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Maybe you wouldn’t be considered a “radical right-wing extremist” if you stopped threatening to blow stuff up. Also if you stopped actually blowing stuff up.

Michelle Malkin is in a huff over the fact that Homeland Security issued a warning to watch out for right-wing extremists. They specifically mentioned anti-abortion and anti-immigration activists, but Malkin has interpreted the warning to be All About Her. She ends her piece with, “We are all rightwing extremists now.”

So here’s a hint if you don’t want to be seen as extremist: Stop blowing shit up, terrorizing people you don’t agree with and committing murder. Stop with the vigilante policing and stop working neo-Nazi and other hate-based organizations. Stop threatening to secede because you don’t like paying taxes. And stop comparing yourselves to violent terrorists as if that were a good thing:

The coming revolution is akin to “Fight Club,” the 1999 film that follows the struggles of day to day life for a regular guy who starts an underground fight club as radical and not terribly productive psychotherapy.

As Brad Pitt’s character, Tyler Durden, says in the movie, “Fight Club was the beginning, now it’s moved out of the basement, it’s called Project Mayhem.”

That quote is from Republican political operative and former Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) Matt Mackowiak, about tax day “teabagging” parties. And “Project Mayhem” was the shift of fight club into a terrorist cell that blew up banks.

But yes, the federal government is just ridiculous to believe there may be a domestic terrorism problem from groups that glorify, threaten and actually commit domestic terrorism.


77 thoughts on Maybe you wouldn’t be considered a “radical right-wing extremist” if you stopped threatening to blow stuff up. Also if you stopped actually blowing stuff up.

  1. SECONDED.

    Jeez, and when it comes to these anti-tax folks who are suddenly so very concerned about the defecit, where were they when Bush was running it up and spending all of this money we didn’t have on the invasion and occupation of Iraq? Whoops, when it’s a GOP President we must never, EVER question him as it’s anti-American.

    And yeah. I’m tired, right down to the bone, of these self-same violent and psychopathic jerkoff bleating about anti-American, terrorist-loving leftists. If I were anti-American and loved me some terrorists, I’d be hanging with the likes of Fred Phelps, the Lambs of God, the Alaskan Independence Party (for all of her whining about Bill Ayers, Palin never felt a moment’s shame about hanging with a group that advocated the violent overthrow of the US) and Randy Terry. To name but a few.

  2. FashionablyEvil, I read it as mocking right-wingers who constantly use that word on their websites, since the rest of the sentence it’s used in is doing the same — mocking crappy right-wing talking points.

  3. Malkin is an idiot, obviously, but the report does contain this definition of “right-wing extremist”:

    …and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.

    Is believing in Federalism really right-wing extremism?

  4. I don’t think I saw the same movie as Hutchison saw. ‘Cuz the movie I saw was anti-capitalist and anti-corporate, and it involved a terrorist cell that went out of its way not to kill anyone, which is about the polar opposite of the wingnut division right now.

  5. “project mayhem did enjoy the blowing stuff up, though.”

    …and? I mean, we can recognize the difference between ELF setting SUVs on fire in the dead of night in the lot of an empty dealership and Eric Rudolph bombing Centennial Park, right? The right-wing attack that involves deliberately un- or under-occupied targets is something of a rarity. The movie-version of Project Mayhem was pretty meticulous about not injuring or killing anyone while bowing stuff up.

  6. “Is believing in Federalism really right-wing extremism?”

    Apparently so. Meet George Will, the new bowtied face of American Terror.

  7. Ironically, this report was begun under the Bush administration. A similar report on left-wing extremists was released earlier this year. Talk about over-reacting!

  8. Apparently so. Meet George Will, the new bowtied face of American Terror.

    Why did I just imagine George Will with a spinning bowtie for a nose? Lol!

    As for the right-wing extremists, all that fear-mongering under W certainly worked well on them.

