Greens half-drink libertarian Kool-Aid on fiat money

The Green Party's version of "abolish the Fed" is better at start than many L/libertarian nutters' babblings about fiat money. Actually, no, that was pretty much a head fake. 

It quickly goes off into the ditch, starting with the fact that it IS in the same neighborhood of a babbling about fiat money, just without using that term, and without taking the "logical" next step into goldbuggery.

There is no such thing as "debt free money." This is to confuse money with the federal budget.

Second, what's to stop the Treasury from "printing like crazy," just as the Fed eventually does? What's to stop the Treasury from doing quantitative easing?

Third, if you believe Congress can step in and directly control the money? Do you want the same wingnuts who hold the government hostage over debt ceiling limits to do that as well? Oy.

Fourth, if you really are rejecting fiat money? Gold has no intrinsic value. Are you going to back the greenback with oil before the fracking runs out? The uranium that has intrinsic nuclear weapons value, but those are really the fiat currency version of weaponry. (We hope.) And a side note for any L/libertarians reading? "Fiat money" is not necessarily by government fiat; and when Andy Jackson killed the Second Bank of the US, his "pet banks" did not have 100 percent specie or bullion backing for their banknotes, contra a nutter claim on this Reddit post. (Shock me.)

The only think that could have made this more whackadoodle was to fuse this "debt free money" with the "print all you want" of Modern Monetary Theory and then try to reconcile the two.

Seriously, I remember in 2009, during the Great Recession, protesting in front of the Dallas Fed. I firmly distanced myself from a couple of L/libertarians; the most vocal was a Paul-tard. (Ron, not Rand, who hadn't gotten that much airplay yet.)

That all said, when you do teh Google (or teh DuckDuck) on "debt-free money," you'll get a variety of definitions of just what it is and how it's supposed to work. This site says it could include non-government currency, which does exist already for trading within certain local networks but has no value outside that community. Given that "this site" is New Agey, that would fit the modern Green Party well.

More charitably, the GP statement may be thinking of "social credit." If so? First, the piece doesn't spell it out. Second, per the link, social credit is no panacea. It has a quasi-idealistic view of how a modern economy should work. Second, at least in the US, it's been pushed to a fair degree by L/libertarians.

Quick hot takes on Justin Amash

As trending on Twitter, a month after leaving the House Freedom Caucus, Michigan Congresscritter Justin Amash is leaving the GOP.

I didn't understand a month ago why he left the Freedom Fries world, since he helped found the caucus. If you're principled, fight for the principles and force them to vote you out.

I feel somewhat the same about this, as many people are connecting the move to him getting a primary opponent. The Trump butt-kissers are playing up Peter Meijer as an Iraq veteran; he was only there for a year or so, and he later went to A-stan for two years with an NGO. But Republicans generally hate NGOs, so can't talk about it. And, he may be, because of this, less wingnut than many Republicans like. He is connected to "Never Trumper" types like George Schultz

And, in case the name is very familiar, if you're a Michigander, or kind of familiar otherwise in other Great Lakes states? Yep, he's NOT a regular Joe; he's an heir of the Meijer store family, worth nearly $10 billion.

Anyway, back to Amash.

Will he still run for Congress? 50-50 odds right now, I say, if that. He stood no chance winning a GOP primary against Meijer, with his money, his veteran status and his family name recognition. For the unfamiliar, Amash's district is centered on Grand Rapids, which is where the Meijers are from.

If so, as an independent or a Libertarian? 50-50 on each way. I think Amash's powers of incumbency won't help him a lot in a Libertarian or indy general election run, though.

If he doesn't run for Congress? 75-25 against him running for the LP presidential nomination. He's a Ron Paul-tard type fake Libertarian (how Paul ever got the nomination, I don't know) who's anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage and anti gay-rights in general in many ways. Indeed, his Wiki bio notes his connection to Ron Paul's brother. I know that LPers, from what I've read on places like Independent Political Report, has a wing that's tired of ex-Republican candidates. I don't know if it has a wing that is tired of candidates who really should run as the Constitution Party's nominee, since the Constitution Party really is the Religious Right party for religious wingnuts who think the GOP doesn't cut the mustard. That said, the Constitution Party is in the middle of a big implosion right now.

