Paul vault opens can of worms
One career strategy I considered during my happy time at Reason magazine was to become just enough of a bright boy of the libertarian movement to allow me to stage a very public falling out, write a tell-all book with a title like Ex-Friends or Movement Man or Up From Libertarianism or Whose Freedom?, then build a career as a David Horowitz/Michael Lind-style intellectual turncoat, getting paid to warn the masses about the dangers posed by my erstwhile allies. The strategy was unworkable for many reasons: It was a little too dishonest even for me; libertarianism doesn't generate enough public interest to support a longterm market in defection; and as it happens, defectors from and within libertarianism are a dime a dozen.
But the tactic I was planning to use would have been very effective: Simply collect story after story of the moonlight-and-magnolias Confederate nostalgists, stop-the-war-on-men misogynists, traditionalist homophobes, scientific racists and similar fringe characters who seemed to gravitate toward libertarianism, in numbers that I and others found remarkable.
Actually, I probably wouldn't have been very good at this tactic either: I don't do well with policing unacceptable commentary, "kicking" people "to the curb," writing colleagues out of polite society, defining away extremists and all those other things movement types (in all movements) love to do.
Which is a longwinded way of saying I'm not well suited to commenting on the treasure trove of jarring commentary Jamie Kirchik is publicizing from Ron Paul's old newsletters. Virginia Postrel has a fairly succinct reaction that I agree with (though given the timing and Paul's own tepid response to the matter, I'd be inclined to dial back the ho-hum, been-there attitude), and I'm fascinated by Wendy McElroy's call for the true author of the commentaries (apparently a real person) to reveal him- or herself. And I could hardly improve on the coverage by my beloved former colleagues at Reason.
But I do think there's a discussion to be held among libertarians about why this political philosophy seems to draw so many (classically) illiberal figures; and the hubbub over Paul's newsletters, which are revelatory whether Paul wrote them or not, seems like an opportunity.
I say a discussion, not a show trial or an excommunication. I've learned a great deal from some of these illiberal figures, and I have no desire to make with the accusations. And libertarianism without kooks and cranks wouldn't be libertarianism.
But it's weird that a philosophy of non-aggression, ownership of self and property, individual choice, free trade and so on is so attractive to people whose greatest passsion is arguing that Abraham Lincoln was the foulest butcher in American history, that black people are stupider than white people, that Mexicans are naturally inclined to favor a welfare state, that our culture is being undermined by the feminization of boys, and so on. Folks of this stripe are present in not-inconsequential numbers in both small-l and big-L libertarianism. I can understand why drag queens, pot smokers, gun lovers and entrepreneurs are libertarians. I comprehend why localist, traditionalist, Chestertonian Christian types gravitate toward the movement.
But why are Confederate apologists attracted to a philosophy that draws so much of its thinking from either abolitionists (Lysander Spooner, Robert Green Ingersoll, Henry David Thoreau and others) or market-based freedom types (Adam Smith, J.S. Mill, etc.)? Why is Lincoln — whose one-liner "As I would not be a slave so I would not be a master" could easily be the motto of the Libertarian party — not given the same warts-and-all historical courtesy that is extended to Thomas Jefferson? Why does Woodrow Wilson's support for Jim Crow laws not get more attention among the many other particulars that cause libertarians to view him (rightly in my view) as the worst president of the twentieth century? Why the fascination with how different ethnic groups score on standardized tests if you believe in an individualistic, non-averaged universe?
I don't say these ideas have no place in libertarianism, an essential ingredient of which is not fearing either questions or answers. I do think the focus on so many of the Old Right's hobbyhorses crowds out much of what's more interesting (and certainly more marketable) in the philosophy. Postrel and Nick Gillespie were both skillful at steering Reason through more interesting territory, and I expect Matt Welch will continue that course. But as Ron Paul is not easily disowned, I think it's worth taking a look at the Old Right fellow travelers, if only to note where they are right and where they are (much more frequently) wrong. And since I've gone on too long and am in danger of speaking ex cathedra from my brittle MSM perch, that's all I've got to say. Except of course, Go Ron Paul!