  9. The SO had an interesting thought about this. He think Rush, Malkin, et al have taken on this “right wing extremist” label to solidify their base. The country has become more liberal and rather than adjust their politics, they’ve decided to tighten the bond between themselves and their listeners/political base. But these crazies come from different ideological places. Some are libertarians, some are religious zealots, some are racists, some are anarchists, etc. These people don’t naturally have anything in common ideologically speaking. What better way make this group cohesive than to create a big scarey Other who is threatening them.

    Probably obvious, but I hadn’t thought of it.

  10. “Why did I just imagine George Will with a spinning bowtie for a nose? Lol!”

    Ascots and hand grenades. ‘Cause that’s how the 10th Amendment Mafia rolls, yo.

  11. No, of course it’s not ok to use ablelist language ironically. But it’s not being used ironically here. It’s paraphrasing the terminology of assholes to make them look like bigger assholes. It’s like when I title my troll posts things like “Listen to the menz, bitchez!” I’m not using the term “bitches” ironically, I’m using it to mock those who use it seriously. It’s an indictment of the term himself, as well as of the people using it.

  12. “So, ablist language is okay if it’s meant ironically?”

    I generally find ablist language disgusting and I don’t tolerate its use. However, if the person using it has a pure progressive heart, like Jill, I think we can grant her a pass, especially given the fact that she was merely quoting another.

  13. Now I want to edit my undergrad paper on the homoeroticism and castration fears in Fight Club and just replace every character’s name with that of a right-wing nut-job. And isn’t that what this is, just a huge freaking tantrum about manly white castration anxiety? Maybe that’s why the “teabagging” thing makes them so happy; it’s a constant reassurance that they have something dangly left. :p

  14. Featherstone, while I appreciate the benefit of the doubt, if other people find the language offensive I’m happy to take it down. I was just trying to explain why, while the term is clearly ableist, I think it’s usage in context here is to make the user sound like a jerk. If people think my interpretation is wrong, I’ll remedy that.

  15. I’m pretty sure a lot of people on the left don’t quite understand whats going on here and how behaviors are being perceived. Context, and the mindset/recent history of a group, can shed a lot of light onto why exactly things are perceived in the way they are. The issue here goes back a lot further than Obama, or Bush’s policy, or his fear mongering. It actually goes back to Bush sr. and Clinton.

    Back in the late 80s/early 90s a bunch of people in the Justice Department and the FBI, who suddenly had a lot less to do now that the cold war was dying down and crime rates at home were trending down, somehow got it in their heads that local militias who were printing their own money and hiding in bunkers until Jesus came were a threat. Now generally the militia movement were a bunch of unstable people who formed groups that could only be told from hippie communes by the clothes and the fact that the residents obsessed over a slightly different set of conspiracy theories. For the most part we’re talking about a bunch of harmless nuts. Well-armed paranoids, to be sure, but people who were hiding from their fears rather than organizing a counter attack. Any sane government would have kept an eye on things in case the situation changed and avoided escalation.

    Instead the government started investigating, harassing, and eventually raiding the crazy folk. The worst of it came when, under Clinton, ATF harassment got to be pretty tough for anyone with a Class III permit and eventually lead to the government killing a bunch of people (either directly through murder or indirectly through incompetent, unnecessary escalation, depending on how you interpret ambiguous facts) under questionable circumstances at Ruby Ridge and Waco. Not too long after that you had Oklahoma City, the militia movement decided that things had gone too far, the government loosened it’s grip a bit, then Clinton was out of office, the local crazies got distracted by 9/11, and the terrible/worthless assault weapons ban sunsetted.

    Along the way, however, you had a lot of people get pissed off. Gun owners were pissed off about how the ATF was treating law abiding citizens who had nothing to do with militias, federalists were pissed off about the intrusion of the feds, a lot of libertarian leaning people were pissed off about how they were being marginalized, and in general the western strain of Conservatism got pissed off because it was being pushed out of the right by the fundies and pushed out of the middle by being compared to militias.

    These kinds of memos are a PR blunder for Obama because they remind everyone of the bad old days. Theres rumors of bringing back a worse, and permanent, version of the assault weapons ban and now the government is talking about militias again. That stirs up the paranoia for some of these people, especially when they’re already worried about money and looking for someone to blame. Worse, the memo is worded badly enough that it seems to lump a lot of moderates into the abortion-bombing militiamen category.