Per people like the old Village Voice pro-lifer columnist Nat Hentoff, a halfway logically coherent libertarian pro-life argument can be made on liberty interests, but no such argument can be made, period, for being against the gay.

If he DOES run for prez as a Libertarian, seeking its nomination, per all of the above, I suspect arms will be less open for him than for Paul, Bob Barr, and Gary Johnson.

Speaking of all of the above, I don't know about Peter Meijer individually, but according to Wiki, the Meijer chain scores pretty well on LGBT rights with advocacy groups. More conservative GOPers, whether Trump Train riders or never Trumpers, may have some hard swallowing to do.

Finally? Amash and Trump are almost two peas in a pod on preening and bombastic. Take this announcement. Amash didn't have to announce this on the Fourth. If it's related to Meijer's announcement, he could have made his statement either earlier, on the 3rd, or else related.

But, no, I've no doubt he deliberately chose the Fourth cuz Merika and "freedom."

That said, he's more interesting than you think, per this New Republic longform.

If he moved his 20-week divider on abortion to 24 weeks, and allowed for a few exceptions after that, that's where I'm at. But, given that Amash considers himself "100 percent pro life," I'm sure that's not where he's at. Rather, it may be an attempt to say this is the best that government regulation can do, within a libertarian stance, on this issue. And, I'm not sure why the author didn't just call Amash 100 percent pro-life, just like one-time-Libertarian Republican Ron Paul and Fauxbertarian son Rand. It's almost as if ... per Carl Beier ... Steigerwald is a left-coopting libertarian.

Also contra Steigerwald, as Ron Paul illustrates, racism in the Libertarian Party ain't anything new. And, son Rand is illustrating it right now vis-a-vis Ilhan Omar. It's also interesting that Steigerwald talks about L/libertarian purity tests when she's written for Antiwar, founded by a purity tester; Reason, not a purity test place; American Conservative, not totally libertarian and definitely having problems with racists; and The Federalist, not libertarian at all, at bottom line.

She also writes for "Center for a Stateless Society," which bills itself as left-market anarchist. I've long rejected anarchism, and accept the label of "libertarian socialist" only when "libertarian" is used with its European-style meaning.

The more I think about it, the more I think that this piece, while interesting, is also a PR pitch, even if Amash right now is running for Congress only.

A real #libertarian enters the Prez race in Gary Johnson

Gary Johnson in his 2012 presidential run. AP file photto.

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson has announced he will repeat his 2012 Libertarian Party run for president.

Unlike Rand Paul or daddy Ron, who are more Christian rightists than anything else, covered with a selective dollop of anti-Federal Reserve goldbug thoughts, Gary Johnson's the real deal.

The first newspaper where I was an editor, a weekly, was in New Mexico, when he was governor. He is a straight shooter, too.

He vetoed a bill the NM Lege passed that, in its original form, had been pushed for by his wife. The original core of the bill hadn't changed that much, but, it had been "Christmas treed" enough, among other things, that he couldn't support it.

He's less of a warhawk than Bernie Sanders, let alone Hillary Clinton, on the Democratic side, too.

He's even more honest and realistic than either of them, or the Paul family, about the War on Drugs, too.

That said, I get that Faux News is necessary for some publicity, but it hates real libertarians.

And, he's real enough to pal around with the libertards at places like Reason.

Per his Wiki page, he loves school vouchers, wants to make Medicare a block grant for states, and while not as much a goldbug as the Pauls, wants to abolish the Fed. At the same time, he, as a true libertarian, is pro-choice and pro-gay rights, including gay marriage, and has been for years. And, as Joe Monahan notes, he has a reputation of never running a negative political ad.

And, that leads to my poll at right.

