Why bother with research, we know we're right.

Chrystian Freeland write a book review for the New York Times, apparently without knowing the facts behind the statements she makes. The book in question is Roger Martin's Fixing the Game: Bubbles, Crashes and What Capitalism Can Learn From the N.F.L.

From the sound of things, and I have not read the book, it sounds as if they are writing about modern, politically-manipulated markets and not markets free of political rigging. Certainly the term "Fixing the Game" implies as much. But don't assume they don't want the rules of the game being "fixed," that is precisely what is being sought. As the review notes:

Mr. Martin’s unifying metaphor — and here I do see a reach for the best-seller list — is a comparison with the National Football League. The league’s commissioners, he argues, are constantly tweaking the rules of the game to ensure the right collective outcome. When a brilliant coach or player devises a technique to strengthen defense, for instance, the commissioners alter the rules to offset that advantage. Capitalism’s rule makers, Mr. Martin believes, must be likewise perpetually alert to these sorts of business innovations — the kind of thing lionized in the traditional business advice best seller — and change the rules of the game to neutralize their impact.

Do you get that? Every time a new innovation comes along government should change the rules of the game to "neutralize" it. This is demanding constant, unending political manipulation of markets by the politically connected. This is precisely how Big Corporations used politics to screw over working people and taxpayers. This is how they transfer wealth from people who have less, to people who have more. This is the dream of the big corporations, the ability to make money through political connections and NOT in a competitive marketplace where you can't trust consumers to buy your product. Better to force them to buy your product, or force them to subsidize you in one of hundreds of ways that politicians invent to hide the real redistribution of wealth and rights.

Wealth and rights have constantly been redistributed in America—just not in the direction that most people believe. There is precious little redistribution of wealth from the wealthy and powerful to the poor and powerless. The bulk of redistribution is the other way around. And the Republicans want to keep it that way—but so does Obama and the Democrats. All of them are in cozy relationships with the powerful, wealthy classes who are the true beneficiaries of government redistribution. Fixing the game is precisely how they manage this slight-of-hand.

Freeland claims that Martin's approach is quite radical, when in reality it is the continuation of the policy for well over a century. But she also writes: "The central insight of his book is that rules of capitalism aren't about God-given rights à la Hayek, Ayn Rand or the Tea Party." Back that up for a second!

First, both Hayek and Rand were atheists, neither believed rights came from a god. The Tea Party, is an amalgam of all sorts of people, most with confused, contradictory premises about politics. They want smaller government except when they don't. They have government programs except when they love them. They want less regulations except when they want more. They are fundamentally, unprincipled, unthinking conservatives who are mad about things in general but don't really want change, other than being in control of the things they don't like.

Most the Tea Party types would be god-addicts who thinks invoking a deity answers every serious question in life. Rights are not that simplistic.

But certainly neither Hayek nor Rand believed in god-given rights. This is part of the unthinking, uninformed, stereotyping the Left uses all the time.

I will accept that Left-wing stereotypes tend, for the most part, to not be as vicious and cruel as those on the Right. Though they do become unhinged emotionally and mentally when discussing Rand and will lie through their eye-teeth about her. I have watched them completely invent stories, or rip comments so out of context as to reverse their original meanings.

Now, Freeland is "global editor at large" for Reuters, a major news wire service. You would think that someone in a position like that would have learned a thing or two about not attributing views to people who don't hold those views. She might have even been told to do a bit of research before making claims. In this case she did neither. She appears to have been looking for some way to attach Hayek and Rand to the Tea Party crowd. Sure, the TP movement have latched onto books by Hayek and Rand but I would bet you that most have never read them. And those who did probably didn't understand half of what they said.

For Hayek they latched onto his book The Road to Serfdom, which doesn't really lay out Hayek's views on the nature of a free society. But then reading The Constitution of Liberty would be beyond most of them. They couldn't get past the first chapter. And while Atlas Shrugged is easier to read it is prone to misinterpretation by people who impose on it what they want to find.

And it isn't only the Left that invents meanings for the book that are not there. I remember one occasion when poor Ayn was being questioned by some loony-Bircher type who insisted the novel was the master plan of the secretive Illuminati conspiracy to take over the world. Ayn truly had no idea what the woman was talking about. Others have taking that view and added in that she was the mistress of a Rothschild in a Jewish plot to take over the world. All of it nonsense, but people love nonsense. On a discussion board for Atlas Shrugged, the movie, I read conservatives who insisted that Ayn was not an atheist, or tried to claim that atheism had nothing to do with her philosophy.

Toilets and sex.

I was listening to a paleoconservative railing against government regulations of things like shower heads, toilets and light bulbs. I'm with him on that.

On a recent trip to San Francisco I used the toilet in my hotel room, which is sort of the point to having the room, along with other things like showering and sleeping. But the low-flush toilet simply wouldn't flush things away properly. It didn't have the power it needed to flush solids away. With such commodes I find that I flush several times. Lots of people I know say they do the same thing. In the end they use more water.

But what got worse was the toilet clogged. That was making it impossible to use at all. The hotel was a small one and the time of night meant there was no one to solve the problem. I had to go to the front desk and borrow a plunger, which was needed several more times over the next two days. It really was a shitty experience.

And that brings me back to the paleoconservative. Paleoconservatives are for free markets, for a non-interventionist foreign policy, but tend to be very socially conservative. One, who even pretends to be a "libertarian," claimed that a libertarian society would have to physically remove gay people in order to survive. It probably wouldn't surprise you to learn he is anti-immigraiton—well to be precise he is against immigration by non-whites most of all.

Freedom of choice for toilet bowl power! Great, but exactly why have freedom of choice for your toilet bowl but NOT for your spouse?

The true colors of Ron Paul! They ain't pretty.

