Why there is somthing dodgy about Libertarians....

[Clanrickard]

I have always been suspicious of Libertarianism. I don’t know why but there is something not right about the adherents of this ideology. Many seem like harmless survival types akin to hillbillies only more articulate but I always got the whiff of extremism. Thankfully Little Green Footballs has been doing some digging and the results are disturbing.

This link Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters?: Libertarian movement veterans, and a Paul campaign staffer, say it was "paleolibertarian" strategist Lew Rockwell - Reason Magazine has the lowdown on who wrote some racist newsletters published by Ron Paul the former US presidential contender and darling of the libertarian movement. It says Financial records from 1985 and 2001 show that Rockwell, Paul's congressional chief of staff from 1978 to 1982, was a vice president of Ron Paul & Associates, the corporation that published the Ron Paul Political Report and the Ron Paul Survival Report. The company was dissolved in 2001. During the period when the most incendiary items appeared—roughly 1989 to 1994—Rockwell and the prominent libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard championed an open strategy of exploiting racial and class resentment to build a coalition with populist "paleoconservatives," producing a flurry of articles and manifestos whose racially charged talking points and vocabulary mirrored the controversial Paul newsletters recently unearthed by The New Republic. To this day Rockwell remains a friend and advisor to Paul—accompanying him to major media appearances; promoting his candidacy on the LewRockwell.com blog; publishing his books; and peddling an array of the avuncular Texas congressman's recent writings and audio recordings.

Paul and Rockwell are still good friends and Paul has refused to disavow these racist newsletters. Rockwell is the founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute which a few posters on here have in their signature. Among the friends of Rockwell and contributors to these “esteemed” institute are Gary North and here Gary North, Lew Rockwell, and the Politics of Stoning Heretics and Homosexuals to Death — tomgpalmer.com it points out that this bottom feeder advocates the stoning to death of homos but not only homosexuals but also “blasphemers, heretics, apostate Christians, people who cursed or struck their parents, females guilty of "unchastity before marriage," "incorrigible" juvenile delinquents, adulterers, and (probably) telephone psychics”. North is the son-in-law of one Rushdoony the founder of Christian Reconstructionism whose believers want a Taliban style Christian state based on the bible.

Other von Mises contributors include Joe Sobran who speaks at the Institute for Historical Review (I won't link to these bigots) which is an anti-Semite and Holocaust denying racist outfit. Murray Rothbard who supported Pat Buchanan’s bid for the presidency and was also a prominent supporter of Ron Paul and associate in publishing racist screeds referred to above.. Are those who espouse Libertarianism so ardently aware of the bigoted swamp dwellers that are paramount in their movement? I’ll be giving Libertarian institutes a swerve until they come clean on what they really stand for and I urge other readers to do the same.

[sandar]

there are also left wing and non right wing libretarians, the types of libretarians y0u mention in the OP are an american phenomoenon....and indeed very very scray....

[QuizMaster]

Libertarians are basically anarchists of the right. Although the OP seems to suggest the american variety is a grotesque corruption even of that.

[Clanrickard]

Libertarians are basically anarchists of the right. Although the OP seems to suggest the american variety is a grotesque corruption even of that.

Are they though? Is the American version so different from mainstream Libertarianism?

[marmurr1916]

Libertarians are dodgy? Like this man, who has been compared to a 'German Ron Paul'?

[Clanrickard]

Libertarians are dodgy? Like this man, who has been compared to a 'German Ron Paul'?

I don't speak German.

[QuizMaster]

I chanced across the british Libertarians in the 1980s when I lived there.
Basically they wanted to take Thatcherism to its logical conclusion and privatise everything to the point where the state would cease to exist.
I read a pamphlet of theirs "in defence of mercenaries". Basically calling for private armies to replace the defence forces. Likewise for police, the fire service etc etc.

I don't think they would have had time for religious fundamentalists, they were fervent in their pursuit of personal liberty, which would seem to go against that.
I don't know what became of them. Nice people though I disagreed with them.

[20000miles]

Clanicard that's some pretty devious guilt by associstion tactics. Are I hope you're not implying that the Misesians here are racist and homophobic. And I hope you're not trying to tar anyone with the same brush. The Mises institute is an economics think tank, not a political one. As such it doesn't take any political views.

IIRC Gary North wrote an entire 20 volume economic treatment of the Bible. Turns out God is an anarcho-capitalist. I also await the link to the passage where he says that homosexuals should be stoned to death (as that is the most liberarian policy one could imagine).

Oh yeah, if you really wanted to cause some outrage Clanicard you could have linked to Hans-Hermann Hoppe's "anti-gay" lecture. Or the fiasco around Walter Block's infamous wage gap lecture.


*edit: It appears that the Mises Institute may now be considered a terrorist group, as some of its members hold "revisionist" Civil War positions and have "extreme" anti-government doctrines.

[macdarawhitfield]

I chanced across the british Libertarians in the 1980s when I lived there.
Basically they wanted to take Thatcherism to its logical conclusion and privatise everything to the point where the state would cease to exist.
I read a pamphlet of theirs "in defence of mercenaries". Basically calling for private armies to replace the defence forces. Likewise for police, the fire service etc etc.

I don't think they would have had time for religious fundamentalists, they were fervent in their pursuit of personal liberty, which would seem to go against that.
I don't know what became of them. Nice people though I disagreed with them.

I met loads of them in the 80s in London.They wanted to legalise all drugs - including heroin - and prostitution too.Everything was to be private;to which end Trade unions would be banned.

On the other hand many of them were fierce 'Law and order' types and couldn't understand what had become of the old England they were used to.Irony bypass was the preferred surgical intervention long before liposuction was ever heard of.

I suppose P.J.O Rourke and his Republican Party Reptiles were pretty close:Reagan let's me keep my tax money and snort coke in private.He keeps the scum off the street.What's not to like?
What became of them,well some of them seem to write Phil Space pieces for the Indo/Sindo.

[Defeated Romanticist]

It is the same dialectical process as Marxism, destroy existing civilisation to allow a new one to be built from the ashes. I would not consider it "conservative" in any way other than incidental agreements on pionts of economics.

I think people like Paul are being slightly dishonest when they refer to themselves as "Constitutionalists". The authors of the US constitution were ardent protectionists afterall. The most Consitutionalist man in America might be Pat Buchanan, not Paul.