“Fuck off, Tulpa” will probably be the first reply you receive when you start posting here. It’s an in-joke, a sign of acceptance, a minor form of hazing. So chill the fuck out and be cool, ok?
Glibertarians.com, aka Glibs, is a private website owned and operated by The Powers That Be (TBTP) for the amusement of themselves and the greater Glib community. TPTB were kind enough to open this website for others to contribute material, and to participate in the comments. Just don’t be a dick, don’t throw around racist slurs, and don’t attack other people unless they are arguing in bad faith (rare here, but it happens). Attacking positions is always fair game. They will ban a troll faster than you can say “rumplestiltskin.”
All the material published here is submitted by members of the community; nobody gets paid for writing, drawing, animating, doing website design and administration, or anything else associated with this website; it is all a labor of love. Glibs accepts monetary contributions to pay the server bills, but such contributions are entirely voluntary and don’t get you any special privileges, tote bags or invitations to cocktail parties.
Glibs was born of a difference of opinion with the operators of Reason.com (TOS, formally “the other site”), the online presence of the Reason Foundation who also publish Reason magazine. Prior to the founding of Glibs, this community’s online home was the comments section of Reason where some of us had been since the very beginning of the Gillespie years, having followed him over from the seminal Suck.com website.
Tensions elevated during the Woodchipper Incident in 2015 when Reason found itself subpoenaed by the federal government because of comments left on their website.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, it was increasingly obvious that TOS was betraying core libertarian principles and blatantly succumbing to Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). Glibs is not a Pro-Trump site, but neither are we willing to buy into the hysteria and ally ourselves with progressives just because #orangemanbad. Most of us here do not like Trump, but we do realize that we would have been worse off with a Clinton presidency, if only for SCOTUS appointments.
The decisive incident came when the mother of one of TPTB was the victim of police brutality during the course of her official duties as a school nurse tending to an injured athlete during the course of a school sporting event. This incident was documented by the local press. TPTB whose mother was assaulted reported this to TOS, along with a link to the news report, and asked for some coverage. By any objective standard, this incident would have at least deserved mention in the AM Links or PM Links, the two regular daily weekday features at TOS. “Too local,” was their response.
Rather than continue to hang out at a place at which we, and more importantly our ideas, were increasingly unwelcome, TPTB decided to put up a website, and the rest is history. Here is the mission statement from our first day:
As to the tone of the enterprise – I would not seek to impose any rules on anyone else, but here are the things I’m going to strive for: no backbiting of H&R, Reason or the Reason Staff in editorial content. I don’t want this to be a bitchfest. I don’t want this to turn into something that only exists to react against something else. That way lies the shrill pettiness of blogs like “A Smarter Andrew Sullivan,” “Sully Watch” and (gods help us) “Sully Watch Watch.” Reactions to the writings of others are always fair game.
I believe that we have achieved that so far, and I am damn proud of us all for having done so. My initial fear was that we would have a good opening week or weeks, but then article submissions would drop off, then the morning and afternoon links would become intermittent and finally stop. But we persisted, and today, two and a half years after going live, we consistently have enough material to keep up a full publishing schedule with two links posts and at least two other posts every weekday. Yay, us.
So here you are in the worst little political chatroom on the interwebs, with a bunch of yokels; deplorables, even. Prickly, antisocial contrarians, the lot of us. And all our guns, pot, ass-sex, and Mexicans. It’s a nice place, very clean and family friendly! People are courteous about things that really matter. But learning what is humor and what isn’t can often be tricky. And we sometimes have legitimate disagreements about what is and isn’t acceptable.
Generally, if someone posts a comment with a position diametrically opposed to libertarian thought, i.e. advocating for higher taxes, more government, less freedom, less accountability, you can assume that person is being sarcastic or making a joke. Remember that a perfectly-executed parody is indistinguishable from the real thing. Don’t be that noob who doesn’t get the joke and tries to establish cred by flaming someone else. Because then you have to go and see Warty in his special basement “training” room.
In-jokes–yes, there are a ton of them. Too many for me to catalog here, but I encourage others to do so in the comments below. Which leads to our image as a cliquish, insular place. Yes, we are; but not deliberately so. Many of us have known each other online for decades. It is hard to break into a community like that; not because we aren’t open to outsiders, but it does take a while to establish cred here. And there may be some people who just plain ignore you.
What if you agree with libertarians on some things, but think we are whacked on other things? Debate us honestly, or decide to treasure those areas where your opinions align with ours. The greater liberty community is already too small and wracked by internal strife. For me, it was a long engagement with the Iron Laws which finally brought me around.
Welcome to our house.