This blog has been telling people for years that Ron Paul is NO libertarian—of any kind. He has a few libertarian-leaning positions in some areas. But he is a fucking Right-wing social conservative who believes in big government control in the name of Jesus. He was only marginally libertarian in 1988, when the Libertarian Party nominated him for president, and it has been downhill since then. But the Rondroids won't believe it. This cult of Ron Paul has no ability to think critically.

Ron Paul is a man who voted to reintroduce "sodomy laws" in Washington, D.C., when the city council repealed them. Congress can veto legislation in D.C. or repeal it, if they don't like what the city council does. When the D.C council repealed sodomy laws, which is clearly the libertarian thing to do, the bigoted Religious Right had fits. They want gay people arrested and imprisoned, they want such laws enforced because they are sure that is what Jesus wants. DAMN the constitution, damn the rights of people, they want theocracy.

When theocratically-inclined Republicans introduced legislation to reinstate sodomy as a crime Ron Paul jumped on their bandwagon. Then, when libertarians questioned him, he did the typical double-talk he has used for decades to justify his authoritarianism on social issues. Ronnie Paul lied and said it was absolutely necessary to recriminalize sodomy because the same legislation reduced the penalty for rape.

What Paul never told people was that anti-rape groups wanted the clause, reducing the penalty for rape, put into effect. The penalty was so high that they found juries were reluctant to convict rapists for their crimes. An ultra-high penalty may punish a few rapists more severely but it also means that any slight doubts jurors may have dominate in a very large number of cases and rapists are found "not guilty" because jurors fear imposing such a severe punishment without absolute and total certainty.

Instead of bashing homosexuals in order to protect women from rapists, Congressman Paul, always the lying conservative, was willing to let rapists go free in order to bash gay people. His views on gays were so strident he was willing to help rapists beat the rap.

Now, consider the odious Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA, even by Right-wing constitutionalism is wrong. It is federal legislation over what is historically an area totally under state control: marriage.

The Obama Administration has finally come around to realize that DOMA is wrong and said it would no longer defend DOMA in cases currently going through the court system. Ron Paul is furious. He released his own statement attacking the administration for refusing to defend what is probably an unconstitutional law. See, Ronnie the Righty, would rather ignore the Constitution if it allows him to use his fundamentalist Baptist religion as a guidepost for American law. He is so keen to bash gay people that he will betray his pretense at principles. Ron Paul is one of the biggest frauds to be perpetrated on libertarians in the history of the movement.

Paul claims that DOMA was to stop government "from re-defining marriage and forcing its definition on the States... I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman and must be protected." So federal legislation has to be passed to strip gay people of their rights because Ron Paul thinks a dead messiah wants him to impose his theology on others.

The man is a moron and has always been a moron. I mean he really is stupid. Allow me let you in on a little secret. He doesn't write his own material and never has. He has ghostwriters who make him sound intelligent by putting his name on their work. That is why, when he gets in-depth questions he looks like a deer in the headlights and starts stuttering and stammering and talking around the issue. He can't support the claims in his "books" because he didn't write the books and doesn't know or understand what is in them. And yes, I do know who the ghost-writers were in several of the cases.

That is precisely why he got caught publishing racist rants in his silly little newsletter. The shit that was published was done in his name. But he didn't write it, not even the hysterical, lying material on AIDS that was written in the first person. (Yes, he was a major campaigner attacking people with HIV.) When Ronnie the Liar was asked about the racist rants in his publication he said he didn't know who wrote them. Hmm, maybe he should check the auto dial on his phone, he'll still find the author of those rants there. They remain close friends to this day, even if he told the press he can't remember who it was. He wasn't forgetful, just lying.

I don't think Ron is a racist, though I do think he is an anti-gay bigot. It is possible he is a racist but I don't have personal information that would support that conclusion. It's never come out in conversations I've had with him. While Ron said he had no idea that the material was being printed the facts prove he was lying about that as well. The newsletters came out of his Lake Jackson office. His campaign manager was the publisher. His good friends were the editors, one of whom is still alive and still bosom buddies with Ronnie. His wife and daughter were both on the payroll of the publication—though it is possible they never actually did any work for the salary they receives and that this was merely a means to launder funds into Paul's personal accounts. Ron knew who wrote the material. He still does. He knew what the newsletters said all along. He knows who was responsible for the material and he and the culprit, who has associated himself with numerous racists and anti-Semites, are still good friends. In fact, I went to this person's website and ran "Ron Paul" through the search engine for the site. Ron comes up over 13,000 times. They are still in close cahoots. I am waiting for associates of the actual writer to come here and begin attacking us, in defense of Ron, when they are also defending their own organization and fellow neo-confederates.

Paul got caught when the media saw the actual newsletters that he published. And his defense was to openly lie to the media and to the American public. That's Mr. Integrity.

Paul's bigotry goes so far as to demand that judges not rule on the Constitutionality of laws passed by legislatures. He would strip judges of their duty to rule on whether laws violate rights or not. You didn't hear Ron ranting about activist judges when the Second Amendment was upheld by the Supreme Court—as it should have been. He only rants about activist judges when they rule in ways that go against the Religious Right.

Ron has claimed that First Amendment protections don't apply in the States. He has said that the State's can impose Christianity as the state religion because the First Amendment doesn't matter at that level. Yet, apparently he has no such criticism when the Second Amendment is applied to the states. Why? Because he supports imposing Christianity as a state religion and he supports the right to own guns. His constitutional principles are twisted to conform with his personal moral preferences, not with any consistent theory of constitutional law. And given that he's a gun-rights fundamentalist Christian he's happy to contradict himself.

Ron Paul also lied when he said the Obama Administration said they "will abandon the obligation to enforce DOMA." Actually what the administration said was that they would cease to defend DOMA in the courts but that they would still enforce the law while waiting for the outcome in the courts. Mr. Paul is, once again, woefully misinformed. He usually is.

