Saturday 25 July 2009

Link of the Day: Libertarian view of Obama

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/17/AR2009071702093.html


Washington Post op-ed from Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie


Welch and Gillespie are both from the libertarian foundation Reason. They represent the moderate end of libertarianism (I’m from the extreme moderate end and unlike most libertarians I would put myself in the tradition of Abraham Lincoln’s liberalism). The article is libertarianism in a calm moderate mode, and it seems to me their comments include criticisms that left wingers could agree with: Barack has been slow to end arbitrary detention of terrorist suspects and restrictions on gays in the military, and has broken promises on open government. They also point out that Bush massively expanded federal spending and that Obama is continuing this. I would add that Obama has flirted far too much too much with economic protectionism, and this had led to retaliation from other countries.

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