As someone who has been involved in the libertarian (both big-L and small-l) movement for 20 years, I can readily agree with Mr. Cavanaugh about the strange assortment of --to put it nicely-- "oddballs" that seem attracted to libertarianism. I remember being a county chairman of the Libertarian Party and having to deal with self-styled "patriots" who believe that gold fringe around the American flag is indicative of a nation under military law and people who believe libertarianism is God's plan for all good Christians. Oh...and the "anarchists" who refuse to vote in elections, but none the less try to dictate the future of the Libertarian Party.
Yes. There are a fair number of curiously strange people this movement attracts, but they are still outnumbered by kind, helpful and sane people.
Posted by: Gene Trosper | January 09, 2008 at 07:20 PM
I spent $25 million and all I got was this lousy primary.
Posted by: Branden | January 09, 2008 at 07:15 PM
I don't think it's "nutty" or an apology for the Confederacy to remark on the tragic irony of the Civil War that ended slavery but at the expense of radically empowering the federal gov't.
Differences in the statistical distributions on intelligence tests by race are not wholly irrelevant because we *do* live in a society which looks at aggregate group performance in forming policy and court decisions -- predicated on the apparently inaccurate assumption that any differences are de facto proof of some form of discrimination.
Be careful that in isolating the true whackos that you don't play into the hands of those who would love to declare all discussions in these admittedly sensitive areas as un-PC.
Posted by: newscaper | January 09, 2008 at 07:10 PM
I have been a libertarian since college in the 60s. In graduate school in the early 70s I remember complaining to a colleague about some of the nutters in the movement. He was a dedicated Marxist and reassured me pointing out that there were letters between Marx and Engles complaining about the quality of individuals in the "working mens movement" and how marginal personalities were attracted to radical movements in order to try to define themselves as heroic or whatnot. It is probably a commonplace of every radical or fringe movement.
There is also an element of what I like to call the triumph of ideology over common sense. In libertarians it often takes the form of seeing every event that appears to extend government power as a per se evil and perversion. The civil war made the federal government more powerful, ergo the war to preserve the union was evil, ergo the confederacy was laudable etc.
I was personally exposed to this during my academic years when I has some affiliation with the old Center for Libertarian Studies in New York. As a student of history I was approached by a well known member of that organization who was concerned that one of his colleagues was manifesting an interest in holocaust denial -- since he saw the holocaust as one of the principal moral argument for US intervention in WW II -- an intervention he otherwise opposed on what he saw as good libertarian grounds. My advice of course was don't even think of going there.
The problem with history is it does not alway conform to our dearest wishes and we must choose our allies from what is available. Even though I consider myself a libertarian of the philosophical anarchistic variety, I constantly argue to my more radical friends that anyone who believes that the cause of liberty in the last two hundred years would have been advanced by the defeat or destruction of the American republic is sadly deluded.
I am not particularly prescient about these things but I thought Ron Paul was a moonbat all along -- even before the latest news came out. Conspiracy theories are a litmus test for moonbattery. The more of them a person cherishes -- especially if they are obsessive -- the less sound the critical faculties underlying that person's character.
Libertarianism deserves a better tribune.
Posted by: Mark | January 09, 2008 at 06:56 PM
Well, the libertarian philosophy is all-inclusive and accepts everyone, really. As a society, we have become fairly intolerant of intolerance, and so racist people have to be very very careful about speaking their minds. Under the libertarian mind-set people should be free to think however they want and say whatever they want no matter how offensive it is to others. For the blatantly racist, that appears to be a draw, as they have become a minority of sorts.
It makes me suffer from a little bit of cognitive dissonance; libertarians in general would be the first to condemn people who might act upon those beliefs. But I think it's really a tell-tale sign of the end of intolerant philosophies. They are so rejected from the common discourse that they have to take shelter in the camp that is open to everyone - even and especially those who they despise.
So long as they don't act on anything, I don't mind their company. At least their support gets put to good use promoting true equality.
Posted by: Dr. Saturn | January 09, 2008 at 06:35 PM
I don't see how pointing out the folly of what the Union citizens called "Mr. Lincoln's War" somehow makes one a "Confederate apologist." And it is outrageous to insinuate that it makes one an advocate of (or at least indifferent to) the horrors of chattel slavery. For each anti-slavery Lincoln quote you could cherry-pick, I could probably come up with ten from him in defense of the practice.
