From the Libertarian Convention

The American Libertarian Party is holding its national convention. Plenty of dope is being smoked (or chewed), and a lot of people in T-shirts declaring their hatred for authority and their belief that government is for losers — in other words, that everything would be so simple and cool if people were just allowed to do whatever the f___ they liked, man, and f___ you if you don’t accept that — are ranting at any available cameras and microphones about how war is for saps and nothing is “our problem” and having a good time is what life is about and why can’t the old farts just get off our backs and give us our freedom, i.e., unfetter all our urges and accept that whatever people feel like doing is good for them if they get pleasure from it, man.

Oh yes, and the official publication that speaks on behalf of this quasi-political organization and its ideals is called Reason. Because some of the dope heads read a bit of Ayn Rand (or one of her more power-obsessed disciples such as Murray Rothbard) in high school, and she always insisted, as a matter of core principle, that all of her personal preferences and subjective tastes were “rational,” so why shouldn’t the whole movement ground its essential lack of seriousness and historical depth in a similar pretense of thinking? I was going to say “a similar pretense of sobriety,” but that description has long since ceased to be applicable to anything associated with the Libertarian Party — which Rand, by the way, to her great credit, dismissed as the clown show it is and was, several decades ago.