Am I a Libertarian?

So an old friend of mine remarked the other day "And here I thought you were going to be a Libertarian back in college." This was in response to a blog post I shared that discussed immigration and Paul Krugman's take on it. My response was basically to say that I do consider myself a libertarian (note the little "L"... thats cause the Libertarian party is a bit extreme for me) and that I didn't think that supporting more open immigration was inconsistent with that.

The blog post in question was sort of mocking Krugman for some views that one could argue are inconsistent. I liked it because I really enjoy making fun of political extremists of all stripes. I particularly enjoy liberal-bashing because they tend to think they're so cool... also conservative-bashing is just too easy. :)

The NY Times, in particular, can be entertaining. It cracks me up the efforts they go to to explain how the group that calls themself "al-Quaeda in Iraq" is actually not part of "al-Quaeda" and how they should be referred to as "Al Qaeda in Mesopotami". IMHO they're concerned with making the point that al-Quaeda wasn't in Iraq before we invaded. The Bush administration seems to like to make that area seem more gray than it is and the Times seems to think they have an obligation to clarify that. We get the point already!

I subscribe to the Best of the Web online newsletter from the WSJ OpinionJournal. They really enjoy liberal-bashing and I love to read it. I even occasionally chuckle at BotW itself when their logic falls apart or they engage in the type of blinders-on perspective that is more prevalent among liberals. Conservatives can be funny also.

Economists write some really good blogs. I find that they seem to be logically consistent and economists seem to be more honest about their biases than your regular political opinion blog writers. The post that prompted this whole thing was by Will Wilkinson. He also seems to enjoy finding bias in things that are seemingly objective and pointing out the logical inconsistency or intellectual dishonesty or generally incorrectness of things.

Anyways, I would say I consider myself libertarian, but more than that I try to be objective, practical, and emperical when I look at things from a political perspective. I believe in reason above conservatism, liberalism, or even libertarianism. Now reason doesn't mean there is no room for emotion or value judgements, but that those things need to be a considered input to political decision-making, not the domineering force.

/rant