A bit of J school

Hey, it turns out that, life being unfair and all, we got an additional fifteen minutes! Fact is, because of the holidays and stuff, we just found out about it here. But we have a lot of little quibbles with the story presented.

Perhaps most striking was the assertion that "Captain Capitalism" Aaron Clarey "shines a libertarian light on politics." Now, funny thing, but libertarians don't actually advocate national ID cards, or celebrate when an authoritarian government seizes private property for big public works projects, or bitch and moan when women and families make their own economic decisions, or advocate increased government control over the borders or scrutiny of firms' hiring practices or... Heck, for that matter they probably don't launch big lawsuits against free speech, no? Especially not when they don't even allege a penny of monetary damage in the complaint, which you'd'a thunk the reporter had read, no? Surely that's not "libertarian."

Well, look, that's actually sort of irresponsible of the writer. If Aaron Clarey is a libertarian, I'm a giant panda.

Now, you might try "conservative." Except, well, conservatives don't talk smut about women and children and the elderly or make fun of the religious or suggest minimum wage COLAs or attack Larry Summers' suggestion that affirmative action to recruit women into technical fields might be fruitless (admittedly, Aaron seems confused about what he's commenting on there), or celebrate when dictatorships build obstacles to keep people from fleeing torture under Communist regimes, or...

And neither label really conveys Aaron's bizarre need to keep up - but to hide! - speech which is nothing but a long racist attack on Latinos, or which harasses Americans who've lost their homes and families in a natural catastrophe, or tells us that gays are unmanly, or the bizarre insistence that the Nazis under Hitler were left-wingers, or...

Mr. Reporter, "libertarian" is dishonest. I think the words you're looking for are bigoted, offensive, jingoist ass.

Hope that's helpful!

UPDATE: But ya gotta love the "Perils of Pauline" sound of "this guy's not getting away with it." It makes one feel so...nefarious!