Matt Welch has an interesting interview with an Alaskan Democrat:
Q: So libertarian-minded people should be fine with that, right?
A: Let me tell you all the nice things about Sarah Palin: Sarah Palin has been a pretty freaking awesome governor. She came in saying that the entire system was corrupt, and that Republicans were evil, and she was going to just mix everything up and get us a gas pipeline and end of story. And she got to power, she was elected overwhelmingly by independents, beat Tony Knowles, who had been governor before.
The Republicans hate her. If you go and talk to the Alaska delegation here, they despise her.
Q: Really?
A: Hate her. Oh my god! This whole thing about her retarded son really being her daughter's was started by Lyda Green, who is president of the senate, a Republican...
Q: I was just talking to someone who claimed to have knowledge of Alaska to some degree, and they say where Sarah Palin comes from it's the equivalent of Humboldt or Chico in California, like, of course, you know, she'd have a Girls Gone Wild phase, and smoking pot. Is this just wishcasting, or what can you tell us about her geographical background?
A: So the Mat-Su Valley, you know, Matanuska-Susitna Valley, otherwise known as Upper Wingnuttia, is full of right-wing libertarian militia fundamendalist Christian gun-toting, pot-growing dope-heads.
Q: Awesome.
Like totally cool, man.
Sigh...I wish she was running for president. But the mainstream republicans will not allow a place for libertarians. The RNC will eventually go the way of the Whigs.
Pro-gun, transparency in government, drug-liberal, and gives entrenched political interests a daily kick in the nuts? This gets better every day.
But I am getting suspicious. Very suspicious. How the hell did someone I actually like find themselves on a national ticket?
But the mainstream republicans will not allow a place for libertarians.
Huh? In the Stupid Party, the "next-in-line" always gets their chance, (ask Bob Dole, George H.W.Bush and even McCain) so unless she's a Spiro Agnew, that chance may be as soon as 2012.
In the Stupid Party, the "next-in-line" always gets their chance, (ask Bob Dole, George H.W.Bush and even McCain) so unless she's a Spiro Agnew, that chance may be as soon as 2012.
That must explain why Dick Cheney is the Republican nominee. Oh, wait..
Rand,
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837918,00.html
This article describes Mayor Palin's flirtation with book banning. An excerpt:
"Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast.""
I suppose libertarians aren't necessarily in favor of government funding for public libraries, but if the public library already exists, I would expect libertarians to be against book banning.
This article describes Mayor Palin's flirtation with book banning.
No candidate is going to be perfect. If it were book burning, I'd be more concerned, but public libraries make choices every day which books to have on the shelves.
I'm much more concerned about Barack and Michelle Obama's flirtations with fascism.
"Barack is going to make you work. He's going to make you give up your cynicism."
Barack can take my cynicism when he pries it from my cold, dead typing fingers.
Now, I've never smoked pot, but if I recall my teenage years in Anchorage correctly, the Mat-Su Valley is where the homegrown stuff comes from (imagine what pot plants must be like in the land of 75-lb. cabbages).
Bob,
Rand Simberg is fundamentally incapable of honest analysis. You are wasting your time. Better to laugh him off again rather than attempt to engage a fool masquerading as a savant.
He is projecting everything he wants her to be on to Palin, disregarding the fact that she is basically a nutty Christianist Opportunist and one who even Jon Goff quite correctly described yesterday as clearly no libertarain. Jon was right as usual and Simberg wrong.
No candidate is going to be perfect. If it were book burning, I'd be more concerned, but public libraries make choices every day which books to have on the shelves.
Except that she wanted to yank books that were on the shelves. She found them offensive. And the Wasilla public library wasn't short of shelves. She also fired the librarian with no explanation, and had to reinstate her after a public outcry.
If a "libertarian" mayor tries to yank books from the local library, does that mean that she isn't really a libertarian? No, it means that she is a libertarian and a victim of media bias.
And Team Obama thinks that media outlets that run critical stories should be shut down. And wants to politicall censor talk radio.
When the worst accusation you can make is less than what your own guy has done, you don't have a legit beef.
It is fair to say that Palin is less of a porker than the senator from MBNA.
Anyone who doesn't think that librarians routinely use public funds to promote their own interests and agendas has never worked at a library.
Or perhaps been in one.
Anyone who doesn't think that librarians routinely use public funds to promote their own interests and agendas has never worked at a library.
Yes, but they're appointed officials, not elected officials. Civil servants, who are not answerable to the voters, always get upset when those who are elected interfere with their fiefdoms.
If you don't understand, watch "Yes, Minister."
The only real libertarian issue is whether the public should pay taxes so government officials (elected or unelected) can choose books they think the public should read. Disputes about which government officials should do the choosing are just inside baseball.