Burn of the Day
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
16 year old boys and adults who have zero children in their orbits. I have come to the conclusion that libertarianism is the mirror image of communism – 1) sounds great on paper/in the abstract, 2) *could* work in very small and/or pristine laboratory conditions, and 3) fundamentally misunderstands (intentionally or not) human nature.
libertarianism is a philosophy of wishful thinking materialists who claim that “if every human (wounded by Original Sin) just does his/her own thing” there’ll be Paradise as long as what they do doesn’t impact Others.
Quite fanciful, like Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island, “a place where unruly children indulge in endless play without consequences… “
At some point, reality intrudes. Forcefully. Regardless about how you feel about it
Can’t remember exactly where I saw this, but a fundamental difficulty with libertarianism is in trying to reconcile maximal personal autonomy with minimal personal responsibility, which ironically ends up requiring the most maximally intrusive state to secure these rights for everyone, which is probably where all political philosophies that reject original sin end up.
Note: True Libertarians in the tradition of John Locke (religious) and Ayn Rand (Secular), have no relationship to the hedonists of today who have hijacked a part of the Libertarian political spectrum for their own selfish purposes.
As Mr. Sailer said, libertarianism is applied autism.
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Mr. Somin is what David Betz has called an ‘anywhere man’, as is Bryan Caplan, as is Tyler Cowan, as is Scott Sumner. I’d be pleased if the lot of them were anywhere but in this country.
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Rich Leonardi once offered that he began to depart the fold when he realized the luminaries of the movement were generally childless. Bryan Caplan has several children. I think Scott Sumner has a daughter. Not sure about Somin. Tyler Cowan and his sister are childless.