El título debería cerrarse con un signo de exclamación e interrogación. No entiendo por qué Block, usualmente despiadado con cualquiera que se aparta de la línea rothbardiana ortodoxa, se muestra tan caritativo con Palin. Si fuera desconfiado apostaría que el hecho de que Palin se haya referido positivamente a Ron Paul varias veces y que la mujer sea de buen ver han jugado un papel sobredimensionado. Lew Rockwell, otro que tampoco suele morderse la lengua, también dedicó a Palin un artículo simpatizante.
Block suena razonable, aunque muy poco purista, en este párrafo (la comparación que hace con Rothbard está fuera de lugar):
[A] criticism made by some libertarians is that her adherence to our principles is only skin deep; she has raised some taxes, considered banning some books from libraries, engaged in public-private ventures regarding oil pipelines, she is altogether too friendly to US foreign aggression. Yes, yes, she is no libertarian, certainly not of the purist variety. She is no Ron Paul. But, a little context here, please. Compared to McCain, Obama and Biden, she is a veritable Murray N. Rothbard. What about matching her up against all the other 49 governors? Well, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is not all bad as far as these things go, and there might be another half dozen of this breed, mainly in the poorly populated states west of the Mississippi, but surely Sarah Palin fits comfortably into this category. According to this source, tax freedom day arrives earliest in Alaska, of all 50 states. Not too shabby, at least in this context. She favors drilling in the ANWR, and that alone is worth the price of admission.
Pero no en este otro:
True confession time. Before Palin (BP), I was leaning toward Obama. I thought he was marginally less likely to drop a nuclear bomb on some hapless third world country than mad bomber McCain. I regarded, and still do, foreign policy as more important than domestic, given that "war is the health of the state." And, there was very little to choose between the Republocrats and the Demopublicans on economics. Socialism from both quarters (although I admit it, the prospect of Alan Dershowitz on the Supreme Court did give me pause for thought). But now, after Palin (AP), I am shifting my allegiance to the Republicans. Go, Sarah, go! But what about the libertarians? Don’t speak to me about the libertarians! The Barr-Root ticket is arguably less libertarian than Sarah Palin. Barr in particular has been a gigantic disappointment (see here and here). Actually, the man is a thief. He has stolen our Libertarian Party from us, and I’ll not again support it, at least not on the national level, until all vestiges of his theft have been wiped away. I have sympathy for the Constitution Party and for the Boston Tea Party, but they will be on too few ballots to even seriously consider them. So, one cheer for the Republicans; God help me.
En primer lugar, no veo por qué la incorporación de Palin hace que el ticket republicano sea menos belicista/halcón que antes. Que yo sepa Palin en política exterior no discrepa de la línea oficial del GOP.
En segundo lugar, me parece un despropósito decir que la candidatura Barr-Root es menos liberal que la de Sarah Palin. Parece que Block esté juzgando a Barr-Root de acuerdo con sus estándares habituales pero utilice otra vara de medir con Palin.
