Reason Magazine Rips off ¡Ask a Mexican! with 'Ask a Libertarian'

Reason Magazine Rips off ¡Ask a Mexican! with "Ask a Libertarian"

By Gustavo Arellano Fri., Jun. 17 2011 at 10:30 AM

Reason Magazine, the nation's premier libertarian publication, firmly believes in the free market, and part of that free market is wantonly ripping off other ideas. That's the explanation for their decision this week to host a day of YouTube clips called "Ask a Libertarian," in which editors Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie took questions via Twitter, email, and Facebook and answered them via YouTube, just like I do with my ¡Ask a Mexican! column. They'd call themselves captains of industry; I call them appropriating capitalists. Unless they're anyone but Steve Allen, they've stolen my bit!

In reality, I laughed when I heard Welch (my former editor at the Los Angeles Times' op-ed pages) and Gillespie--who obviously got the idea for it after interviewing me for Reason.tv-- announced the one-day special, and I suggest they do more of them. The full list of videos is here--enjoy!

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mitch young

I'm willing to bet money there have been "Ask a [noun]"? columns in the media going back to before teh interwebs even.

Here, for example, is a reference to an 'Ask a Nurse' column in a newsletter, dated 1999.

http://www.cbbsweb.org/cbbstod...

Maybe the Weakly's contribution is making that a proper noun.

Guest

Go, Gustavo!

Chavez Hated Illegals

But "Ask a Mexican" wasn't Gustavo's idea either. It was suggested by his white editor. Otherwise Gustavo would only be writing about some taqueria or noodle bowl place.

20ftJesus

Amazing. A useful post from Gus for a change.

MayhemInTheHood

Matt Welch rules. He is often the voice of reason(no pun intended) on the LA Angels blog that I contribute to/edit (Halosheaven.com...it's the best Angels website out there, and Matt Welch being one of the authors is only further proof).

mitch young

Libertarians are like idiot savants, libertarianism is applied autism (C Vann Carter).

The 'Reason' [sic] type libertarians are all for open borders. Then they bitch and moan about legislators -- a large number of whom are 'Latinos'-- voting to impose mandatory health care coverage, transfers of wealth from those who earn it to 'the poor', etc.

Here's a clue, libertarians (who are, btw, almost universally white, even the Julian Sanchez that works at 'Reason'[sic] is white) -- poor immigrants are not machine tools or dime bags. They vote, or have children that vote, and they generally vote to take property and restrict freedom.