(actually, tho, user named Saro is a pretty calm, solid libertarian in the debate; I like his Last-Person-on-Earth Rule for determing whether a right’s fundamental or not)

Thanks! In echo chambers like HuffPo, attempting to sling mud against prevailing opinion is often counterproductive, so I’m really trying to keep my cool and just lay it all out.

Really? I have never heard of such thing being said by a libertarian.

Why is everyone jumping over this as if it is unalloyed stupidity?

In a free market, buying a legislature is worthless.

The comments there are unreal.

No matter how many times I try to resist the urge when one of you say “OMD – the comments are unreal”, I go anyway. I can’t help myself. It’s like a trainwreck I know is going to happen. And I keep F#*&ing doing it!!! What the hell is wrong with me??

(actually, tho, user named Saro is a pretty calm, solid libertarian in the debate; I like his Last-Person-on-Earth Rule for determing whether a right’s fundamental or not)

Damn you, Radley, on succeeding to the point where my brain melts a little every time I follow you to HuffPo.

Why is everyone jumping over this as if it is unalloyed stupidity? This is exactly the point made by a lot of libertarian corporate apologists when they’re defending the practices of lobbyists. But if a lefty says the same thing, disapprovingly, it must be completely ridiculous.

Note that #2′s point is exactly equivalent to blaming guns for shootings, or drugs for addiction. The state and all its corruption isn’t magically self-creating and self-sustaining. It exists because there is demand.

I suppose there is a certain amount of confusion on their part, there is a world of difference between my idea of ‘free market capitalism’, and what the ‘conservative movement’ has been selling as ‘free market capitalism’ to the American public for the last 30 years or so.

Maybe we need a pamphlet?!? Comic book format?

A job well done by Jessica the intern! The above quote explains in a nutshell why progressives need to stop their often blind worship of regulatory power. If small businesses have to comply with a huge number of complicated and COSTLY regulations, there won’t be many small businesses. But as perlhaqr and others allude to, this lesson will be lost on the orthodox Left.

Frustrating as it can be, libertarians–especially Left-libertarians like me who have a democratic socialist background–need to continue hammering these points home. Recently I was talking with a few OWS protesters at Occupy Peoria (IL). I told them that I understood their anger at bailouts, and their distaste for corporate power (like the Chase bank they were standing across from). But I also told them to keep in mind that corporations are creatures of the state, and would not exist in their current form without the state, its legal system or its financial aid (direct or indirect). The protesters expressed some agreement with my statements, though I don’t know if they quite knew where I was coming from. I suppose this was because they couldn’t quite categorize my statements, ideologically speaking. And that is the main problem we have to overcome.

But more more importantly, is she hot?

Wow. I like the use of ‘skewed situations’ instead of ‘more regulations’ so that one at least has to read the sentence rather than just look at it to see the conflict.

Those responses to my comments were mind blowing. I spent awhile just staring at my monitor with my mouth open, trying to figure out how to respond.

“Free markets don’t work because corporations buy regulators!”

The definitions for capitalism, free market, anarchism, inflation, and dozens of other pretty important concepts seem to escape the folks with the strongest opinions.

“You make my point. It is exactly an unregulate­d marketplac­e that can “buy” the votes of elected officials that result in such skewed situations­.”

Tell your intern congratulations. She has elicited the two dumbest comments I have ever seen on any website anywhere, and that’s including Yahoo! News comments about creationism, conspiracies and UFOs.

Also: You have an intern???

The left’s hatred of free enterprise is like a religion; they have set it up as unfalsifiable position.

Free Enterprise challenges their dogma…and that cannot be allowed.

“The great non sequitur committed by defenders of the State is to leap from the necessity of society to the necessity of the State.”
–Murray Rothbard

Clearly, this intervention into the market by the government on behalf of the rich and powerful is a shining example of why we need the government to intervene in the free market. The left’s hatred of free enterprise is like a religion; they have set it up as unfalsifiable position.