The gift that keeps on giving for Dave Weigel
In this Christmas season, Reason magazine Associate Editor (soon-to-be employed at the Economist) keeps getting the gift that keeps on giving to him and that’s the infamous newsletters from 1989-1994 that Ron Paul’s name was attached to where unflattering things were said about Martin Luther King Jr., Barbara Jordan, welfare recipients, LA rioters and black criminals in Washington D.C.
Weigel got the Ron Paul beat as soon as Reason stopped snickering at and took interest in his campaign i.e. as soon as he raised a boatload of money. The newsletter issue arose again when New Republic reporter/punk/neosomething or other and Guliani supporter Jamie Kirchick wrote a piece about them and had it released just before the New Hampshire primary.
Weigel did his first piece on the newsletters (which were hardly news in Libertarian circles) with Julian Sanchez which dealt with potential culprits i.e Lew Rockwell and company. That caused a nice kefuffle in libertarian circles but ultimately the issue died out as Paul’s campaign petered out. However, the issue never petered out as far as Weigel was concerned as he kept coming back to it again, and again, and again along with mutterings about Stormfront.com bloggers in the Paul tent at the Iowa Straw Poll and the donations from Nazis Paul never returned.
The newsletter issue suffice to say never amounted to more than internecine brawl among libertarians it’s doubtful Paul’s fortunes in 2008 rested on whether or not he should return a $100 donation from people he had no idea who they were.
But Weigel’s obsessions about those who chose on their very own (how libertarian of them) to support or associate themselves with Paul without solicitation, does point to the two biggest themes underlying the politics of 2008: Cosmo vs. Provincial and Guilt by Association.
The whole fight over the newsletter issues was really about the struggles between the Cosmopolitan Libertarians of Reason and CATO Institute against Provincials of the Von Mises Institute and the Randolph Bourne Institute (Antiwar.com sponsor). Likewise this split could also be seen in struggle between establishment Clinton and more Provincial-friendly Obama (after all, who better organized the caucus states?) and the fights between Cosmo conservatives like Chris Buckley and Kathleen Parker against those Red-State backers of Sarah Palin.
And of course we have Guilt by Association which started with Ron Paul and then went to Barak Obama (Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, etc.) and finished up with John McCain (John Hagee, Charles Keating and G. Gordon Liddy). It’s the oldest trick in the political book to try and smear your opponent by the company they keep regardless of how serious your associations. At least Paul, refreshingly, never engaged in the St. Peter-like denials of Obama of his church pastor or other friends nor engage in PC posturing to please the Cosmo crowd (even the so-call freedom of association supporting Libertarians). If that bothers Dave Weigel that so many “weirdos” latch themselves onto Paul, that’s his problem.
Amazing isn’t it how so many libertarians don’t even recognize their own philosphy went it’s practiced right in their faces? Blame Paul for negligence of the use of his name if you like, but don’t blame him for practicing what he preaches. Some people actually find that refreshing about a politician.
Amazing isn’t it how so many libertarians don’t even recognize their own philosphy went it’s practiced right in their faces?
I’ve always assumed that the Libertarian Cosmopolitans were preoccupied more with the aesthetics of their movement than with the intellectual heft of the movement’s primary theorists (such as Rothbard). If Paul were taller and had a less squeeky voice, then he may have captured the hearts of the Cato and Reason crowd. If Paul’s supporters were more in line with the DC cocktail set, then aligning one’s self with Paul would have been much more palpable.
“…don’t blame him for practices what he preaches. Some people actually find that refreshing about a politician.”
Refreshing, yes. Electable, no.
http://rightklik.blogspot.com/
The notion that the newsletter business was “really” about some antediluvian Paleo/Cosmo struggle was a congenial narrative for the folks upon whom our story reflected poorly. I can’t speak for Dave, but I mostly just thought it was an interesting story. I may not be “in line” with the Auburn folks — I’ve never considered Rothbard a particularly impressive theorist, let alone a “primary” one — but neither do I have any interest in pissing on them for its own sake.
I would say that the story reflected poorly upon Reason, which was willing to continually smear the only member of Congress who truly practices libertarian principles, in order to maintain its politically correct bona fides.
No one is suggesting you should have ignored the story, but Reason continues to try and link Ron Paul to every fringe group, racist, and other undesirable it can to this day. Just last week Weigel used a few posts on Daily Paul to associate him with the Obama birth certificate nuts.
As for Rothbard, I guess he isn’t quite as much of a hero of freedom as Dennis Rodman or Madonna, but then again I don’t live in DC, so what do I know?
