THE "LIBERTARIAN MOMENT" RETURNS, IN A CAMEO ROLE.

Dana Milbank at the Washington Post on Chris Hughes, the internet doofus who has lately been mulching The New Republic:

...Hughes lashed out in a group email to staff because [New Republic] senior editor (and former Post reporter) Alec MacGillis had dared to propose writing a piece about Apple avoiding taxes just after Apple’s Tim Cook had come out of the closet. Hughes shot back that “Apple has acted squarely within the law” and that MacGillis’s argument would be “tone deaf.” MacGillis quickly backed off, but Hughes did not, writing twice more to defend Apple’s tax strategy and to call Cook “incredibly heroic” for coming out.

As you might expect, the g-factor causes a frother at rightwing Jesus site First Things to explode in straight rage:

Capital is cloaking itself in the rainbow flag... One must choose one’s loyalties. In this case and in many others, the Democratic Party and its organs have chosen the sexual desires of the rich over the economic aspirations of working Americans... Gay rights have allowed oligarchy to put on progressive drag...(et hetero)

Come let us Reason together, says National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru to the frother: Ponnuru's not asking him to like Those People, but he does ask him to focus on the greater good:

Even if the generalization is true — and it may well be — this comment seems a bit off. It’s not at all obvious to me that Apple would be doing any great favors for “working Americans” by paying more taxes than legally required. I can well see how social conservatives might be nostalgic for an older form of liberalism that placed less emphasis on sexual liberation than today’s. Nostalgia should not, however, lead conservatives to parrot that liberalism’s view of the economy.

In other words: Fag-bashing may be fun, but give Hughes a break -- he was after all defending a corporate oligarch, and isn't that really what the new libertarianism-injected conservatism is really all about?

Like I've been saying all along, libertarianism is just a niche brand of conservatism, and you see it more clearly when the parent brand asserts it.

UPDATE. In comments, hellslittlestangel encapsulates nicely: "While it's true that Jesus said, 'Hate your neighbor,' let's not forget that he also helped the money-changers get a tax-exemption for working out of a temple." But Rugosa is puzzled: "'Sexual desires of the rich'? Does that mean that having lots of money causes the gay? So maybe we should tax the wealthy into heterosexuality."