Progressives and Libertarians go together like peanut butter and jelly

For decades I've vaguely had the idea that the libertarians and the left should get together. Libertarianism, after all, is officially at the zero-point of the left-right axis, although in practice it veers strongly to the right. For years, libertarians have been the useful idiots of the Republican party, providing their small-government rhetoric as they plunder the treasury and wreak havoc on civil liberties and build up an enormously powerful national security state. But the root ideas of libertarianism -- freedom, limited government, individualism -- are not innately horrible, and it always seemed that a real libertarian should have more in common with the left than the right. Well, a new group is coalescing to explore that idea, and unearthing all sorts of interesting weird stuff, like the the history of Samuel Konkin III and the Alliance for the Libertarian Left. Unlike most libertarian discussions, they seem to be capable of grappling with real issues: they are anti-corporation, for the most part, they will point out the obvious fact that roads are just as much if not more a case of government-subsidized travel as mass transportation, and they talk about the tension between health regulation and tasty street food.

On the other hand, here's libertarian-flavored Arnold Kling (Ph.D. economist and Cato adjunct, no less) making a perfect ass of himself and getting roundly and deservedly mocked. Sorry, I couldn't make a post about libertarianism without making fun of somebody.

Rotisserie League Government

Here's a nifty idea: form a progressive shadow government, and use the web to organize and involve people. Similar effort here, where they also have done an astonishing amount of work replicating the top of the federal orgchart and doing research on the current occupant.

I'd support Amory Lovins for Secy of Energy, although Andrew Weil as head of HHS or Ramsey Clark at State is just getting silly.

Courtesy of HuffPo.