One commenter here (who shall remain anonymous) thinks it is a cute exercise to quote either the Libertarian Party platform, or the Green Party platform, or any other cherry-picked item to challenge the legitimacy of anyone who would self-identify as anything other than one of the major Demopublican flavors.    Libertarians are dangerous because they want to eliminate civil rights or public education; look, it says so right here in the platform, and if you don't subscribe to every word of your platform then how can you claim to be a Libertarian. So let's take a look at some of the promises and positions from the Democratic Party Platform of 2008 that turned out to be, ah, problematic"

By Max Borders at the Daily Caller. This should be read in its entirety, but one money quote is sufficient as a teaser: 7. Myth: Libertarians are corporate apologists. To quote Bugs Bunny: “Eh, he don’t know me very well, do he?” Libertarians and classical liberals from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman, James Madison to James Buchanan, and Frederic Bastiat to Friedrich Hayek have been warning us about corporations since there were corporations. It’s not that corporations are evil per se, however. Companies are just people cooperating for common goals. Bad things happen when corporations collude with the state against the people. When you hear the words “crony capitalism,” there is a 95 percent chance that’s coming from the mouth of a libertarian. That’s because liberals, conservatives and populists cannot so easily distance themselves from it. The left has had its Solyndras. The right has had its Halliburtons. Both tribes have had their banksters. And libertarians have had enough...

And, finally, the entire history of Rock and Roll in 100 guitar riffs, played in one take, from the Chicago Music Exchange.  This is worth the 12:13 it will take out of your day just to watch and listen to this guy work:

. . . at least that's what Paul Clark says about Nancy Willing. Everything would obviously be OK if all you pirates out there just STFU and let the politicians do what they please. Oh, and Nancy? Stop attending the damn meetings.  Silly rabbit, that First Amendment is not for you.

The Supreme Court says money equates to political speech. On one level I've always disagreed with that, but being on the fringes of the inside of a presidential campaign I begin to see the argument from the candidate's point of view.  No money, no visibility.  No visibility, no coverage.  No coverage, no votes. There are a lot of creative grassroots, populist tactics you can employ to offset some of the difficulties, but the reality is that if you don't have millions at your disposal you aren't going to be a serious candidate for president, just like if you don't have $30k you're going to be hard-pressed to win a seat in the Delaware General Assembly in a hotly contested race. So I am pleased to note that the Gary Johnson 2012 money bomb to get him into the presidential debates is going well ( over $22,600 in first three days ), and that a supportive Libertarian PAC has just received a $1,000,000 donation to help out. With Federal matching funds for the ...

It seems increasingly possible. And, you know, you can't vote out a President in the middle of a war, can you? Be unpatriotic or something. Time to go back and read this one.

. . . which is that they didn't even exist prior to the 1950s. No. he's not kidding.  Prior to the New Deal, the average home mortgage ran only 3-5 years, and yet 40% of Americans managed to own their own homes. Read the whole thing; it's not long. My favorite part is the conclusion: On the other hand, I marvel that something that's only been around for 60 years or so -- my parents were adults and my older brothers were born or about to be born when long-term mortgages came into being! -- is for all intents and purposes portrayed as an immutable, inalienable entitlement, part of "the American Dream" from the get-go. W hen George Washington returned from the French and Indian Wars, the first thing he did was call Countrywide Financial's toll-free number to get an adjustable rate mortgage on Mount Vernon with 20% down, and if we can't all do the same thing on our 19th birthdays, the terrorists have won, etc.