August 17, 2006

Has the fat lady really sung for the libertarians?

Sir, as someone who has understood and accepted some of the fundamentals of the libertarian arguments but just as frequently opposed the too fundamentalist solutions they offer, I cannot but reject Michael Lind’s “The unmourned end of libertarian politics” August 17. The presence of any ideas and opinions should never be evaluated in terms of if they win or not politically, but in terms of how much they can contribute to the debate.

A world without extremes would be a very grey and dull world as Mr. Lind should do well remembering as he comes out as a sort of smugly satisfied self proclaimed pyrrhic victor.

And so, to all those libertarians out there, remember that there are many of us who hear you, respect (most of) you, appreciate much of your arguments and really feel you should keep on arguing just as we will keep on arguing our dissent.