While it's true that I don't follow the downward descent of every dollop of wisdom dripping from the drooling mouths of America's politicians, based on what I have heard, I'd never have guessed that Rudy Guiliani was anything like a libertarian. But he must be, because the Libertarian Republicans say so!

US Congressman Ed Royce hosted Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani over the weekend in Orange County, CA for a campaign event. Royce, formally endorsed Giuliani saying: Rudy Giuliani is the candidate who can keep us safe and lead us into a bright future.

I read this on Mainstream Libertarian, which oddly does not archive its articles. It doesn't provide much evidence for its contentions, either. Just repetitive assertion. Why should we care about who this Royce character endorses? Why, that's obvious!

Royce is a longtime Advisory Board member of the Republican Liberty Caucus. His Lifetime Liberty Index scores is one of the highest at 77.1% = Libertarian. His longtime Campaign Manager and fmr. Chief of Staff Jon Fleischman is a hardcore libertarian YAFer.

The breaking news descends into utter inanity in the final paragraph:

An attendee at the event, Dave Warrick, quoted in the Orange County Register, said the following: I agree with him that we need to stay on offense where national security is concerned, and the free market solutions to health care, Warrick, an investment manager, said after the speech, he's convinced that Giuliani is the Republican standard bearer for him.

The website, Mainstream Libertarian, repeatedly offers wisdom like this, from Neal Boortz:

Boortz said straight out, that he's a Pro-War Libertarian and that the war in Iraq is part of the collective right of self-defense. We, as the American people, all have the right of self-defense. Therefore we can grant that right to government to accomplish that goal for us. He continued, I believe it was essential to get Saddam Hussein out of power and to carry on an aggressive stance in the Middle East against Islamic terrorism.

The sheer, ignorant folly of this statement staggers the imagination. The idea that Bush's Wilsonian wars are making the world safer is just plain goofy. Boortz, and the man behind the site quoting him, apparently have only the shallowest understanding of how dangerous Islam is, and are dead set on using the least subtle, most Pyrrhic tactics upon our enemies. They have no conception of how imperialist actions breed more enemies. They think government should be minimal at home and maximal abroad. If these people had any influence (and they don't have much), within ten years they'd have authorized genocide or brought on the destruction of America . . . or both.

But it is fun to see juxtaposed on one page the phrase on offense and collective right of self-defense. These alleged libertarians don't really understand the difference between offense and defense. And that is their chief offense.

Conservative intellectuals sometimes pretend to be More Sophisticated Than Thou. But the right-leaning camp of the libertarian movement can usually be detected by a simplemindedness that borders — on the far side — sheer doltishness.

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