TheAgitator.com
Monday Morning Poll
Monday, January 14th, 2008Pick your favorite libertarian blog. These are all off the top of my head, and I limited it to 15, so I apologize if I left anyone out. And I basically included blogs that would call themselves libertarian. I realize people will have quibbles with the libertarian purity of one blog or another. I left off this blog and Hit & Run, only because I’m sorta’ interested in seeing what y’all also read. I also left off blogs that focus exclusively on drug policy. That’ll be another poll.
Feel free to leave suggestions of other excellent libertarian blogs–or to advertise your own–in the comments section.
Wow. Don’t know that I’ve even heard of most of those.
A couple of my favorites are: Classically Liberal at
http://freestudents.blogspot.com/
and Disloyal Opposition at
http://www.tuccille.com/blog/
I’m not willing to grant Instapundit and Andrew Sullivan the “libertarian” label. (Ooh, does that turn me into a beltway-libertarian hater?
)
You might consider “The Austrian Economists” at austrianeconomists.typepad.com if you are including econ blogs among the “libertarian.”
Vox Popoli. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a more consistent libertarian than Vox Day.
I’d suggest my own, but then I prefer to call myself a minarchist, since I don’t agree with several things that modern libertarians stand for (the two biggest being illegal immigration and the idea that you must accept others’ choices, rather than simply allow them to make them)
Instapundit at least thinks he’s a libertarian. Sullivan…I don’t see it, but if Radley thinks he is, it’s his blog.
I used to read Marginal Revolution, but Tyler Cowen posted too often about his own personal tastes in food, art, architecture, etc. Now I read EconLog. Arnold Kling and Bryan Caplan have a greater tendency to stay on-topic, and if something interesting gets posted to Marginal Revolution there’s a good chance it will be mentioned on EconLog, anyway.
Not to be too immodest… but mine is pretty good.
My vote is for the LewRockwell.com blog.
One glaring omission is Positive Liberty. Jason Kuzniki along with Will Wilkinson and Julian Sanchez is one of the smartest libertarian bloggers. Positive Liberty is a good replacement for Dispatches from the Culture Wars since Ed Brayton posts his more general libertarian stuff there anyway. I find Dispatches to be too anti-liberal certainly in its comments and even in some of Ed’s posts.
I second the nomination of Positive Liberty. Very good blog.
Actual URLs would be helpful, in both the original post and comment suggestions.
We’re new, but we’re enthusiastic.
Dispatches from TJICistan - http://tjic.com/
Great anarcho-capitalist blog, that spans the entire spectrum.
I can’t believe you included Freedom and Shit but left off Lew Rockwell’s blog. Is it because they represent those dreaded paleo types?
I can’t narrow it down, but I’m glad to see this because apparently I missed a few sites.
I second the question of why Sullivan and Reynolds (Instapundit) were included. I enjoy Sullivan but I (speaking personally) would never consider either of them to be a libertarian blog.
Oh, also - The Liberty Papers ought to be included.
http://www.thelibertypapers.org/
Even defunct and unavailable, the best libertarian blog ever was (and is) Liberteaser. With its omission, this poll is worthless.
voxday.blogspot.com
I’ll actually agree with Sjenks that my personal blog, Dispatches from the Culture Wars, should be replaced by Positive Liberty. Jason Kuznicki and Jon Rowe are brilliant writers and thinkers, and certainly are more consistent libertarians than I am. But thanks for thinking of me anyway.
I’d throw in right thinking from the left coast (http://right-thinking.com) and a stitch in haste (http://kipesquire.powerblogs.com/)
I consider instapundit to be a LINO (libertarian in name only), but that is only my opinion.
Strike The Root “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striing at the root.” ~Henry David Thoreau
Volokh is definitely the one I enjoy the most, but Strike The Root wins the “purity” contest.
Oooh goody, new links to plunder! Agree LRC should be included, also Mises Institute. Love http://www.lastfreevoice.com , good contributers and an irreverent attitude. Also Reason Magazine of course:-) Pity about Hammer of Truth…
Wendy McElroy:
http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php
I used to love reading Hammer of Truth. They had a very extensive list of links to other sites, and it’s gone for good now. I wish the site had been able to just post that set of links while it was on “hiatus”…
While I love mises and the austrianeconomists site I think they’d be better saved for a list of favorite austrian econ blogs. While Austrian Economics rightly leads to classical liberalism, it isn’t necessarily libertarian itself. It’s not a political position it’s an understanding of economic realities. (Though to be fair, Mises itself tends to cross back and forth over those lines, making practical application of the principles into the political realm.)
I do concur with Vox Popoli - though he can sometimes be a bit inflammatory for my taste. I know what this is going to sound like, but honestly I would’ve named this site as my favorite libertarian blog before the Ron Paul meltdown the last couple of days.
I love the work you do on Prohibition. Both alcohol and the war on (some) drugs. I appreciate your being willing to slay sacred cows, and that you have historically made considerable effort to be accurate in your reporting. I appreciate your efforts with the innocence project, and with similar work to free people unjustly accused.
I appreciate your candor and analysis of all kinds of issues - even when I disagree. In the past, when looking for a site to get people thinking in a better way this has been the site I’ve sent them too. It’s not overly inflammatory and doesn’t often make the mistake of assuming its audience is already on the same page. This makes it ideal. I was dead serious when I commented on my disappointment. That wasn’t rhetoric meant to shame you, or otherwise evoke some reaction from you - it’s truly my response to what I read because it fell so far below what I expect from you and this site.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any additional blogs to recommend, because this, and LRC, Reason, and a couple others from the poll are the only blogs really dedicated primarily to libertarianism/classical liberalism. The rest of the blogs I read are generally dedicated to more specific areas but are written by libertarians/classical liberals.
Since the Paul blowup, I’ve been reading Tom G Palmer’s blog, in particular the Fever Swamp section, which has lots of stuff about Rockwell & Co.
I heard that Ron Paul supporters have been spamming this poll.
I voted Julian Sanchez, as the sharpest individual blogger listed. Group blogs like Volokh are too variable (Ilya Somin is excellent, David Bernstein not so much).
Shout-outs to Jacob Levy, Micha Ghertner, Will Wilkinson, Brian Micklethwait. And honorable mention for Alex Harrowell, despite being a raving socialist.
Greg Newburn is correct: The defunct and unavailable Liberteaser remains the best libertarian blog ever. What other blog can claim to have comments from the fake David Boaz, scaring the bejezus out of Ghertner to get back to work and stop blogging?
Gotta go with Unqualified Offerings.
I’m not immodest enough to suggest that mine should make any “Top X” list, but hell, I’ll grab for some link love when invited to:
Kn@ppster
I quite enjoy Billy Beck’s writings.
My answer would have been Marginal Revolution, but these days Overcoming Bias is better at what had made MR the world’s best blog, so my vote for best “libertarian” blog is now EconLog. For a list of the top 30 libertarian blogs (in Alexa reach and Technorati ranking) as of August 2006, see http://knowinghumans.net/2006/08/top-30-libertarian-blogs.html
Mine is very new, but I am a libertarian and I think it’s pretty good.
http://libertarianforfreedomblog.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the poll! Some of those I have never heard of before!