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December 29, 2024

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There can possibly be arguments about how good a job Carter did as President. But beyond any question, he was our greatest ex-President. RIP

Libertarians have a warm spot for Carter.


"In an era of strongman politics, when the presidency has become the focal point of all too much passion, there's a lot to be said for James Earl Carter's comparatively modest conception of the office. At home, our 39th president left a legacy of workaday reforms, paving the way for the "Reagan boom" by taming inflation and serially deregulating air travel, trucking, railroads, and energy. Abroad, he favored diplomacy over war, garnering the least bloody record of any post–World War II president. So what if he didn't look tough, or even particularly competent, as he did it? A clear-eyed look at the Carter record reveals something surprising: This bumbling, brittle, unloveable man was, by the standards that ought to matter, our best modern president."
RIP Jimmy Carter, the 'Passionless' President: The libertarian case for the late Jimmy Carter.


"But there was at least one way in which Carter excelled as president. He was, in the words of 2002 Nobel–winning economist Vernon Smith, the great deregulator. Carter forced the airline industry, along with interstate trucking and freight rail, to compete for business, with powerful and positive effects that continue to this day."
Jimmy Carter, 'The Great Deregulator,' 1924–2024: Nobel-winning economist Vernon Smith says the 39th president radically improved air travel, freight rail, and trucking in ways that still benefit us immensely.

If true, it would be a nice touch: I read in to-day's newspaper that Carter personally took care to disinvite His Orangeness from his funeral in advance.

And, as a result of the timing of Carter's death, flags will be at half-mast for Trump's inauguration.

I expect that there will be some incoherent, ignorant, MAGA rage as a result.

Carter and the ozone layer. Fortunately he wasn’t always a libertarian.

https://www.iflscience.com/the-time-jimmy-carter-probably-saved-the-world-and-almost-nobody-noticed-77415

Fortunately he wasn’t always a libertarian.

LOL

more grist for the mill

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/repost-much-of-what-youve-heard-about

Don't agree with everything, but I tend to think that future historians will mark the beginning of the end of the great American experiment as Reagan's presidency.

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