First, Ron Paul hired Gary North very briefly in the 70s. North -- whom I find repulsive and it is not hyperboyle to describe his as a fascist -- was not yet uttering some of the extremist, Dominionist garbage he has since embraced. Lew Rockwell more currently gives North a platform for his economic "libertarianism," which I find outrageous. I've written that before, and also privately warned Glenn about some of the theocratic loons Rockwell is willing to associate with. (North would stone Glenn for his sexual orientation.) But this kind of shit wasn't a prominent feature of North's musings in the 70s.

Second, mainstream libertarians do not oppose all federal legislation, including for public health. The CDC properly tries to fight communicable diseases; they are a matter of "common defense."

Third, if one wants to take the morally hard case of Jim Crow to challenge advocacy of states rights, that is understandable. But hard cases do not mean the antidote to Jim Crow is not toxic when made the medicine for all manner of real or perceived ills. "States rights" is not a foul, scatological phrase; would that the Bush regime had recognized that when it tried to overturn Oregon's physician assisted-suicide law (passed 2x by referendum) all the way up to SCOUTS, or California's medical marijuana laws. And of course, there is Schiavo.

Fourth, there are several individuals here who live to bait libertarians, and Chris Sinnaerd and others are gobbling said bait. They'd be wise to stop, and the discussion would be more productive.

Finally, large corporations DO control the federal government because lots of byzantine laws and regulations, which require legions of expensive CPAs, lawyers and lobbyists, are a small cost of their doing business. That works wonderfully well for gatekeeping and preventing start-up competition. Fortune 500 CEOs are rarely libertarian; small businesspeople are far more likely to be.

Look, whether LWM is posting as himself, or, as he frequently does, opts for anon, he should be ignored. Cutting and pasting absurdly long screeds that demonstrate some supposedly vile aspect of libertians or the ism is a matter of OCD with him. When thinking of replying: JUSY SAY NO.

I have done so for quite some time, and it keeps the discussion more on point.

Which isn't to say I don't engage other critics of libertariansim (or what they often mistakenly think mainstream 'tarians advocate) here. The reasonable ones, I do engage. Primarily, I'd like very much for them to see that we are avid opponents of corporatism, which is not the same thing as believing the federal govt should not have so much control over business practices, or at least not always via regulation.

It all then comes full circle to the need for lobbying firms and their clients as both stopgap assistants to the time-consuming legislative process, and the providers of the funds necessary to stay in power. The two-pronged dependency becomes indelible, fait accompli.

And I don't at all disagree with that. Do note that Ron Paul accepts no corporate contributions. (I'm ambivalent about Paul, but may vote for him in my state's primary. Frankly, the ideas he holds that many here find horrific he has either said he knows would be too disruptive to implement the day he takes office, and/or the Congress would simply stop him. But on foreign policy and civil liberties wrt the DoJ, FBI and NSA, I just do love him. And as the Executive, those are currently what is most important. But he isn't going to get the GOP nomination anyway, so the point is moot.)

His importance is what Glenn wrote of: bringing the national political conversation to focus on imperialistic militariasm.

No libertarian here, and no libertarians in general as far as I know, have ever been honest about these lessons of our own history, let alone the history of the rest of the world.

You are so, so wrong. I've been reading sensible libertarian pubs (Reason and Cato) literature for decades, and they are so fully aware of and opposed to corporatist influence on the federal govt. What gets some undies in a bundle is that for separate, reasons of principle, these libertarians sometimes align with corporate positions, e.g., insanely high cigarette taxes that approach prohibition and lead to black markets.

It isn't a love of Big Tobacco, but Big Tobacco is willing to accept their help even as the libertarians vehemently strive to end tobacco subsidies.

I think you may have missed my point, which was that corporatism was not an invention of the social democratic left, a fact which libertarians in their rush to denounce statism and collectivism almost always omit.

Even if true -- and I quibble some -- so what? That has what relevance to our current predicament?

Ron Paul is ridiculed for his gold bug fetish. But William Jennings Bryan, who is historically reviled by most left secularists as a Neanderthal fundamentalist famous for his annihilation by Clarence Darrow in the Scopes Monkey trial, was prior thereto famous for his opposition to the Gold Standard and populist, for the little guy, "cross of gold" speech:

If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

Rest of Bryan's speech here: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/

So, Bryan was a populist for demanding money not backed by metal, but Paul is a populist for demanding that it ought to be? Ok. (And I honestly have no opinion on the merits either way.)