We saw the same befuddled interpretation of the facts when he engaged in gay bashing when seeking the Republican nomination for president last time around. When asked about DADT he said that he then supported DADT because sexual harassment should be stopped. DADT had NOTHING to with sexual harassment or misconduct. Ron clearly had no idea what DADT was about so he said the first thing that came into his head and often the first thing that comes into his head is completely wrong. He eventually did come to vote for repeal, one of his few libertarian votes in the social arena.

Ron presents himself as a Constitutional scholar yet he says absurd things such as the Constitution is "replete with references to God..." Go read the constitution and you will see Ron Paul doesn't know the constitution. Replete means "abundantly filled." But instead of there being an abundance of references to God there are none. Does Ron believe the bullshit he spreads? I suspect so, as I said, he is not a particularly bright man. I'm sorry but I first meet Ron Paul almost 30 years ago and he wasn't bright then. If anything he just appears more confused than he was then.

He would do his Ron Paul "shuffle." He is a good politician, in the sense he knows how to lie to the constituents and keep both conservatives and libertarians happy. He votes with the conservatives and sounds like a libertarian. That's all it takes. Dance with the Right while sounding libertarian seems to give conservatives what they want and give libertarians worthless rhetoric.

The one thing Ron Paul wants from libertarians are campaign contributions. But he is not one of us. He is a paleo-conservative. He is not a libertarian. He has never been a libertarian. He is libertarian on some issues, but then even Obama is libertarian on some issues: DOMA being one of them. The one thing Ronnie wants from libertarians is their money, not their principles.

Paul says he will stand with the state's and defend their "right" not to respect the rights of same-sex couples. There is no such right. State's don't have rights but people do. State's have powers. And the powers of the State should never allow the State to disrespect the rights of people. Individual rights precede, and are superior to, government powers. That is libertarian. The pablum that Ronnie is dishing out is pure Right-wing conservatism, not libertarianism.

I don't even want to go in the truly insane views the man has about secret conspiracies. But to say the least, he is bonkers. The man is a crank and has always been a crank. He doesn't deserve libertarian support and never really has, though, as I said, he was once more libertarian than he is today. Ron Paul is a hypocritical, lying politician. He is not the messiah. He is not the knight in shining armor. I know other paleo-conservatives, particularly those associated with the man who DID write the racist diatribes, will be furious for me saying this.

But Ron Paul is NOT now, nor has he ever been a libertarian. He was close at one point, but he is a paranoid, right-wing loon with Christianist tendencies who is a social conservative and wants government to impose Christian morality, especially at the state level. But libertarians are so desperate for a messiah that they turn a blind eye to this idiot.

But I don't expect any of this dent the Rondroids. They are a cult more than anything I've seen in a long time, outside real cults. They will continue to make excuses for the man and pretend he is their knight. Ron Paul does a lot of harm to the libertarian brand and shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. When he got caught with the racist material he claimed he couldn't be a racist since he's a libertarian. He was never a libertarian and his defense only associated the racist articles with libertarianism, which only hurts libertarians. Fuck Ron Paul, and I don't mean in the nice way.

Gary Johnson, CPAC, conservatives and Ron Paul

Gary Johnson is the only politician who I could support. He's far better than paleoconservative Ron Paul.

Speaking of Ron, I find it hilarious that YAF (which should stand for Youth Against Freedom, but supposedly means Young Americans for Freedom) has said they are throwing Ron Paul off their advisory board. Advisory boards actually never advise, they are for show and usually used by the organization as a fund raising tool to give them legitimacy.

YAF is upset because of one of the issues where Ron Paul is correct, his support for the Old Right position of non-interventionism. YAF tries to paint Paul as some sort of Lefty for this position. In truth however, the bipartisan foreign policy that now has the US stationing troops around the world is Woodrow Wilison's policy and FDR's policy. It is an imperialistic policy that came from the political Left. Though some lefties, like William Jennings Bryan, were clear exceptions.

What is particularly hilarious is that the clowns at YAF claimed to be the oldest "conservative/libertarian" organization around. There is no such creature as a conservative/libertarian. Conservatives are not libertarians and real libertarians are not conservatives. Gary Johnson is no conservative, he is a libertarian. Ron Paul, however, is not a libertarian but a conservative albeit one with some libertarian tendencies, but more paleoconservative than anything else.

I have watched the debate about the CPAC conference for conservatives in DC with some amusement. The presence of a gay conservative group at the CPAC has the theocratic Right foaming at the mouth. Moralistic assholes kept popping up and announcing that they would not attend because, shock, horror, there were "homosexuals" in the crowd.

These people react to gays the same way that Nazis react to Jews, or the Klan does when a black man walks down the street. It is pathetic.

But CPAC has always attracted a younger crowd and they are less concerned about being warriors for Christ, so they aren't quite so willing to host a Holy Inquisition and burn a few heretics on top of the faggots used to light the fire. (Yes, that is the origin of that insulting word, it was the kindling used to burn people at the stake in the name of a loving god.) So, the CPAC attendees aren't so interested in the verbal gay bashing that Christians do so well and so endlessly.

To me the debate that ought to be held is why are libertarians at CPAC, not why are conservatives there. Let's face it people: the modern conservative is not a libertarian. He is even less libertarian than the Old Right conservatives, who still failed at being libertarian. Conservatives are bad on almost everything, when it comes to their political view points.

Libertarians are quite a different species entirely. And the less time libertarians spend with conservatives the better.

Conservative Party Leader: It Gets Better

David Cameron is the leader of the Conservative Party in the UK and is Prime Minister. Here he speaks out in defense of gay equality. Can you imagine any Republican being this decent? Maybe Gary Johnson, but that pretty well runs me out of ideas.

