Lew is living in historical times, and the present is not the past. If you want to know what the modern liberal movement looks like, the blogosphere is where it is happening, and it is not the illiberal leftism of the past.

Of course, this remains to be demonstrated in the real world of governing, where it is as yet impossible for the blogs to hold much power. It will take another election cycle or so.

In a nutshell, however, the Republicans have failed and in failing have discredited themselves for at least a generation, and deservedly. It would be constructive to engage with the Democratic party, even if you find some of their positions not to your liking, because you can get more in negotiation than you will in antagonism in a time when any thoughtful person will reject an apologist for Republicans.

It depends on how, Scott. The liberal netroots can and will take on the Democratic party. The rightwing blogs will have distinctly less credibility, because most of them have supported Republicans up to now, and many continue to do so.

People like you and Jim Bovard have an ability to be taken seriously by both sides, but not if you take us on adversarially.

Did you check out the Roderick T. Long piece I posted below?

That’s a liberal alliance I’ll join.

I really have no problem when y’all oppose stuff. It’s the proposals that kill me. : )

Haven’t checked out the Roderick Long piece, I’ll do so shortly.

Anthony, I neither hate capital nor love the state. Do you want to try to argue with strawmen illiberal leftists or have a discussion with someone who is part of the actual liberal blogosphere? Because you can argue with yourself all day and get nothing for it but confusion.

Lew -You will recognize them. They believe that a deep and intractable rift separates the sexes such that one is always dominating the other, and so legislation and regulation are always needed to even the score and make up for past wrongs. The same is true of the races, and natives and immigrants, and the abled and disabled. None of these people can possibly work out their differences on their own. They need deep institutional change – even social revolution ushered in by elites – in order to bring about dramatic, Hegelian-style advances.

Lew- they don’t like Republican wars that much, but offer no model of internationalism that can replace the view that it is always and everywhere war by someone against someone, and so the only way to stop war is to wage one.

I agree with those two parts. I don’t really see Democrat elected officials as socialists anymore, socialism and communism are dead, it’s just a mixed economy of corporate handouts, giving favors to friends and people or groups of people who scratch your back to get you elected. Look at health care and all the rest the Republicans have done, they are horrible. The spending the Republican party does when in power smashes anything they do right. I do see a difference in the kind of people that vote for the two parties, but not really the parties themselves. The Democrat party is absolutely pathetic, how anyone could have any hope for them after their recent supposed “opposition” is amazing.

As far as this: Lew- So it is with man’s general relationship with the environment. They posit an abiding conflict between the two, such that if one ascends, the other must descend. That is why all moves toward human prosperity are ultimately regretted as an attack on precious natural resources that should be left undisturbed. This is a Marxist idea: life under freedom is a prize fight in which everyone is throwing punches. All appearances of contentment are illusory. The job of the state is to decide winners and losers, while our job is to obey the authority and come to a consciousness that the expropriators must be expropriated.

I guess there is still some of this in the Democrats too, but this is hardly a free market anyway. I don’t know what I would do if I was an American, get ready to throw them all out of office? Because there is no turning back, just prolonging the inevitable. Imagine Guliani or McCane as president, or Obama, Hillary or Edwards? I think Obama scares me the least.

Whig, sorry if I came off the wrong way. As Scott and others will confirm, I am, among libertarians, very open to working with the left, and do not write off all leftists the way many libertarians unfortunately do.

Many leftists are much better than the Republican status quo. They believe in more liberty than we have, rather than less. You are right. Not all leftists hate capitalism, and not all love the state (actually, unfortunately, it’s the moderates among them that seem most likely to reject outright socialism yet favor the policy state, whereas the radicals oppose the state more, but also hate capitalism more).

There are, however, many on the so-called left who do love the state. This can’t be denied. I, unlike many libertarians, recognize that the right loves the state even more, especially when it comes to war and police issues. But a lot of today’s left has some bad authoritarian leanings.

Here’s some evidence of my having a more nuanced and fair view of the left than you’ll find among some libertarians:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory94.html

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory54.html

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory71.html

This is where I think the left goes wrong:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory109.html

whig, by the way, I responded to your criticism of my tone, but the comment hasn’t come through. In short, I agree that the left isn’t all about hating the market and loving the state — I agree that’s a caricature and exaggeration — but there is a tendency among some leftists in this direction. I posted some of my articles to prove I’m not as closed minded when it comes to the left as a lot of libertarians are, but maybe the links kept my comment from coming through. Here’s a piece about why the left might be more libertarian than the right. Here’s a piece on the split between authoritarian and liberal leftists.

