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The following speech was delivered by Jack Hunter at the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, DC, Friday Feb. 11, 2011. The event was sponsored by Young Americans for Liberty. Considering that we’re at the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference it might be worth reflecting on what it means to be a conservative, [...]
Filed under: Conservatism, libertarianism
As the Tea Party continues to set its sights on astronomical and unsustainable government growth, Republicans have been eager to sing the movement’s tune. Promising to slash spending and balance budgets, the GOP’s newfound right-wing fiscal rhetoric has been characterized by mainstream pundits as a once “respectable” Republican Party kowtowing to conservative “extremists” for whom [...]
Filed under: Conservatism, libertarianism, Tea Party
A casual reader is irked by Jack Hunter telling social conservatives that war and statism are not pro-family. Of course, that was something the libertarian great Murray Rothbard always understood, which is one reason why traditional conservatives can profit from reading him, despite any qualms they have about his broader philosophy. The current issue of [...]
Filed under: libertarianism
That seems to be David Frum’s line. After making a career out of attacking paleos and antiwar conservatives, Frum — who was himself purged from AEI — now bemoans the intolerance of the Right as displayed in the apparent firing of liberaltarians Brink Lindsey and Will Wilkinson from Cato. Says Frum: in the Lindsey-Wilkinson case, [...]
Filed under: Conservatism, libertarianism, Politics
The Cato Institute is soon to part ways with Brink Lindsey and Will Wilkinson, exponents of the libertarian-liberal fusion (and all-around bad idea) known as “liberaltarianism.” Even a good Burkean might find something of value in an compound of the best elements of the Left and libertarianism, but what Lindsey and Wilkinson seemed to be [...]
Filed under: libertarianism
President Cleveland was the exemplar of what was once called a “Bourbon Democrat” — the wing of that party that favored the gold standard against inflationary bimetallism, small government (Cleveland famously vetoed federal aid for drought-stricken Texas farmers), and a relatively anti-imperial foreign policy. In other words, Bourbons were classical liberals or something close. In [...]
Filed under: libertarianism
After more than a decade of trying, the District of Columbia City Council voted today in support of medical marijuana for residents of the nation’s capital. If it is signed, this will make 14 states and one district in the union that allow its residents to access cannabis for medicinal purposes, and one step closer, [...]
Filed under: libertarianism, Politics
Peel away the condescension in David Boaz’s column criticizing Jacob Hornberger and other libertarians for failing to talk enough about slavery and there is, under all the score-settling, a point worth arguing. While disclaiming any belief in a historical “Golden Age” of liberty — but who does believe in such a thing? — Boaz nevertheless [...]
Filed under: libertarianism, liberties, media
Matthew Yglesias suggests that out-group bias against environmentalists explains why libertarians, in contradiction to their own ideology, so often defend sprawl. (Jim Henley, Erik Kain and David Schaengold and others also had interesting reactions to my earlier post.) There’s something to that, though I’d like to add two more factors that may be at work. The first is [...]
Filed under: Culture, environment, Law, libertarianism, Uncategorized
CPAC 2010 was my first CPAC ever. For most of my life I have run in local conservative circles, but never really had any interest nor ambition to throw myself into the chaos of CPAC, but when I did, I was taken for quite a ride. The highlights of the event for me were watching [...]
Filed under: Conservatism, libertarianism, Politics