A HISTORY OF LIBERTARIAN IDEAS, Part 1, George H. Smith
George H. Smith was formerly Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for Humane Studies, a lecturer on American History for Cato Summer Seminars, and Execut...
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A HISTORY OF LIBERTARIAN IDEAS, Part 1, George H. Smith - Video
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Orlando, Florida (CNN) -- A long line snaked around the perimeter of a large hotel conference room as people waited eagerly to meet a former Texas congressman who they view as an icon in the modern libertarian movement.
Ron Paul had finished delivering a nearly hour-long speech to a gathering of Florida libertarians on Friday night, and he was now signing copies of books, t-shirts, posters and even a few paintings.
Paul might have retired from Congress last year, but he hasn't gone away quietly.
The eclectic group of activists who backed the Texas Republican in his back-to-back presidential runs still support him even as it appears many of them are ready to turn to his son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, if he follows in his dad's footsteps and runs for president in 2016.
Rand Paul, who was elected in 2010, has quickly become a national figure in his own right due to his willingness to buck traditional GOP ideology, and a strong following among young, libertarian minded voters and self-described "tea party" activists.
Rand Paul's appeal among the grassroots has helped rank him, according to early polling, as a top contender for the Republican presidential nomination if he runs. And unlike his father, Rand Paul is more closely aligned with the GOP establishment.
But as Rand Paul's star continues to rise, where does he stand among Ron Paul's most ardent supporters?
While a few attendees at the conference argued Rand Paul is too moderate, many say he strikes the right balance that the movement needs a pragmatic choice to its principled core.
Or as Chris Sankey, a 29-year-old from Tampa, put it: "Rand is running the company, and Ron's chairman of the board."
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Brian Dohertys Favorite Obscure Libertarian Thomas Szasz839
By: Ted Spencer
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Brian Dohertys Favorite Obscure Libertarian Thomas Szasz839 - Video
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Orlando, Florida (CNN) -- A long line snaked around the perimeter of a large hotel conference room as people waited eagerly to meet a former Texas congressman who they view as an icon in the modern libertarian movement.
Ron Paul had finished delivering a nearly hour-long speech to a gathering of Florida libertarians on Friday night, and he was now signing copies of books, t-shirts, posters and even a few paintings.
Paul might have retired from Congress last year, but he hasn't gone away quietly.
The eclectic group of activists who backed the Texas Republican in his back-to-back presidential runs still support him even as it appears many of them are ready to turn to his son, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, if he follows in his dad's footsteps and runs for president in 2016.
Rand Paul, who was elected in 2010, has quickly become a national figure in his own right due to his willingness to buck traditional GOP ideology, and a strong following among young, libertarian minded voters and self-described "tea party" activists.
Rand Paul's appeal among the grassroots has helped rank him, according to early polling, as a top contender for the Republican presidential nomination if he runs. And unlike his father, Rand Paul is more closely aligned with the GOP establishment.
But as Rand Paul's star continues to rise, where does he stand among Ron Paul's most ardent supporters?
While a few attendees at the conference argued Rand Paul is too moderate, many say he strikes the right balance that the movement needs a pragmatic choice to its principled core.
Or as Chris Sankey, a 29-year-old from Tampa, put it: "Rand is running the company, and Ron's chairman of the board."
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Are Ron Paul supporters ready for Rand Paul to carry the torch?
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On March 31, The New Yorker published an item in its humor vertical, Shouts & Murmurs, titled "L.P.D.: Libertarian Police Department." At least 31,000 people liked it.
I can laugh along with parodies of libertarian ideology. But shouldn't a reductio ad absurdum start with a belief that the target of the satire actually holds?Tom O'Donnellproceeds as if libertarians object to the state enforcing property rightsthat is to say, one of the very few state actions that virtually all libertarians find legitimate!If America'ssheriffs were all summarily replaced by Libertarian Partyofficials selected at random, I'm sure some ridiculous things would happen. Just not any of the particular things that were described.
That isn't to say that there weren't parts of the article that made me laugh.It got me thinking too.If the non-libertarian approach to policing* was the target instead, would you need hyperbole or reductio ad absurdum? Or could you just write down what actually happens under the officials elected by non-libertarians?It is, of course, hard to make it funny when all the horrific examples are true.
* * *
I was just finishing up my shift by having sex with a prostitute when I got a call about an opportunity for overtime. A no-knock raid was going down across town.
"You're trying to have your salary spike this year to game the pension system, right?" my buddy told me. "Well, we're raiding a house where an informant says there's marijuana, and it's going to be awesomewe've got a $283,ooo military-grade armored SWAT truckandthe kind offlash grenades that literally scared that one guy to death."
"Don't start without me," I told him. "I just have to stop by this pawn shop. It's run by some friends of mine from ATF. They paid this mentally disabled teenager $150 dollars to get a neck tattoo of a giant squid smoking a joint. Those guys are hilarious."
But when I got to the shop the guys weren't in any mood to joke aroundsomething about having lost their gunsagain. That meant I had extra time to get to the raid. En route, I headed through a black and Latino neighborhood, and who did I see on the street? A teenage male who made what I would describe as a furtive movement.
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