JohnStuartMill wrote:On further reflection, I'm curious as to in what sense you consider yourself a libertarian, Dan. I assume you don't favor further legalization of drugs or prostitution; I've never heard you say that governments can't pass laws against homosexuality...
I don't recall having ever posted on anything really related to those topics.
I'm certainly an economic libertarian -- and a federalist. I dislike government intervention in the economy. I seriously thought, at one point, of doing a Ph.D. in economics; I read extensively in F. A. von Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, etc., and still consider myself a "disciple" of theirs.
As to drugs and prostitution, I don't think about their legal status much, but I'm open and even somewhat sympathetic to the case for legalization. I don't believe in laws "against homosexuality."
JohnStuartMill wrote:on what issues do you agree with the libertarians in ways that standard conservatives don't?
I'm considerably more libertarian on economic issues than many of the conservatives I know.
But I don't claim to be a pure libertarian. That's the reason I've never joined the Libertarian Party (although I've considered it). I'm not comfortable with some common libertarian notions about foreign policy and defense policy, for example. (I remember a late-night discussion with the late libertarian guru Murray Rothbard, from many years ago. I thought his proposals on defense were amusing, but nuts.) And I'm not comfortable when, on social and moral issues, proposals for libertarian policy reform go beyond politics to actually endorsing (or seeming to endorse) things that I would permit but that I regard as substantively wrong. This does happen occasionally.
Roger Morrison wrote:Dan/Joey, (alphabetically) the banter between you two has me curious... Is it in good nature, or mean spirited?
I've never seen anything from Joey that would suggest to me that he's posting his comments about me in a "good natured" way.
Roger Morrison wrote:What are its roots?
I don't know why he's so personally hostile. I'm responding to his continual sneering. It's grown tiresome.
Roger Morrison wrote:Ever do time in the Toronto, Canada area?
I've spoken at a couple of academic conferences up there, and given a small number of firesides in Toronto, Hamilton, etc. But I haven't been there for at least three years now. Maybe longer.