Is it bad that i’m not familiar with a lot of those phrases?
Not at all! Just keep reading — you’ll get there. In the meantime, it doesn’t make you less principled, just probably a little newer to the game.
Fun story: My freshman year of college, I basically thought all the same things I think now, but I didn’t know any of the terms and I couldn’t go into much detail. Bowling me over in an argument would not have been difficult.
A few weeks into classes, I ran into my primary poli sci professor, who was also my major adviser, when I was studying in a sitting area in the poli sci hall (yes, not building — hall. It was a small department). He stopped to talk, and we discussed possible labels for my political philosophy. Not knowing too much about me yet except that I knew I was neither a progressive nor a traditional conservative, he suggested that perhaps I was a neoconservative? I replied, that yes, yes that might be a possibility.
Ha.
(In retrospect having finished writing this, mermaidlostatsea, it may not be quite as amusing to you as it is to me if you don’t know the phrases yet. Just know that neoconservatives are pretty much the opposite of me on most issues.)
…aaaaand yes, I did actually just write “tumblr-tastic.”
I was speaking at/helping run the Young Americans for Liberty booth at the 2012 International Students for Liberty Conference here in Washington, DC. My presentation was 45 minutes of a fast but thorough (probably too thorough, knowing me XD) discussion of the finer details of mass emailing, earning media attention, blogging, and using social networks for organizational politics.
I also got to meet in person quite a few of the awesome libertarians of tumblr! Among them: statehate, evilteabagger, disobey, brittanysaysrelax, and so many more people whose names/URLs I’m blanking on right now because it’s 12.30 which is waaaay past my bedtime. (As one of my coworkers at YAL loves to note to everyone he mentions me to, I am a 93-year old woman in a 23-year old’s body.) But if we met, please reply and mention that! If I’m not already following you, I probably should be.
Speaking of my inner oldness, I didn’t make it back to the final day of the conference and thus missed the group picture. Missing group pictures is the story of my life. Buuuut you can see the back of my head here in a photo which is otherwise focused on Ricardo and his hipster glasses here (I’m the one in the right foreground with the short hair in case you don’t stalk the front page of my blog enough).
All that to say: tumblr people, it was great to meet you, and hilarious that you had to introduce yourselves to me this way:
YOU: “Hi, I’m [name]…{receives blank look from me}…[username] on tumblr.”
ME: “OOOOOooooh, hi, hi. I’m bad at names, faces, and in-person social skills!”
So at future libertarian events, please do come say hi! I’m a much better writer than I am a talker, but I swear I’m happy to meet you.
I’m looking to make two comprehensive lists, and I need your assistance.
Can you tell me what kind of libertarian you are (minarchist, an-cap, classical liberal, etc.)?
Can you tell me some of your philosophical bases for your libertarianism (natural rights theory, utilitarianism, etc.)?
This is for a (pretty awesome, if I do say so myself) new project I’m working on right now. I won’t share the details just yet, but I promise, promise, promise I will eventually.
Feel free to message if the “answer this” function isn’t long enough.
“Contrary to popular belief, the data show that democracies don’t go to war any less frequently than autocracies. But when they do, unlike authoritarian regimes, they need to win public support for the war effort by attempting to show that their opponent started the dustup.”
Sure as Hell looking that way. When will this empire end?
Washington has made tremendous preparations for a military assault on Iran. There is speculation that Washington has called off its two longest running wars – Iraq and Afghanistan – in order to deploy forces against Iran. Two of Washington’s fleets have been assigned to the Persian Gulf along with NATO warships. Missiles have been spread amongst Washington’s Oil Emirate and Middle Eastern puppet states. US troops have been deployed in Israel and Kuwait.
Washington has presented Israel a gift from the hard-pressed American taxpayers of an expensive missile defense system, money spent for Israel when millions of unassisted americans have lost their homes. As no one expects Iran to attack Israel, except in retaliation for an Israeli attack on Iran, the purpose of the missile defense system is to protect Israel from an Iranian response to Israeli aggression against Iran.
Juan Cole has posted on his blog a map showing 44 US military bases surrounding Iran.
In addition to the massive military preparations, there is the propaganda war against Iran that has been ongoing since 1979 when Washington’s puppet, the Shah of Iran, was overthrown by the Iranian revolution. Iran is surrounded, but Washington and Israeli propaganda portray Iran as a threatening aggressor nation. In fact, the aggressors are the Washington and Tel Aviv governments which constantly threaten Iran with military attack.
Neocon warmongers, such as David Goldman, compare the Iranian president to Hitler and declare that only war can stop him.
So I stopped by CPAC last night, picked up my blogger pass, roamed the exhibit hall where I got some sweet mock Ray-Bans from Google, and had to sit through some ranting by Herman Cain to see the one remotely attractive speaker of the weekend: Rand Paul.
Here are some crappy cell phone pictures I took which, when put together, kind of struck me as representative of the event. On the top, a button for sale in the exhibit hall: The Republican Party must unite or die. At this point it’s a weird coalition which is held together only by opposition to the slightly bigger domestic government advocated by Democrats/Obama’s desire to wage wars of aggression with our buddies in NATO rather than by ourselves.
But if a uniting occurs, what will the rallying cry be? Thus the other two pictures. On the one hand, the audience of the main ballroom can be seen leaping out of their chairs one of many times during Herman Cain’s 15-minute, catch phrase heavy speech. Cain was introduced with a repeated emphasis on the fact that he doesn’t use teleprompters. Once he started speaking, it became instantly apparent why he didn’t need them: His speech was largely content-free, and what little content he had sounded like he’d been scribbling notes during Ron Paul YouTube videos. He also spoke at a rate of about 10 words per minute, and made sure to always pause for applause.
Rand Paul spoke next, giving a talk tailored to the CPAC audience and focused on economic issues. I have to admit I was hoping he’d take the conservative movement to task on its decidedly un-fiscally conservative and un-pro-life love of war, but that’s really more Ron’s style. Rand votes and campaigns against stuff like SOPA, the PATRIOT Act, and unconstitutional wars in the Senate (he’s been accepted into the antiwar fold by even the initially very suspicious Justin Raimondo), but he is much more the politician than his father, in that he knows how to play to an audience without compromising. Both tactics have their advantages — but I begin to digress.
All that to say, CPAC is interesting as always, if much less liberty-friendly this year. And the direction of the GOP in the next decade too will be interesting indeed.