The liberal blogs are very different from the conservative blogs, in my experience. The wingnut blogs have a certain amount of message discipline, they get their talking points and they use them all in behalf of the same objective to promote their Dear Leader and his authority. We on the liberal side have no common leader, we have a diversity of issues and interests, and we write with humor and empathy towards one another.

I think that libertarians forget to use their empathy.

Scott, what you’re not necessarily aware of is that the liberal blogosphere is in favor of ending cannabis prohibition by a huge margin.

They’d be conservatives if they weren’t.

I think that libertarians forget to use their empathy.

Why do you think we’re libertarians?

Scott, I think Anthony identified himself as a libertarian.

>we have the house of representatives

We? Who is we, Mr. or Ms. Whig? You actually think the Demorats in the House give a God damn about you? Hah! That’s rich! When are you going to realize that these two parties are just different wings of the same bird of prey? While you delude yourself into thinking “we” actually have any say in what goes on this country, your government masters are getting ready for their next war with Iran.

Scott, I guess I just don’t see the point of what you want to accomplish. Can you explain what you think should happen and how? Do you want to secede from the government if that were possible? If it were, would you choose to have no government at all, or just a different one, and if so what kind?

Sol,

Welcome back, but please be nice.

Whig,

Yes, I am an anarchist. And yes, I favor peaceful secession from centralized power anywhere. Government is evil. Democracy doesn’t help. It only reorders who’s doing the persecuting slightly.

The thing about libertarians like me and Anthony is that we (correctly) blame the corporations for creating our massive - now 3 trillion dollar - socialist government. When Anthony says the corporations are the poor persecuted minority, he’s just mocking the Randians.

Also I really dig what you say about the power of the internet - I am trying mightily to use it to undo old ways myself. Here’s to a dead GOP and hopefully a much more libertarian liberalism from the little d democrats like you and the politicians.

I gotta say though, I’m pessimistic. The right hated the State in the 90’s and took it back at the drop of a hat. Post-’08 will the liberal blogosphere spend their time defending Democrats from Republicans or attacking them for acting like them?

Lucky for me, being a libertarian, I never get caught being a hypocrite defending my people in power. We don’t have any and don’t want it.

Sol, you expect more than can be done immediately. The senate is still majority pro-war, because the Republicans have 49 seats and Joe Lieberman. If a binding resolution had been voted it would have been defeated, so let’s be reasonable about recognizing the limitations.

Scott, anarchism does not mean the absence of voluntary government. It is that which I am after.

Pessimism doesn’t get us anywhere at all, and in fact there is good reason to be optimistic. Looked at in historical terms, changes in communication technology always cause changes in power structure. The printing press ended the reign of popes and kings, but the television and radio monopolies reconstituted the central authority which we are now putting under our distributed control.

My question to you is whether you are more interested in being part of this distributed network that helps to shape the government that will exist, or standing aside and letting the old system collapse in disorder? I am trying to achieve ordered anarchy, if you like, voluntary order, and if I have to try to accomplish that only by working with leftists it is going to be very far left indeed, and you are going to have to accept some things regardless if you want to work with us, but I’m hoping you will find a way to do so.

Chaos is not what we should want, at any rate.

“Scott, anarchism does not mean the absence of voluntary government. It is that which I am after.”

If you mean you hire your cops and I hire mine, great. Me too. If you mean some majority get to volunteer it for everyone else, like the U.S. Constitution for example, I must object. Ever read Lysander Spooner. You’d like him. But I say that to everyone. http://thestressblog.com/2006/02/11/the-constitution-of-no-authority-by-lysander-spooner/

“Pessimism doesn’t get us anywhere at all, and in fact there is good reason to be optimistic. Looked at in historical terms, changes in communication technology always cause changes in power structure. The printing press ended the reign of popes and kings, but the television and radio monopolies reconstituted the central authority which we are now putting under our distributed control.”

Sounds good.

“My question to you is whether you are more interested in being part of this distributed network that helps to shape the government that will exist, or standing aside and letting the old system collapse in disorder? I am trying to achieve ordered anarchy, if you like, voluntary order, and if I have to try to accomplish that only by working with leftists it is going to be very far left indeed, and you are going to have to accept some things regardless if you want to work with us, but I’m hoping you will find a way to do so.

“Chaos is not what we should want, at any rate.”

