The Superfluous Man

Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my pejorated name

2009-07-02T13:50:00.003-05:00

Kevin Carson has an interesting article at the Center for a Stateless Society about the assorted meanings of the term “socialism,” which at one point was self-applied not only by statists but by individualist anarchists like Benjamin Tucker. Among the left-libertarians, there has been some effort to reclaim the term and use it in this sense.I sympathize with this desire. I’m still bitter about

You kids, with your Twitter and your rap music and your internal combustion engines...

2009-06-18T12:45:00.003-05:00

I've created a Twitter feed for this blog, as well as for other politics-related writing I do on line. My username is superfluousjohn, or you can go to my feed by just clicking here.

The Democratic Party I grew up with

2009-06-17T16:53:00.007-05:00

I feel sorry for whoever owns the company that makes those “Dissent is Patriotic” bumper stickers. Their stock price must be in the toilet by now.I have thought for years that the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building was the best thing that ever happened to Bill Clinton during his administration, and probably the best thing to happen to the Democratic Party in decades. Overnight, the

Fr33 Agents

2009-06-15T17:35:00.000-05:00

Not long ago, as I mentioned here, I got a position as one of the bloggers for Bureaucrash. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter there was a change in leadership and, it appears, in the direction of the organization. As a result, I've departed from my blogging post there. As the old saying goes, God never closes a door without opening a window, and then quickly slamming the window shut again on

Review of Economics for Real People

2009-06-10T16:47:00.004-05:00

We're always on the cutting edge here at The Superfluous Man, and so I'm happy to bring you a review of 2004's Economics for Real People: An Introduction to the Austrian School by Gene Callahan. In all seriousness, though, it's an excellent book for anyone who wants to explore the subject of economics and is looking for a place to start. It's also great for anyone who wants to get an overview

Acceptable targets

2009-05-29T21:43:00.004-05:00

Gay marriage has been prominent in the news this week, which got me thinking about recent events. Some of you may recall the recent case of Carrie Prejean, a contestant in the Miss USA Pageant. In the course of the pageant, the contestants were asked their opinions on various social and political questions. When asked what she thought of gay marriage, Prejean answered: Well I think it's great

Motorhome Diaries crew arrested in Mississippi

2009-05-15T13:20:00.003-05:00

Learned via Facebook: The Motorhome Diaries crew- Jason Talley, Pete Eyre, and Adam Mueller- were arrested in Jones County, Mississippi for filming a police officer who had stopped them. Talley was apparently choked and pepper sprayed. Eyre was charged with possession of beer in a dry county, Mueller with disorderly conduct and disobeying an officer, and Talley with disorderly conduct,

My new friend

2009-05-01T20:15:00.003-05:00

Regular readers may recall that a few months ago I made a post in memory of my cat Kira, who died last summer. I adopted a new cat in March, but haven’t gotten around to writing about it until now. Luckily, there’s a shelter quite close to my house, so I didn’t have far to go.Her name, given by her previous owners, is Midnight. She’s a small black domestic short hair about 6 1/2 years old. I

Fall guys

2009-04-28T20:07:00.002-05:00

The public uproar over the bonuses for the executives of AIG must be one of the most ridiculous cases of misdirected anger in my lifetime. I'm not going to get all weepy over the hurt feelings of millionaire recipients of government boodle, but it’s a very sad example of how sound and potentially antistatist public sentiments, like “government giveaways to big business are bad,” get redirected

Seeds of libertarianism on the Left

2009-04-16T15:17:00.004-05:00

In my post criticizing the idea of liberal-libertarian fusionism, I said that it is not mainstream liberals but people further leftward on the spectrum who offer potentially fruitful interaction, and who may be receptive to libertarian ideas. I’d like to elaborate more on that. This was originally intended to be a single post, but I ended up having more to say than I expected, so it will be

Today Bureaucrash, tomorrow the world!

2009-03-24T17:10:00.003-05:00

My apologies for my absence from this site. I haven't been idle, however- I'm now one of the regular bloggers on Bureaucrash. It's given me a chance to do some "entry-level" writing on libertarianism, which I haven't really done since college. I'll have something substantial here soon, but in the meantime you can check out my posts on Obama's fear-mongering, the real effects of recent "

Mild annoyance from above

2009-03-02T14:20:00.003-06:00

Life is full of surprises. Some people consider this one of its charms, a position that’s always been baffling to me. Case in point: last Thursday afternoon, while I was inoffensively going about my business, a flower pot that someone had evidently positioned insecurely fell from its perch and hit me. Luckily it hit me in the shoulder instead of the head, but it’s still a hell of a shock to

In search of dogs to lie down with, Part II

2009-02-23T13:55:00.002-06:00

The idea of liberaltarianism, an ideological fusion between libertarians and welfare statist/interventionist left-liberals that has been proposed by libertarians such as Will Wilkinson and Brink Lindsay, has sprung up again. (See Will Wilkinson, C.J. Trillian, and Jonah Goldberg to get the basics. Wilkinson compiles more responses here. I previously wrote about the issue here.) I confess to

My friend

2009-02-17T16:16:00.003-06:00

This is not even tangentially related to this site’s subject, but there’s little point to having your own blog if you can’t follow your own arbitrary whims from time to time. I’m planning on getting a new cat from the animal shelter this week, and I’d wanted to post something in memory of my old cat for a while, so now seems like the time. I got Kira from a local shelter in 2000, when she was

Next, scarification!

2009-02-10T13:43:00.002-06:00

Here’s something both amusing and frightening (Hat tip to Billy Beck): there are actually people getting Barrack Obama tattoos. American politics has been getting more messianic since 9/11, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that it’s reached this level. Dismayed, but not surprised.It’s especially absurd when you consider that Obama has been in office for less than a month, and thus no one

Hope and desperation

2009-01-30T11:43:00.005-06:00

I’m quite hard on American liberals, and I make no apologies for that. That said, whereas liberal pundits and politicians often make me dismayed or angry, most liberalism (or conservatism, for that matter) in the average person just makes me feel sad. That’s been amplified by the Barack Obama phenomenon.As I’ve said before, in practice American liberalism is not about expanding government power

Lawless legislation

2009-01-25T13:42:00.006-06:00