That's hardly my argument. Rather, it's that the actually existing results of "libertarianism" are authoritarianism. And this contradiction was evident for quite some time.

There are no existing results of libertarianism. The closest was the Founding of this nation, and given that it allowed for chattel slavery and denied the vote to any but white males, it was severely compromised. Libertarians at no time dominated the GOP.

The insurmountable problem libertairainsm may well face is human nature: once people are in power they legislate to favor themselves and their friends, and suddenly lose an interest in limiting power. But government is and always will be the greatest threat to human liberty, because it holds a monopoly on force.

Libertarians would establish neither a prison-industrial nor a military-industrial complex. Nor would we craft a universal health care program that will empower the state to legislate all kinds of private activity in order to reduce the cost to all -- the wrong kind of health care program would make you and the state a stakeholder in whether I eat lots of fatty food, smoke cigarettes, or if men engage in unprotected anal sex.

Libertarians want people left alone to make their own decisions. That is often at odds with egalitarianism. I favor liberty over egalitarianism in most instances.

BTW, you are deluded if you think Stalinism did not besot the left-wing intellectual class in the West, including the U.S., in the 30s and 40s. The notion that there were only 20 such is literally as deranged as any of the "truth" claims of Bill Kristol.

Not most. That's a myth. Things were different back then. Letters took weeks to arrive, no TV, CNN, E-mail, YouTube. By the time most people understood what was going on, they became less enamored with Stalin.

Many -- lots and lots. Lillian Hellman, Dalton Trumbo, Richard Wright, Malcolm Crowley (literary critic for TNR in the 30s), the list of Stalinists and/or apologists for him is very long, and replete with names revered by the left. Wright did eventually repent, but many never did. And the truth was well known and being propounded before 1956 -- they just would not believe it.

And I don't get what it is about the AHA vis-a-vis Klehr and Haynes you are pushing. Klehr and Haynes have written tons of peer-reviewed articles, and their books have been so influential that even very radical historians -- in the pages of The Nation, no less -- have engaged them in respectful debate and conceded they've proven much that had heretofore been denied.

I never said a word abut Allen Weinstein, and have not even read his books -- nor are Klehr and Haynes original research and publications based upon Wesinstein. Both Ellen Schrecker and Maurice Isserman --- two highly respected left-of-center historians -- have conceded that Klehr and Haynes have made their case through THEIR (K & H's)research, not Weinstein's.

When you get started on this subject you betray a great deal of ignorance of historians, and the state of the evidence. I'm skeptical as to why Weinstein won't release some of his notes, but non-rightwingers have also found his work extremely persuasive.

And the fact that Klehr and Haynes write at a venue affiliated with George Mason University is a truly stupid reason to attempt to discredit them. George mason is a respectable institution.

Really, you just do not know what you are talking about. Even very liberal Bruce Craig who wrote the Harry Dexter White bio, concluded with all sorts of special pleading about White's allegedly pure motives, that White committed espionage for Stalin. Except for the occasional lefty in comments sections, it is no longer even usual to find folks denying what Klehr and Haynes have demonstrated -- the argument has moved on to what the fact of all that espionage means in terms of sullying the Communists in all their works, and whether anti-Communism was not still worse than the espionage. You literally are behind where the debate is now going on. (shrug)

Gulf War I is largely to blame (whether it was justified or not). From here it did look like a Nintendo game, and casualties were so light. Also, everyone knows we lost hundreds of thousands in WWII and that both the European and Southern Pacific fronts of that war were unmitigated hell. They know it intellectually. But almost none of our films, until recently -- much less contemporaneous news reel -- showed the heinous reality. Indeed, I do not recall which right-wing site it was I recently read, approvingly noting that during WWII "they" just didn't allow gory coverage to be seen by folks back home.

WWII has become the one war that almost everyone agrees was noble and justified, but by placing it on such a pedestal without acknowledgement of what it REALLY entailed, we created a false comfort level about war in general.

A yearning for another Good War as an opportunity for national valor makes sense, if one doesn't know what the whole appallingly bloody cost was. The Israelis, of course, know both why WWII was necessary, and also what war actually menas. They are in a better position than we are to weigh competing imperatives.

George W. Bush is a real warrior who is strong, powerful, masculine and a genuine Man -- even swooningly hot ("he looked great") --

You mean his MANLY CHARACTERISTIC was goddam breathtaking, and you know full well that's what Hiatt meant, too. Come on Glenn, you can spit out the truth in more plain language than you opted for here. "Swooningly hot," does not begin to capture the AWESOMENESS in that parachute harness, and your pious restrain are very disappointing.