The Tea Party Facade Falls Away

One of the first claims I heard about the nascent Tea Party movement was that it had no desire to focus on social conservatism. I was highly dubious of the claim given what I've seen of the conservative movement in recent years. What I've seen is theocratically-inclined biblical bigots who want to use the stick of government to beat people up. I saw the anti-immigrant fervor at the one rally I attended and I saw the very cold reception that Gov. Gary Johnson got when he tried to enlighten them on the dangers of the war on drugs.

But some of the media was spreading the claim that the Tea Party movement was made up of conservatives who wanted to focus on economics.

Now we have several successful "Tea Party" candidates who have secured the nomination of the Republican Party for office. Guess what? I have yet to hear of one such candidate who isn't a flaming moral fascist demanding that government enforce their views of morality.

Here is Christine O'Donnell, the Theopublican candidate for Senate in New Jersey, a Tea Party activist. This is a woman who campaigned against masturbation as a form of adulterty.

Can anyone point to a successful Tea Party candidate running for major office who IS NOT a social conservative? I know of none who are actually libertarian and that especially includes Rand Paul.

Families: united by love but divided by hate.

In discussing the terrible tragedy of two teens driven to suicide by anti-gay bigotry—which I advise you read if you haven't done so)—I said to the bigots: "But they could be your children." Of course, we know many examples when they have been their children. Certainly Bobby Griffith was tormented by his own mother and family and church until he killed himself. Mary Griffith realized what she had done, but it was too late to save Bobby. Since then she has campaigned to end the prejudice.


This is what must terrify the anti-gay bigot in ways that can't torment the racist. A Klan leader is not going to discover that the white son he has known his entire life is going to announce he's really black. But no anti-gay bigot with children can have that confidence throughout their entire life. There is always a time when they simply don't know. And many remain clueless their entire lives. But many of them do find themselves facing down their own children and hating them for being gay.


As often happens in politics two powerful political families are united when their children marry. Both families are very conservative, both are Mormons and of course, they are Republicans. Matthew Salmon was Republican state senator in Arizona, he ran for governor and he was a U.S. Congressman. Jeff Flake in the Congressman from Mesa, another conservative Republican and like Salmon, another Mormon. The Flake and Salmon families have been a foundation for the Right-wing Republicans in Arizona. And now they are united by romance—though neither of them are particularly thrilled by it.

Matt Salmon is named after his father, the former congressman. At 14-years-of-age he told his mother he was gay, which didn't stop his family from campaigning against gay people. His partner is Kent Flake, the second counsin of Congressman Flake.

Matt followed the teachings of the Mormon sect and went through therapy to change. It failed, as might be expected.

Kent is from Snowflake, Arizona. Snowflake was a small town founded on orders of Brigham Young, the alleged Mormon prophet. Young sent William Flake to found the town and Apostle Erastus Snow was put in charge of colonization. These polygamists were the founders of the town and when Mormons to name it after Flake others wanted to honor Snow. The name Snowflake was how they honored both simultaneously.

Of course each young man knew of the others family. Matt befriend Kent on Facebook and soon they started dating. At this point Kent told his family he was gay. But under pressure he broke up with Matt and tried to go through church therapy to cure himself of being gay. Matt and Kent had an argument about Kent's attempt to change and faced with a final decision Kent decided to stay with Matt and to resign from the Mormon cult. Matt was sitting in church one Sunday in the summer of 2008 when the minister, following orders from the church heirarchy, was urging everyone in the Arizona congregation to send money to defeat marriage equality in California—that is donate to Proposition 8. The minister told the congregation that all homosexuals are promiscuious and their relationships are selfish. That was when he decided to quite Mormonism completely, and today compares it to some of the outlandish teachings from the cult of Scientology.

Flake is getting the worst of it. He rarely sees his family anymore, hasn't had a real conversation with his father nad has been told that his father doesn't want Matt around his family or his grandkids. Kent's sister told has publicly said that she called them "fags" and "pedophiles" but insists they still love him, they just don't want "to see him in a gay couple." The same is true in Salmon's family. He was told that his family still loves him but that Kent is not welcome in their home. Matt's own siblings dropped him as a Facebook friend in protest over his being gay.

One cousin, Krista Gohus, still is friends. She recently left the Mormon sect as well and considers herself a libertarian, not a Republican. She told the Phoenix New Times: "Matt and his boyfriend, Kent, have been to my home many times, and my 10-year-old son knows Matt and Kent are a couple. I'm teaching my children that being gay is just like being left-handed or being born with curly hair. It's not right or wrong, it's just the way you were born."

Photos: Matt (L), Kent (R).

Judge Napolitano on conservatives as socialists.

More of the bigotry of Wayne Allan Root.

The con man Wayne Allen Root is at it again, besmirching the libertarian label with conservative verbal vomit. The man is a fraud and if the Libertarian Party had an ounce of decency they would boot him out on his fat ass.

Root has a piece that is anti-private property and collectivistic to the core. And he does it while labeling himself as “one of America’s leading Libertarian thinkers.” For the record, I doubt even Root is so stupid as to think he is one of America’s leading libertarian thinkers. Actually he probably knows he not even a libertarian.

Some Muslims are building a center, which includes a mosque, in New York. It will be a couple of blocks away from the site of the Twin Towers. Root is against the idea because: “there are also rights and sensibilities of others to consider in a free society.” Of course, the rights of others are to be respected. But building a mosque doesn’t violate anyone’s rights, no matter how much it offends Mr. Root. No rights are being violated. As for violating sensibilities: what does that mean? Some people, especially the bigoted, are easily offended. Tough shit: in a free society you don’t have a right to go unoffended. And if you are a conservative, like Root, you are usually easily offended. Deal with it.

Root condemns the building of the mosque because it “does nothing to increase religious freedom. “ No it doesn’t and it isn’t obliged to. He says that a mosque instead “inspires hatred, divides our cultures and increases the odds of violence and hate crimes.” Hell, build a Baptist church and the same damn thing happens. But private property is private property and the state has no right to prevent a church, or a mosque, from being built—nor should it.