    This is that angry, desperate response. Think of it as the right’s equivalent to a Che shirt.

  16. ‘s one of those cases where, if it were a disabled person, it would sound ok. since it is someone who has abled privilege (esp someone who makes little effort to deal with disability issues), it does grate. can excuse it, but it’s uncomfortably close to the family-guy “pretend to be ironic/mocking the people who do act like that so we can use prejudicial language without getting in trouble with it” tactics.

  17. That’s true, Amanda. I actually don’t know John Cooke, so I have no idea if he’s able-bodied or not (although the assumption, I suppose, is that he is). I am temporarily able-bodied, and so my interpretation of the quote is colored by that lens of privilege.

  18. “BD – Do you have any links to the other report?”

    This should be a copy of the memo they’re referring to. If not, it’s a memo with “Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks” or some similar title, from the DHS. I think the Rachel Maddow Show said it was from 2001.

  19. Here’s the thing, though: at least two people in this thread have expressed reservation about the ablist nature of “Obamatard”, and I read Sheezlebub’s “SECONDED” as agreeing with FashionablyEvil that it is, but I may be projecting that because of my issues with the term. About two weeks ago there was a post by Rachel about not using the r-word anymore.

    I also feel there’s a difference between you, Jill, using “Bitchez” (a word that is both used to demean a group you belong to and a word that has been reclaimed enough by women that a major feminist magazine is called Bitch), and you using a word that, as far as I know from your writings isn’t used to demean a group you belong to.

    You said then “I also flinch whenever I hear that word — and yet I have a bad habit of occassionally using it. It’s something I’ve said FOREVER, and every time I hear myself say it, I cringe. It’s been an ongoing effort to curb its use. A little shaming — having people respond with, ‘that’s a really fucked up word to use’ — goes a long way.”

    That’s a really fucked up word to use. I don’t find it okay when my allies toss it around and tell me it’s mocking the folks who use it regularly. It’s very nice that it’s a word that isn’t used to, say, demean your marriage or relationship, isn’t used to silence you, and you don’t hear the same folks who forget to book a space you can actually enter use it all the time. It really bothers me with BADD just around the corner.

    I hope I haven’t come across as too angry to listen to. I really respect what you’re doing here, but when someone who isn’t affected by a word tells me that in this case it’s okay because of X, I cringe.

  20. Nope, you’re right Anna. I wasn’t trying to be defensive or defend John’s use of the word, but at the end of the day that’s how it came across. I apologize, and I appreciate you taking the time (repeatedly now) to call that out. I’m going to remove that part of the post.

  21. …and now re-reading this thread I am cringing at my behavior. Damn. No more excuses or justifications on my end, just… I’m sorry.

  22. Gosh darn it, Jill, I was prepared to spend the rest of my evening irritated, and now you’ve ruined it by reasonably listening to my concerns. *grin*

    Thank you.

  23. There is nothing illegal about holding and expounding extremist, irrational, and even hateful political views, whether those views are left-wing extremist or right-wing extremist. It is wrong when the government tries to chill “extremist” speech, whether it be liberals or conservatives being labeled as “extremist.”

  24. I’ve read a few articles recently about people freaking out over the economy and stocking up on ammo and canned goods, then the other day I was talking to my mom and she casually mentioned that my dad was at Wal-Mart picking up bullets “just in case.”

    *head exploded*

  25. Oh, and followup to my comment:

    Then I jokingly said, because my parents are hardcore Republicans, “Oh, well now that Obama is president…” yukyuk

    And mom goes, “You’re right!”

    *head re-exploded*

  26. @Lauren: After Obama was declared the winner, my mom sent a mass text to everyone in her phone book something along the lines of: “All white people, report to the cotton fields at 6AM for orientation!”

    It took all my willpower not to call her and scream at her. Luckily I wasn’t that drunk, or I may have.

  27. “It is wrong when the government tries to chill “extremist” speech, whether it be liberals or conservatives being labeled as “extremist.””

