Liberatopia, revisited

Alan, the BuffaloPundit has been looking into the background of James Ostrowski, a guy who is trying to launch what he calls a "grassroots" campaign amongst Buffalo citizens to...well, I'm not sure what, exactly, beyond gutting government and slashing taxes to the absolute lowest level possible. He feels that the group in question, FreeBuffalo, more looks like a group pushing Libertarianism wherever it can than a group pushing what's best for Buffalo. As he said in this post:

The other thing that bugs me about Ostrowski and his group is what I perceive to be an underlying hostility; it's not love of Buffalo that's bringing them together, but hatred of taxes and politicians.

I hope that's not it, but from what little I've read, that seems to be about the right of it. I make no secret that I've never much grokked Libertarianism, because I quite frankly never feel like Libertarians really see all of the stuff in the real world that adds up to, you know, the real world. At least, not the ones who actually go whole-hog and identify themselves as Libertarians. Now, I think that libertarianism is a useful impulse for judging what we want government to be doing, but as a full-fledged approach to governance, it just doesn't do it for me.

So, if FreeBuffalo is really a group pushing for a Libertarian Buffalo, count me out, please.

(Oh, look: Ostrowski lists the ten worst US Presidents. I'm not sure I want to follow the political beliefs of a man who would make such a list and give spots 2, 3, and 4 to Abraham Lincoln, FDR, and Harry Truman, respectively. I seriously doubt that I'm going to reach the same political conclusions as such a person.)