...for liberaltarians. That's what Arnold Kling thinks, anyway:

My point is not that the liberals have no case for an alternative approach. What disturbs me is that they are issuing rhetorical put-downs as a substitute for laying out an alternative and thinking through its consequences. Unfortunately, this is an all-to-typical modus operandi.

The Left's religion often comes dressed up as science. Marxism is one example. The eugenics movement of the early twentieth century is another. The Global Warming crusade is probably another.

I think that Brink Lindsey's overture will fall on deaf ears. I think that rather than attempt a fling with the liberals, libertarians would do better to go into counseling to try and save their marriage with conservatives.

It depends. For some of us, libertarianism is more a set of good ideas we should listen to. I knew when I decided to get involved with mainstream politics I would run into people with whom I had major disagreements. If I chose the Republican Party, I would wind up having battles with the religious right; the Democratic, the authoritarian left. Both groups -- and narrow minded libertarians as well -- seem a bit too eager to force their ideas on the rest of us.

I have managed to present some libertarian ideas to liberals and gained their agreement. A year ago the very liberal Nielsen-Haydens posted a very angry comment on their blog about Nader et al because some Nader group had gotten Teresa's medicine taken off the market. I showed the post to a liberal Democrat with whom I am a bit friendly and asked what were the politics of the people making the post. He said "Isn't it obvious?" He was surprised when I filled him in more thoroughly. He then made the comment that Nader tended toward megalomania -- his word, not mine.

There are quite a few people out there with political views that are reasonable and rational and who can shift their positions based upon new information and new ideas. Some of them are on the right; some on the left. Dismissing entire groups because they are one group or another right now doesn't seem the wisest course of action.

Did the Democratic love affair with Marxism/Socialism drive liberatarians away, or was it was it the result of liberatarian influence disappearing from the party.

I think it would do the nation good to have both parties fighting for the liberatarian vote.

The liberals may have an interest in marxism
but I don't think you can point eugenics at the liberals.

It was the fascists who grabbed eugenics as their touchstone,
racial purity, and all that stuff. The Nazi's had all sorts of
breeding programs going.

Simberg just likes repeating half-truths, mis-truths and
balderdash to meet his agenda.

And the conservatives have embraced creationism as
their prime scientific contribution.

Simberg didn't talk about all the creationism that
was being spouted at the neo-coon summit he
attended.

So, Anonymous Moron, you've never heard of Margaret Sanger? Do you think she was a conservative, or a "neo-coon"?

Simberg didn't talk about all the creationism that was being spouted at the neo-coon summit he
attended.

Ignoring the idiotic misspelling, I was there all weekend, and I never heard a word about creationism, Anonymous Moron. Just more evidence of your cluelessness.

I don't think we're all using the same definition of lowercase liberal. Over here that's what we call someone who won't tell you where to stick your wang. As far as I can tell from the readers of your blog, in your world lowercase liberal seems to be some derogatory slang for either marxist, socialist or satan worshiper. This isn't really a view that the rest of the world shares, we simply call those three groups marxists, socialists or satan worshipers. Libertarian OTOH seems to be a concept for which most of the world has a shared definiton, someone who won't tell you where to stick your pocketbook.

Could we please more clearly define some of these terms? It might stop all of the idiotic flamewars.

NAZI= National SOCIALIST.

But of course, protests to the contrary, A J-H knew that intimately.

"Could we please more clearly define some of these terms? It might stop all of the idiotic flamewars."

I call into questions your expectations. We could explain the merits of holding down the shift key or not till we're blue in the face. The fact of the matter is that people like to argue on the internet.