Lincoln destroyed our Old Republic, and set the stage for the out of control monster we now have occupying DC, not to mention 100+ years of racial turmoil that could have been avoided or at least lessened if slavery had been able to end peacefully like it did in every other country.
Mr. Lincoln's War was not fought to free any slave, but to "preserve the Union". So much for a philosophy of non-aggression.
Posted by: TM | January 09, 2008 at 06:35 PM
Perhaps the World's deviates are attracted to libertarianism because we won't punish them.
November 1971 Societyfor Iindividual Liberty Conference Columbia University School of Law, NYC. Everyone who was anyone in libertarianism was there. In a restaurant on Broadway after a session I'm sitting across the table from one of the giants of this young movement (you've all heard his name). He is telling me all about how the Holocaust didn't happen.
It didn't bother me then or now. When you're part of a movement that wants to abolish the State, disputes on WWII historyare pretty minor.
Posted by: Duncan Frissell | January 09, 2008 at 06:21 PM
I was a small l libertarian. After enough contact with the party I am convinced they will never amount to anything politically. The philosophy is fine, just the nutters whom it seems to attract and the fact that most people hear dog eat dog when you describe libertarianism. Essentially this country is socialist. We like to take the benefits of free market capitalism but when that demands we change we want government to take the heat and spare us the change.
Posted by: Richard Cook | January 09, 2008 at 06:11 PM
Libertarianism, as a philosophy, is essentially a reductio on classical liberalism. I consider myself primarily a classical liberal, in the Whig tradition of history, but with a judicious dollop of Burke and a firm conviction of the primacy of national defense.
I first came in contact with the Libertarian Party in California in the early 1970s, and what struck me about the party was how many of the Party Libertarians were third raters who believed they were first raters who would have been successful BUT FOR the evil government.
Philosophical libertarianism is socially tolerant as well as free market oriented, but the Movement has always attracted people with views well outside the mainstream of civilized discourse who use the tolerance of philosophical libertarianism as a shield to "let them hold whatever view they want" -- and to an extent, they're right to do so: a libertarian does believe that people are entitled to whatever views (however benighted they may seem) they choose and that things should be sorted out in the free marketplace of ideas (in Mill's phrase). It's natural that the nutcases on the right whose views are outside the pale would find that tolerance attractive.
Posted by: Cato Renasci | January 09, 2008 at 05:56 PM
Sometimes, I can't believe we have some nutters in our Ron Paul campaign like those above me. Complete nutters.
Posted by: KJ | January 09, 2008 at 05:41 PM
I would never describe myself as a Confederate apologist. But if the Hiroshima question, for example, is still an honest ethical conundrum so many decades after the fact, then a non-racist libertarian can be allowed to lose some respect for Abraham Lincoln, the man who instituted the federal government's first draft (i.e. slavery in the name of "national defense"). I'm not claiming to have all the answers to the dilemmas Lincoln faced. I'm just saying I have a right to be somewhat disappointed in him for that.
Posted by: Brian Sorgatz | January 09, 2008 at 05:38 PM
NEO-CON EXPULSION BY THE CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS ---
REAGAN CONSERVATIVES SHALL PURGE THEIR REPUBLICAN PARTY OF PODHORETZ NEO-CONS. THEIR OPPORTUNISTIC CONVERSION, FROM MC-CARTHY ERA NEO-MARXISM TO DEMOCRACY AND CAPITALISM, HAS NOW ENABLED THEM TO DECEITFULLY ACHIEVE THE DISASTEROUS SACRIFICE OF THE PRECIOUS WEALTH AND PRICELESS BLOOD OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FOR MORTALLY CONDEMNED ISRAEL. ---
OBSERVE THAT IN THE IOWA, WYOMING, AND NEW HAMPSHIRE CAUCUSES, THE SUM OF THE VOTES FOR THE FIVE CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS GREATLY EXCEEDS THE SUM OF THE VOTES FOR THE TWO NEO-CONS. THE MAJORITY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE REALIZE THAT THE NEO-CONS IN GOVERNMENT HAVE DONE FAR MORE HARM THAT GOOD TO GOD AND COUNTRY.
Posted by: Jeugenen | January 09, 2008 at 03:56 PM