Just When You Think That "Reason" Writers Aren't A Bunch Of Vox Writers With Hash Pipes, They Write Something Like This...

Trump's Problem With Free Speech: The billionaire bully chafes at the restrictions imposed by the First Amendment.

Look, the concept of libertarianism is marvelous, and these folks have occasionally written interesting and provocative pieces that are buttressed by classic libertarian thought. But all too often they resort to the leftist technique of vilifying people because of their associations. Here we have PE Donald Trump talking with the dictator of Kazakhstan. And they extrapolate from Trump's oft-stated desire and practice of suing people who say things he thinks are untrue -- to Trump arresting, imprisoning and possibly killing his critics, just as they say Nazarbayev does.

Last week Donald Trump had a nice telephone chat with Nursultan Nazarbayev, the autocrat who has ruled Kazakhstan since 1989, two years before it broke away from the Soviet Union. According to the Kazakh government, the president-elect "stressed that under the leadership of Nursultan Nazarbayev, our country over the years of independence had achieved fantastic success that can be called a 'miracle.'"

One aspect of the Kazakh miracle that Trump surely admires is Nazarbayev's ability to make criticism (and critics) disappear. As Trump's constitutionally contemptuous comments about flag burning illustrate, he supports free speech the same way he supports free trade: with preferential exceptions designed to protect the people he cares about most.

First...I doubt very much that Donald Trump initiated this conversation. It beggars belief that he woke up one morning with a burning desire to talk to a man he has surely never met, and whose name he probably didn't know.

Second..."Reason" is basing this on the press release from Kazakhstan, not from Donald Trump. I know this is a crazy idea, but a single-sourced account is pretty much worthless.

Oh...by the way, Kazakhstan gave up its nuclear weapons. You know, what every good leftist wants of the world. And some guy named Obama met with Nazarbayev in South Korea in 2012 and...get this...praised him for his leadership in nuclear non-proliferation.

I wonder what's different?

posted by CBD at 07:21 PM

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