My personal thought is that I would at least consider voting for Johnson over Clinton if I had no Green Party option, yes. It's not likely, because even the Pauls haven't talked about making Medicare, in addition to Medicaid, and possibly even Social Security, a state-run block grant program. If he were just half as nutbar fiscally as he's actually shown, I'd consider it more.

Update, per comments:

That said, per Brains' first comment, I'd missed Johnson on the burqa. I agree that's anti-free speech, which is weird in general for a libertarian, especially given the religious connections. (Given what I know about Johnson, and how he has laughed at the idea of "anchor babies," I don't think it's racist, though.) Have to disagree with the second portion of that blog. I said so on there, and that the author was taking Johnson's email comment out of context. He disagrees, but I stand by that.

I think his view of free speech, per his blog, means that he sincerely thinks calling something "offensive" is anti-free speech. That's of course utter nonsense, as I also said on the link Brains provided. Mr. Saturn ignored that, leaving me to think he truly drinks that portion of the Libertarian Kool-Aid.

It's no skin off my back within Libertarian Party circles. I'm not one and never will be, and also love to see Libertarians, as well as tea partiers, devour their own in ways that belie how Democrats, let alone real liberals, allegedly do.

But, when a person like that  tries to impose his definition of free speech outside that circle? Nope. I call Wittgensteinian bullshit on a made-up language game.

Anyway, the header was comparing Johnson to the Pauls. There may be candidates even more Libertarian than him. We may even, once again (please? please?) get a Libertarian presidential candidate who doesn't even have a driver's license.

More GOP prez candidates face drop-out point

You'll notice that I have a poll at the top left corner of this blog. It asks which Republican presidential candidates are likely to drop out before the Iowa caucuses.

I put it up before Scott Walker surprised us all by doing so, even though he seemed to have money in the bank while still struggling.

Well, five of the six in that poll — Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, and Lindsey Graham (figure out who he is) — along with Rand Paul, are all going politically broke, some rapidly.

Paul and Graham both have some reserves, but, by percentage of overspend, they're two of the three worst.

My venture is that, due to the nature of the Iowa caucuses, and that their overspend percentage isn't too high, Huckabee and Santorum hold on, hoping for a boost from the Protestant and Catholic Religious Right, respectively.

Pataki and Jenga (heh, heh) are both running "vanity" campaigns and we all know it. As soon as other people refuse to refund their vanity, those two are out.

Rand Paul may figure out a way to re-energize his daddy's supporters.

Butchmeup? What, the Log Cabin Republicans aren't backing him? Well, they could, if he'd openly give them a reason to do so.

Anyway, the poll's still up; cast your vote!

Rand Paul makes it two — his chances?

Rand Paul / Wikipedia

Rand Paul has joined the Havana Ham, Ted Cruz, in officially announcing he is seeking the GOP nomination for president.

Now, per the NYT article, on several significant issues, like reproductive choice and gay rights, Rand Paul is not a libertarian.

Realistically, he's just another far-right Republican who's a paleoconservative rather than a neocon on foreign policy. (Yes, he's somewhat libertarian on drug issues, but, you know what? Even with his War on Drugs, Nixon wasn't totally hardcore on pot, and Jerry Ford wasn't either.)

That said, being a paleocon on foreign policy, in other words, not writing a blank check to Israel, is enough for GOP war hawks to already start shooting at him.

Will Paul stay the course on this issue? I'd say about 50-50. He's not going to totally backpedal, but he will "nuance" his views in weeks ahead.

That said, his paleoconservatism isn't just on Israel issues. Last winter, he officially opposed the Cuban embargo. Assuming Marco Rubio runs, as well as Jeb Bush, Florida could be interesting. Younger Cubans don't seem to viscerally hate Castro, but they may be less likely to vote, and less likely to be Republican. Nonetheless, this stakes out an angle there for Paul, assuming he's in the race that long.

And, he may well be. New Hampshire, the first primary, allows crossover voting, and let's remember, there are more than two political parties in America. Whether Paul being part of the Religious Right on abortion and gays would turn away capital-L Libertarians or not, I don't know. If he could pick up at least a few of them voting GOP, plus, paleoconservative Republicans, he could win that primary.

