GOP Primary Debate #1

[derspiess]

We all know how much of a racist he was.

Huge racist.  Used to be a Republican FFS.

[alfred russel]

Has libertarianism actually accomplished anything?

I doubt it. Who has ever put one of them in charge of anything? 

Gary Johnson was a two-term governor.

I went climbing with his daughter

Gary Johnson climbed all the seven summits (the highest mountain in each continent).

[derspiess]

Initially read that as you went climbing *on* his daughter

[Barrister]

Has libertarianism actually accomplished anything?

I doubt it. Who has ever put one of them in charge of anything? 

Gary Johnson was a two-term governor.

I went climbing with his daughter

Gary Johnson climbed all the seven summits (the highest mountain in each continent).

People go to Antarctica to climb mountains?

[The Brain]

Has libertarianism actually accomplished anything?

I doubt it. Who has ever put one of them in charge of anything? 

Gary Johnson was a two-term governor.

I went climbing with his daughter

Gary Johnson climbed all the seven summits (the highest mountain in each continent).

People go to Antarctica to climb mountains?

[Habbaku]

We all know how much of a racist he was.

Huge racist.  Used to be a Republican FFS.

Seriously?  Fuck, that whole state must be full of racists.

[Razgovory]

Please Raz, quit being so proud of yourself. You of course provided no evidence at all - anyone can click on any of the articles you linked, and see that to whatever extent Reason magazine "supported" Apartheid (and casting it in those terms is grossly dishonest), it was in opposition to the threat of Communism, not out of any love for racism. And the one article I bothered to read made that 100% crystal clear, and in fact decried the treatment of blacks rather clearly.

Links to articles are not evidence  - you have to actually pull the statements from the articles that support your claim. Citing an entire article that isn't even about racism doesn't cut it.

Oh, so we are responding to me now?  The threat of communism has long been used to for racist justifications.  And all blacks are socialist seems like the very type of generalization that you are raging against.  Really it doesn't matter why they supported race based discrimination and disenfranchisement.  They did.

"I regret the fact that honest, law-abiding blacks cannot own property in or near white cities, but I realize that without this restriction separate development will fail — and with it the capitalist system in South Africa."I regret the fact that honest, law-abiding blacks cannot own property in or near white cities, but I realize that without this restriction separate development will fail — and with it the capitalist system in South Africa.

"As all libertarians should know, unlimited democracies tend towards totalitarian systems, with the rulers competing with each other to control the political machinery. Some years ago, the whites realized that a democracy may deteriorate into a dictatorship in the 'wrong' hands—especially when those hands have the wrong color to boot."

http://www.unz.org/Pub/Reason-1977apr-00038?View=PDF

He does go into the "I'm not racist but..." thing though.  So I guess it's okay to keep Democracy out the wrong colored hands.  Actually Democracy itself isn't such a good idea it seems.


So let's recap.  Was the great libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard a racist?  Yes.  Did Reason magazine support Apartheid?  Yes.  Did a Libertarian presidential candidate publish racist newsletters through out the 1980's and 1990's?  Yes.  I'm seeing a pattern here. It really shouldn't be surprising.  That people are not equal is a major tenet of Libertarianism.  Some are smarter and more ambitious and they should be able reap the benefits of their abilities without being force by the government to be equal to their lest gifted peers.  If individuals are not equal, why not races?  I think libertarian author Charles Murray made this argument with the Bell Curve.

[Razgovory]

There has been one candidate for president that was really libertarian--Barry Goldwater.

I ask you to review the states he carried, and the year of the election, and reflect if this was just a coincidence.

The LBJ states were anti-Semitic.

Libertarians are holocaust deniers.

Well, a lot of them anyway. At least in the past. Most of them.

Actually I found a Reason magazine from that era where they examine the "issue" of the Holocaust".  They invited a bunch of Holocaust deniers to write in it.

[The Brain]

Really it doesn't matter why they supported race based discrimination and disenfranchisement.  They did.

Why do you hate FDR and Churchill?

[alfred russel]

People go to Antarctica to climb mountains?

I had a guide once that spent several years (not year round obviously) working as a mountaineering guide in Antarctica.

[The Minsky Moment]

Suffragettes were also notorious racists who supported eugenics.  Conclusion: oppose feminism and the woman's right to vote.

[DGuller]

Suffragettes were also notorious racists who supported eugenics.  Conclusion: oppose feminism and the woman's right to vote.

I don't know what point you're trying to make here, but no one here argued that you should oppose libertarian policies because libertarian ideology is or has been used by some in the past as a fig leaf by racists.  I just mentioned it to provide one possible explanation as to why some vile stuff appeared on Ron Paul's newsletter.

[The Minsky Moment]

DG also has Raz on ignore?

[DGuller]

DG also has Raz on ignore?

Okay, point conceded.  Raz's next to last post can be interpreted as an argument that racism is endemic to libertarian ideology.  If that's what he is thinking, then I don't agree with him on that.

[Admiral Yi]

There's nothing at all about the core libertarian belief that individual freedom is the highest good and should be as unconstrained as possible that leads inevitably to racism.