Ragnar's Corner (essays on libertarianism)

Ragnar Daneskjold was one of the triumvirate of producers who led the strike in "Atlas Shrugged". His main contribution was to act as a pirate and sink all ships carrying "aid" because they were carrying stolen goods and because it served to hasten the inevitable end. Ships operating for a profit were allowed to pass.

In these essays, I hope to capture that spirit and to rhetorically sink the ship of liberal ideas by replying to foolishness with insight, to the tyranny of caring with the cold light of reality, and to naked confiscation with the ideal of liberty.

These are my editorials. Some of them were written because I thought an issue was worth discussion and some of them as a response to others. Quotes of other's e-mail in the responses have been paraphrased since not all of the original messages were intended to be public. I use [ ]'s to mean paraphrase. Otherwise, the direct quotes remain where they are mine or were clearly public in the first place (e.g. usenet). I am not being fair to the full content of what other people said. I have left just enough quotes to introduce my thoughts.

The topics chosen are not necessarily those I consider to be the most important nor those where a libertarian analysis can be best applied. Generally they were chosen in response to someone else's error or because they were topical in the news.

Most of these essays were originally for the local debate group. Some were originally directed at other libertarians as explorations of issues, or merely venting steam. Some were written to liberals to honestly try and explain their mistakes. Others were intentionally inflammatory to provoke a foolish response. All of those types are mixed up here.

Quality varies. In the author's opinion, better ones are marked with '*' and the best ones are marked with '**'.

Most everything that is mentioned with "I" or "we" is for a hypothetical person and not the author. The few exceptions will be clear from context.

The are collected by topic (by date within topic), in a single comprehensive list sorted by date, and a subset of the best ones (by date).

Most of these were originally posted in the discussion group ragnar@cs.rice.edu .

View complete archive or request to join or leave the group.

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