Matt Ridley from WSJ on a study of how Libertarians differ cognitively and psychologically from Liberals and Conservatives: The study collated the results of 16 personality surveys and experiments completed by nearly 12,000 self-identified libertarians who visited YourMorals.org. The researchers compared the libertarians to tens of thousands of self-identified liberals and conservatives. It was hardly surprising that the team found that libertarians strongly value liberty, especially the "negative liberty" of freedom from interference by others. Given the philosophy of their heroes, from John Locke and John Stuart Mill to Ayn Rand and Ron Paul, it also comes as no surprise that libertarians are also individualistic, stressing the right and the need for people to stand on their own two feet, rather than the duty of others, or government, to care for people.   Perhaps more intriguingly, when libertarians reacted to moral dilemmas and in other tests, they displayed less emot...

Some days I think Frank is hidebound crazy, but today he is brilliant. Two snippets. Number one:  I also realize that this nation was founded by Christians and so it is clear that their faith led them and guided them and sustained them in their struggles for Liberty. However, this nation was not founded, “FOR”, Christians. It was founded for all men, of all faiths, and for all freedom loving people to live free or die.     This is why as a Christian, and a conservative I am concerned with candidates and officials who seem to feel the need to tie the two together in a way that would exclude other faiths from being conservative, or at least to infer that though they may be conservatives, people of other faiths cannot possibly be as good a conservative as a Christian conservative. Number two: Let’s look at the statement of Mr. Bodenweiser, where he says he want to get the Bible back into our schools. What exactly does that mean and how exactly do we do that? We m...

Ironically, I had just read this line in jason330's perceptive post* about why there are many conservative Republicans who don't like Romney: That’s why they don’t like Rommey. He doesn’t appear wild-eyed and unsteady enough. His craziness, like his empathy, comes off as insincere.  . . . when I next read this post about how Romney is being advised to have a sham review of interrogation methods, if elected, so he will look like he agonized over the decision to start torturing people again: Mitt Romney's national security advisers have quietly urged him to reverse  President Barack Obama's 2009 executive order  that outlawed the use of interrogation techniques that amounted to torture, according to a 2011 policy memo  obtained by Charlie Savage of theNew York Times .   The memo , which contains a number of factual errors and misleading statements, lays out two courses for a President Romney: Either immediately promise to rescind Obama's executive order up...

The ACLU provides these two graphs to show how it has been President Obama NOT former President Bush* who has turned the violation of American privacy with warrantless surveillance into a daily reality for all of us. Please note in both graphs where the uptick starts: *This is NOT an attempt to let Dubya off the hook.  He provided the initial "justifications" for shredding the Constitution.  But Obama has outdone him by multiple degrees of magnitude that should have warmed the artificial heart of Dick Cheney.

This is the most compelling case that Barack Obama--regardless of whether or not you think Mitt Romney would be any better or any worse--does not deserve your vote. I hesitate to provide even a snippet because I really, really, REALLY think you need to read the whole thing, but here: If you're a Democrat who has affirmed that you'd never vote for an opponent of gay equality, or a torturer, or someone caught using racial slurs, how can you vote for the guy who orders drone strikes that kill hundreds of innocents and terrorizes thousands more -- and who constantly hides the ugliest realities of his policy (while bragging about the terrorists it kills) so that Americans won't even have all the information sufficient to debate the matter for themselves?

From the Gesty for Congress campaign: Hello All: I am happy to announce my 3rd and possibly final Fund Raiser for the 2012 campaign. This one is called : Gesty for Congress, Return to Sound Money Fund Raiser. This one should appeal to all those liberty minded individuals who believe that: •As written in the Constitution, only Gold and Silver will only be legal tender    •Commodity backed money is a tool to constrain an ever proliferating federal government   •The Federal Reserve's interest rate manipulation and debasement of our currency is immoral and hurts savers and people on fixed incomes   I once again will tap into my personal collection to show my appreciation for your support of my campaign. This is how it will work:   •Any donation of $25 will receive a Ron Paul Commemorative Copper Coin    •Any donation of $50 will receive the Ron Paul Coin AND an Authentic Copper NORFED Liberty Dollar!   You can learn more about NORFED L...

Leno:  "A new survey out today shows how much time we waste every day in our lives. For example, we waste seven minutes in line every time we go to get coffee, 28 minutes getting through airport security, four years waiting for Obama to do something about the economy. Every year, we waste a lot. We wasted a lot of time." Whether or not you think Jay Leno’s scathing truth joke about Obama is funny, I think we can all agree that his comment reveals a dismal fact that no sane person reasonable person regular (MS)NBC viewer can possibly ignore for another moment:  Jay Leno is a racist.  End of story. Make no mistake about it, though, late night jokester non-person Leno will soon know what a terrible, terrifying fate it is to be the latest addition to The Obama Guest List   Blame List   Kill List   Shit List. Godspeed, funny man.