I'll say one good thing about libertarianism, the subject seems to keep 'Shooter' comments down to a bare minimum.

@ certifiedprepwn3d

…even while it occurred to me that it was like getting trapped in the elevator with an evangelist…

Well, actually, a non-stop flight from, say, London to Sydney was what came to mind for me—but, hey, reasonable people will differ…

The absolute-sounding terms (that aren't) are too often (in my opinion) troll-bait or invitations to arm-wrestling matches.

What was interesting to me is how people tried to define them, not what the definitions were. I'm working on several metaphors and on metaphor itself in real life right now, the form of the definitions accidentally became more important than the content.

Look, I understand the objection to the idea that there can be such a thing as a limited government. So did the Founders. It is the natural tendency of government to expand, and for politicians and judges to increase their power. The more laws -- and the more Byzantine they are -- the greater advantage to Big Corporations and the Trial Lawyers who can manipulate the system via lobbying, socio-political incestuous relationships, and various ways of well-concealed bribes and back-scratching.

But human beings will always form governments. Even Iceland eventually did. And frankly, the deposit of common law the U.S. inherited from Britain is a good thing, one we retained, and so is the court system, in principle.

If we cannot preserve reasonably limited government after the start we were given, it may be impossible. But there will always be government, and there ought to be. You are far more extreme in your libertarianism than I am, or the folks at Reason or Cato.

(And LMW: I have no objection to funding traffic lights, for god's sake.)

There have been modern nation-states for only a relatively short time; but it is true that humans will create errors. I work within this prison of a system as well as I can even as I watch people fall for the myths and lies. I really understand their blindness. I have been there. I work within the system as given to me, I voted against the rise of the current fascist group. (for all the good it did)

I will say that it is true that our "justice" system is based on the "rights of Englishmen" as William Blackstone outlined in his famous lectures. But where did get these rights?

I guess you know that there has always been a dispute between those "tiny-government" folks verses the "no-government" folks. We see your side as the extremists. ;-) I do not mind any libertarian thought line except the "pro-war libertarians" as that is just plain an oxymoron.

The revolution came and the libertarians took over. What happened? Nothing, they are libertarians. :-)

Sometimes the center of a definition becomes clear only after a large number of people have chewed industriously around the edges of it. I'd agree that the methods employed are intrinsically interesting, but so also is what else is revealed, such as the correlation of personalities and experiences to particular definitions.

"Well, actually, a non-stop flight from, say, London to Sydney..."

Time perception is subjective, after all - I have had some really long elevator rides.

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ondelette and WT - metaphor is a key issue - "Inaccurate metaphor is poison on the blade of persuasive speech" -- and you are both right that the "how" is often more informative than the "what".

This comment area is a fantastic place to scrape knowledge of things I would never learn through my own self-(fun)-directed reading and study.

I wrote that I supported Ron Paul. Yes, I know --- no chance in hell of winning, but I will vote for him.

So you're still a registered Republican. How very libertarian of you.

I have read no one else here tell me of a better candidate --- I think they all are waiting for Glenn to make a endorsement. (if true, how sad is that?)

It's sadder still that you have effectively hijacked every conversation since you arrived, but if you dip back into the pre-Bucky era, you will find discussion and debate about various current and potential presidential candidates, although since much of it was about Democrats you may not in fact recognize their fitness for office (or even their very existence.) You will also find a higher percentage of comments relevant to Glenn's post than has been the case since your advent. Perhaps you should start your own blog instead of annexing this one.

You do a mighty fine David Brooks imitation, Mr. Bucky. The presentation is so civilize, erudite and practically avuncular that it takes most people a while to realize how outrageous the content really is.

I gotta run for the night -- goat management. Just wanted to say that I'll be thinking of you tomorrow (as I'm sure many others will -- anything we can do?), and sending wisdom vibes to the DOJ. Good luck, resident bard.

So you're [bucky1] still a registered Republican. How very libertarian of you.

How does that follow? Ron Paul as many have noted, including Glenn, is the one Republican the authoritarian majority in the GOP is trying to stifle. They want him out of the debates, and they remove his name from online polls, because he wins them. Paul once ran on the Libertarian Party ticket, and he is the only real libertarian in the GOP congressional delegation. He was one of only 7 GOP Congressmen who did not vote for the MCA.

He is anti-war, anti-torture, and would repeal The Patriot Act.

Is there any "what" if what is intrinsic and interesting is the patterns of the teeth marks? It was asserted to me that the problem with logical thought was that it was all form, and that metaphorical thought had core, but if the core is all the connections that the metaphor induces, it is just complex form, and I am left with no essence...I wonder if metaphor has an illegal essence, like form has the set of all sets that don't contain themselves.

Sorry to ramble. It is interesting to see which terms can and can't be defined without reference, in the case of things like conservative and liberal it is because they are too complex (maybe) but in the case of "silvery" it is because it is too fundamental.