At a minimum, I expect him to be in the top three in New Hampshire. And neocon/war hawks may backfire with the gang-up process.

Plus, he'll have a domino effect on Cruz, forcing him to either moderate (by his lights) or double down on wacko bird. You know which one he'll do.

That said, Rand Paul's got the baggage of the Paul family brand. If he goes goldbug on fiat currency, like his daddy, he's toast.

Final thought? Rand does have a snowball's chance, which is more than Havana Ted. Does he have two snowballs? I don't think so; and even that one snowball depends on how well he can bury a conspiracy theory past that might just be even worse than Havana Ted's. His toupee probably has a good chance of something; what, I don't know. There's also the question of whether his flip-flops help or hurt. Right now, maybe nothing's helping.

#Election2014 postmortem — Dems wrestle with 'Bill Clinton problem'

Wake up Dems and meet Congressional newcomer Mia Love,
the first black woman GOP Member of Congress.

I may get in more detail about why Democrats lost the U.S. Senate, lost a couple of tight governorships, and in general kind of imploded last night, in a long post I'm already working for tomorrow on a Texas, Wendy Davis and Battleground Texas postmortem, but, I'm going to dive briefly into the big picture now.

No, Bill Clinton wasn't on the ballot, and of course, neither was Barack Obama. But, in a sense, he was.

As Gary Younge notes at The Guardian, Obama's ineffectiveness (actual as well as seeming) was what was on the ballot, as much as anything he actually stood for.

And per that, on to the header.

Democratic senatorial and gubernatorial candidates seemed to wrestle with how to address him the same way that Al Gore did with Bill Clinton in 2000, and hence my header. This time, it was complicated by some states doing the Medicaid opt-in part of Obamacare and others not, but those statewide race candidates, in several swing states, seemed to struggle with just how much to try to distance themselves from Dear Leader but yet, especially in states with large black votes, still get his help, like Florida gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist and North Carolina Senator Kay Hagen both launching election day pitches from Obama on radio stations with largely black demographics.

Note that I said "black" and not "minority," especially not "Hispanic."

That's point the second.

I don't know what the final national numbers will tell, but I'll venture it's a significant dropoff in Latino voting for Democrats. The failure of the Dream Act, the failure of Obama to take immigration-related executive actions in the past few months, will likely "tell." That said, I don't expect this year's elections to show a big pickup in GOP Hispanic votes, just a big dropoff in Democratic ones. And, at least one House and one Senate Democrat have been publicly critical of Obama for not using executive orders.

Per Howard Dean, a lot of Hispanics probably did feel Obama was taking them for granted.

Third?

Per Alison Lundergan (say it three times fast for the pun) Grimes, as poster child No. 1, Dems had crappy candidates running crappy campaigns. Wendy Davis for governor here in Texas. Arguably, Mark Udall in Colorado. (A fetal personhood bill lost there by a fair margin, so maybe he should have gone after Cory Gardiner on other issues.)

That said, per friend Perry, in some cases, perhaps some neolibs caught cleaned out of Democratic positions and hopefully more heads will roll in the future.

Fourth?

Refuting "narratives" about women who vote GOP voting against themselves, and blacks who vote GOP voting against themselves, I present the first black woman Member of Congress, from Utah of all places. And, she took Utah's one Democratic seat, replacing the retiring Jim Matheson. Yes, she's an "outlier," and for that reason, got a lot of national GOP money. Still, it's a wake-up call. (Love, per the link, challenged Matheson two years ago, too.)

Just as racism and sexism are problems in corners and pockets — but not all — of the Republican Party, condescension is a problem in corners and pockets of the Democratic Party. See my Dean and Obama note above.

Fifth?

This is a second-term (for a president) midterm election. Remember 2006? That's why I expected some of this, though I thought (and more, hoped) the Senate would be a 50-50 tie.

Sixth?

Democrats who now talk about how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will have to "govern" or "compromise" or whatever?

Wake the hell up, and what planet are you on?

