I confess to a certain affection for BureauCrash, though I don’t read it often.

For the uninitiated, BureauCrash is a right libertarian multiauthor blog and discussion forum devoted to ending business regulation as we know it and elimination of income taxes, with a bit of Ayn Rand objectivism, Ludwig Von Mises goldbuggery, and probably casual marijuana use thrown in.  The audience at BureauCrash is in some ways as close to anarchism as to libertarianism.

Or they were.

In actuality, BureauCrash some time ago was acquired by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank which certainly advocates vigorously for free enterprise, but in other respects is about as unconventional as the Rotary Club.  Think Main Street Republicans.  Think Zell Miller Democrats, assuming any of those are left.  As foundations go, CEI is probably as close to the Brookings Institution as it is to the Cato Institute.

Last month CEI showed  its hand.  In a “hope you like our new direction” move, CEI has installed an administrator who announced his intent to moved the content in a decidedly less individualistic direction, along with adding links, since removed, to such libertarian stalwarts as Rush “warrantless wiretapping is good for America” Limbaugh, and Michelle Malkin, who thinks concentration camps are essential to ordered liberty.

And in the BureauCrash chatroom, the new “Crasher in Chief” dropped CEI science on the longhaired hippie kids thus:

The fact that the government violates its own laws doesn’t change the fact that it is my government

You should accept that might makes right…and that is why we have a government

Since America has the most powerful military we are in control

The government is there to protect life liberty and property

Did I like McCain….no. Did I vote for him over Obama yes.

None of which went over too well with a member base that worries, in its heart of hearts, that Dr. Ron Paul is a secret stooge because he voluntarily complied with licensing requirements of the Texas Medical Board.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the “Crasher In Chief’s” stated desire to expand the site’s userbase by thousands upon thousands of good-thinking, like-minded Republicans like Joe the Plumber, participation seems to have declined precipitously, even as America soaks in the dregs of a million tax-protesting tea parties.  The hard libertarians, minarchists, and anarchists are moving to  blacker pastures.

All of which brings to mind a couple of questions: What did these kids see in a state-controlled Competitive Enterprise Institute-run social networking site in the first place, and why did the CEI want to add them to its holdings?

Via Kalim Kassam through Twitter.

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