Tuesday, August 30, 2011

What's Their Excuse Now?

Over the years I've run into libertarians (real ones) who justified their support for a conservative like Ron Paul with the excuse: "He's better than anyone else running."

They admitted that Paul wasn't really all that libertarian but they used the dismal records of the other candidates to justify drinking the Rondroid Kool-Aid.

They weren't thrilled with Ron's rabid immigrant bashing, his voting for the wall along the border, or his denying that he once supported abolishing the immigration department. They weren't happy that Ron simply lied about libertarian positions he once took and now pretends he never did.

They were not happy with Ron's record of voting against measures that reduce trade barriers under the pretense that they didn't totally abolish them. They didn't buy that excuse since it would argue that a tax cut is wrong unless it abolishes all taxes.

They were not happy with Ron's bigotry and appeals to racists and the like in his sleazy newsletters, his business venture with fellow conservative bigot, Lew Rockwell.

But, they argued, he was still better than the other choices.

But Gary Johnson got into the race and did so before the befuddled Texan joined the race. So what did the Rondroids do? Did they recognize that Gary was good where Ron was shitty, good where Ron was good, and had NONE of the insane conspiracy theories that Ron entertains? No!

Now they are attacking Gary for ruining Ron Paul's chances.

What are those chances? Zero. Most voters don't know Ron's record. Imagine the first time Ron and Obama square off.

All Obama has to do is read out the hateful, bigoted comments that appeared in Ron's newsletters, under his editorship and under his byline. It matters little whether his business partner, Lew Rockwell, wrote the racist comments or not. Ron approved them. He KNEW they were appearing no matter how often he now denies it. Ron suffers from political induced Alzheimer's, he conveniently forgets things. He forgot he was editor with Rockwell. He forgot he was business partners with Rockwell. He forgot that he signed on to the newsletters and published them over a period of five years. He forgot his wife and daughter were paid staff members of the newsletters—even if they did no work for their salaries. And he claims he forgot who wrote the vile material that appeared under his byline. How convenient!

The senility of the situation should humiliate any decent libertarian. But there are so few decent libertarians left. Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell introduced a poison to the libertarian movement. They promoted the anti-immigrant, anti-gay views of the conservative Right. They pushed the venom of racism and bigotry in a way that the modern libertarian movement has never before experienced. And they attracted a bunch of intolerant, bigoted morons to the movement in the name of a floating abstraction called anarcho-capitalism. This is rather contradictory given Paul's living off of the taxpayers for most his adult life.

Gary Johnson is what libertarianism used to be about, before the sheet-wearing neo-Confederates infiltrated the movement. And he is the only choice for libertarians who remain true to the original definitions of libertarianism.

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