I only want to shape the government by opposing its every function all the time. I do not favor disaster or revolution. Just repeal and secession until we’re all free.

“Just to make it perfectly clear I’m not asking for support of the Democratic party, or any particular candidate, but a dialogue on the issues of policy and procedure for getting from where we are to where we want to be.”

Yeah, that’s cool. I coulda been a liberal once, but before it could set in I read about how the Morgans and Rockefellers had paid off all the progressive types all along - not to shut them up, but to make them louder so the politicians could pretend they were only responding to the people’s will as they enslaved them.

As Lew said, the dems are going to have to abandon Wilson and get back to Jefferson before they are real democrats again. Like Anthony was saying in that interview, conservatism was always evil, liberals were good once long ago.

: )

Liberals are good today.

Sol, you are repeating yourself and you are still either confused or misrepresenting how the congress works, how a resolution gets passed and how it becomes binding. No amount of public will can override the fact that the senate is still majority pro-war.

To introduce a resolution with the expectation that it will lose can hurt the cause the resolution would support if it passed. You advocate symbolism too, but your symbolism is not just painfully useless it is positively detrimental.

Cous cous, Nock distinguished State and Government and you just blew past that distinction as if it did not exist.

Btw, I’ve copied out OETS by hand so I’m familiar with it and I highly recommend it.

I think the Icelandic people called theirs a Thing.

So anyhow, do you think it would good to have a thing like that?

“The nature and intention of government, as adduced by Parkman, Schoolcraft and Spencer, are social. Based on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.” — Albert Jay Nock, OETS, Ch. 2

I thought of a good word to use instead of government: civilization.

Ozymandias, that was worthy of your name.

Mudshark, there is a concept of overlapping sovereignty and confederation which I think you might consider, that the wholly personal ought to be wholly private, and the wholly collective ought to be wholly public, but nothing is really wholly one or the other.

Ever hear of Interpol? The European police are well confederated and have been for a long time.

a concept of overlapping sovereignty and confederation which I think you might consider

yes, but that goes out the window when those who claim to be the authorities have the luxury of legislating themselves unrestricted control over those they are supposed to be remotely representing. sure, the democratic process has a place and purpose in society, just not as a legitimate form of government like that which has been drilled into the sponge-like minds of it’s followers thanks to finely polished turds like Lincoln, FDR and Wilson.

but wadda’ I know, I’m a curling freak… ; )

Mudshark, I’m in California so it’s not 4:20 yet here, but I’ll think of you in a half hour.

I’m not coming to this in submission or ignorance, but as a way of making the best social transformation with the least destructive chaos.

So you believe law & government prevent crime? Then perhaps the government will make murder and robbery illegal so we can all live in peace!

People don’t obey laws simply because Pharaoh would get angry if they violate his monopoly on crime. It they did, there would never be any crime. People refrain from murdering everyone they meet because they would gain nothing from doing that.

Since the government commits every crime imaginable without preventing non-governmental crime, the absence of government would merely remove the largest criminal entity from society.

I have no idea what you mean by ‘what do I do constructively’. What’s my vocation?

I don’t want someone to ‘give me freedom’. I want Pharaoh to stop murdering people. Voting for another warmonger won’t accomplish that.

Probably worked for the moving company that celebrated during 9-11

…Political acumen follows that Parties, and The States they Historically coalesce through chicanery and faculative positions, lies, ideals, sentiments, etc. exist for the purpose of control, and accordingly have no permanent friends, only interests…Chief amongst which, is the exercise of raw, naked power, i.e. the ability to make one suffer. I then maintain that in the course of any civil discussion of “Governments” thus instituted; there is a place where semantics, subjective interpretations and niceties end, and The Realpolitik begins. It is in this sense that the State, the ultimate expression of force, never abdicates. Thus are Civilizations based on repression. Democracies Historically founded on slavery, and as men are not remotely equal amongst themselves, it stands to reason that the laws they contrive and the scoundrels who exercise them will, in the context of significance, be no different…Hence my conviction that, The State, by any definition remains a permanent, disciplinary and hierarchical fixture among men, and thus my utter and undying contempt for the same…Through the years I have heard and witnessed enough excuses made for this bloody perversion of so called “Humanity in the collective and cultural sense”…Ours faults lie not in our common interests Whig, but in a natural disparity in and of ourselves…In the end, you impress me as one who has never been under the figurative lash of Class Oppression, predictably, these are always the most humane of Leftists in tone…Consider that, the next time you vote for Barbara Boxer, and I will undertake to redefine the real world for you