It’s entirely irrelevant whether you consider this “free market” or “Wealthy-oriented market” or what have you. It is, inarguably, a deregulated one (something Libertarians were fond of not two months ago).

There are certainly people who call themselves Libertarians who believe that all deregulation is equal.

There are other Libertarians who were appalled by what Steinbeck wrote about in The Grapes of Wrath. And get palpitations when they think about the Jeffersonian ideal of yeoman farmers.

It’s a major rift in the Libertarian Party, and one that frankly, the anti-corporates are losing. The transhumanist, racist, and warmongering Glenn Reynolds wing is proceeding like a juggernaut, chewing up the old remnants of the party.

When I joined the Libertarian Party, I got a membership card. Above the signature line read the following words, “I hereby certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force or fraud as a means of achieving political or social goals.”

The so-called Libertarians that supported the Iraq war make a mockery of this declaration.

But I’m assuming you hold that The Man kept them down through taxation or something.

No, the new robber barons did that.

While I keed about the Clipper Chip (but not to its face) — I fear this is where the Libertarian argument becomes nothing more than the Marxism-hasn’t-failed argument. It’s academic. A moot point dreamed on by dreamers and wished for by wishers.

It’s entirely irrelevant whether you consider this “free market” or “Wealthy-oriented market” or what have you. It is, inarguably, a deregulated one (something Libertarians were fond of not two months ago). And it is a failed one. Because the banks, hedge funds, lenders, Masters of the Universe and hucksters went out and bet the farm because there was no one to reign them in — they played the market and upon collapse the LAST thing standing between them and the abyss is a desperate Government bailout.

Corporate welfare? Sure. But last ditch and a situation crafted by rampant market speculation, bad faith and greed — Libertarian to the core. Only here can we see the frailty of the market. Self-correction would cause economic catastrophe. There’s no invisible hands left. That’s the dead end of libertarian reality.

But I’m assuming you hold that The Man kept them down through taxation or something.

I know people have horrible memories of the Clinton years with all that shitty peace and prosperity we had, but I’m happy you anarchist libertarians still hope to offer it as a teaching moment about When It All Went Wrong.

OK. Point the first, Bush Jr. is aleph null times worse than Clinton. Torture, unjust war, enormous civil liberties violations, corporate welfare, financial malfeasance, I could go on. Name just about anything that Libertarians hate, Bush Jr. has done it.

Point the second, what we are seeing is not the free market. It’s a system where people have one set of rights and responsibilities, and corporations have the same set of rights, but none of those responsibilities. And also corporate welfare tends to go to those who need it least.

Point the third, I can’t pinpoint the precise moment When It All Went Wrong, but it goes back at least to the presidency of John Adams.

Ah, shit.