If
Libertarianism is ‘toast.’
Joel
Miller rhetorically asked in his July 19th column if Libertarianism
is ‘toast.’ He thinks not. He is wrong. But not for the straw man
reasons he used to attack that assertion when originally made by
Clinton apologist Joe Conason.
Joe’s
information came from an accurate source but the source did not
know nearly enough.
Libertarianism
is dead as the Dodo because; contrary to all of their emotive rhetorical
devices, chest beating, and posturing Libertarians are not about
freedom but about privilege.
The
free-market is not the property of Libertarianism and the other
positives to come out of this faltering political movement in the
last 30 years are not enough to make it relevant to the 21st century.
Recycling rhetoric on gun rights and the market, although ecologically
appropriate, is sadly flat.
I
know. I am intimately familiar with the both the past and present
tense of Libertarian Party and with all of its major ancillary institutions.
I served within the Libertarian Party locally, on a state level
and nationally for many years.
Libertarianism
appealed to me because I care passionately about freedom and human
rights. Human society is a market for ideas that make humans freer,
more prosperous, and happier. Unfortunately Libertarians have never
acted to affirm a belief that otherly gendered individuals, namely
females, are human.
Libertarians
have never spoken or acted to end abusive behavior towards women.
In fact, they accept vile behavior without blinking. Perhaps they
were badly raised; perhaps they are inherently uncivil but they
cannot see women’s issues as issues of human rights.
Therefore
domestic violence is not an issue for Libertarians. Selling children
for sex, marriage law that is in effect a system of wealth transfer
enforced by the State, State interference with custody of children,
and such crimes as rape are also non-issues for many Libertarians.
To complete the picture a significant number of Libertarians are
explicitly authoritarian when confronted with choices that personally
benefit them.
In
one way or another they have spoken loud and clear through their
actions, personal and political, as well as though their rhetoric
to two generations of Americans who looked, judged, and went elsewhere.
How
do I know this? Personal experience. You gather a lot of personal
experiences when you are active in a movement at all levels for
30 years.
Let
me hasten to assure you that I know it is not appropriate to hold
a movement responsible for some small subset of individuals and
that is not what is happening here.
I
am not talking here about some obscure LP members and organizers.
I am talking about some of the most prominent and long term members
and supporters of that movement. I am talking about Mr. Deceit himself,
Michael Emerling-Cloud, presently the LP candidate for US Senate
in Massachusetts; Manny Klausner, Attorney for John Fund and Matt
Drudge, one of the three founders of Reason Foundation and the bulwark
and mainstay for David Horowitz’s Center for Popular Culture, John
Fund, formerly of the Wall Street Journal, Walter K. Olsen of the
Manhattan Institute, Bob Poole, President and Founder of Reason
Foundation, Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report, Eugene Volokh, wonkish
presence-dim and professor of law at UCLA, and a host of others
less prominent on the national scene.
Are
there some good people? I like to think so – but still nothing happened
on issues of immediate and compelling interest to women. Although
Wendy MacElroy always rushed to assure us that it would all be better
if women had access to pornography. Wendy is the token woman of
the Libertarian Movement. She never seemed to understand that women
who juggle a job, kids and a home don’t have time or interest in
anything that complicated. I had five kids so I knew. I spent a
lot more time on thinking about the cupcakes for the room parties
than I did about sex.
The
LP could have been a real influence for good in America if they
had been able to see the difference between doing the right thing
and going after political power for their own profit and personal
aggrandizement. But if they were different kinds of people I might
still be one.
What
kind of individual considers the political usefulness of an abuser
when pressuring the victim into silence? What kind of newspaper
overlooks egregious behavior because their hypocritical and supposedly
pro-life employee is still useful? What kind of individual tells
a father hysterical over the suicide attempt of his son that the
kid should have used a higher caliber weapon to blow his brains
out? What kind of person does it take to overlook decades of friendship
for possible fundraising benefits? What kind of cynical sleaze would
intentionally deceive and destroy other campaigns to eliminate inconvenient
competition for fundraising dollars?
The
individuals named above have each participated in some subset of
these offenses. If you ask which is which I will be glad to tell
you.
They
remain among the most respected senior statesmen of the movement
while their disgusting behavior is ignored, celebrated and emulated
or at least justified.
A
movement is morally bankrupt when it fails to self-police; ignores
the laws of causality regarding observed behavior and public opinion
and pretends to a standard of honor and commitment they never possessed.
By failing to see immediate issues of personal freedom such as domestic
violence as issues and by failing to prove that they as a community
can govern themselves they have proved themselves moral unfit for
public trust. They are no better than the present group of rascals
and scoundrels and far less electable. And they are not nearly as
good looking.
The
Libertarians are morally bankrupt. You can now start bidding on
the office furniture.
Cordially,
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