    What the government actually seems to be doing in this case is keeping tabs on the sort of people who like to bomb clinics, shoot up gay bars, blow up federal buildings, etc., and are very open about it. You know, the sort of things that don’t suddenly stop being a problem just because the people responsible are in the US instead of in a godforsaken cave somewhere in Asia.

    Why someone who ostensibly doesn’t actively and blatantly advocate grossly illegal acts such as mass homicide would tie themselves to groups who do by claiming that the government is totes out to get them personally because the government–and everyone else in the entire fucking country–has a vested interest in not getting blown up by some asshole who’s read the Turner Diaries one too many times is open to question.

  28. @Lirpa: I totally got those fucking emails too. Finally I wrote some long thing back, cc-ing everyone else that she’d emailed, saying that I thought it was inappropriate, racist, and unnecessarily raining on the happy crowd’s parade. Later, I had a conversation in private with her about how her gloating in 2000 and 2004 led to her silent treatment for several weeks by her daughters, something we’d graciously spared her of in 2008. But they’re out stocking up on bullets.

    OKAY, MOM.

  29. Preying mantis, that is precisely the problem. If the government wants to keep tabs on someone like the guy linked in the OP advocating direct violent action, fine. But read the DHS report, it sweeps so broadly. It is a threat to free expression in this country if merely having extremist views subjects you to government surveillance and monitoring. If I have extreme left or right views and know that going to a meeting or a rally or commenting on a blog is going to get my name on a government list, the likely result is that I will stifle my views and not support causes I believe in. It wasn’t right when Bush had DHS do something similar to this directed at Muslims and at extreme left groups (and Malkin of course brushes this off), and it isn’t right now.

  30. Wow, once again, one side of the supposedly only two sides paints absurdly broad strokes. Let the culture war and the self satisfaction as you gaze upon the wrongness of other side continue.

    I am a libertarian, which apparently means I am a failure as a feminist. Nevertheless, thanks so much for going along with the government’s lumping me in with people who kill abortion doctors.

    You know what else the report says? Watch out for “…Those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.” So yes, there’s me. And I believe in the 2nd Amendment to boot (even if I have barely touched a gun in my life.) And numerous anarchists, like my leftist cousin who hates the war. All of us are the same, all of us are threatening just like racists and people who kill. Thanks so much for being just as lacking in nuance as the government sanctioned report. Disappointing.

  31. Oh, I missed the part where you mock people who are opposed to taxes. Yes, people who disagree with their money paying for things they’re opposed to (in my case, how about the Iraq war and the drug war?) at the threat of force or jail time. Yes, they really deserve to be in that category.

  32. Dave Neiwert writes extensively about the fear-mongering, the language about guns being necessary against tyranny, the eliminationist rhetoric, and how that actually winds up influencing people into committing violence. His blog is really worth checking out. (He’s just published his fourth book about the militia movements and related topics.)

    I’m not sure why it’s some kind of big shock that anti-government + gun promotion + threatening language (the tree of liberty, hang ’em high) + eliminationist rhetoric = making people nervous to the point where they want to keep an eye on that stuff.

  33. Errr…I’ll mock anyone in the U.S. who calls themselves a libertarian and opposes taxes unless they specifically reject all the benefits that the government provides. So no fire department, no police, no food safety, no roads, no schools, no environmental protection, no telephones, no internet, no computers, no hospitals, no medicine, no guns, no running water, no sewer systems, no gas, no electricity, no plastics, no tv, no cars…

  34. “I am a libertarian, which apparently means I am a failure as a feminist.”

    Hmm never heard of a libertarian feminist before. I’m wondering how you syncretize the two philosophies on topics like sex-selective abortion, prostitution, an employer deciding to hire strictly men, etc.. Which goes out the window first – your libertarianism? Your feminism?

  35. “Errr…I’ll mock anyone in the U.S. who calls themselves a libertarian and opposes taxes unless they specifically reject all the benefits that the government provides. So no cars . . .”

    Egads! You have a government car? I shudder to think of what the ride is like.

  36. Egads! You have a government car? I shudder to think of what the ride is like.

    Dude, it’s a minivan. What were you expecting? =)

  37. I’m not sure why it’s some kind of big shock that anti-government + gun promotion + threatening language (the tree of liberty, hang ‘em high) + eliminationist rhetoric = making people nervous to the point where they want to keep an eye on that stuff.

    Like it or not you live in a country born of violent revolution which decided that the second most important right to be marked as inalienable was the right to own weapons (which implies the right to violent revolution). The second amendment doesn’t exist to allow people to hunt, it exists because the founders felt that shooting cops was a legitimate means of political expression under certain circumstances. We can discuss whether or not we, as a nation, want to continue having those values but pretending that they aren’t an intrinsic part of our political dialog (or that they’re somehow even unusual) is naive.

  38. Hmm never heard of a libertarian feminist before. I’m wondering how you syncretize the two philosophies on topics like sex-selective abortion, prostitution, an employer deciding to hire strictly men, etc.. Which goes out the window first – your libertarianism? Your feminism?

    Aside from the questionable utility of policing who gets to call themselves a feminist, it seems your understanding of both libertarianism and feminism is idiosyncratic. Sex-selective abortion might be disgusting, but I can’t really think of any way to outlaw/discourage/prevent it without engaging in a wholesale violation of both medical privacy and a woman’s right to choose. How to hand prostitution is a pretty common argument in feminist communities (I seem to remember a few threads here not too long ago) and it isn’t exactly some tiny fringe of self-identified feminists who want to see decriminalization. An employer deciding to hire only men isn’t necessarily a libertarian issue, and whether or not a libertarian would see that as legal would depend on the balance between essentialism and realism they struck in their own philosophy. Libertarianism =/= corporatism, especially once you get away from the train wreck that is the LP. A good deal of libertarians don’t care about fiscal issues to nearly the extent they care about social issues and are more than willing to admit that some balance needs to be struck between the former and reality.

  39. William is correct re: the Second Amendment. It’s also pretty well apparent that the flavor of the last Century was that your own government – or something purporting to be your own government – is not unlikely to take your stuff, move you about, and/or kill you in an industrial style or through planned starvation/exposure/overwork and often under the pretense that it is for your own good. To say that it can’t possibly happen again because this new popular fellow here went to Yale and likes dogs and speaks of hope or freedom is rather naive.

  40. @William: I just wanted to thank you for your interesting comment (#19). I don’t agree with everything in it, but it’s nice to see a differing perspective presented in a pretty reasonable manner.

  41. William, re “Worse, the memo is worded badly enough that it seems to lump a lot of moderates into the abortion-bombing militiamen category” I agree.

    The memo doesn’t distinguish clearly enough the threat from fiscal conservatives vs the threat from violent extremists. The threat from the former is simpy disagreement and debate if one disagrees philosophically. Had the memo been more finely honed, it could have been a helpful tool rather than divisive in a way that is not productive.

  42. Bukkakelypse said:

    Hmm never heard of a libertarian feminist before. I’m wondering how you syncretize the two philosophies on topics like sex-selective abortion, prostitution, an employer deciding to hire strictly men, etc.. Which goes out the window first – your libertarianism? Your feminism?

    Here’s how to reconcile the two.

  43. Featherstone,

    More that cars in the US wouldn’t exist without taxpayer intervention, plus few roads…so cars are mostly useless. So sure…no taxes = no cars.

  44. Alright, Kristen J, you can mock whom you wish, but your list is of what couldn’t exist wihtout the government is absurd. You think the private sector couldn’t or didn’t contribute to all of those things?

    Plus, I am damned sick of people acting like it’s all or nothing with taxes. Yes, you get some good stuff you may or may not want, so shut up when your money gets taken for horriblle interventions overseas and for militerized police on the hunt for pot smokers, because at least you get a fire department? That’s insanely simplistic, and on the level of “‘murica — Love it or Leave it!”

    But all I wanted to say originally was, why exactly do all people who hate the federal government belong on the watch list? I am not right-wing, I don’t blow things up, not do I intend to, (and I know many other peaceful, not even gun toting peopel who feel similarly) but this feministe post painted me with just as broad a brush as the government, self satisfied all the while. I guess the moment your people are in power, everybody the government deems a threat deserves it. Do you not understand that the original post sounds just as lacking in nuance as those dumb old Republicans are supposed to be? It’s extra infurating because I think I expect a little better from leftists, but I don’t even know why anymore.

  45. The memo doesn’t distinguish clearly enough the threat from fiscal conservatives vs the threat from violent extremists.

    And thats my biggest problem. Obama is a consummate diplomat and politician. He is likely the best public speaker I’ve seen in my lifetime and he has some amazing speech writers working for him. More than that, both he and his team have an incredible eye for strategy. We know these things because these are the factors which won Obama the election. Time and again he showed himself to be reasonable, thoughtful, nuanced, and diplomatic. I know that everything doesn’t come across his desk, but you’d think someone along the line would have looked at the wording and thought “hmm, maybe this is a bad idea.” I expect better from his administration because I know that he can do better. This was sloppy and unnecessarily divisive.

  46. Errr…I’ll mock anyone in the U.S. who calls themselves a libertarian and opposes taxes unless they specifically reject all the benefits that the government provides. So no fire department, no police, no food safety, no roads, no schools, no environmental protection, no telephones, no internet, no computers, no hospitals, no medicine, no guns, no running water, no sewer systems, no gas, no electricity, no plastics, no tv, no cars…

    Errr…I’ll mock anyone in the U.S. who calls themselves a Feminist and opposes the patriarchy unless they specifically reject all the benefits that the patriarchy has provided. So no fire departments, no police, no roads, no telephones, no internet, no computers, no medicine, no guns, no running water, no sewer systems, no gas, no electricity, no plastics, no tv, no cars…

  47. It’s extra infurating because I think I expect a little better from leftists, but I don’t even know why anymore.

    Well, the farther into the right or the left you get the harder it is to tell the difference between them by anything other than buzzwords and where they’re aiming their simplistic vitriol.

  48. “I guess the moment your people are in power, everybody the government deems a threat deserves it.”

    You say that like it would undermine liberties and rights claims when the other guys inevitably get their turn in power again. Like

    Has anyone given a thought to what this report would do to the administration and Democrats if Islamic terrorists managed even a modest terrorist attack on Mr. Obama’s watch? The report would be the running mate of every Democrat from Presidential candidates to County Dog Catcher for three or four cycles. And we said Bush “took his eye off Al Qaeda.”

  49. “I guess the moment your people are in power, everybody the government deems a threat deserves it.”

    You say that like it would undermine liberties and rights claims when the other guys inevitably get their turn in power again.

    Has anyone given a thought to what this report would do to the administration and Democrats if Islamic terrorists managed even a modest terrorist attack on Mr. Obama’s watch? The report would be the running mate of every Democrat from Presidential candidates to County Dog Catcher for three or four cycles. And we said Bush “took his eye off Al Qaeda.”

  50. “How does the patriarchy directly finance the building of roads?”

    It makes men, well, make roads I think. Like my uncle Billy, who always has a nice tan.

  51. How does the patriarchy directly finance the building of roads?

    How doesn’t the patriarchy directly finance the building of roads? Taxes on male-dominated industries pay for them, work done by male-dominated trades help create them, support from male-dominated government institutions helped plan them.

    My point was, when you have a pervasive entity whose desperate desire is to provide things for you, whether you want them or not, it’s kind of silly to defend that entity by saying “Don’t complain, look at all the things it provides you!”

  52. You think the private sector couldn’t or didn’t contribute to all of those things?

    No. I’d suggest reading up on the economic history of Malawi as a lesson in how the neoclassical assumption that markets will provide infrastructure is flawed.

  53. Anarchistic “Fight Club” has strong parallels with the right-wing? Seriously? What a joke. Tyler Durden would be more likely to have a right-wing politician kidnapped and humiliated.

