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Libertarian float in the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Pride parade. The
work of a rightwing hate group? (courtesy Whited Sepulchre)
Who are those libertarians?
A recent issue of the conservative American Spectator headlined an article, "The Great Hate Hype: Are Libertarians Dangerous?" (The italics are theirs.)
The article is written in response to a report published by the civil rights organization, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
According to American Spectator, the SPLC report "presents a rather grim and alarming portrait of the state of extremist organizations in America."
Which extremist organizations? Hate groups on the American political right.
The brief Spectator article talks about "Patriot groups" and "militias" and "extremist organizations" and "conspiracy theories" and "libertarians."
The first reaction by libertarians must be, "Why is the SPLC including us in their list of rightwing hate groups?"
First, Libertarians are not rightwing, nor are they leftwing, since they reject the very notion of a left-right political scale. The only "scale" they recognize is freedom-antifreedom.
Second, libertarians are not physically "Dangerous" to anyone since they categorically reject coercion and threats of coercion as having any proper role in civilized human society.
They are "Dangerous" only in the political sense that they threaten the rule of freedom-haters.
But the Spectator claims SPLC's roster of hate groups includes an organization called "We the People" and then associates libertarians with the group, such as 2004 Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik, Reason magazine editor Nick Gillespie, Texas Rep Ron Paul, and Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox News.
The Spectator even claims to have contacted the Alabama chapter of "We the People."
SPLC maintains a "hate map" on its website that lists 32 hate groups in Alabama. "We the People" is not one of them.
So what exactly does the SPLC have to say about libertarians and why are libertarians thrown into the "Dangerous" rightwing stewpot?
The SPLC report referred to by the Spectator article is titled, "Rage on the Right - The Year in Hate and Extremism."
Note that neither "libertarian" nor "Dangerous" appears in the report's title.
Note too that nowhere in the 1,254-word document does the SPLC mention libertarians or the Libertarian Party.
As far as can be determined, then, SPLC neither currently lists an Alabama chapter of "We the people" as a hate group, nor mentions libertarians in association with them.
Which means the SPLC is not lumping libertarians in with rightwing hate groups.
Which means it's the conservative American Spectator that's doing it.
Many libertarians still believe the conservative right is their natural ally.
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Comments
Google "We the People" and you get zillions of hits. If the group the Spectator referred to is at wethepeople.org, then their agenda at the Sons Of Liberty Declaration Of Freedom page suggests they are not libertarians ("Topple Hugo Chavez and gain unfettered access to Caribbean oil", "Deport all Muslims", "Enforce common decency laws throughout the US", and more. They seem sincere on drastically cutting gov't, and although they're pro-life, I never judge a libertarian on that religious issue.)
Are they a hate group? They want to deport Muslims and they have some rather obnoxious attitudes towards gays. But they don't strike me as Nazis or Klansmen. I found nothing on their site against Jews or blacks, so they don't fit the White Supremacist mold.
Well, I admit I do kinda hate the delusion that coercive government is a proper way to deal with problems (and non-problems that upset the control-freaks).
Depends a lot on your definition of the word "hate." Or "dangerous."
Anyone who has studied the SPLC knows they have no pattern for who they declare to be a hate group -- certainly no actual hate is required. They're a bunch of nutjobs who are unfortunately well-funded.
thanks for posting this.
That's me on the right. Sue and I had just finished duct taping to the trailer our "Best Social Commentary" trophy awarded to the local LP Counties a couple of years earlier. We didn't win this year but it was still a lot of fun.
Check out http://www.Libertarian-International.org for information on what these extremists are doing...
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