^^^
So in other words:
“Guys can I be mainstream yet? I gave you the keys to my house, my moms car, all of my dad’s booze and porn. Don’t you guys want to hang out with me yet? We’re friends, right?! Hey where are you guys going?”
I’m no fan of North, but these “SkepticalLibertarians” are so pathetic.
+1
I’d never heard of that blog before that article. But just from that I have no idea what you could have against them. Could you please demonstrate what was so wrong/pathetic about that piece?
P.S. (to everyone)
Is it just me, or does Gary North remind you a lot of Robert Wenzel?
Yes North is a psycho. It’s not so much that I have a problem with the piece but that it was written in the first place. Half of this websites articles are like big red advertisements to anti-libertarian folk, saying “Hey you missed a spot over here by the christians, racists, conspiracists, insert fringe elements here. Oh yeah, also, that thing that all libertarians say all the time isn’t true. Have a good one!” Maybe they’re right and maybe they’re wrong on an article to article basis. Maybe many libertarians do get a lot of stuff wrong. But “Skeptical Libertarians” are far too eager to present their enemies with the soft, juicy, underbelly of the libertarian community. By sacrificing the lambs of conspiracists and racists, they gain the mantle/boy scout badge of “rational” and “open-minded”. Meanwhile, no one actually thinks that libertarians are actually less “kooky” or “racist”, because hey, the folks at SkepLib just pulled the sheets back on half a dozen of them, but at least we know that those SkepLib folks are modern, palatable, rational, sensible, moderate, insert platitudinal attribute here. Assuming that anti-libertarianists have the sense of charity or subtlety in their politics or reflection to see all of these veritable gifts of obvious targets presented to them by the sensible moderate SkepLib and separate them from Libertarianism (in a broad sense) is pure naivete or willful destruction libertarianism for personal self-aggrandizement. Or a combination of both.
This isn’t to say that one should be intellectually dishonest. If someone makes a valid criticism of your points you are honorbound to reply with honesty. We see this to be very different from bursting out of the gates, calling attention to all the undesireable or unpalatable aspects of libertarianism and then offering only the most accepted and basic criticisms of the mainstream (like marijuana legalization or minimum wage advocacy). It makes libertarianism utterly redundant. It crumbles it from the inside. It gains nothing for libertarianism and a nice chunk for its opponents. It is so blissfully naive or perhaps maliciously aware of the nature of politics, quotations, short-term memory span, etc.
EDIT: +1 on the North/Wenzel thing.
Internal criticism is extremely important. It is much better to have ‘internal’ criticism first of these kinds of issues than to be silent of them and have criticism come from the ‘outside’.
The mistakes here are made by Ron Paul and by Tom Woods. The only way to make them rethink their decisions is to publicly point out the mistakes. They obviously don’t understand the mistakes or else they wouldn’t make them. No personal message to them will change their mind on it.
Another link from long ago: http://reason.com/archives/1998/11/01/invitation-to-a-stoning
Gary North is not a libertarian, but I don’t know that that proves that he can not be useful in coming up with a home school curriciulum agreeable to libertarians and that it was a mistake to collaborate with him for this purpose.
I think a post reminding everyone about North’s non-libertarianism has positive value, but warning against working with him before the results can even be seen is a little bit alarmist.
Also I note that North seemed perfectly capable of holding his pro-theocracy views to himself when he was collaborating with libertarians in the past, eg when invited to speak at the LvMI.
Why have a non-libertarian be the person running the show and giving a lot of the lectures when their #1 teaching goal is “Liberty vs coercion in Western philosophy”.
Furthermore, North states explicitly in the introductory video that they want to teach Biblical values (interpreted by them, of course).
This is a statement by Ron Paul, which could be read on his Campaign For Liberty website when it was still up: “I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, and I endeavor every day to follow Him in all I do and in every position I advocate.” source
Clearly, Paul, North and co are not seperating out their ideas on religion in these courses. Woods himself also has his own spin on the ‘blessings’ of Christianity in the middle ages, which you can find on Youtube. And Woods is teaching those ideas in this curriculum.
You may be able to say these people are able to withold some of their views when speaking at LVMI, which is targeted at adults AND is uploaded publicly to Youtube. This project is different however. They’re targeting children and are explicitly including their religious views.
Me and fellow unschooler Skyler Collins are planning on making a podcast about: Why have a curriculum at all? It doesn’t allow children to form their own identity, particular interests and confidence. See here.
I can see where you’re coming from, but people like North exist. Would you rather them be outed by enemies, or libertarians? Personally I think if you have idiots distorting a philosophy you advocate (that is, claiming to hold the philosophy while advocating things against it), it is much more beneficial to be the first one to call them out.
Not only does it show your integrity, but it takes away an opportunity for your enemies to have an exposé.
I voiced a similar argument when someone here thought it was a good idea to create a Reddit for the sole purpose of documenting every time a libertarian said something that could be perceived as “not nice.”
It is in that realm that I think you have a point. But here, with lunatics like North, they kind of need to be called out before someone else does. As I said, they exist whether you like it or not, so the only thing you can do is acknowledge them as quickly and as loudly as possible, and make it known as best you can that you do not endorse or even entertain their idiocy, nor do you even identify with what they claim to represent i.e. Guys like North do not represent libertarianism.
