Christ on a crutch man, you and Rowan Berkeley just keep on with such ignorant ranting about libertarians, imputing to them evil (and largely wrong) beliefs, even after Glenn politely asked for all this nonsense to stop. So I won't engage either of you on your gross substantive errors since that would only fuel what Glenn is asking to have cease (as well as waste my time); but after a baseless screed about libertarians, for you to conclude about them with this:

Charles Manson comes to mind.

Is really exceptionally vile. -- -Mona-

I agree, but I would point out they are funny! I have about 10 more pages to go but I do not think I'll ever see anything as funny as the idea that believe in the lack of the modern state would lead to Manson worship! Come on Mona, that was a hoot!

The one fool made up a quote by me, but I am laughing so hard I really do not care.

I'll say this, anyone who wants to make Glenn's blog look like only crazies and fools make comments here would do well to bookmark the rantings we saw late last night.

You have a point. The authors of some of those quotes are not cynical liars; some are self-deluded. Some really intelligent people are very close to instability, and sometimes cross the line.

Mike, your response and the brit's were just as expected.

Niether of you even had the decency to define government. Neither explained the wonderful record of governments in the 20th century.

Come to think of it, both of you said I must be wrong because Mrs. Fardquard (5th grade teacher) said so.

Hmmmm. Damn convincing you two are. I would like you to find Paramor on your next trip to central Florida and stand on a corner yelling how great the US government is and how much the locals should love it.

Yep, that would be the ticket.

The two of you carry on with your fact-free discussion as I really must get to work.

Rowan claimed:

Now as to the goody goody libertarians, I agree completely with Mike Sulzer, who said while I was either asleep or hiding my shame and not visiting the thread, "If libertarianism says that everything would be great if everyone would leave everyone else alone except for voluntary interactions, then the realist would say: but everyone won't. And because of that, and in reaction to that, we have governments," except that I would go further, and say that anyone who claims to believe that in the absence of "government" (and at this point one begins to wonder how they define "government") people would spontaneously revert to being nice to each other, is not just being naive, they are being disingenuous, by which I mean, they are sinister, cynical liars.

Even Noam Chomsky? Major statement there fellow; major accusation.

Now for a few favorites quotes be the people Rowan says are cynical liars:

"Anarchism is a tendency in the history of human thought & action which seeks to identify coercive, authoritarian, & hierarchic structures of all kinds & to challenge their legitimacy — & if they cannot justify their legitimacy, which is quite commonly the case, to work to undermine them & expand the scope of freedom." — Noam Chomsky

"So I said good-bye to government, & I gave my reason; That a really good religion, is a form of treason." — Kurt Vonnegut, anarchist, Cat's Cradle

"Many people say that government is necessary because some men cannot be trusted to look after themselves, but anarchists say that government is harmful because no men can be trusted to look after anyone else." -- Nicolas Walter (1924-2000) British journalist, philosopher, atheist, anarchist.

"If I had understood the situation a bit better I should probably have joined the anarchists." (Extract letter, October 1937 written by George Orwell to his friend Jack Common).

"Anarchism has but one infallible, unchangeable motto, 'Freedom.' Freedom to discover any truth, freedom to develop, to live naturally and fully." -Lucy Parsons (for the ladies, of cource)

"There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege, or perjury, no imposture, no infamous transaction, no cynical robbery, no bold plunder or shabby betrayal that has not been or is not daily being perpetrated by the representatives of the states, under no other pretext than those elastic words, so convenient & yet so terrible, for reasons of state." — Michael Bakunin

Liars all, Rowan?

"Perhaps, but perhaps "Christian" culture has tended to regard and label those with bullshit detectors as satanic and heretical and "American" culture labels them as un-american. ..."

Yes, the real truth is scary to many cultures; maybe all cultures. Hence, bullshit detectors are not honored often. I'll agree with that.

However, on a relative scale it seems some cultures honor certain things more than other cultures do. My culture seems to produce a lot of drunken writers who get into wild sexual situations. (care to guess?) :-)