This was so perfect that it’s hard to believe it’s not shopped. I think I’d enjoy it even if I were a Romney supporter.
Hi, I'm Bonnie.
My site is bonniekristian.com, which Google determined was a good result for searches of "hipster libertarian." Thus this tumblr.
If you have a question, please check over my FAQ page first. That's also where you'll submit your query.
My other tumblr is [ˈkɾeːdoː].
Credit to this article from Mark Thornton of the Mises Institute for the list.
What Thrives and What Dies During War?
From the article comes this outline:
Main Street Economy: Land, Labor, and Capital Harmed By War
- Retail business
- Real estate and Insurance
- Art and Entertainment
- Airlines and capital intensive industries
- Manufacturing and Non-defense capital goods
The Unregulated Economy: Technology and Entrepreneurship Harmed By War
- Technology
- Internet
- Banking privacy
- Small businesses
- New businesses
The Death Economy: Benefits From the Destruction of People, Peace, and Privacy
- Military
- Weapons Industry
- Spies (CIA, FBI, etc.)
- Government and Taxes
- The News Media
The Devil Economy: Benefits From Government and War
- Wall Street
- Big Banks
- Oil Service Companies
- Pharmaceutical and Healthcare
- Public Enterprises
Sure, you can buy a cigar in Boston...if you're rich enough.
The city of Boston has quietly banned all cigars which cost less than $2.50.
Translation: Blunts, no. Fancy Habanos, yes.
Second translation: Poor people smoking, no. Rich people smoking, yes:
The ban is effective February 1, 2012.
But for those upper class cigar aficionados, the elite few who are still allowed to smoke indoors at their pricey cigar bars, will still be able to purchase single cigars. A stipulation in the city ordinance allows tobacco shops to sell individual cigars, as long as they retail for $2.50 or more.
The city agency responsible for the ban, the Boston Public Health Commission, is composed of a seven person board. I hardly need mention, of course, that the board members all appear to have careers which have undoubtedly kept them far from poverty.
It is grimly ironic, though, that one of the board members specializes in “racial and ethnic disparities in health care.” Evidently he isn’t equally bothered by what will amount, thanks to higher levels of poverty among minorities in America, to a ban which will limit the purchasing abilities of minorities at a disproportionate rate.
Third translation: Government is not a friend to the poor.
Google search trends by volume in GOP candidates based on Florida region, throughout January 2012.
What’s Decoder’s main takeaway? That Florida’s web denizens don’t care for Newt Gingrich all that much. Looking at the Florida exit polls (done up nicely by the New York Times), you see Gingrich’s greatest strength were with voters from ages 45-64 (where he took 33 percent) and age 64 and over (where he took 34 percent).
That may help explain some of Gingrich’s search weakness, so to speak. What else do you think is going on here?
And Ron Paul isn’t even campaigning in Florida.
12 Progressive Contradictions in Neoconservatism
From the piece:
[W]hile neoconservatives are extremely vocal in their opposition to progressive domestic policies, they advocate a paternalistic approach to foreign policy.
[…]
- One must rabidly advocate “small government,” but blindly embrace a huge military as a part of the same government.
- On a similar note, one must lionize the Founding Fathers’ vision of a decentralized federal government, but wholly ignore the impulse amongst those same great men against a large standing military.
- One must assert the right of a sovereign nation to self-determination, unless one doesn’t agree with what is eventually determined.
- One must never cede to the state even an angstrom of the civil liberties guaranteed in our founding documents, unless the state assures one that it for one’s own safety.
- One must advocate the right to bear arms, but must clamor for the confiscation of weapons from people in other countries.
- One must rage against any attempt by those bastards in the federal government, in their haughty disdain for the common man and his “uneducated choices,” to mold society via authoritarian fiat, unless they are acting as “our bastards” and exporting authoritarian government overseas.
- One must believe in the sanctity of life and that life begins at conception, but must also be totally okay with the eventuality of pregnant women as “collateral damage.”
- One must advance the ideal of government frugality, but one must never deny any expense request the military-industrial complex may make, no matter how extravagant.
- One must sit atop his Hayekian high horse and decry government intervention in domestic economic processes, but must embrace the involuntary imposition of American-style consumerism upon those in foreign lands.
- Never trust “big government,” unless the same leviathan tells us whom we must see as our enemies, i.e. who we must all fear, and yet ideate about killing.
- One must defend against the onslaught of the secularist rabble on thoroughgoing theists, unless one finds secularism as currently expedient in another country.
- Last but not least, one must live by the truism that one ought “do unto others that which you would have them do unto you,” unless you don’t feel like it and the “others” live in a different country.
See a pattern? Neoconservatism espouses support for life, liberty, and property, but when push comes to shove, it actually shares progressivism’s desire to use government to remake society.
Mitt Romney and Ron Paul: A Tale of Two Very Different Candidates
From the (very thoughtful) article — emphasis added:
The biggest divide, however, may be their supporters. Paul’s people, who dutifully showed up to hold signs bearing his name at some of Romney’s Florida events, are dedicated to Paul’s policies. Asking them the reasons for their support can easily lead to a 10-minute conversation about the advantages of non-interventionism or the gold standard. Many can live without their man winning the nomination; it’s about the libertarian cause. A Paul supporter at a Romney rally on Sunday said Paul would never win the whole shebang, but he was casting his ballot for him today anyway as “a symbol of protest against the GOP Establishment.”
Many of the Floridians rallying to Romney are often attracted to him precisely because he seems electable; their support is strategic, not symbolic. More often that not, his supporters couldn’t (or wouldn’t) name a particular policy they like; more important to them was the fact that the former governor is a successful businessman who carries himself well and has a relatively unimpeachable personal background. “I like the way he handles himself,” said one rally attendee on Monday morning, when asked what he liked most about the candidate. “He’s a Republican,” said another. “He seems more professional,” said a third. “He’s clean and pleasant,” a woman said at a rally in the afternoon. As former Florida state senator Connie Mack has been putting it in his introductions for Romney, “He looks like a President.”
sake champagne mojito.
Mojitos are, hands down, my favorite drink.
The French 75 and the Tom Collins run a close race for second, though.
(Source: scotchandscones, via rachellewhite)
