drinking? The point, however, is that our rulers have no business telling us how to live. . . . We might perhaps be more tolerant of rulers turning preachers if they were moral giants. But what citizen looks at the government today thinking how wise and virtuous it is?"

So I looked for the full piece, and found it.  I also learned that Mr. Minogue passed away in 2013.  Impermanence.

Libertarian with a Small 'L'

"I am a libertarian with a small 'l' and a Republican with a capital 'R.'  And I am a Republican with a capital 'R' on grounds of expediency, not on principle." (Milton Friedman)

It's amazing to find that an opinion one has arrived at after considerable deliberation not only is shared by others, but was thought of before one was even aware of the existence of such things.

RNC: The Aftermath

Michelle Malkin has to pander to the establishment a little bit to retain her position as a conservative pundit.  I get that.  Despite that, she wrote a nice article about the RNC power grab and what it means to be one of the ones who was disenfranchised by the party bosses.  There are a couple good "after-action reports" quoted as well.  Ms. Malkin is by far the best pundit out there, and this reinforces it.

“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters"

Since Warren Buffet has demonstrated that he is a senile statist and financial mooch, I need a new hero.  Charles Koch is certainly the wealthy libertarian, but both the lack of ideological drive and the falling out with Cato soured me on him too.  Then I read an article on Peter Thiel, the gay, libertarian venture capitalist.  Although the writer of the New Yorker article injects unnecessary bias and opinions into the text, Thiel sounds like someone who has the right kind of ideas and the initiative to make things happen.

Life, Liberty, etc.

Pro-gun and pro-liberty products—what more could a guy ask for? They have some funky stickers and such.

Libertarian Publications

I've been looking for a copy of 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution by Claire Wolfe, but can't seem to locate non-used copies for a reasonable price. I hope it's not out of print, but it sure seems that way. The publisher is Loompanics, which according to Wikipedia has gone out of business and Paladin Press, publisher of The Ultimate Sniper, has picked up some of the titles. Unfortunately they don't appear to be as bulk-purchase friendly as Loompanics was.

Incidentally, I found a scanned copy of the aforementioned book on Scribd. There's also an online bookstore called Laissez Faire Books that sells libertarian-type printed matter.

Apparently a revised version of the Wolfe book is available as The Freedom Outlaw's Handbook, published by Paladin Press.

Furthermore, a mirror of the apparently now-defunct clairewolfe.com exists. Fight on!