Like Speaker John Boehner, he'll first have to wrestle with keeping his fire-eaters in line and halfway placated.  Think Rand Paul wants to "compromise," let alone Ted Cruz

Seventh?

Hillary Clinton seemed to have no better coattails when stumping for candidates than did Obama. Part of that relates to Point Five, but it may just give the likes of former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer more encouragement to run. And, even with his own flaws, in my eyes, he would definitely enliven the race.

Eighth?

As I'll cover in more depth in my Texas roundup tomorrow, this election SHOULD disabuse Democrats that they have a baked-in demographic edge, if not today, then tomorrow. Whether it WILL do that is another question entirely.

And, locally, the minority turnout in midterm elections issues? Anecdotally reinforced for me firsthand. The most minority-heavy county commissioner precinct, with probably half of the county's total minority population if not more, had a turnout of only about 60 percent that of the other three precincts.

Flip side?

Democrats DID have good candidates running good campaigns — and winning in red states.

Charles Pelkey got elected to the Wyoming state House supporting reproductive choice and marriage equality.

Rand Paul thinks putting a squirrel on your head makes you presidential

Rand Paul and his pet hairpiece, Squirrel!
Apologies to Cal Worthington and his pet Spot.

Kentucky's very junior US Senator also thinks if the Republican Party would just embrace libertarianism, it might help the party, and help him get elected president.

They're about equally credible, right? So, the Snooze just got the wrong headline, and I'm helping out.

Of course, Paul's "libertarianism" doesn't extend to reproductive choice. It doesn't extend to religious freedom, including freedom from religion for we secularists, given that he's accused President Obama of a "war on  Christianity." (In reality, since Obama has actually expanded Shrub's office of faith-based initiatives, if it's a war, he's already surrendered.) Nor does it extend to people of color, of course, since those nasty civil rights bills conflict with Paul's ideas of pure, Randian libertarianism.

Try getting a better squirrel, Rand. Maybe that will work. Just don't go to New Hampshire during squirrel-hunting season.

I've said it before and I'll say it again — there's only been one true libertarian elected from the GOP in the last 20 years. It's not Rand Paul. It's not Ron Paul. It's former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, who neither wears a squirrel on his head nor publishes racialist newsletters.

Seriously, dude. Doesn't your $174K per year, plus any self-licensing optometry work you still do, buy a better squirrel? Maybe not. Look at Donald Trump.

"Alex, I'll take 'Republican presidential candidates with bad hair' for $1,000, please!"

Squirrel Hair endorses Don Huffines against John Carona in Metroplex race

Is Texas politics really at the point, beyond money-grubbing, that candidates in a state Senate primary need to seek and trot out endorsements from out-of-state politicians?

I guess so.

The "Squirrel Hair" in question is Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY [Jelly]), whom Don Huffines says is officially endorsing him in his Metroplex Senate primary race against incumbent John Carona.

It's obvious back-scratching. Per the Snooze, Huffines formed his pro-Ron Paul PAC in 2012.  Now, the son of the closet racialist offers the payback. (And, Aqua Buddha will surely use this chance to collect his own campaign donations in Dallas in his usual inimitable style.)

Another name for "liberal Republican," as Huffines calls Carona, is "less batshit crazy Republican." I don't pull the "R" lever in the voting booth at all, but, Carona would at least be tolerable.

Anyway, back to the out-of-state endorsements.

Another bit of GOP hypocrisy is at play here. Isn't it bogus to preach federalism, states' rights, etc., with the idea that each state is an individual entity, then have someone who is from a different state parachute in (and help you raise bucks at your fundraising dinner, surely) to endorse you?

Survey says?

Yes.

Meanwhile, back to the race.

How long before we hit the $500K mark in a primary election for a non-statewide office for a non-fulltime job?

Probably not long, and the climb in campaign spending will probably grow along with the widening gap between the 1 and 99 percent. 

Yet another bit of hypocrisy is in old man Ron Paul's top 2012 donor.

