I’m in Australia, where political-ish people tend to grab leftover ideology from the dominant superpower and treat it like original thought (I’m probably as guilty as anyone), and where “libertarian” means, in almost all cases, far-right wing beliefs including support for massive government intervention in pursuit of traditional conservative ideals. It’s the classic case of conservatives who like pot choosing to repackage themselves as iconoclasts.

Or, if it’s a less-dead question, which elements of conservative thought that are usually rolled into libertarianism do you believe should be excluded by default?

I’ll make it a top-level post soon.

You’ve once more launched into an attack on a straw man, given I’m a mutualist. Moreover, you want to weaken the state’s role of oversight and thus empower corporations, so in fact…

It’s almost unique. The only commercial pineapple beer I’ve been able to find online is from China. I’ve never tried it, and nor has anyone I know. Online reviews are poor, and some indicate the presence of actual pineapple chunks. (A no-no for me; they’d clog up the taps.)

It puzzles me why more commercial breweries don’t try to work with this very popular flavor.

In English grammar, transitive verbs require an object, and my sentence did not have one. That said, complaining about it was an absurd bit of pedantry on his part, and if he really isn’t going to read me anymore, then good riddance. I doubt he was ready to engage with my ideas sincerely in any event.

My view is that the rules of grammar exist to help readers grasp an author’s meaning. Beyond them, however, there are a near infinite number of ways to achieve the same purpose. In casual writing — and in poetry — any of these is potentially acceptable.

In the original post, you’ll also note an abundant use of scare quotes, a jocular set of parentheses, many omitted words, and at least one fairly glaring sentence fragment.

If anyone found my prose difficult to read owing to any of these problems, I hereby apologize to them. Frankly, however, I doubt that even Marcus had any (sincere) difficulties.

Perhaps you missed this part of my post:
“As a libertarian socialist, who is getting past his agnosticism on the question of anarchism, I would have significant disagreements with you over economic theory.”

So as a libertarian socialist, why would I be sympathetic to “big business?” I oppose capitalism and the wage system as we know it, so why would I support the hierarchal institutions that dominate western economies? Furthermore, I work in the private sector so I am certainly not naive about the loose ethical standards of private corporations. More specifically, I work for a not-for-profit healthcare organization. When I was hired, I thought that surely a not-for-profit medical center wouldn’t be as bad as a publicly-traded corporation. Well, it isn’t much better. They are dirty bastards too. In a way, it’s even worse because people expect more from such an organization.

Summing up, Leon, I advocate an end to state capitalism and a gradual dismantling of the state apparatus. Then what? I don’t claim to have a blue print, but I agree with the Industrial Workers of the World that we should build the new society out of the shell of the old. Government is NOT the answer. Capitalism is NOT the answer. WE are the answer, Leon. If you view social democracy as the end all and be all, I suggest that you widen your gaze.

The original sentence may not have been the most idiomatic, but it was not ungrammatical.

Jason, are you still singing? I recall you were in a chorus a few years ago.

That’s my husband. I worked on stage crew. My singing is almost as bad as my grammar.

You’re right. I’m a moron. I promise not to blog here again, and I’ll send an apology to Radley immediately. Shortly afterward, my resignation from Cato.

@10 – There’s a reason I use Corporatism or Capitalist Corporatism to describe the current economic situation, as a mutualist.

@11 – If you think politics is bad, remember that big business does exactly the same thing. And there are far fewer checks, balances and oversight of private figures in business.