Root offers lots of bullshit, but then bullshit is his specialty. He says that building it is a sign of disrespect and means to “belittle us.” Who is “us?” I don’t feel belittled or disrespected. And like offense, you have no inherent right to respect. People are free to disrespect you if they wish; they just aren’t free to violate your life, liberty or property.

Root says this center “is to show Muslim contempt for Americans by building a monument to Islam in the shadow of their greatest triumph over America.” Give that some thought for a second. Yes, fanatical Muslims did a horrific thing in the name of their religion. But is there a universal guilt for all Muslims? To call that terrorist attack “their greatest triumph,” and to mean Muslims, is pure, raw, bigoted collectivism.

Mr. Root is a Jew. The Israeli military attacked the USS Liberty in what can only be described as a terrorist attack. Does that action by Israel, mean all Jews are somehow guilty? Obviously not. All Germans aren’t responsible for the atrocities of the Nazis. All whites are not guilty for the attacks of the Klan or Jim Crow laws. All Afrikaners are not responsible for apartheid.

There is no such thing as collective guilt. Hitler preached an anti-Semitic message that was built on the concept of collective guilt for all members of a specific religious minority. Mr. Root, by claiming that the attack of some terrorists was a triumph for Islam, is engaging in the same disgusting form of bigotry as Julius Streicher and his fellow Nazi propagandists.

I have no sympathy for Islam. Nor for that matter do I care about Judaism or Christianity, or any of the inherently intolerant sects of monotheism. It is just wrong, however, to paint all Christians with one brush, or all Jews, or all Muslims. It is a crude form of collectivism and it is irrational.

I dislike Christian theology because I think it is wrong, stupid, and potentially dangerous. I say the same for Judaism and the same for Islam. But I would never say that all Christians are dangerous; all Jews are a threat, or all Muslims are out to get us.

I do think fundamentalism, in all three sects is particularly dangerous. But most Christians are not fundamentalists. Most Muslims were not responsible for 9/11. Most Jews are not responsible for the USS Liberty attack, not even most Israelis are responsible.

As usual the big mouth, self-absorbed con man from Vegas doesn’t even bother to check out the facts. The center being built is called Cordoba House and does house a mosque along with many other things. It is the work of a Muslim cleric who wanted a community center where Muslims and people of other faiths can meet together. The name Cordoba was picked after the Spanish city where Christians, Jews and Muslims once lived together in peace. It is a repudiation of the sort of fanaticism that we saw on 9/11, and the sort of knee-jerk reactionary thinking of Right-wing bigots like Root.

Cordoba House promotes itself as place for interfaith cooperation and social interaction to help promote tolerance and friendship. It is moderate Islam at work. The intolerant fanatics are two-bit charlatans like Root.

Conservatives have been demanding that tolerant Muslims step forward and work in opposition to the fundamentalists—something conservatives themselves refuse to do when it comes to Christian intolerance. Now that such Muslims have done precisely this the Right wing, including faux libertarians like Root, are up in arms over it. Just as decent Muslims need to disassociate themselves from intolerant fanatics, as Cordoba House is doing, so too must decent libertarians repudiate the immature thinking of fake libertarians like Root.

Conservatives in disguise?

There is a religious publication for conservatives who try to take the same views as the Moral Majoritarians without sounding completely unhinged and rabid. They advocate the same sort of moralistic, big government policies of the fanatical fundamentalists but try to do so without sounding like fundamentalists. One of their publications is First Things. They assume that their fantasies about being in communication with some supernatural being gives them a right, even a duty, to use the state to violate the rights of peaceful individuals who act in ways disapproved of by their imaginary friend.

Since they want to trample on the rights of "immoral" people in the name of their religion they know that libertarians are their enemy. They are right, libertarians are their enemies for the same reason libertarians are the enemy of socialism. Conservatives are just socialists of the soul. Just as the socialist want to regulate your material life, the conservatives want to regulate your "spiritual" or moral life.

First Things is thus upset when individuals present "conservative" cases for social liberty. For instance, they are upset that years ago the eternally pompous Andrew Sullivan wrote a conservative case for gay marriage. They misstate Sullivan's views by saying his entire case was that "it will help homosexuals connect sex with love and commitment." Sullivan's case is much more than that but they aren't trying to tell the truth. It seems that even the so-called rational Christian conservatives simply can't help lying about what others believe, a trait they share with their rabid brothers in Christ.

First Things believes there is a concerted attempt by libertarians to infiltrate the conservative movement. In my view that is like a bottle of perfume infiltrating a dung heap. It can be done but seems completely counterproductive.

Along with distorting Sullivan's book on marriage equality they discuss another evil "infiltration" entitled "The Conservative Case for Immigration." That is another libertarian plot as well. Interesting that the first two issues that come to mind about evil libertarians uses the examples of marriage equality and immigration. I have argued the Republicans, particularly conservative religious Republicans, are motivated by hatred; in particular hatred for gays and immigrants.

So here is a "sensible" religious conservative group immediately using precisely those same two groups for their libertarian-bashing article.

Oddly, I do think there are reasons some rational conservatives would want both immigration and marriage equality. Religiously motivated conservatives however, are allergic to rational reasons and rely on alleged supernatural revelation for their public policies. God is their trump card, every prejudice they entertain is supported by the claim that "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." In this sense they are precisely the same as the Islamists that they fear; fear perhaps because they are so similar to one another, at least in their rationality for wanting to deprive others of their rights.

Conservative Republican, Mitch Daniels, was attacked for saying his five favorite books were The Road to Serfdom, Free to Choose, What It Means to Be a Libertarian, The Rise and Decline of Nations and The Future and Its Enemies. I have read and endorse, to one degree or another, all of those books with the exception of the fourth, which I have not read. What has First Things upset is that these books "were written by libertarians advocating libertarian positions."