Rand Paul, hypocrite, meet David Corn, idiot / #Obamiac

I agree to some degree with David Corn that Rand Paul comes off as some degree of hypocrite for accepting part of Attorney General Eric Holder's explanation about the use of drones inside US borders, for things like shooting down rogue planes.

That said, if it was a political move, it seems to have worked.

But note that I only agree to some degree.

I disagree with this:

But decrying the administration for possible drone assaults against noncombatant American citizens within the United States is a phony issue, a modern-day equivalent of black-helicopter-phobia.

Sorry, it's not.

Given that the Texas Department of Public Safety used a helicopter to lethally fire on a truck allegedly carrying illegal immigrants last year, it's not a phony issue at all. We know Obama is, at bottom line, as nutbar about the War on Drugs as most Republicans, and is like a weather vane on immigration issues.

Besides, as the Guardian notes, Holder carefully couched his language:

Attorney general Eric Holder then clarified the administration's policy on Thursday and said that Obama would not use his authority to order a drone to kill an American on US soil who was "not engaged in combat."

But it's still the White House that defines, on American soil as well as outside, who's a "combatant."

And, as the New York Times notes, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

What, exactly, does the Obama administration mean by “engaged in combat”? The extraordinary secrecy of this White House makes the answer difficult to know. We have some clues, and they are troubling. 

Troubling indeed, given everything in Afghanistan.

What if the Texas DPS said: "We believed that truck had illegal immigrants in it, therefore everybody we shot is an illegal immigrant"? Well, that's what Obama has consistently claimed about "combatants" and drone strikes in Afghanistan, and it's a claim that Holder very carefully refused to surrender inside US borders.

As Ryan Goodman notes in that New York Times piece:

Is there any reason to believe that military drones will soon be hovering over Manhattan, aiming to kill Americans believed to be involved in terrorist financing? No. 

But is it well past time for the United States government to specify, precisely, its views on whom it thinks it can kill in the struggle against Al Qaeda and other terrorist forces? The answer is yes.

The Obama administration’s continued refusal to do so should alarm any American concerned about the constitutional right of our citizens — no matter what evil they may or may not be engaged in — to due process under the law. For those Americans, Mr. Holder’s seemingly simple but maddeningly vague letter offers no reassurance.

And David Corn gave Obama and Holder a "pass" for another refusal to offer such specificity.

This is also why, for years, I've considered David Corn overrated. As an investigative journalist, he's good at getting tips, but not so good, a lot of times, on connecting the dots.

And, here's Glenn Greenwald, actually connecting the dots while calling shenanigans on the likes of Corn, his scoffing at Paul, and his apparently deliberate misreading of Holder.

And, the Economist calls shenanigans on Paul. Great takedown here:

The problem with Mr Paul's filibuster was that it was small. He is a man of tender conscience with some legitimate concerns about the legal mess that is the war on terror. But though he may claim, as here to Fox News, that he has clarified those questions, he has not....

He secured no answers at all about the legality of drone strikes overseas (which are, let us not forget, the only drone strikes to have ever happened, outside the feverish imaginations of the black-helicopters crowd). Nor did he extract any information from the government about the wider legality of that post September 11th assertion of world-wide war powers. ...

There is an urgent need for better oversight of America's war on terror. ... Ignore the praise for Mr Paul this week. He has proved nothing about the right's appetite for such hard, risky work, and shown instead a movement excited by any chance to rally round a popular cause, and feel good about itself.

Bingo. And, David Corn, in halfway recognizing that, at the same time, underscored what the Economist said about liberals having even weaker knees on this issue:

Conservatives are well placed to provide that oversight, because most Democrats are disinclined to criticise Mr Obama in public over his use of drones, secret detentions and intelligence sharing with legally dodgy foreign agencies.

That's you being criticized, David Corn.

Meanwhile, the Times now has an in-depth story about the US hunt for Anwar Al-Awlaki, speaking of US citizens killed by drones without legal due process. As Greenwald notes, it's pretty "sympathetic" to Team Obama, especially in the legal rationalizations area.

