Einstein and libertarianism
It was on, I think both, the goofy libertarian Mises Rand freak website of lewrockwell.com and the blog for Reason, though a quick search only shows up the lewrockwell item, that I saw this oh so provocative question “Was Einstein a Libertarian?”
At least he admits the ridiculousness of affixing Einstein into a predisposed idea. But to review, so much as his politics can be looked at.
He tended to dodge from totalitarian or bureacratic governments en route for Scientific Inquiry. He hated War, and was signatory to what was an aborted petition stating the fervent desire that once hostilities around WWI ended (whatever the hell this fight was about), everyone across nations would b e able to commence forward in the great inquirous quests of Humanity. He was horrified by the specter of Hitler, and to that end let Roosevelt in on the power of the Atom lest the Allies lose an Atomic Race to the Axis Powers. And he warned that targetting a civilian city for destruction would indeed constitute a War Crime. After the war ended, he was terrified by the prospects of the Cold War in this New Nuclear Age, and hitched his name to the presidential bid of One Worlder and Soviet Accomodationist Henry Wallace.
Oh, and also he made a snide comment about the incomprehensibility of the Income Tax.
A bit stuck at the spectre of the Henry Wallace Libertarians, I can’t quite figure out what the point of this “Einstein was a Libertarian Exercise” was. Does this illuminate anything at all?