On Wednesday, July 11th pro-state and pro-liberty culture jammers went head to head outside the Cato Institute in Washington, DC. On the side of statism was the Yes Men, a clever group of post-modern "identity correctors" who have targeted the Heritage Foundation, the World Trade Organization, McDonald's, Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. On the side of freedom was your beloved Bureaucrash and our french friends at La Baf who were fortunately in town. Sometimes we may agree with the Yes Men but when anyone strays into targeting libertarian groups and ideas it's going to end up badly for them as long as Bureaucrash is around. And they were reminded of this as they left.

On Monday the Yes Men came to the Competitive Enterprise Institute representing themselves as a video production company working on a successor to the famous "Free to Choose" television series. CEI has a policy of talking to anyone about limited government and free-markets but one policy expert smelled a rat and after a few minutes detective work he discovered that he had just spent some quality time with the Yes Men. CEI then called other organizations and found out that they were currently filming at another organization and that the next day they were scheduled to be at the Cato Institute. So we set the trap.

The plan was to wait for them to get ejected from Cato with crashers waiting for them on the streets. As a homage to the Yes Men, who like to wear costumes from time to time, your dutiful crashers dressed as an Indian chief, court jester, Pilgrim, Santa and a construction worker. We told them that we were the "No Men and we say no to the state!"  before baptizing them as capitalists with a lot of glitter. They were good sports about it and after we suggested that it was unwise to mess with libertarians they took off.

ELSEWHERE:

Just Say No…to The Yes Men at CEI's Open Market Blog

Bureaucrash featuring la BAF crash les Yes Men at La Baf