Found it! The comic you seek is “Dan Rather” (1992).

While I was looking through the archives, I also found this strip from 1990.

The new movie may, for all I know, be part of the reason for the timing of the close. Every new Star Trek product that comes out actually requires some fairly expensive changes to the attraction, and in particular the large Star Trek future-history timeline that they have between the entrance and the two rides. Prequels are the worst, since they can’t just add more material on the end, but rather must start the whole thing over from scratch in order to add material at the beginning. If they were already thinking about closing the attraction, they may well have decided that they would be unlikely to make up the cost of the rewriting and retconning before the time came to pull the plug.

I’m just glad I got my “Romulan Ale — Legalize It!” t-shirt before they shut down.

Roderick:

So one can nonthickly argue that it’s not that case that we must be thicklib. But one can’t non-thickly argue that it is the case that we shouldn’t be thicklib.

Well, thick libertarianism is the claim that libertarianism as such provides good reasons for libertarians to care about other commitments besides a rigorous commitment to non-aggression. So it’s true that if, for example, a would-be thin libertarian is arguing that we should abandon a particular nonviolently held philosophical view about libertarianism (viz. the thick conception of it) for, e.g., reasons of libertarian strategy, then she is really advancing a form of thick, not thin, libertarianism.

But couldn’t a woud-be thin libertarian instead argue that we ought to abandon a particular nonviolently held philosophical view about libertarianism (viz. the thick conception of it) for other reasons distinct from and alongside our libertarian commitments? For example, that it should be abandoned for reasons of intellectual clarity, considered as desirable in itself rather than as a means to libertarian triumph or whatever else?

If so, then, while I would certainly disagree with the argument for abandoning a thick conception of libertarianism, I wouldn’t think that the argument is internally contradictory. The appeal only becomes an appeal to thickness if the reasons being given are reasons that the libertarian is supposed to have qua libertarian, rather than (for example) qua philosopher or qua clear thinker.

William:

We may not be able to directly speak of “all that really matters,” but we can get closer and closer by refusing to hold to our existing macroscopic abstractions.

Are you claiming that something like, say, the loaf of cornbread that I stuffed into my mouth earlier today is a “macroscopic abstraction,” whereas stuff like, say, up and down quarks are not abstractions, but rather concretes?

Really?

Characterizing something as a “rant” may seem like a handy rhetorical way of waving it off without actually engaging with its argumentative structure. But that’s really uncharitable and not especially productive of reasoned discussion.

I think that LRC is more of a mixed bag than Aster does (not because I disagree with her particularly about the criticisms she lodges against some of the content and authors that appear there, but rather because I think that it’s important to keep in mind how many different authors post there, and that they are not all marching in lockstep, either in general or on the issues Aster has in mind). But be that as it may, the kind of responses she’s gotten from Tracy Saboe and Anon73 are just silly.

If the high readership ranking of LRC is being specifically mentioned as a sign of progress, and one believes that the high readership ranking of LRC is not a sign of progress, then it makes sense to reply with criticism specific to LRC, in order to show that its being widely read is not as good a development as was originally suggested. Replying to that criticism with “If you don’t like it, go start your own” is just a non sequitur. Aster was giving counter-evidence in reply to a particular claim that had already been made; this is just a change of subject.

Replying to her argument with “at least they’re attacking the State,” on the other hand, is like a cartoon of thoughtless “shoulder-to-shoulder” Popular Front rhetoric. At least Stalin was fighting Hitler. (And vice versa.) But, really, so what?

If you think that Aster’s comments are unfair to LRC or Antiwar.com, you can try replying to that, but these kind of remarks, passed off as replies, don’t really even rise to the level of successfully replying.

PhysicistDave:

Since I am not sure whether I would consider you male or female, this seems appropriate. . . . And, even if you choose to fill us in on that, I’m still not sure which I would consider you to be.

Dave,

Who the fuck cares whether you would deign to consider Aster male or female? I can’t see how it’s any business of yours to say one way or the other. What does it matter to you?

What does matter, on the other hand, is what Aster considers herself–at least, that is, if you want to try to have a conversation with her according to basic norms of civilized politeness.

You used some language which, whatever your intent may have been, inadvertently caused her grief; she earnestly and straightforwardly explained the reasons why, and now, rather than doing something as simple and decent as apologizing for your inadvertent fuck-up, you’ve decided to get defensive about it, and back up the defensiveness with being a dick to her about it, first by repeating the same term you used earlier, and then by adding your wildly irrelevant and pointlessly presumptuous speculations on whether or not you personally would consider her female (as if anyone asked you; as if anyone other than you cares what you think about it). You could not possibly have been more rude if you were to address a black 16 year old as “boy,” and, when he asked you to choose another way to address him, you called him “boy” again and then went on to ramble about how you wouldn’t know whether to consider a 16 year old a “boy” or a “young man” or something else again.

This kind of callous rudeness is completely unacceptable and I think you ought to apologize to Aster for it.

All libertarians I know (and all non-libertarians I know, for that matter) of course recognize that freedom does include the right to sever relations with one’s biological family, and that, in some unfortunate situations, this may be the wise thing to do.

You know, I see no reason to think that Aster’s comments about the “familialism” of mainstream Chinese culture were directed against a position that countenanced the right to sever relations with one’s biological family. As far as I can tell, there is good reason to believe that failing to countenance that right is part of what she was complaining about, and part of what Natasha was complaining about after her. Has it occurred to you that when she criticized “familialism,” she was criticizing something that she identifies with that word, not necessarily what you identify with that word?

