Libertarianism

I think I have only ever met three women who could be considered true libertarians. That is probably three more than most.

Andrew Sullivan has a blog post about the lack of women libertarians. He posted this video from Julie Borowski, who wonders why there are so few women libertarians and suggests ways in which to attain an increase in numbers.

That video has set off a massive fight amongst women commentators. Sullivan links to Sarah Skwire who reject Borowski’s premise:

Telling women that they aren’t libertarians because they are too stupid to choose something better for themselves isn’t great advertising for liberty. Claiming that women are passive, easily programmed, and incapable of critical interaction with political and cultural ideas is simply wrong—as centuries of history of women fighting against the state and decades of critiques from the left and the right of women’s magazines and popular culture have shown.

Well, proof is in the pudding…have a look at who controls ad spend in the agencies on behalf of advertisers…here is a clue..it is women…and they place ads and buy inventory according to their demographic and sensibilities…often ignoring the client…who is paying them.

Borowski has responded to the backlash and criticism:  Read more »

Perhaps the 1595 Libertarianz and the 50 odd “classical liberals” of the Act party could all emigrate…to Honduras:

Now, for the first time, libertarians have a real chance to implement their ideas. In addition to a big special development region, the Honduran government intends to approve two smaller zones. And two libertarian-leaning start-ups have already signed a preliminary memorandum of understanding with the Honduran government to develop them.

One firm goes by the name of Future Cities Development Corporation. It was co-founded by Patri Friedman, a grandson of Milton Friedman, a Nobel laureate in economics, and until recently executive director of the Seasteading Institute, a group producing research on how to build ocean-based communes. The other is called Grupo Ciudades Libres(Free Cities Group) and is the brainchild of Michael Strong and Kevin Lyons, two entrepreneurs and libertarian activists.

Both share a purpose: to build “free cities”. Last April all three spoke at a conference organised by Universidad Francisco Marroquín, a libertarian outfit in Guatemala. In September they and Giancarlo Ibárgüen, the university’s president, launched the Free Cities Institute, a think-tank, to foster the cause.

As so often with enthusiasts, divisions within the cause run deep. The two firms hail from different parts of the libertarian spectrum. Mr Friedman is an outspoken critic of democracy. It is “ill-suited for a libertarian state”, he wrote in an essay in 2009—because it is “rigged against libertarians” (they would always lose) and inefficient. Rather than giving its citizens a voice, he argues, they should be free to exit; cities should compete for them by offering the best services.

The second firm’s backers appear to be less radical. A founder of several charter schools, Mr Strong is now the force behind FLOW, a movement that claims to combine libertarian thinking “with love, compassion, social and environmental consciousness”, says its website. He too prefers exit over voice (meaning that he thinks that leaving and joining are better constraints on executive power than the ballot box). But he also believes that democratic consent is needed in certain areas, such as criminal justice. His goal in Honduras is less to implement libertarian ideals than to reduce poverty and to speed up economic development.

via Andrew Sullivan

Libertarian Dubstep? Yep.

Actually exists:

It’s fair to say that most political nerds don’t know what dubstep is. But last month libertarian sites like The Daily Paul and Lew Rockwell got geeked up about Porter Robinson’s track “The State.” The ominous dubstep number uses samples taken from economist Murray Rothbard’s seminal For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto.