GOP Primary Debate #1

[Razgovory]

That's what makes the Reason magazine's support of Apartheid so strange.

[Valmy]

That's what makes the Reason magazine's support of Apartheid so strange.

Berkut said it was about anti-Communism but I am not familiar with Reason magazine and I have not read any of their articles from 30 years ago so I don't know what their rational was. Kind of hard to comment without that.

[Razgovory]

That's what makes the Reason magazine's support of Apartheid so strange.

Berkut said it was about anti-Communism but I am not familiar with Reason magazine and I have not read any of their articles from 30 years ago so I don't know what their rational was. Kind of hard to comment without that.

That was an all purpose excuse for everything back then from building highways to preventing desegregation.  We must restrict the property and political rights of the majority and force them to live in subservience to protect the property and political rights rights of the minority is pretty fucking weak.  Their argument can be summed up as "If we give rights to ignorant blacks, they'll just take our stuff".  I posted their articles, if you want to read them go ahead.  I don't know how many libertarians were racist, it's not like they doing polling for that.  Some like Rothbard certainly were.  Many of the them pandered to racists, and you have to ask yourself why?  Why does the Von Mises institute publish neo-confederate nonsense?  Why were Ron Paul's news letters racist?  Who are they directing their communications at?  What were they trying to convince people of?

I suggest that they were trying to pick up people who had become disaffected by desegregation and federal civil rights into libertarian thinking.  The government made it so you have to eat in the same restaurants as blacks and you kids has to go to school with blacks.  The government did these evil things to you, join us and we'll reduce the power of the federal government.  This strategy has fallen by the wayside for the most part, but there are still remnants of it, and the people that came in to the libertarian movement because of the strategy are still there.

[Martinus]

Well, libertarians, communists, anarcho syndicalists and the like are cooks. They are nutters with very tennous connection to reality or people who simply have not thought through their views to realise they make no sense. Out of which, all except libertarians have a leftist slant to them - which could be the reason why right wing lunatics choose the only viable option, i.e. libertarianism.

[The Minsky Moment]

besides the Pro-life lobby makes a very big thing of how Margret Sanger was a racist.

Which is a crappy argument that ought not be emulated.

[The Minsky Moment]

Well, as I said, libertarianism is about freedom from government action - it is not about freedom from negative social or biological phenomena. So, I would presume libertarianism would be against government-sanctioned racism (e.g. apartheid) but it would also oppose government actions aimed at combating racism.

The kind of libertarianism that Raz is freaking out about -- Libertarianism with a capital "L" -- is variant that emphasizes individual rights to private property as against the state as the highest liberty value.  So while government sanctioned racism may be a bad thing in theory for such people, it is secondary to the existential threat of socialism.

[DGuller]

I always get those "l" cases mixed up. 

[Martinus]

Well, as I said, libertarianism is about freedom from government action - it is not about freedom from negative social or biological phenomena. So, I would presume libertarianism would be against government-sanctioned racism (e.g. apartheid) but it would also oppose government actions aimed at combating racism.

The kind of libertarianism that Raz is freaking out about -- Libertarianism with a capital "L" -- is variant that emphasizes individual rights to private property as against the state as the highest liberty value.  So while government sanctioned racism may be a bad thing in theory for such people, it is secondary to the existential threat of socialism.

Yeah, besides as I said, in order to combat racism, you would have to curb people's freedom to be racist. This is something a libertarian would be against, in principle.

[Razgovory]

besides the Pro-life lobby makes a very big thing of how Margret Sanger was a racist.

Which is a crappy argument that ought not be emulated.

Couple of things.  Time and scale should be considered.  The Women's Suffrage movement was enormous and happened about a hundred years ago, so naturally there would be some racism.  The libertarian thing is quite small, and the racism I'm talking about is from 1970's to the 1990's.  So theorists and politicians being racist are a bit more relevant since they make up a larger portion of libertarians and it occurs in a period where this sort behavior becomes taboo.  I think everyone who wrote on women's suffrage when it was an issue is dead.  People like Lew Rockwell and Charles Murray are still alive.

[Barrister]

Couple of things.  Time and scale should be considered.  The Women's Suffrage movement was enormous and happened about a hundred years ago, so naturally there would be some racism.  The libertarian thing is quite small, and the racism I'm talking about is from 1970's to the 1990's.  So theorists and politicians being racist are a bit more relevant since they make up a larger portion of libertarians and it occurs in a period where this sort behavior becomes taboo.  I think everyone who wrote on women's suffrage when it was an issue is dead.  People like Lew Rockwell and Charles Murray are still alive.

Raz, I find this kind of "hidden agenda" political debate to be completely futile.

You can't know what's in another man's soul.  You can't know whether Ron Paul, or Murray Rothbard, or whomever, is truly a racist or not.  That's a matter of their own beliefs.  Short of being able to read people's minds, you can't know what someone thinks.  Even if someone says at one time something explicitly racist, it may not reflect their current beliefs, or they may have had some other motive for doing so.

What you're trying to do is read the tea leaves - go looking through scattered writings and ancient speeches to attempt to determine a person's motives.  I find it's much better instead to take people at their word, and criticize them for things their actual policy positions, and what they say they actually believe in.  After all for Libertarians it's not hard to find plenty of substantial matters to criticize them for!

[garbon]

So if someone who spouts racist things say they have black friends/are not racist, we should just believe that? When did racism get a religious exemption?

[The Brain]

So if someone who spouts racist things say they have black friends/are not racist, we should just believe that? When did racism get a religious exemption?

You think racism is science?

[garbon]

No but it deserves fearless disrespect.

[Barrister]

So if someone who spouts racist things say they have black friends/are not racist, we should just believe that? When did racism get a religious exemption?

Challenge what they actually said.  Don't just cross your arms and say "well that makes you a racist".

[garbon]

Why would it be worth one's time to act like racist views are ratio.al points up for debate?