If you want to change the subject to something else — like, say, the position that custody of children ought to default to biological parents in the absence of some compelling reason for a different arrangement (which I doubt Aster or Natasha disagrees with) or perhaps the position that, although children have a right to sever ties with their parents for whatever reason, morally speaking, they owe a (non-enforceable) duty of filial obedience and morally ought to sever ties only under extreme and unusual conditions (which I know that Aster and Natasha disagree with, but which is a distinct position from the one that began this conversation), then you should feel free to discuss that, instead. But you do owe it to your readers to make clear that you are changing the subject, and not to pretend as if you are responding to Aster’s original comments.

Furthermore, a society that rejects family ties as the basis of society, as Western societies increasingly have, is unlikely to be libertarian. If people cannot rely on their family in difficult times, they are likely to expect the government to step in as a substitute. It is no coincidence that unmarried mothers, for example, tend to be supporters of big government.

If people cannot rely on their family in difficult times, then they are likely to rely on somebody other than their family. That need not be the government, and historically, there have been many institutions developed that provide mutual aid and support outside of family ties. (For example, the many workers’ societies and ethnic mutual aid societies that have always flourished in working-class immigrant communities, where, as a matter of necessity, working folks couldn’t count on support from their mostly overseas families.)

If you want to ask why it is in this country, today, that there is so much less of a mutual aid infrastructure in place than there has been in times place, and why there is so little institutionalized support for, say, single mothers, outside of the government welfare and education bureaucracies, well, that’s an interesting question to ask. But once you start asking it, you may find that it complicates your picture of the real dynamics here, and it becomes a lot harder to scapegoat single mothers for welfare statism.

Families are the one natural, primordial human institution

This is either vacuous or counterhistorical nonsense, depending on what you mean by “families.” If “families” means “nuclear families,” then it’s certainly not true that human societies are “naturally,” or always, arranged around those. If “families” means “extended family,” the claim is vacuous; ties of kinship are extremely variable across human societies, in terms of who counts as family, how important distant family relationships are (as well as how comparatively important ties of kinship by blood and by marriage are, etc.), and there is no fixed cross-cultural definition of just what the hell an extended family is. In late 18th century America it was extremely common for young children and adolescents to be packed off for years to live with very distant relations or family friends, in ways that would be unthinkable in contemporary American “nuclear families.” Who counts as family, how much certain kinds of family ties matter, etc. are all culturally variable phenomena which change a lot over time and space, and the particular form of family ties that are now common in bourgeois American families are a very late development, which has nothing in particular to do with nature and everything to do with American culture and American standards of living.

Finally, as a strategic approach for the libertarian movement, condemnation of a familial orientation is simply disastrous. . . . most human beings, if forced to choose between a political ideology and their family will — thank Heavens! — choose their family. . . . Of course, in the final analysis, it is all moot, because Asia still generally adheres to traditional human values, and Asia will triumph, as much as that pains Aster.

I have no idea what logical point all this guff is supposed to establish. Even if you’re right, the popularity or the material success of an ideology has no bearing on its truth or falsity.

I mean, look, I’m already throwing in for an ideology that proclaims a universal and unconditional right to shoot up heroin and bid for private surface-to-air missiles on eBay, while you engage in consensual sodomy, for (tax-free) money, with an undocumented immigrant while you the two of you cross back and forth over the U.S.-Mexico border. Do you seriously think someone who goes in for that sort of thing ought to be swayed by complaints that their beliefs about family ties might not go over well at the next Homeowners’ Association meeting?

Roderick:

No word on a running mate yet.

Oh, don’t worry. It gets worse.

David J. Heinrich:

Same sex relations may have a higher burden of proof, even if the teenager or near-teenager claims to be gay.

Um. Why?

Rob:

While Western cultures have made it the norm to prohibit sex between adults and anyone under 16 or 18, from my understanding of history, the majority of cultures throughout time (and even a lot of cultures today) have left the responsibility to decide with the parents of the child ….

It seems to me that somebody’s consent is getting lost in this discussion of “responsibility.” Can you guess whose?

Rob:

Concerning girls – if parents today were actually paying attention and protecting their daughters there would not be a need for government involvement in the issue of age of consent.

It’s interesting that, in a discussion of age-of-consent clauses in existing rape statutes — which usually do not say anything about gender — you’d spend your entire reply talking about “parents … protecting their daughters” and about the supposed sexual behavior of adolescent girls. I hear that adolescent boys sometimes have sex, too.

William H. Stoddard:

[The Republican Party] also has moved to big government, denial of Constitutional rights by presidential [fiat], unbalanced budgets, fiscal irresponsibility generally

Well, you know, all that’s not really anything new for Republicans.

I read the platforms of the dozen Libertarian candidates who got onto the California ballot (not including Paul, Barr, Gravel, or Ruwart) and I only thought three of them were remotely credible as libertarians; the rest included some conservative Republicans trying to claim the libertarian label

Indeed. As much as I despise Bob Barr, I actually have to say that he’s not the biggest tool in the LP race. Unfortunately, I can only say that because his competition happens to be Wayne Allyn Root.

Jon,

Depends partly on what you’re looking for, of course.

On superhero comics, I don’t have much to contribute other than what’s already been said.

In the broader field of comics, I really, really strongly recommend Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis books, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, and Dykes to Watch Out For (you might want to wait for a while on the last before buying; there’s supposed to be a big collection coming out this fall, with most of the run collected in one volume rather than spread out over 11 different (varyingly difficult-to-find) books.