Now I get all the animosity directed towards CATO

Miscellaneous Current Events
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I always thought the infighting between various forms of libertarians ranging from Rothbardians (which I consider myself) to the much more mild forms such as those at the Cato Institute was counter productive and just extremely silly. I know personally I have several friends whom are somewhat sympathetic to the libertarian position but always put off when I go past minarchism and talk about complete abolition of the State and private police and so forth.

Anyway, rather than attempt to force this on them and most likely have them regard libertarianism negatively from their experience I don’t waver in my beliefs any, yet I don’t push them to take it to that next step. Oftentimes I have sent them the way of places like the CATO Institute feeling it would be an appropriate fit as it was a libertarian and pro free market organization that reinforced those beliefs but in a way which I like to call “socially acceptable” or basically not taking it as far as it should go. Figuring this was way better than having them remain in a Statist cloud I was confident and comfortable recommending the CATO Institute to numerous people who met the above description.

Today I got slapped in the face with a hefty dose of reality. I doubt this one research fellow at the CATO Institute can speak on behalf of the entire organization, but its still appalling to see something like this:

I was reading an article in newsweek when I came across the following gem:

“There’s no doubt the libertarian argument, springing from the sanctity of private property, was adopted by bigots looking for respectable cover”

I was pretty shocked to see the author is a research fellow at the Cato Institute. Which I thought was libertarian. The article is here:
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/21/why-rand-paul-is-right-and-wrong.html

I’m at a loss to add commentary, still mostly stunned, appalled, confused, and outraged.

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It’s not entirely clear to me if he’s describing Paul (either) or an occurance that happens elsewhere.

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Ok I actually misread and misinterpreted his statement on my initial reading. It is nowhere near as bad as I thought. For whatever reason (likely my head cold) I read the word “adopted” and mentally changed it to “adapted” so that I thought he was suggesting Libertarianism today is an idealogy crafted by bigots.

Clearly that is not what he is saying at all, and his comment is way less offensive than I obviously thought. That being said I still strongly disagree with his matter of fact claim that there are no doubt scores of bigots whom flock to libertarianism for respectable cover.

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More idiotic horsesh*t about how “libertarians” are the ones to blame for leveraging the state for racism & Jim Crow laws.

I saw similar nonsense on the bill Maher show a half hour or so ago, & promptly changed it when a self-reighteous guest didn’t bother addressing anything (by another guest’s arguments, who was from the American Spectator, which admidetlly is conservative) proposing that people who were reactionary conservative racists & vying to utilize state power to enforce their preferences via Law were actually co-opting a more populist label (libertarian) in order to pass favorable legislation and/or sneak it in, & probably would be dumbfounded if asked about whether or not the state facilitates incentives for people to enforce their preferences upon others.

Instead, this guy (who happened to be Black, and since they were discussing race & Jim Crow laws, no one would dare possibly raise an objection to his well-intentioned & understandably frustrated logic of the subject, simply out of fear for political correct backlash) quickly proclaims, in an ending statement to a non-argument “Interventionism is beautiful”.

Interventionism is what caused the Jim Crow laws in the first place. But then again, if we question interventionism even the slightest, logically we would eventually question the state since that’s essentially all it does (aside from re-distribution, & monopolization). And of course, questioning the state in turn is just simply beyond ludicrous & out of the question for any reasonable person to think of.

I apologize for the run-on sentences, but it would be stuck in my head all night on repeat otherwise.

This link also reminded me of a reading response to another article (on similar issues) here.

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I hear your frustration. The Bill Maher example struck home with me. I actually used to like and watch that show before I understood Austrian Economics and Libertarianism back during the Bush era and found the show entertaining and agreed with his harsh criticisms on Bush.

Now that I understand the world around me, I literally can’t watch that show anymore. I’ve tried. Twice. It just enrages me.

I liked the link you posted, read very much like my mental dialogue everytime I read an article like that.

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Well-said, Nitroadict.

I think it’s also apparent that private markets were desegregated long before public policy, due to economic pressures. The state doesn’t respond to any such pressures and requires the whole of society to stand behind an issue before they will change (and not a moment earlier), whereas in the market people can stand out and create new mutually beneficial profit-generating jobs and trades long before everyone else will have to be on board.

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I’ve always thought that the greatest threat to libertarianism/free markets are those who claim to support them, but really don’t, or aren’t principled enough in the way they go about it. That’s why I think Rothbard was so critical of people like Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan.

Our enemies then take what these people say and use it as a straw-man to descredit libertarianism.

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I generally disagree with Rothbard’s basis of libertarianism by now (natural rights, law etc.), but I do agree that he a good point in objecting to LINO’s (as any libertarian would). I’m pretty sure consequentalists do so all the time.

More importantly, I think it’s noteworthy that not everyone co-opting libertarianism is necessarily doing it intentionally. Some people are just too stupid or lack enough knowledge or understanding of libertarianism to understand, coherently, that they aren’t libertarian, even if they call themselves so.

An example would be traits associated with libertarianism, such as a focus on individual liberty: a lot of people would fiercely admit they are all about individual freedom, but then they make exemptions thinking that it does not restrict individual freedom (i.e. for themselves or for certain others, or for things they do not understand coherently such as economics).

There is an intersection of ignorance, good intentions, arrogance, malice, & genuine stupidity (in the low IQ sense) that produces both LINO’s and mis-interpretations of libertarianism, that helps breed said co-opting in the first place.