Americans were greedy long before Atlas Shrugged

Creative Commons via Alternet

I see a new Alternet column is making the rounds of liberal bloggers, etc., claiming, per the title, that: "Ayn Rand Seduced Generations of Young Men and Helped Make the U.S. into a Selfish, Greedy Nation," and per the subtitle, that: "Thanks in Part to Rand, the United States is one of the most uncaring nations in the industrialized world."

Note: The following comments are not meant as in any way being a personal attack on any of those bloggers, Google+ or Facebook posters. Rather, they're simply my assertion, and documentation, that greed is a far bigger, more ingrained, more diversely rooted problem in America than a simple attack on Randian Objectivism would suggest.

The reality? American greed was around long before Ayn Rand. Look at all the gold rushes, and "salted" gold and silver mines, of 100-150 years ago. Look at the rampant railroad speculation, to the degree that Congressmen accepted stock shares on the floor of the Capitol in the Credit Mobilier scandal. Look at Grover Cleveland's hard-hearted response to the Panic of 1893.

Rand, and Randian Objectivism isn't cause; it's pseudo-intellectual justification for a worship of money and greed that was around long before Ayn Rand popped out of the womb chain-smoking cigarettes as Ann Coulter's fairy godmother. Alexis de Tocqueville, in observing what he perceived as the alleged leveling of class effects in America, cautioned how such leveling and mass democracy would likely lead to a rise in materialism. And he was right.

Beyond that, the success gospel, or prosperity theology, per the Wiki entry, has a history in America, too, arguably going back to Ye Olde Massachusetts. Plenty of proclaimed Christians who would be horrified to be lumped with Rand are, if anything, even greedier than she is.

So, let's get past these attempts to blame Rand for all of today's GOP hard-heartedness just because the likes of a Paul Ryan or Rand Paul are in Congress today.

Prosperity theology, if anything, provides more of a "veneer" for more greed in America than Ayn Rand does. It certainly has a LOT more followers. You can see Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, and others hawking their ideas, sermons and wares all over the place. (I've never seen a Randian website where anybody had a $20,000 marble commode lid for sale like the one Meyer originally has. [Note to Joyce Meyer: Buying shit like that doesn't help you heal from child abuse. Note to Meyer devotees: Wake up and smell the shit in the commode and on her TV show, eh?]) I don't see a Rand channel on cable TV, though. Hell, New Agers, with "The Secret" and older versions of the same idea, are a more integral part of American greed today than is Objectivism.

But, in part because New Ageism is liberal, and because not all success gospel preachers are politically active conservatives, they don't make as easy of targets as do Randians, along with the politicians mentioned above and Alan Greenspan.

But, even in the political sphere, success gospel preachers who are also politically active conservatives surely have more influence than Randians. George W. Bush likely never cracked a page of Rand in his life, but President "Jesus is a philosopher" hung out with success gospelers both black and white.

And, there's another dirty secret. The success gospel isn't limited to white, so it's harder to criticize its effect on American greed for that reason, too. It's a lot easier to bash Alan Greenspan or Paul Ryan than it is the likes of T.D. Jakes.

Beyond that, the column ignores other history. For example, the "charity inducing" Harriett Beecher Stowe? She wound up living in post-Reconstruction Florida and supporting Jim Crow. Nathaniel Branden has moved further beyond Rand than Levine credits. (And, his writing shows it. The Branden of the 1990s and beyond is further separated from Randianism than is the Branden of the '70s or 80s.)

And, per Tocqueville, let's admit that he had a fair degree of true insight about the connection between materialism and modern American democracy. Whether one is "liberal" or "conservative" politically.

In a democracy, especially one that theoretically (if not actually) has class movement, it's actually easier for greed to get inflamed, if anything. This gets back to the Occupy Wall Street protests, too. What needs reform goes beyond even political structures and into social psychology and social structures. That said, perhaps morality can be legislated in some ways, including through more progressive taxation, but this is a virus, a retrovirus that's deeply engrained in America's cultural DNA. Let's not pretend otherwise, whether with simplistic blame games or something else.

