The Hot Air Machine

  IN political science there is a concept known as “Conquest’s laws of politics.” It is named after Robert Conquest, a conservative British historian best known for his books on the Soviet Union . Similar to Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics,” Conquest’s laws define three principles of political action that can be considered reliably accurate. These three laws are: Everyone is conservative about what he knows best. Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing. The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that is controlled by a cabal of its enemies. All these laws have interesting implications and can be looked at one by one. However, today the one law that I want us to focus on in particular is the second law, that, “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.” It certainly sounds interesting and can have broad implications for political strategy. For libertarians in ...

            It was only two weeks ago when I last spoke about the Libertarian Party . My comments on the Party were entirely disapproving, believing the Party to be an embarrassment to libertarian values. From a strongly anarchist and quasi-agorist position, I viewed the LP as an illegitimate entity. In my, and others’ , view, an ideology opposed to politics and the State has no place participating in politics and the State. While this view of mine has not changed, the Libertarian Party itself has in fact changed in the past few days, and that’s why I wanted to sit down and write up this article.           To put it briefly for the outsider or whoever might be reading this, a few days ago the Libertarian Party hosted its national convention down in Reno, Nevada. The LNC brings together Libertarians across the country to discuss libertarianism (or rather, as is mostly the case in the LP, clas...

          RECENTLY , the Libertarian Party of the United States posted a tweet commenting on the ongoing controversy surrounding Roe v. Wade . What they said was, “Whether it is a choice about vaccines or reproduction, healthcare decisions belong between an individual and their doctor — not the government.” Attached to this tweet is an image of the mascots of the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian Parties (the donkey, elephant, and porcupine, respectively) titled “Bodily Autonomy”. With regards to this issue the Democrats are caricatured as believing “You own your uterus but not your immune system,” the Republicans as believing “You own your immune system but not your uterus,” and the Libertarians as believing “You own yourself.”           The Party did not receive many positive responses, however. The anarcho-capitalist Internet commentator LiquidZulu replied , “Do hitman-hiring decisions also belong solely ...