Conservatives, at one time shared some common values with libertarians—I'm not sure that is true any longer. But one of the funny things about the conservative movement is that they have had to rely on libertarians to do their thinking for them. Since the Bible says bugger-all about markets, spontaneous order, individual rights, etc., conservatives have to find others who actually think about such things. So they borrow and steal ideas from libertarians on a regular basis. When they want to sound like intellectual advocates of freedom they will quote Milton Friedman, FA Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand and other authors of a more libertarian bent.

Conservatism itself is intellectually sterile and so they have had to take what libertarians have been writing. Left to their own devices they produce the likes of Anne Coulter or Rush Limbaugh, intellectual midgets who think sneer and smear is a form of intellectual argumentation.

First Things laments the intellectual wasteland that is modern conservatism and admit that libertarians "hold an outsized influence" on the "right-leaning intellectual elite." They write: "Disagree? Quick: Think of a prominent economist on the right that isn't a libertarian or that is an outspoken social conservative." If by "on the right" they mean supporting a free, depoliticized market, then they are pretty much right. Conservatives aren't intellectuals. Economics is an intellectual pursuit. Conservatives are faith-driven, economics is reality-bound. They steal from libertarians because religion is intellectual sterile when it comes to matters like economics.

I once tried to read all the major defenses of religion and capitalism. Poor Ed Optiz spent more time quoting Mises than Jesus—and for good reason. I found individual Christians trying to defend free markets but using secular sources for their arguments. They can't rely on their theology for this, they must rely on secular sources.

The reality is that NO major free market economist that I can think of, was a professed orthodox Christian. They were mostly secular, atheists or deists, often non-practicing Jews. First Things find this disturbing and thinks that these libertarians were involved in some plot to infiltrate conservatives. They say: "By shifting the terminology—call themselves conservative while supporting libertarian ideas—they will eventually reshape the conservative movement into their own image." Milton Friedman said he was a classical liberal, or a modern libertarian, not a conservative. I've heard him say it and emphasis his actual views. FA Hayek wrote an excellent essay attacking the foundations of conservatism in Why I Am Not a Conservative. Mises wrote an entire book on his political philosophy called Liberalism.

This is hardly deceptive infiltration by libertarians into the dung heap of conservatism. Conservatives, in their attempt to pay lip-service to free markets, borrowed intellectual arguments on markets from libertarians because they are unable to produce their own.


They argued that "libertarians are trying to pass themselves off as conservatives," while I argue the opposite is happening. Ron Paul has pushed a conservative agenda on social issues, claimed separation of church and state is a "myth," voted to keep sodomy a crime in Washington, D.C., wants to nationalize every uterus in the country calls himself a "true conservative" right up until he says something stupid and then pretends he is a libertarian as a cover-up. We saw conservatives like Wayne Root and Bob Barr infiltrate the libertarian movement.

George Bush so discredited the Religious Right that there was an influx of conservatives using the libertarian label to describe themselves. But it is rare for real libertarians to label themselves conservative. For a libertarian that would make as much sense as saying one is a Marxist-Leninist.

First Things is correct to note that conservatives and libertarians are not similar groups. Libertarians believe in individual rights; conservatives DO NOT. Libertarians believe in equality before the law; conservatives do not. Libertarians believe in separation of church and state; conservatives do not. Libertarians believe in limiting government to protecting the rights of individuals; conservatives want expansive state powers in the name of morality. The original enemies of the early libertarian movement were the conservatives who defend the feudal order of the day. Socialists saw themselves as proponents of many liberal ideas, so much so that they eventually claimed the name for themselves. But conservatives were everything that the classical liberals opposed.

That the socialist/progressive movement became so extreme in their worship of state power, something they adopted from the conservatives of their day, was the reason for a temporary alliance, in opposition to Marxism, between true liberals and conservatives. But that temporary alliance didn't mean conservatives and libertarians shared any real values, just a common opposition to Marxist authoritarianism. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. Conservatives are not now, never have been, and never will be the allies of classical liberalism, libertarianism or individual rights.

Rand Paul and Ayn Rand: not peas from the same pod

One of the tragedies from the Ron Paul movement has been the association of libertarianism with very unlibertarian sentiments. Before Rand Paul picked up his father's sullied mantle I was talking with someone who had been a top official in the Liberal Democratic Party at a dinner in London. Some of the people were libertarians who thought the Paulites were a good thing. I pointed out how our ideas were being associated with ideas that were most clearly not libertarian. The Lib Dem guy made the point about "brand contamination." When someone becomes associated with other things, a tad bit more nefarious and questionable, the good aspects of the brand become contaminated.

That is what Ron Paul did to libertarianism—associating it with anti-immigrant sentiments, neo-Confederate politics, Birch Society conspiracy nonsense, state's rights, and racism, to name a few. Ron Paul has always been a conservative, not a libertarian—as his vote to keep sodomy a crime in D.C., showed. And Rand Paul is more of the same, but worse.

So who gets blamed for Rand Paul's views? Libertarians do. Sam Tanenhaus referred to Rand Paul's controversial statements with a New York Times piece entitled: "Rand Paul and the Perils of Textbook Libertarianism." That would imply that Rand Paul is a textbook libertarian when he is no such thing. He has less right to claim libertarianism than does his father.

So I wanted to clear up a few points. Not only isn't Rand Paul a libertarian, as I have asserted before, but he isn't even named after Ayn Rand—as some of his worshippers and detractors all seem to assume. Paul has clarified it himself but that doesn't stop the morons, on both Left and Right, from saying otherwise. His full name is Randal Paul and Rand is merely an abbreviation of his first name, not homage to Ayn Rand.