  54. “No. I’d suggest reading up on the economic history of Malawi as a lesson in how the neoclassical assumption that markets will provide infrastructure is flawed.”

    Please tell me you didn’t major in Malawiology.

    I think that there are plenty of libertarian leaning people (I am not a libertarian) who would argue that interstate roads fall within the prescribed role of the Federal government in regulating interstate commerce and promoting the general welfare. They would probably also say that other roads are within the purview of the State governments and their political subdivisions. Some think that private enterprise should be generally permitted to make roads.

    Now, you may believe that all roads lead to Washington, but it would be inaccurate to say that it is a hallmark of libertarian thought that government should make no roads.

  55. Actually, my comment was about traditional libertarians who object to paying taxes, anarchist in the Rand sense.
    Limited government, federalism, aren’t about arguing that gov’t shouldn’t provide services but more about what is a public good and who should pay/provide.

  56. P.S. My senior thesis – many many years ago – was on how eurocentric neoclassical assumptions about markets by the WTO resulted in starvation and death for many, including many in Malawi.

  57. Actually, my comment was about traditional libertarians who object to paying taxes, anarchist in the Rand sense.
    Limited government, federalism, aren’t about arguing that gov’t shouldn’t provide services but more about what is a public good and who should pay/provide.

    Calling “traditional libertarians” “anarchist in the Rand sense” is ridiculous on it’s face. Rand’s philosophy is the product of a very specific social context and a very specific personality, and it is by no means the root of “traditional libertarian” thought. Nozick and Friedman have fare more influence, before them you have Hayek. If you want to talk about traditional libertarians you’d be a lot more accurate to talk about Locke and Mill than a joke like Rand.

    Also, libertarianism is fundamentally different from anarchy in that libertarianism believes the government does have a valid role, simply that it ought to be streamlined and unintrusive. You’ll find very few libertarians who object to paying all taxes. Instead, as is generally the case with anything, the reality is more complex. The libertarian objection to the American tax system has more to do with how taxes are collected (from income and property taxes over use and sales taxes) rather than that they are collected.

    Finally, the WTO’s policy doesn’t make them a libertarian organization just because they’re interested in free-trade (which they aren’t, but thats a different story). The WTO is based around mercantilism. Those are different things. Kind of like how Democratic Socialists in Europe aren’t the same as Maoists just because both believe in a robust system of government services.

  58. We can discuss whether or not we, as a nation, want to continue having those values but pretending that they aren’t an intrinsic part of our political dialog (or that they’re somehow even unusual) is naive.

    Did I say they were unusual? I said it cannot come as a surprise that this kind of rhetoric unsettles the people in power. If they (those in power) believe that they are subject to threats of violent revolution, regardless of the origin of such threats and their place in wider social dialogue, should the potential revolutionaries be surprised that they are viewed with concern and suspicion and met with wariness and surveillance? No.

  59. If they (those in power) believe that they are subject to threats of violent revolution, regardless of the origin of such threats and their place in wider social dialogue, should the potential revolutionaries be surprised that they are viewed with concern and suspicion and met with wariness and surveillance? No.

    I suppose that depends on how free a society we believe is ideal.

  60. William, I just don’t think you average person going to these rallies to protest taxes has given libertarianism that much thought. In fact the hoopla lately has been about the repubs reframing themselves in the Atlas Shrugged mold.

    Libertarianism in the sense you’re using it only applies to a few threads of the ideology, libertarianism has been claimed by objectivists, anarchists and anarcho-capitalists. And to say that Locke was a libertarian is just ludicrous. It’s only if you take libertarianism to its most basic definition – individuals rights are primary – that that is a reasonable interpretation of Locke’s position.

  61. Libertarianism in the sense you’re using it only applies to a few threads of the ideology, libertarianism has been claimed by objectivists, anarchists and anarcho-capitalists.

    This is just straight up wrong. You know that Noam Chomsky self-identifies as Libertarian? Aaron McGruder, the guy who writes the insanely left-wing “Boondocks” comic? There’s a pretty broad diversity of opinion that exists within the “Libertarian” label, and you’re ignoring it for what appear to be entirely rhetorical purposes, or out of ignorance. So, which is it?