The collectivist tribal war of this fringe element of society was and is annoying. Ron Paul was the best candidate even if he wasn’t perfect. This wouldn’t have been an issue if he wasn’t associated with the tainted word, “Libertarian.” People are passionate about what they label themselves as. What is really going on is that a collectivist holier than thou group of so called individualist didn’t want to be associated with Ron Paul and company through that word. All that drama was over a word.
If I was a politician and expressed Libertarian ideas I wouldn’t want to be associated with that term and actively protest the association before some nerd behind a keyboard writes up something nasty defending his or her views on what that word means and paints me as a monster.
Well, I haven’t asked Dave why he continues to bring the issue up; it may be a reaction to the amount of crap he got — and since he was still at Reason and on the “Ron Paul beat,” he got a lot more than I did — from people who thought we should have ignored the story. But I’ll stand by everything I wrote in that original piece, which I don’t think can be fairly characterized as a “smear.” There really was a stretch in the early 90s when some prominent libertarian thinkers, who seem to have changed their minds since, spoke pretty openly about hitching libertarian ideas to white working class racial resentment. If it’s “PC” to think that was both strategically unwise and morally ugly, well, call me John Hodgman.
Reason’s stance on Paul is a large part of why I quit visiting. Now, with more blog options available (C11 and Secular Right in particular), I see little reason to go back.
There really was a stretch in the early 90s when some prominent libertarian thinkers, who seem to have changed their minds since, spoke pretty openly about hitching libertarian ideas to white working class racial resentment.
I think that this qualifies as a mischaracterization because of one word: racial. Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that they were interested in hitching libertarian ideas to the class resentment of people who happened to be white?
Reason magazine is fantastic, but quite dismissive of anyone under a certain financial and educational level, so I can see how some of their writers might have glossed the distinction, but that doesn’t make it fair, exactly.
Matt-
Well, even if it had just been that, I think there are better ways to make the case for economic liberty than by demonizing lazy poor people. But if you really go back through the old Rothbard-Rockwell Reports — I read several years worth over the course of a couple days while we were researching the article — I think it’s very hard to deny that there was a racial component to it. Rothbard’s initial manifesto refers somewhat vaguely to a “parasitic Underclass” that will be linked, in the popular consciousness, to the state. But there was a truly relentless focus, in issue after issue, on black criminality, state privileges for blacks, degraded black culture… I recall a film review of “Driving Miss Daisy” where a pseudonymous Rothbard waxed nostalgic for the picture of race relations “as they could and ought to be.”
Don’t take my word for it, though; you can sift through the old copies yourself and see what you think next time you’ve got a free afternoon. I can probably dig up some of the PDFs if you drop me an e-mail. Maybe you’ll come away with a different view, but frankly, it wasn’t terribly subtle.
There is a group of people, left, center, right, and libertarian, who are totally obsessed with both scrupulously maintaining their own PC purity and vigorously rooting out any non-PC thoughts they perceive in others. They infest the internet and political discussions always on the lookout for transgressors. It is a form of grandstanding. “Look how pure I am.” The Ron Paul defenders were right to react against this.
I did sift through the old copies of Rothbard/Rockwell including the pieces most maligned.
http://leftconservativeblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/reason-magazine-populism-and-ron-paul_08.html
Rothbard’s initial manifesto refers somewhat vaguely to a “parasitic Underclass” that will be linked, in the popular consciousness, to the state. But there was a truly relentless focus, in issue after issue, on black criminality, state privileges for blacks,…
No connection to reality, yeah:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/memphis-crime
There really was a stretch in the early 90s when some prominent libertarian thinkers, who seem to have changed their minds since, spoke pretty openly about hitching libertarian ideas to white working class racial resentment. If it’s “PC” to think that was both strategically unwise and morally ugly, well, call me John Hodgman.
Approved People have “concerns”, Unapproved People have “resentments”.
Neither liberty nor the security of Unapproved People is of much concern to us. .
Freedom of association is so yesterday.
Witch-hunting in defense of “cultural Marxism” is no vice.
I admit that some of the above might be a little unfair since I don’t visit Reason (or kindred sites) very often.
Neither liberty nor the security of Unapproved People is of much concern to us. .
Typo, should be “the liberty.”
Mr. Scallon, aren’t you rubbing it in a bit? Sanchez career tanked after he was dismissed from Reason as if he hadn’t even worked there now he is reduced to defending himself in comment threads. Weigel was also let go though at least he lined up employment quickly enough.
Will you be celebrating Kirchick’s rehab stint as cosmic justice too? Maybe you can remind us of Weigel’s Barr coverage in a year when no either remembers or cares about either.
[...] insinuate it. Just answer the question yes or no. But he never did, a fact he went back to time and time again, betraying a Cosmotarian fetish to expose racism (Stomfront blogger in Paul’s tent at the [...]