Almost Classical

By the end of 2017, I'll care much less about all things political. I'm already finding the constant calls to "do something" exhausting. Sorry, but no... I'm not going to "do" anything anymore. I wrote... and wrote. I made art, including a satirical campaign film. Like many, I voted. I didn't get my way. Listening to Ohio and WV radio stations, I realize that the planned protests actually deepen the support some have for the winner. It makes them all the more committed to resisting "left-coast" radicals and the "elites" they already distrust and dislike. My job is to take care of our kiddos and take care of myself. That's about all I can manage, right now. And I'm pretty convinced that little will change (not nearly as much as some fear/believe) in a year or four years. Activism can wait until I'm up to it. Right now, the panic seems a bit much. Maybe it isn't, but it seems over the top to me. No, the...

English: Donald Trump speaking at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Republicans in the House and Senate, especially the leadership of the GOP , must at least symbolically reject the president-elects choices for his inner circle of advisors. Though some of these posts do not require Senate confirmation, the Senate should and must demand that Donald Trump remove some members of his transition team and his "kitchen cabinet" of conspiracy nuts. I never imagined as a libertarian that my worst nightmare might be a Republican president. The following individuals should be nowhere near the White House: Stephen K. Bannon and Frank Gaffney . This should not be open to debate. The Senate should refuse to confirm any cabinet secretary until these two men are shown the door. Yes, I understand that Bannon and Roger Ailes advised and helped control Trump during the campaign. I don't care. These are not the sorts of people with whom the GOP should be as...

speaking at CPAC in Washington D.C. on February 10, 2011. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Republican candidates, and the GOP in general, lost many of us in the "almost classical" liberal and libertarian subset of voters since 1992. The 1996, 2000, and 2004 elections drove us further away as the GOP enabled candidates and voters with no cohesive loyalty to classical liberalism . Some of us voted for George W. Bush in 2000, hoping for a return to the ideals of efficient (not non-existent) government and personal freedom. That hope quickly evaporated, as Bush was anything but fiscally responsible. Non-intervention went by the wayside, too. From the Patriot Act to No Child Left Behind , Bush was the president libertarian-leaning, local-government promoting voters feared. A Republican taking away rights, imposing federal mandates, and engaging in wars without end. Our first votes for "W" were our last votes for W… and yet he won again (and with the popular vote) in 2...

For many of us who have studied, deeply, the works of Adam Smith, J.S. Mill, Hayek, von Mises, Sowell, Mankiw, Garrison, McCloskey, and others with Austrian and Classical Liberal theoretical underpinnings, the death of the intellectual movement began when intellectually skilled yet stupid people like Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) were given credence by the Republican and Libertarian Parties. The Religious Right wasn't seeking religious liberty. It was, often, seeking a cover for hateful biases and a desire to legislate morality. Religious men and women led the Abolitionist movement and the Civil Rights movement, but those aren't the people of the modern religious GOP subset. We let racists, nationalists, sexists, and worse claim the banner of "personal liberty" and "states rights" when we should have been and must today reject these people. Horrible people have used libertarian and classically liberal ideals to defend their twisted opinions and hatre...