Wednesday, March 28, 2007

The Denialists' Deck of Cards

The Denialists' Deck of Cards: An Illustrated Taxonomy of Rhetoric Used to Frustrate Consumer Protection Efforts

Chris Jay Hoofnagle details the public relations methodology of CATO and other anti-consumer, business-funded organizations. Count how many of these you've heard on your favorite topic: global warming, for example.

I think the cards angle is a bit lame (and disliked the Bush Iraq application), but the large number of strategies needs to be organized somehow.

In the Discussion, Environmental, and CATO indexes.

Tip of the hat to David Fetter, who suggested it.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Ask a Libertarian, Part II: The Constitution as Libertarian Myth

Ask a Libertarian, Part II: The Constitution as Libertarian Myth

Logan Ferree does a good job of dispelling libertarian myths about being like classical liberalism and the early USA. He also tries to distinguish between libertarians and objectivists.

This one is nice for the Libertarian Revisionist History index.

Friday, March 02, 2007

The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult

The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult
Murray Rothbard makes a very convincing case for Objectivism as a cult. It's delightful to see it compared to the communist party.