libertarianism

The U.S.’s most prominent libertarian think tank may be leaning more Republican

In San Francisco, bans are a way of life

Mark Shlodice argues for libertarianism as the defining motivation of Stephen Harper’s side.

Ignore those who say the province is governed by a pattern of stagnation punctuated by revolution

The move toward libertarianism is having extreme consequences, as one Tennessee homeowner discovered

The Citizen‘s Dan Gardner is impatient with the columnists cawing against Justice Susan Himel’s prostitution ruling. This morning he exasperatedly tweeted at them that “You don’t have to agree. You do have to read”—that is, read what Himel wrote. I’m on Dan’s side in this debate, but, hey, isn’t he being a little unfair and obnoxious? Surely respectable writers like Daphne Bramham wouldn’t denounce the Himel decision in such strong terms without examining the evidence:

Stephen Gordon has a go at the libertarians.

The economists, statisticians, city planners, social groups and religious leaders have had (and continue to have) their say and so now the folks at the Western Standard have helpfully compiled census opinions from their libertarian orbit, including takes from PM Jaworski, Walter Block, JJ McCullough, Terrence Watson, Martin Masse, Hugh MacIntyre and Paul McKeever.

Friday’s big American media story was the resignation of Washington Post weblogger and conservative-movement specialist Dave Weigel, who came under pressure when gossips obtained some of his tart-tongued and borderline nutty private e-mails to Journolist (a controversial private online club for young liberal media personnel which itself collapsed amidst all the chaos and poo-flinging). By a weird happenstance, Canada’s most remote, reclusive correspondent actually knows Weigel slightly. In February 2008, at the peak of the presidential primary campaigns, I spent a week slouching around the Washington offices of Reason, the libertarian magazine where he then worked.

The B.C. Court of Appeal’s ruling on Vancouver’s Insite shooting gallery for heroin addicts makes for interesting reading. We are all so busy arguing over the merits of harm reduction, and the wisdom of the Harper government’s attempt to shut down the clinic, that it is easy to forget the big constitutional issue that was the chief concern of the court here. You would think that Canadian jurisprudence had developed a clear objective rule for settling even the trickiest “double aspect” issues, wherein both federal and provincial governments can claim that some crumb falls within their respective spheres of constitutional power.

Colby Cosh: Danielle Smith is no Sarah Palin. For one thing, she might win.

Does the U.S. face a period of indiscriminate populism in its political life? New York Times columnist David Brooks thinks so: