Libertarian Paradise of Somalia

In some big triumphs this year, the tea party movement has had successful wins against long-time Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT), Tea Partier Trey Gowdy won over “reasonable Republican” Rep. Bob Inglis (SC), and now it looks like Senate candidate Joe Miller (R-AK) will beat current Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in one of the biggest political upsets of the year. As President Bush’s former speechwriter Michael Gerson points out today, the Republican party now faces an uphill struggle to rein in the “untested ideology” of these new candidates that is “clearly incompatible with some conservative and Republican beliefs” and may prove “toxic to the GOP.” Today on ABC’s Top Line, RNC spokesman Doug Heye embraced the radical far right views of GOP candidates like Miller saying, "we embrace whatever candidate needs to do to win." While Bush's speech writer Michael Gerson calls the libertarian tea party concepts of eliminating social security and other social safety net program as untested, in fact the tea party ideology has been tested. If you'd like to check it out, just move to the libertarian paradise of Somalia. No pesky big governments bureaucrats, very low taxes, and everyone is free to own all the guns they want.
Comments


This is nonsense. This is coming from a person who believes a printing press of green pieces of paper and limiting the division of labor at gunpoint increases wealth for everyone.
Kevin Carson, a mutualist anarchist, refutes this interpretation of Somalia here: http://c4ss.org/content/2859
Somalia -- and all of Africa -- was put into impoverished conditions by the tyrannical government policies that choked it off from capital accumulation and and it will take more than 19 years [the central government collapsed in 1991] for it to escape from it. They also have not had a predominant shift in class consciousness to fully accept the implications of private property and capital accumulation and reject ill-concieved attempts to start mini-governments The situation is extremely complex, and not cut-and-dry like you impugn.
Some more reading materials on the subject are below:
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1880
http://libertariannation.org/a/n030d1.html
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/14358.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtGkTRnocZI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBuPECU0_P0
http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/11485
Additionally, in the meantime, I strongly suggest you quit conflating the big-government Republicans with the philosophy of libertarianism, which you and Thom have absolutely zero knowledge/understanding of and strawman every single day on the show. It is literally embarrasing. It is the left-wing equivalent of calling Obama a Marxist.
If you want to (attempt to) debunk libertarianism, have Thom debate someone from the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, not the clueless statist-Republican Dan Gainor and the warmongering Ayn Rand Institute who are not libertarians at ALL. Reason Magazine and Cato also barely count as libertarian.
I should also inform you that the people of Somalia have repeatedly resisted the UN's tyrannical attempts to impose its "democratic" tyranny on them. What does that tell you about how much "the people" love democracy there?
On the tea parties: the tea party movement is not anti-government. They oppose some aspects of government while supporting others. By your logic, your (correct) support of the absolute right to build the Ground Zero [community center] would make you an advocate of Somalia as well.

"While Bush's speech writer Michael Gerson calls the libertarian tea party concepts of eliminating social security and other social safety net program as untested, in fact the tea party ideology has been tested. If you'd like to check it out, just move to the libertarian paradise of Somalia. "
Post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc fallacy. By this logic, the progressive social-democracy ideal has been disproven, because there is no democracy in Somalia either.
Put into economic terms, printing a bunch of green pieces of paper and spending it -- be it in the form of social security, "stimulus", war spending, welfare, etc -- does nothing except redistribute wealth. It cannot create wealth. It cannot create investment, because it pulls funds from the private sector that can now no longer be invested in things consumers actually voluntarily purchase. The first spenders of the newly printed money benefit from an increase in purchasing power, yet the ones that lag behind pay dearly in increased prices, decreased supply, etc. Society is -- objectively -- poorer and less wealthy. And those on fixed incomes, ie the poor and middle-class -- are hurt the *most* by these policies..
Check out Henry Hazlitt's brilliant "Economics in One Lesson" for more on this topic and the "lesson" of government intervention. Also recommended is Frederic Bastiat's "What is Seen and What is Not Seen".

KBR Employee Legislative Issues Survey
My mom works for KBR and she emailed me this internal memo:
Thank you for your time to complete the legislative issues survey. Your input is invaluable as we continue to advocate for pro-business policies and on behalf of KBR and KBR employees.
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BORDER WARS TV SHOW on the National Geographic channel! WTF? National Geographic used to be an educational organization. When did it decide to fear monger?
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/border-wars/all/Overview

National geographic is another "subtle propaganda" tool.
Have you seen the show "Locked up abroad"
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/locked-up-abroad/all/Overview
It's a show about white people that speak English (American/British) being arrested in countries where people don't speak english and are dark skinned. NG talks to the white criminals as if they are victim of evil dark skin government and thank God they escaped.
When you hear the story of why they got put in prison, you think to yourself "Well, they are criminals" But NG doesn't see it that way, come on buddy, they are white and speak English, they can't be criminals.
I love fighting righties with images of Somalia- they competely freak out!