(Many have made the argument, or at least asked the question, as to why the majority of muslims do not do this in response to the atrocities committed by their “radical” brotheren. When you’re looking an undeniable facts like this, what you say does not speak as much as what you don’t say.)
conspiracists and racists ==> good guys who happen to say something snotty
“open-minded” ==> “morally superior” and “nice”
Now you could be talking about someone else.
No argument there. Again, quite similar.
Aww, did you miss me?
(P.S., you do realize only one of those actually links to the forum, right?)
I think that it depends. I think that the expediency of ‘outing’ or ‘disowning’ someone depends a lot on how much they are already in the public eye. For instance, if Ron Paul tomorrow said that the Federal Government should grant the top 10 banks in the country all the assets of the lower banks, a total disowning across the libertarian blogosphere would be good. If however, there’s some guys digging up some digitalized Libertarian leaflets from 1977 Texas dappled with perjoratives towards blacks mexicans and asians, solely for the purpose of disowning them - then I think it is harmful. One might have had one’s political opponents be blissfully unaware of such advantageous ammo.
I feel like Gary North is like one of those guys who could have just slid by.
I don’t disagree with any of those points except the last sentence. Obviously it wasn’t any friends of Ron Paul who were digging up those newsletter quotes. And Gary North isn’t some series of words in decades-old newsletters. I don’t think that’s a fair comparison at all. There is a big difference between pulling out some piece of literature (particularly something that the person whom it will be mostly attributed to didn’t even write), versus calling out the philosophical beliefs of someone who is still incredibly prolific.
It’s one thing to go looking for some small thing that was said a long time ago, that does not line up at all with what the person has been saying his whole life…it’s quite another to call out an overall philosophy (that I doubt the person would deny).
Not only that, but obviously this article probably wouldn’t have been written had North not come out as one of the two front men for a Ron Paul curriculum. Obviously that name carries a crapload of weight and influence. As the article alluded to, Ron’s obviously not exactly hands on with this project, and he’s already proven (multiple times) he’s not the best when it comes to trusting people with his name and endeavors.
North pretty much has slid by for years…sure he’s been called out in the libertarian sphere, and I believe Reason pointed out some of those writings years ago, but largely he’s not very well known even in libertarian circles.
I think the point is, that can easily change when you stick the name “Ron Paul” on your letterhead.
Yes. I am giving you the topic as well as the background. I am nice like that.
Ok that’s a good point. Part of my post, as was probably obvious, was reaction at yet more SkepLib pawing out of its own toiletbowl and onto the/our floor.
I have to say that TSL has been a growing favorite blog of mine in regards to libertarianism and other “fringe” areas of interest. I think the reason a lot of people don’t like them is that they are willing to call out libertarian scholars with a reason why on various topics, whether cultural or political. People don’t like that libertarians are showing the faults of other libertarians, but hell it may be time to face up to them. Libertarian Moron of the Day is pretty amusing too.
This is exactly the shit I’m talking about.
Reminds me of a Russian joke:
The American says “In my country we have free speech! I can go to the white house and say ‘I hate Ronald Reagan!’”
The Russian says “Oh, we have free speech too! I often go to the Kremlin and shout ‘I hate Ronald Reagan!’”
“Libertarian Moron of the Day is pretty amusing too.” sounds like the influence of hater culture to me.
Their overuse of buzzwords is a major tell of just how lame they really are. Quack, conspiracy theorist, etc. It’s like they have them macro-ed to hotkeys. Almost feels like I’m reading Bill Maher or Chris Matthews.
Of course, any conversation of the type could go on forever, so the easy solution is, just look at them:
http://www.skepticallibertarian.com/contributors
And then reading their bios, it’s like a shrine to conventional thought. They can tell you up and down about monsanto and 9/11 but couldn’t find a decent barber and the discount rack at sears was the extent of their wardrobe budget.
Yeah, I’ve been following that blog/group for a few weeks as well. Mixed feelings about it overall. I think there is some value in the group introspection–I’m more interested in what’s true, and if libertarians are in fact wrong about something, I’d rather have it corrected than tolerated. So far I’ve found TSL’s views on vaccines, flouride, conspiracy theories (there’s some really stupid ones) and climate change to be quite “sane”.
But other times, they can be shockingly over-critical (assuming the criticism is even correct) to an extent that’s totally counter-productive and damaging. The vitriol is especially thick against anything remotely touching religion (as if it automatically disqualifies you from being a rational person), and that wears thin for me even though I’m not terribly religious.
They often preach about relying on science, studies, and emperical evidence, but sometimes you get fed links like this apparent defense of intellectual property law, which has seemingly zero hard evidence or data to back it up as far as I can tell.
Quite appropriately, drawn on a napkin (since we’re just casually making up charts, I don’t even agree on the shape or position on the curve):
I’ll probably stay subbed to their group (unless I get sufficiently annoyed some day) just for the alternative perspective and news links, but it’s definitely something to take with a grain of salt.
This line really got me.
oh yeah, why is Ron Paul associated with this man?
Is there really such a ridiculous xmasian fundamentalism that i somehow missed over these last few years? I mean, I knew Tom Woods was a Catholic or whatever, but they cannot be that crazy can they? Have I been lulling myself into thinking that major religions are innocuous except for issues like astrophysics and evolution?
EDIT: Holy shit, I just looked it up. Ron paul doens’t believe this sort of thing does he? I wonder if psychoanalytically we might think that when poeple succumb to the fear of all of the conspiracy shit that they turn to religion in such forms.