I summoned myself to listen to Angela McArdle on with Chrissie Mayr. That I’m summoning up a 1990s George Michael record title reveals my Generation X coming to the surface.
Take-aways:
- Shaking my head at the RONPAUL love. No. Even if you can make a bit of 9/11 being “blowback” per RONPAUL(pbuh) in 2004, it’s not the full explanation for everything. I haven’t written about it, here, but I was opposed to the Iraq operation until I heard Tony Blair make arguments for it to Parliament. I suppose the absolute adherence to this explains some of why people thought differently than I did about the Krystol-Horton debate last fall, but I still don’t think it’s correct. There are bad people who do bad shit without regard to US foreign policy. Whether the adherence to this position is out of willful disregard of evidence that doesn’t support the conclusion, or intentional avoidance of being exposed to that evidence is not for me to declare/declare. The invasion/occupation of Iraq was probably a mistake in retrospect. At the same time, you have to stipulate that there’s instances where it might have worked. Not everything the US has done has been with ill-intent. But you’re not supposed to even consider that.
- I could write more about the blind adherence to Austrian Economics, but I’m not sure that anyone would care about that. This is something that I haven’t fully worked-through; I admit that. I do agree with some of the things that Andrew Mellon did to deal with the Depression of 1920, but there’s not a single politician who’d take the sort of steps he did to address what was happening then. I mean, there aren’t any similarities. No global pandemic. No end of a big war that had diverted a bunch of resources. Nope. Wasn’t anything like that. (But, again, you have to willfully ignore the realities of “The Great War.” (I’m very much of the opinion, at this point, that government spending needs to be slashed, interest rates, and taxes need to be substantially-raised. So you hate the Federal Reserve. Great. Can the private market actually raise interest rates to above inflation? And it’s not just the Federal Reserve; it’s pretty much every central bank in the world. Every bank is printing too much money. Every government is spening way more than it should.)
- It might be unpleasant, but you are known by the company you keep. Folks in the Mises Caucus spend far too much time paying attention to what particularly-awful people. It’s not been long since I turned off, and withdrew my financial support, a host I’d listened to for a while who had on a 9/11 Troofer. I’ve said this, using Ron Paul as an example, he might sometimes speak to a questionable crowd, there is never a question about whether he, personally, shared the
crazyextreme views. Know that everybody is watching, and act accordingly. - Her take on what’s happening with The Libertarian Party of Virginia left me very disappointed. If they were alive, why is the website gone? Why have there been alternate social media accounts set up? No, it’s dead. If you’d, you know, paid attention to the law(s), maybe this wouldn’t been the case. But, no, we can just take over, and go fuck yourself if you don’t agree. Yeah, about that. I just got my absentee ballot in the mail, but I haven’t opened it. Virginia doesn’t have a Senate race this year, but I seriously doubt there’ll be anyone on the ballot other than the incumbent Democrat, and a Republican who’s got not chance at all. Whatever. (Being one of those hated “Beltway Libertarians, you’d find an excuse not to spend money here, anyway) You had your chance, and i hope you’re satisfied with what you got. I know, if we had an edgier message, the rich people around would totally get on board. Really?
So I’m tuned out. Enjoy, and do what Ron Paul did in 1992….and give us Andre Marrou.