  62. how does the patriarchy directly finance the building of roads?

    How doesn’t the patriarchy directly finance the building of roads? Taxes on male-dominated industries pay for them, work done by male-dominated trades help create them, support from male-dominated government institutions helped plan them.

    My point was, when you have a pervasive entity whose desperate desire is to provide things for you, whether you want them or not, it’s kind of silly to defend that entity by saying “Don’t complain, look at all the things it provides you!”
    Operative phrase being “male-dominated.”

    Do you really think that, if we were an equal society, that we wouldn’t have roads? Or any other thing that came to be because of “male-dominated” trades and government, that we find use and value in?

    Come on, now.

  63. William, I just don’t think you average person going to these rallies to protest taxes has given libertarianism that much thought.

    Thats pretty much what I’m saying. The teapartiers aren’t libertarians, they aren’t even mostly Ron Paul types, they’re old fashioned conservatives who think things through just as well as your average liberal.

    In fact the hoopla lately has been about the repubs reframing themselves in the Atlas Shrugged mold.

    Again, not libertarianism. To call it such is foolish, especially since most of the teapartiers themselves aren’t calling themselves libertarians. Just because you have two groups with oppositions to the same policy doesn’t mean you can use their names interchangeably.

    Libertarianism in the sense you’re using it only applies to a few threads of the ideology, libertarianism has been claimed by objectivists, anarchists and anarcho-capitalists.

    Rush Limbaugh called Obama a communist the other day, doesn’t make it so…

    And to say that Locke was a libertarian is just ludicrous.

    Again, not exactly what I said. I said that Locke was a bigger influence on traditional libertarians than Rand.

    It’s only if you take libertarianism to its most basic definition – individuals rights are primary – that that is a reasonable interpretation of Locke’s position.

    I’m confused where the problem is. Individual rights are the core of libertarian thought and philosophy, everything flows from them. Even the questionable economic policy is designed to maximize individual rights (something I’ve never been quite convinced of).

  64. actually, upon the last time i heard noam chomsky self-describe i believe he said “anarchist”

  65. Tom and William,

    Seriously? There’s philosophical libertarianism which is a restatement of liberalism. I doubt more than a 1000 people in the US disagree with that basic philosophy…that is not what the vast majority of the people who self-identify as libertarians think of. The meaning of the word in political parlance is not the same as we learned in political philosophy. As I said earlier…that word has been appropriated by the objectivists, the anarchists and the anarcho-capitalists. I think the more appropriate term for the philosophy you’re advocating is liberalism at this point.

    This post and my comment was about the people who went to these events, who self-identify as libertarians and don’t want to pay their taxes. Those people I mock with no apologies.

    William – you’re right that I shouldn’t have used the term “traditional” it confused my point. I honestly don’t see the enlightment ideal here as any part of modern libertarianism. Re: WTO. I didn’t say that the WTO was libertarian…hell no…they’re more than willing to engage in imperialistic bs….the point was more that we have proof in the history of Malawi that markets will not automatically provide necessary infrastructure, than assumption of neoclassical economics is flawed.

  66. @ Tom Foolery–

    Nice. Real nice. Did it ever once occur to you that the “male dominated industries” that brought us all those lovely inventions were backed by a legion of wives, mothers, and daughters who contributed a) all the domestic labor making those inventions possible and b) untold concepts, inventions, or intelligent critiques that then allowed the big strong men to proceed?

    You could have argued that the above is a SYSTEM of patriarchy. But no, you had to go to the “but teh MENZ created all these thing! and you don’t reject them! so you aren’t a real feminist!”

    I realize the point was ironic and intended to mock Kristen’s comment on libertarianism, but it came across very sexist.

  67. Do you really think that, if we were an equal society, that we wouldn’t have roads? Or any other thing that came to be because of “male-dominated” trades and government, that we find use and value in?

    Come on, now.

    Of course I don’t. This is the point I was trying to make — just because a system presides over something’s creation doesn’t mean that thing isn’t possible without that system.

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