I recall doing something like this only once before – out of
more than 1100 posts to date…
C. Jay Engel writes at The Reformed Libertarian. His bio, as follows:
Spends his day as an investment
advisor and helping people with their financial strategies. Living in Northern
California with his wife, he writes on everything from politics to theology and
from culture to economic theory.
I have no idea how good of an investment advisor he is, but
if he is 10% as good at investment advice as he is at writing about all things
libertarian I suggest he is the next Warren Buffet (of investing, of course…not
political philosophy; on this, he is the inverse and 10,000% of Warren Buffett).
I have seen his work occasionally as a Mises Daily. I try regularly to visit his site.
He has written a piece entitled Anarchism,
Minarchism, and the Libertarian Label.
It is worth a careful read. He
perfectly deconstructs and then reconstructs the entire dialogue on the topic
at hand. Perfectly.
I have read several equally compelling pieces from him. In the past, I would send him a short email
or post a quick comment at his site.
This one deserves more (to the extent my site is “more”).
I know two things, though, regarding posting this at my
site. Mr. Engel will certainly see this
note; secondarily, people that matter will also see this note.
By doing it this way, I save myself the trouble of sending
several emails!
Thank you for the recommendation and link to Jay's blog. It was a good read.
ReplyDeleteI posted a comment and adverted him to your plug, BM.
Libertymike
As someone searching through libertarian theory, I thought the piece to be well done. I've had my back-and-forths with the whole anarchist/minarchist thing. I'm a bit worn out, honestly.
ReplyDeleteWhat's puzzling to me, especially, is how we go around poking fun at the big parties for labeling, and then proceed to do the same. We're so far gone, liberty-wise, with a bloated behemoth growing by the day, killing people of all sorts, and doing injustices across a large swath of territory. Yet, we can't seem to form any coalitions due to petty THEORETICAL differences so far removed from today's reality that any application of this stuff seems doomed to be a.) shelved indefinitely or b.) only worth a try after civilization collapses.
The faint clarion call for reduced government has been met with a flurried formation of factions. Division works pretty well when there's fear that some other large group will use power over you OR will get rich instead of you. Hence a successful two-party system. It’s a tried and true template.
It's not so great, however, when many small factions are out of the power they wish to reduce while seeking to stop the flow of money that others covet in exchange for votes. That scenario would be difficult enough to do together. But, no, let's split up. Try and do it separately. I know! Let’s form think tanks and give advice to the powerful money-spenders. I’m sure they’ll do exactly the opposite of what the system is designed to do. Why? Because we TOLD them to... rationally. Ooh! Better yet, let’s submit an amicus brief to SCOTUS! They’ll listen to us! Even better, let’s ignore all of it! That’ll teach ‘em.
I really thought that Ron Paul was our Cincinnatus, but it wasn’t meant to be. He had flaws, unfortunately; unacceptable to those with paradigmatic perfection in their own minds. Never mind that government could have reduced. It seems that the remnant’s capacity for rule is for only after the expected collapse. And what a happy day that will be, right?
Sure, there’s also the duopoly’s nimbleness in co-opting ideas that have found enough favor with the public, but it would be great to see some coalition-building going on. Mend the bridges and get into power. Then reduce it. We can then burn those bridges later if need be.
We all desire smaller government (more freedom!), yet we won't even pick up and move to New Hampshire. ;)
Thanks for the shout out BM!
ReplyDelete