And, if it had been homage to Rand, I can assure you she wouldn't have been honored. Rand refused to support candidates if they campaigned against abortion. She refused to support Reagan and stated his opposition to abortion as a reason, and Reagan was much more moderate on the issue than Paul, who wouldn't even allow a woman to abort in order to save her own life. My friend Barbara Branden reports: "When I last saw Rand in 1981, she told me that she was opposed to Reagan because she considered him a typical conservative in his attempt to link politics and religion. About his anti-abortion view, she said: 'A man who does not believe in a woman's right to her own body, does not believe in human rights.'"

Paul, according to his own site, had the endorsement of the far-Right theocratic group, Concerned Women for America, and his site says that his "socially conservative views have earned the respect and trust of church leaders across Kentucky." Consider how Rand saw Reagan and his friendly relations with the Moral Majority:

The appalling disgrace of his administration is his connection with the so-called "Moral Majority" and sundry other TV religionists, who are struggling—apparently with his approval—to take us back to the Middle Ages, via the unconstitutional union of religion and politics.

Rand said Reagan was trying to "arouse the country by some sort of inspirational appeal. He is right in thinking that the country needs an inspirational element. But he will not find it in the God-Family-Tradition swamp." So while Randal Paul was sucking up to the social conservative religionists, Ayn Rand had called their ideology a "swamp" and wanted nothing to do with them.

Previously I mentioned Rand's views on the issue of state's rights, which is vastly different than Randal Paul's views. While social conservatives like the two Pauls, Wayne Allen Root, Bob Barr and others, argue for state's rights, Ayn Rand said that people don't understand what it means She argued it was merely a "division of power between local and national authorities" and did "not grant to a state government an unlimited arbitrary power over its citizens or the privilege of abrogating the citizens' individual rights." As Rand saw it state's rights would justify the violation of separation of church and state at the state level, as Ron Paul and other conservatives have said.

George Wallace used the state's right mantra to justify his racist campaigns for political office. Rand noted that Wallace was NOT "a defender of individual rights, but merely of state's rights—which is far from being the same thing." She said Wallace's denunciation of big government was one that merely wanted to replace federal tyranny with local tyranny, that all Wallace wanted was "to place the same unlimited, arbitrary power in the hands of many little governments." This is also true of the paleo-conservatives pretending to be libertarians: Randal and Ron Paul being the prime examples.

Libertarian blogger Timothy Lee noticed that Randal Paul's "libertarianism" "is curiously one-sided." Lee notes that Paul's view "is far from uncompromising" and points to Paul's rabid anti-immigration stands, his demand that anyone who is a citizen of a "rogue nation" be denied travel visas and that he supports "holding suspects indefinitely without trial at GITMO," as evidence. He also lists Paul's opposition to marriage equality, his refusal to talk about the war on drugs, or free trade as areas of concern. Lee writes:

Paul is an uncompromising defender of the rights of business owners to decide who will sit at their lunch counters. But Paul apparently sees no problem with deploying the power of the state to stop private business owners from hiring undocumented workers. Nor does he seem to care very much about business owners’ freedom to do business with the millions of non-terrorists who live in “rogue nations.” Or, for that matter, the freedom of a gay business owner to marry the person he loves. There’s a principle at work here, all right, but I don’t think it has very much to do with limited government.

Randal Paul got caught by his own position in defense of private discrimination. And while I agree with freedom of association as a right, it is very difficult, if not impossible to defend those rights if you yourself advocate violating those rights in numerous ways. Social conservatives, like Paul, are not advocates of individual rights, but proponents of social order and state control in the name of God, family, tradition, morality and religion. They are sometimes opponents of state intervention and sometimes advocates of it. Their lack of consistency means it is easy to show them up as hypocrites, advocating one set of laws for one group of people and another set for other, less favored, groups.

As a libertarian I would say this lack of consistency plagues both Progressives and Conservatives. Which is why libertarians are neither, but hold the radical middle ground where rights are applied consistently. Randal Paul, like his father doesn't support equality of rights for gay people. So that meant he could not answer Rachel Maddow well when she nailed him on discrimination. He stuttered, stumbled, tried to evade, and basically made his position look bad. He tried to claim libertarian principles, but not being a consistent libertarian made that difficult. So how would I have responded to Maddow, in the same circumstances? Here is my answer:

Rachel, that's a good question and is the answer is more complex that a lot of people want to believe. For instance, why shouldn't a "black student's union" have the right to admit only black students? And doesn't it make sense that with the sort of sexual harassment that many women have experienced that a lesbian bar might rationally want to exclude straight men as patrons or employees?

Much of the struggle for human rights, especially for those oppressed and discriminated against, has revolved around the freedom to associate. With the right to freely associate comes the right to not associate, which is what that lesbian bar would be doing. Government is a very blunt tool, and when the law applies to private associations it does so without taking into account, nor can it take into account, the nuances which may well justify the reluctance for some people to associate with others.

Where there is private discrimination, that is irrational and prejudicial, such as the refusal of some restaurants to serve black patrons, I think it important that community leaders, people like yourself, all decent people, stand up and protest, boycott, picket, leaflet and force a change in policy. And there are many examples of that happening.

Government is such a blunt tool to use that it can't distinguish between the first kind of discrimination and the second kind. It destroys both with the same law. Thus we could get bizarre things like a gay resort, with somewhat liberal standards on nudity or public displays of sexuality, being sued for discriminating against heterosexual families with children. Government does a bad job of telling the differences and thus tends to ban both.

Most people, like yourself, clearly can see the differences. A Christian church that refused to perform Jewish weddings doesn't bother most people. A restaurant that refuses to serve black customers does. The church is only exempt because of the First Amendment, and thus safe from such laws. But the lesbian bar I mentioned is not. The community is free to distinguish between these different forms of discrimination and routinely does so. They will boycott and protest against the restaurant but no one bats an eye at religious discrimination by churches.

