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This is one of the most brilliant things I've read in ages:

THE difference between Peggy Noonan and, say, Jonah Goldberg is the difference between a semi-sordid "accidental" drowning where police find three empty fifths of White Horse Scotch in the trash, just atop last Wednesday's newspaper and a shoebox full of ripped-up love letters from the mid-60s, and the guy who accidentally kills himself trying to use a plunge router to open a can of pudding. For the former, we recognize a shared humanity that was lost somewhere along the way, too long ago for redemption, while the latter serves no discernible purpose, except perhaps as a reminder to throw out that aluminum cookware and not huff paint thinner.

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Comment by tb: Libertarians are such cunts. It’s like if you sucked all of Steve Buscemi’s coolness out of Mr. Pink and left just the wormy husk bitching about having to leave a tip.

They were responding to this post by Walter Williams, which is a beaut:

Pope Benedict could benefit from a bit of schooling. Tax avoidance is legal conduct whereby individuals arrange their affairs so as to reduce the amount of income that is taxable. Tax avoidance can run the gamut of legal acts, such as investing in tax-free bonds, having employer-paid health plans, making charitable gifts, quitting a job and banking in another country. Tax evasion refers to the conduct by individuals to reduce their tax obligation by illegal means. Tax evasion consists of illegal acts such as falsely claiming dependents, income underreporting and padding expenses.
[...]
Should the Roman Catholic Church support the welfare state? Or, put more plainly, should the Church support the use of the coercive powers of government to enable one person to live at the expense of another? Put even more plainly, should the Church support the government’s taking the property of one person and giving it to another to whom it doesn’t belong? When such an act is done privately, we call it theft.
[...]
The pope might say that the welfare state reflects the will of the people. Would that mean the Church interprets God’s commandment to Moses “Thou shalt not steal” as not an absolute, but as “Thou shalt not steal unless you got a majority vote in parliament or congress”?


Travis replies: Ah, but when such an act is conducted publicly – that is, through legal means and by elected representatives – we call that “taxes.” Similarly, executions are not murder, incarceration is not kidnapping and elections are not coups.

Xel adds: I also think this guy should get his head out between Ayn Rand’s legs, wipe his lips and get out of college.

Though I think JRod's response really hits the nail on the head: This whole “government theft” business doesn’t seem to bother the libertarian types much when that wealth is being redistributed to arms manufacturers and other wartime contractors.

Seriously, are there any big name libertarian pundits that were opposed to the Iraq War? You’d think people so concerned about the $10 of their taxes spent on welfare would have something to say about the hundreds of their dollars spent on painting schools and pulling down statues, not to mention the hundreds a year they’ll be paying for the rest of their lives for the interest we owe the Chinese. Yet most of them seem quite eager to move on to Iran.

Fine, you think the Iraq War was a swell idea, but there’s no denying that a vast amount of taxpayer money has been flat out funneled to well-connected corporations for doing shoddy work on a cost-plus basis, to say nothing of the billions that have simply fucking vanished into thin air. But ONOES some welfare queen thinks she’s gonna feed her kids? Not on my dime!

If you can’t spare 2% of your income to improve the lives of millions of your countrymen, you’re a selfish, greedy sack of shit. If, conversely, you have no trouble with a greater percentage flowing directly into the coffers of the wealthy, you’re simply a goddamn fuckwit.

Amen to that.