The only thing that seems to be ultimate remedy for this, is for gradual market processes to eventually address these areas until a good amount of the population no longer fit clearly into these categories regarding the question: What is libertarianism?

I think given another decade or two of the internet & we will gradually see more & more people understanding a few more things that are key to lesser understandings in general, especially after social networking is so established in culture, that instant rebuttals online to such areas are capable of being displayed to many on-lookers at a given time, in addition to the author of said mis-interpretations, lies, etc. of libertarianism (or any other subject ,such as psychology, biology, etc.).

A good current example of the “wisdom of interacting crowds” is the frequently insightful comments left in sites like Slashdot.

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I get a kick out of seeing all the sheeple go nuts over this. This whole idea that being a jerk should be a legally punishable crime is so goddamn absurd that it’s frankly stunning how many people believe it.

What’s next–a law against adultery? (Are you saying you support someone’s right to cheat on his wife!? Monster!) A law against lying to others? (Nobody will be honest if government doesn’t force them!) How about a law against not bathing? (People won’t maintain their personal hygiene without government edicts!)

The left is just as incapable of understanding the difference between a vice and a crime as the religious right.

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Serving people at a counter is just like marrying someone!

Lying sometimes is illegal, in court, defamation.

They do, so it’s not a problem.

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"I saw similar nonsense on the bill Maher show a half hour or so ago, & promptly changed it when a self-reighteous guest didn’t bother addressing anything "

I only saw a few minutes of that show because that is all of the stupidity I am able to tolerate in one burst on a voluntary basis.

But did you catch the opening comments of the girl in the middle proclaiming herself as a libertarian? What I found rather encouraging was the fact that she felt the need to separate herself from those “libertarians who are calling for the outright abolishment of government”. This to me is a sign that the liberty movement is no longer being dominated by the old classical liberal philosophy. This is a very positive sign.

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Very few minarchists favor only the night watchman state.

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“That being said I still strongly disagree with his matter of fact claim that there are no doubt scores of bigots whom flock to libertarianism for respectable cover.” - Robert

Why so? I can tell you that I’ve personally met quite a few, people who are for example very racist and turn to the idea of property rights as a refuge for their views. Usually you can tell them and other such types apart from actual libertarians because when other property right issues come up, like the right to smoke in a restaurant, all of sudden they waver in their ideology.

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Why so? I can tell you that I’ve personally met quite a few, people who are for example very racist and turn to the idea of property rights as a refuge for their views. Usually you can tell them and other such types apart from actual libertarians because when other property right issues come up, like the right to smoke in a restaurant, all of sudden they waver in their ideology.

This, and this:

Rand Paul won the Republican primary in the Kentucky Senate race and almost immediately stepped into a big pile of steaming controversy by telling Rachel Maddow that he did not support Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Since then few voices have defended his statements on Maddow’s show, with John Stossel as one of the rare exceptions. In his recentChristian Science Monitor op-ed on this topic, Sheldon Richman defends Paul’s statements saying, “individuals are either free to do anything peaceful or they are not.” I reject libertarian objections to Title II precisely because I agree with the quoted remark: individuals are either free to do anything peaceful or not. (For the record: I’m not a libertarian, but the quoted statement is a logical truth, not a political program.) Black and white people in the recently-Jim-Crow South would not have been free to associate without the assistance of Title II.

There was quite bit of non-state violence in opposition to integration. The murder of Medgar Evers is an historical representation of the problem. Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” is a fictional representation of the same problem. Thus, an entrepreneur who served black and white customers indiscriminately might have been at personal risk of injury or death. Non-state actors used coercion to prevent free association. In that context, it makes sense to defend the right of association by prohibiting “places of public accommodation” from discriminating on the basis of “race, color, religion, or national origin.” The law protected entrepreneurs by making it hard for persons who prefer forced segregation of the races to identify fitting targets of racist violence. It would have been better if no coercion had been applied either by state actors or non-state actors. But that option was not available. Title II was a reasonable pro-liberty measure to reduce coercive restrictions on the right of association.

We cannot measure how much coercion would have been applied to prevent blacks and whites from associating had Title II been absent from the bill. We cannot measure it the way we can measure the circumference of the earth. Part of the problem is that coercion includes the threat of violence and the threat of non-state violence is vague and hard to measure. It is very real nevertheless. Thus, it might be possible to challenge the empirical grounds of my argument. But I think the history of the civil rights movement contains enough episodes of segregationist violence to support the hypothesis that Title II reduced coercive limitations of the right of association.

From here.

15

Kopple thinks laws against real crime aren’t enough so we need laws against things that aren’t ‘crimes’ because without laws against those its easier for people to commit crimes?

16

It seems as if people are missing a step. States (like the one I live in - Alabama) passed laws violating property rights by forcing segregation. The federal government then passed another law violating property rights in a different way - forced integration.

On the one hand integration is probably a good thing if done voluntarily, so I at least agree with the basic “moral premise” so to speak. But on the other hand I’d prefer a state make a bad law than the federal government. Power is better left decentralized so mistakes aren’t magnified.

There was an article on lewrockwell.com this week that brought up the example of a Jewish restaurant owner being forced by law to serve a Neo-Nazi in an SS uniform.

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“Kopple thinks laws against real crime aren’t enough so we need laws against things that aren’t ‘crimes’ because without laws against those its easier for people to commit crimes?” - nirgrahamUK

What, you were expecting coherence?

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