The Libertarian Blog Manifesto

The big thing on the web these days is the phenomena known as blogging. An enormous number of new blogs have come on-line over the past year, and blog sites have dramatically improved in quality, usefulness, and content.

For those who've been on extended martian vacations: A Blog (short for "web log") is a web site, usually run by one person, featuring a column of chronologically ordered journal entries. Blogs usually also have an archive of the author's journal entries from past months (and even years, in the case of blog pioneers).

Fueling the fast growth of blogging is the collapse in domain registration and hosting prices, and the ease of use of blogging software. Using blog software is now totally intuitive. There are two good options. One is setting up an account at Blogger, the blog portal which lets the user transfer journal files to another domain each time he updates the blog.

Another option is uploading greymatter (a popular blog freeware program) directly to one's server space. The advantage of greymatter is that updating the blog does not depend on whether the Blogger portal is working. Occasionally the huge traffic overwhelms Blogger's server, making it impossible to post, and recently Blogger was down for almost three days when it was hacked. It's hard to complain too much though, since blogger accounts don't cost anything.

As for domain & hosting costs, I recently registered my own domain for about 30 dollars, and the 50MB of server space that I rent costs a paltry seven dollars a month. So understanding the explosive growth in Blogs isn't hard.

The big problem with the blog explosion is that most bloggers, like most people in general, don't have anything to communicate that's worth bothering with. Most blogs are just lists of short blurbs documenting pedestrian events in the writer's life, usually with links to other pages the author finds interesting. Such blogs, even when brilliantly designed, are dreadfully boring to anyone not married to or immediately related to the author. They amount to a conversation about nothing between the author and himself. I've personally read blog posts about brushing teeth, computer problems, crushes on classmates, airplane delays, and office furniture. Even if the price of digital memory has fallen to almost zero, should time really be spent publishing and archiving such trivialities on the web? Who cares? Who will care?

On the other hand, some blogs have a clear, narrowly defined focus. There is a purpose to the writing. The author has an objective, and each post advances his theme. These are the blogs that are the most interesting, and entertaining. Unfortunately, these blogs are also quite rare, because good blogging, like any good writing, is hard work and takes discipline, ambition, and effort. It's much easier to post about nose picking and pocket lint.

Anyhow, why am I telling the LRC audience about blogs? I know from the email I get when I write for this site that LRC readers are literate, educated, highly intelligent, independent thinkers who are passionate about political and cultural ideas (and superior spellers – keep those corrections coming!). Moreover, you know how to use computers. Surely everyone in this high achieving web community has ideas and stories that need to be shared with the world. You should all have blogs!

Anyone can do it. I found that putting up a blog is quite easy. If you are good enough with computers to surf and email, and if you're willing to learn some HTML, you can do it. And don't be scared by HTML. Before I started blogging HTML for Dummies was way over my head.

The cool thing about the blog world is that it's a complete meritocracy. The best blogs get traffic. Bad blogs are ignored. Degrees, seniority, prestige – all are irrelevant. Even if a big celebrity like Bill Clinton put up a blog it wouldn't get traffic because the guy's intellect is about as scintillating as the Code of Federal Regulations.

The other cool thing about blogs is that it's just you and the web. If you've got something to say, bang it out & it's out there. Between you and the audience there are no editors, no corporate bottom line, no politically correct editorial policy, no submission process – nothing. Hit enter and you're published. For those of you who were fretting about increasing corporate control of the web (I wasn't because as a longtime LRC reader I know just how gloriously free and anti-pc speech can be on the web), the blog boom ought to be a godsend of independent and uncontrolled internet speech. I suppose you fretters are too busy fretting about MSN & AOL dominance to notice. The big dot coms may indeed dominate the boring chores you have to do on the web (email, banking, shopping, bill paying, stocks), but they don't certainly don't control the blogs.

And blogs are where the power is. Seriously! The future belongs to those who prevail in the political debates on the web. Right now the political ideas that will govern the future are being sharpened & polished on the world's computer networks. And the right basically owns the web. Where in the world wide web is the left? Where are the people who staff the government agencies, the diversity and affirmative action theorists, the marxists, teachers, socialists, commies, mural painters, greens, tax grabbers, democracy and human rights activists, and the defenders of the ruling establishment? They are no-where! They are fat, happy, stupid, complacent, computer illiterates with nothing but clichés and conventional wisdom to add to the debate, if they could even log on. They do nothing as we busily mock and de-legitimize them on the web.

Perhaps I've had a bit too much caffeine, but I think LRC readers and allied conservative & libertarian groups can play a decisive role in the war of ideas. I'm calling on you – You anti-government activists, libertarians, anarchists, paleo-conservatives, supply-siders, & freedom theorists: I'm calling on you to create a critical mass of blogs that will overwhelm the opposition and dominate the web. You may not see it, but we have the upper hand: We're more articulate, smarter, faster, and our ideas are just plain better than the socialists and the neo-cons.

Imagine if every LRC reader had a blog devoted to spreading the word about government and freedom. We'd command the traffic and rule the debate even more than now. Like I said, it's not that hard. If even a lawyer can figure it out, anyone can do it. My own blog has been up for about six months on and off, at different domains, but since I changed jobs (and states) I haven't been able to spend too much time on it. It's not really ready for prime time, and doesn't even display on some browsers, but I'm going to link it anyhow, as an example of what I'm talking about. (And also for the hits! Give me traffic!)

The other reason I'm linking my blog is to inspire other LRC readers to try it. Every time I show someone my blog they immediately want in. There's a definitely a market for this. That's because instant, personal web log publishing is such a powerful concept. Blogs are on the margin, as Jude Wanniski likes to say. It's a growth phenomena, and the growth rate appears to be accelerating. We libertarians should be in the vanguard! Email me if you have any blog related questions, and I'll give whatever help I can – though I'm still learning myself.

One final thought on the blog revolution: George Gilder wrote a book in the early 90's called Life After Television, the thesis of which was that computer networks would eventually prevail over television networks because a tv is merely a passive receiver dependant on a central, inefficient broadcaster, whereas each computer on a computer network can broadcast and receive. Thus Gilder took the big lesson from the political struggles of the 20th Century (that unplanned, unregulated, systems of independent actors always triumph over top down central planning), and applied it to technology markets. Perhaps I'm overstating the case, but to me blogs seem to be delivering on Gilder's promise. NBC & PBS probably won't collapse tomorrow, but each time a new blog comes on line it means that another computer has started broadcasting. And that the government and media establishment's grip on power slips just a little bit . . .

January 10, 2002

Russ Stein [send him mail] is a defense lawyer out West. Here is his blog.

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