Letters to the Editor
L.W.M.
Published Letters: 5810 Editor's Choice: 5
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RE: The Fairness Doctrine
[Read the article: David Halberstam on today's American press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In the link to Malkin above, she links to this fellow, Adam D. Thierer, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation and the author or editor of five books on such topics as intellectual property and media regulation and his piece in the City-Journal.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_media.html
Full Disclosure
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Progress_%26_Freedom_Foundation
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Bush would veto it...
[Read the article: David Halberstam on today's American press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Like Reagan before him, when they attempted to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. Good short piece.
FAIR:
The Fairness Doctrine
How we lost it, and why we need it back
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2053
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Daffy Duck and Vulgar Libertarianism
[Read the article: David Halberstam on today's American press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/01/vulgar-libertarianism-watch-part-1.html
Ayn Rand was a cartoonist for the Economic Right. I love Daffy Duck. At one time I loved The Fountainhead, I can't even tell you how many times I read it. But I don't take my policy prescriptions from Loony Toons, now matter how entertaining they might be.
Bruce Webb
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/02/ayn_rand_mike_w.html
But, perhaps more seriously, [Milton]Friedman ducked the big questions regarding the relationship between economic freedom and political liberty, and he was completely incapable of seeing that political liberty is both a negative and a positive liberty: freedom from tyranny and oppression but also the freedom and power to decide on and accomplish our common purposes. These are the master questions of history and moral philosophy, and for all his brilliance and hard work, Friedman is of absolutely no help in answering them. As Posner says, Friedrich Hayek's Road to Serfdom "flunks the test of accuracy of prediction . . . [The] view that socialism of the sort that Britain embraced under the old Labour Party was incompatible with democracy [is] extreme and inaccurate." Yet Friedman bought into that Hayekian view. And in so doing, he ultimately led his followers, and tried to lead the rest of us, down a false path.
Brad Delong, Right from the Start? What Milton Friedman can teach progressives.
http://delong.typepad.com/pdf/20070308_108-115.delong.FINAL.pdf
Libertarianism has also been defined with some plausibility as the form taken by liberalism as common sense asymptotically approaches zero.
Richard Carnes
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html
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That would be this Posner
[Read the article: David Halberstam on today's American press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2006/11/milton_friedman.html
As Posner says, Friedrich Hayek's Road to Serfdom "flunks the test of accuracy of prediction . . . [The] view that socialism of the sort that Britain embraced under the old Labour Party was incompatible with democracy [is] extreme and inaccurate."
Let that sink in for a minute...
Do you want to be considered "extreme and inaccurate" by that guy? And that guy is hardly a "New Dealer".
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Your problem, Paul Dirks...
[Read the article: David Halberstam on today's American press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is that you still buy into the propaganda that there is something radical, leftist, socialist extremist about The New Deal. Do you think they just invented propaganda in 2001 after 9/11?
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This common belief that the market magically results in the best "results" ethically
[Read the article: David Halberstam on today's American press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I believe in the Free Market Fairy And the Tort Sprite too. They'll keep our power cheap and our air and water clean. All you have to do is close your eyes and tap your money clip three times.
--Gen. JC Christian, Patriot
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Paul
[Read the article: David Halberstam on today's American press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"I said nothing of the sort. I said it was a swing of the pendulum to the left."
Implying that it was not "centrist" or a point of equilibrium. Don't be embarassed. It's not against the law to believe that and no one is suggesting it should be, but be honest about it. It's a personal bias and it probably comes from years of propagandizing and doctrination. That's all I'm saying. If guys like Posner are finally waking up and saying that hayek was all wet, and not just about his politics, but his economics, that shark has been jumped. Face it.
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Paul R., Paul D.,
[Read the article: David Halberstam on today's American press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Mike Huben gets the credit.
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html
You will both enjoy that site. It looks deceptively sparse(he's no graphic designer or web page layout expert. You can spend the next year there and barely scratch the surface.
Mike with Friedman's kid:
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/ddfr.html
(David looks weird!)
Mike (a libertarian himself) even has a blog
http://critiquesoflibertarianism.blogspot.com/
Huben wrote this years ago:
Libertarian political debate strategy
"Spiritually baptize the deceased as libertarians because they cannot protest the anachronism: Locke, Smith, Paine, Jefferson, Spooner, etc."
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Jojo
[Read the article: David Halberstam on today's American press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The psychology of libertarianism has the effect of divorcing moral responsibility from the individual and investing it in the collective."
That is a bit harsh. I'm a libertarian. Paul R. and Paul D. and you are libertarians, as opposed to authoritarians. What you mean, I think, is the philosophy of anarcho-capitalists. I used to be an anarchist until I realized how difficult it was to get a good table at a good restaurant on saturday nite.
"In short, the most elevated libertarianism is simply historically mistaken. The vast majority is intellectually dishonest, either through ignorance or malice. And welfare state liberalism is perfectly in keeping with Locke's philosophy, albeit neither the conditions that required it, nor the means it employs could have been foreseen or reasonably commented on by him."
Agreed. The notion that feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, or housing the homeless will lead to an oppresive government that will begin murdering it's population is... insane.
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This was actually in Pat's magazine, Jojo
[Read the article: David Halberstam on today's American press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Pat Buchanan's American Conservative
The Marxism of the Right
http://www.amconmag.com/2005_03_14/article1.html
Flavors of libertarianism actually span the whole economic spectrum from left to right. It stands in stark contrast to totalitarianism and authoritarianism. The term was coined by a French anarcho-communist. Makes you think...
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Paul D.
[Read the article: David Halberstam on today's American press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When I read the same stuff you read arguing against the return of the Fairness Doctrine, I find myself being persuaded too. It's damn good propaganda. They have been honing it to a fine edge for longer than most of us have been alive.