It’s an all-new edition of PJM Political. On the big show this week:
Pajamas Media’s DC editor Jennifer Rubin on recent pundits on both sides of aisle who supported President Obama in the fall of 2008 who are rapidly becoming disillusioned, and the White House War on Rush Limbaugh.
James Lileks (recently voted one of top 25 bloggers of 2009 by Time magazine) on President Obama’s recent snubs of England.
Ed Driscoll interviews Aryeh Green (no relation), the director of the Jerusalem-based MediaCentral, on biased MSM coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I debate Will Wilkinson of the CATO Institute on “Liberaltarianism”—Wilkinson’s proposed fusion of liberalism and libertarianism, as a bulwark against libertarians putting all their eggs in one (GOP) basket.
Hosted by yours truly, who finally (mostly) has his voice back, and produced by Ed Driscoll.
I was just reading about the fusion of liberals and libertarians in Reason Magazine. (And how it fell apart) My first thought was- “How could any libertarian be dim enough to deal with the devil?” Then I realized that we have been fooling ourselves about the Republicans in the same way for years.
NOBODY IN WASHINGTON IS ON OUR SIDE.
How could anyone expect anyone in Washington to be on the side of individual liberty? Like any capital, Washington is built on government power — which is to individual liberty as the rabies virus is to healthy brain tissue.
What Paul and McGehee said.
There’s no way in hell libertarians should be shacking up with either party. Yes, party purity is probably a bad idea. But sleeping with lepers causes your penis to fall off. And the Democratic and Republican parties are leper colonies of the highest order.
I laugh at the raging battle going on in the Republican Party right now. To Purge or not To Purge–that is the question. The purists want to cleanse the party of all sinners, which basically leaves many people just like me–fiscally conservative, constitutionally strict, and socially liberal (or some combination thereof)–on the outside, looking in.
Others may actually want in. Me? Fuck’m. If the purists are so dedicated to an ideological putsch, let’m have it. No skin off of my nose.
I figure the Republican implosion is just about complete. They’re pretty much dead meat. In a couple of years, given the burn rate that POR are running at right now, the Democrats should be in just about the same shape. The backlash that is beginning (see “Tea Parties, Holding Of”) is going to be breath-taking to behold. At that point, I think we will begin to see the formation of a new, middle-ground party. And I believe libertarian thinkers have a big role to play there. As normal, everyday Americans wake up to the fiasco unfolding in Washington, they’re going to realize that “business as usual” is what got us there, and that the parties responsible need to suffer great psychic harm. I don’t advocate stringing the bastards up (yet!), but exiling the current bunch of political hacks (and their enablers) would be a grand start.
This all, of course, presumes the country survives as a viable economic/political entity. I’m not sure which bet I’d take on that one, at at the moment.
I trust you realize, obituaries for both of the major parties have been written dozens of times over the years. Most recently, there was the one for the GOP in 1974, and the one for the Democrats in 1994…
It’s one thing to acknowledge that both major parties are untrustworthy. It’s another thing entirely to hallucinate that history is going to end this time around — despite the fact it failed to do so the last 10,000 times it could have.
Agreed, mostly. But the one situation (I think, anyway) that is different is that worm-infested carcass that is the Republican Party is truly in public viewing, this time. Yes, you can say “it’s different this time” only so many times before it gets stale. But the level of transparency (and deliberate exposure by third parties with access and means) available today is very different from the past.
Time will tell, obviously. But I do believe (or perhaps am lost in hope
that politics as usual may finally be on its death-bed.
If it’s not, then it’s time to head to the bunkers. ‘Cause I don’t think anything short of vicious revolution will save us from a fascist state. The current participants in the political system have to be crushed. Ideally in a soft revolution, conducted at the polls. But a hard, violent one is not out of the question, as far as I can tell.
And it won’t take much to push us over the edge.
I’m not sure enough of the public is looking, to make a difference.
Why look at political roadkill when we have OctoMom and “American Idol”?