For a more in-depth view on this, and on how computerization may actually be making this all worse, read about Adam Curtis' documentary "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace."

I guess what I'm really getting at, ultimately, is what skepticism involves, for me. It's more than just the science-minded skepticism of "professional skeptics." Rather, my skepticism is also influenced by philosophy, and says let's expect to see little in the way of blacks and whites in the world. In an America of 310 million people, now, technology (per Curtis), mass-movement democracy and semi-leveling sociology of the 19th century, and religion, American-style going back to Plymouth (not Jamestown, nor, totally, Santa Fe, N.M., Catholicism) are all factors on American materialism with longer bloodlines and more adherents than Ayn Rand. (Jamestown was secular greed from the 17th century predecessor to a joint-stock company and its board of directors. The Spanish in Santa Fe knew New Mexico held no riches of gold.)

Related to all of this is the issue of "blame." Greed isn't necessarily just a conservative issue. And, greed also isn't limited to money. If we talk about greed for fame and other things, the iGeneration mentality of at least a segment of Occupy Wall Street shows that greed is pervasive indeed.

You and I are greedy. Zen monks from Tibet can be as greedy for fame as Steve Jobs. It's part of who we are.

One could even trot out a "Gods Must Be Crazy" type of claim that private property accelerated greed 10,000 years ago. That said, to the degree it's true, I don't think any anti-Randians want to go back to Paleolithic times. Ditto for those who say we need to go back to "natural living," of course; they never volunteer themselves to be part of the 90 percent of the Earth's population we'd have to kill off to sustain pre-agricultural population.

Libertarianism - teens still needing to grow up? Trotskyists?

Christopher Beam has a generally good (albeit badly flawed in two ways, see below) overview of where today's libertarians in the U.S. stand, from individual Libertarian rebel types through Paul pere and fils and on to the Free State Project in New Hampshire, and, above all, what might be the Libertarian ground zero of the Cato Institute and Liberty magazine.

The Peter-Pannish teens might well apply to the Free State Project types. (Maybe even a bit to Rand Paul!) And, to the individualistic rebels.

That said, it's arguable, at least, that a place like Cato, or similar ones that are even more hardcore, are Trotskyist in spirit. Witness the "purges" of folks like Will Wilkerson. And, especially among Randians, there's a history of Trotskyist purges, starting with her own background from Old Russia, running through her own personal purge of Nathaniel Branden, and going on from there.

That said, the article's got a couple of BIG flaws, too.

First, Mr. Beam, civil libertarians are NOT the same as economic libertarians, let alone bigger "movement" libertarians. And, not all economic libertarians, even, follow Straus/Mises/Hayek, let alone Rand.

I have no idea why he threw in the observation and "lumping in" of civil libertarians on the first page of the story. Maybe as a "hook" of some sort? But, places like the ACLU and CCR have plenty of good old-fashioned economic liberals who also proudly identify as civil libertarians, but have no truck for the people he profiles in the article.

Second, and even worse, on the last page? Mr. Beam? The Constitution is not, and was not, a "libertarian" document.

Rand Paul, flip flopper

He originally said he wouldn't take money from bailout-voting Senate Republicans. And now he is. Will TPers punish him?

Why Rand Paul is wrong on civil rights

Rand Paul has been, famously or infamously, claiming that in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the government's regulation or elimination of discrimination in private establishments was unconstitutional. Funny, I have read the Constitution before.

Let's take a look.

The Preamble to the Constitution says it is ordained and established to:
Establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility (and) promote the general Welfare.
Now add to that Article 1, Section 8:

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

I consider those forgoing powers to include what's listed in the preamble.

Even libertarians know Rand's wrong, with even more insight than I just offered.

Of course, at heart, Rand, like his old man, is a racist of sorts trying to camouflage it in libertarian language. Congrats, Kentucky GOP voters: You just nominated a borderline racist, if not more than borderline, to carry your party's senate banner.

And, yes, his old man's a racist. "Mainstream libertarianism" (an oxymoron if ever) said so two years ago in its house organ.