What is critical to remember is that state power has more often been used to force discrimination than to forbid it. The South was not a free society and had legislation mandating bigotry and prejudicial policies. When local government violates the rights of people, it is fit and proper for federal legislation to prevent that. Government is a dangerous weapon and is more likely to be used to suppress rights.

The great civil rights battle of today, Rachel, is that of marriage equality.
Look at the battle line. All across the country private businesses treat their gay employees and customers with respect, sure some don't, but they are not the dominant trend by any means, but the exception. As a gay woman you surely know this.

Gay relationships are recognized by employers who grant their gay employees the same rights as other employees. Where is the problem? Don't Ask, Don't Tell -- government mandated discrimination. The Defense of Marriage Act -- government mandated discrimination. Immigration laws exist that refuse to recognize gay couples. That is state bigotry, not private. We have state mandated discrimination in the tax codes, marriage laws, custody laws, even in hospital visitation rights.

So, Rachel, here is my offer, based on my principles. Let us abolish all government mandated discrimination, abolish those laws, reform the system to see full equality of rights for all. Compared to the nationwide massive violations of rights that government is doing today, the issue of private discrimination is tiny. Not only is the impact of state discrimination far more destructive but it is much harder to change. Many a business has suddenly switched sides due to a boycott, but you can't boycott government. In addition, much of the private prejudices collapse when government-sanctioned bigotry is abolished.

So, when it comes to my preferences, I prefer the private versus governmental approach. It is easier to wipe out bigotry when privately practiced then when enforced by law. Even with a so-called "friend" in the White House look at the meager progress gay and lesbian people have made with their just demands. It is far easier to end private discrimination than state-enforced bigotry.

A government that routinely discriminates against tens of millions of Americans, due to their sexual orientation, or gender identity, is not a trust-worthy advocate for individual rights. I would rather leave this to the common sense of the people, using proven strategies like boycotts and picket lines, to eradicate irrational prejudice while leaving the woman's bar alone, as I suspect the case would be.

My answer may not entirely satisfy Maddow, but it would go a long way toward addressing her concerns and showing the good intentions of libertarians toward minorities. So why didn't Randall Paul say this? Why didn't he defend well the libertarian position? Because he couldn't, he doesn't believe in it.

Tea Party, neither tea nor a party.

I did something unusual today. Since it was tax day I went to the big metro-wide Tea Party rally. I was there from 2 pm until 10 pm. I talked to dozens of people, listened in on dozens of conversations and heard many speakers. They also had a booth area for organizations, and I checked out every single booth at the event, probably around 50 or 60 of them in total.

First, the big news: the Tea Party is not libertarian oriented. Not in any way, any shape, or any form. What I saw was the worst of the conservative movement, which these days is pretty bad since even main stream conservatives have become repulsive to all decent people.

First, even though today was tax day, taxes weren't the issue that motivated this crowd. I saw few signs protesting high taxes, few protesting Obamacare and none referring to the bailouts of Wall Street and corporate America. Two things drove these people to frenzied disgust: Obama and immigrants.

The Obama hatred was pervasive. I'm no fan of Obama, but I dislike the man because I dislike the policies he promotes. I consider him another George Bush, just one who can finish a complete sentence. But the worst Bush policies are pretty much the same as the worst Obama policies. I see Bush and Obama much like I see Hoover and FDR. The one started the bad policies that the other completed, but they aren't opposites just horrifyingly similar.

That the Tea Party movement didn't protest the big government policies of Bush, but are rabid about Obama, tells me that there is more here than a love for liberty. Actually I saw little indication for a love for liberty among these people.

What they wanted was Big Brother government using all its power to root out and find illegal immigrants looking for jobs. These were people who would applaud government monitoring work places, setting up ID check points, having the police randomly stop people in the streets to check their "papers" to make sure they are "legal" residents. These are the type of people who as children, thought the hall monitors were good guys making sure everyone had a "pass" from teacher. I would call them closet authoritarians except I don't think they're in the closet.

One woman was lecturing a camera about "my country is like my house." She thought that silly analogy valid."And I have the right to say who comes into my house." I couldn't stand it any more and from where I was seated yelled to her: "It's my house too." Not being too bright she smiled, pointed at me and yelled, "EXACTLY!" To that I replied: "And I don't care who comes in." She was not thrilled with that reply.

My point was that this is as much my country as it is her own. The idea that the country is a big version of her house is absurd unless she thinks that my house is somehow just a room in her house and that I have to live under her thumb. There are plenty of people who welcome anyone who wants to work, and are willing to hire them, willing to rent to them, and willing to be friends with them. The country as "private property" scenario is absurd, mainly because everyone I know who makes that assumption also assumes that all of us are as xenophobic as they are. Actually some of them aren't xenophobic in general, at least not if the immigrants are white.

One t-shirt that was being sold had Uncle Sam pointing his figure at the reader, in the old "I want you" motif. But this time the slogan was: "I want YOU to speak English." Think about that for a second. Uncle Sam is supposed to be a benevolent stand-in for the government. When Uncle Sam says something, it is the federal government saying it. So these "small government" conservatives were hawking t-shirts that make what language people are speaking a matter of federal concern. I am not saying the t-shirt is the equivalent to policy but that they thought it worth hawking indicated their mentality.

My view is libertarian, of course. The government doesn't have any business telling any private citizen what language they should speak. Talk in ancient Aramaic for all I care. One thing studies show is that the fastest way for new residents of a country to learn the local language is for them to get a job—something these people are trying to prevent for Mexicans, while still demanding they learn English. I know how hard it is to not speak the main language of a country—I've been there. I've also lived in multi-lingual countries and spent 10 years listening to my other half chatting in Afrikaans on the phone. It's no big deal except to xenophobes.

I did not think that the Tea Party movement was inspired by racism. And I don't think the racism is overt. But what I saw today did cause me to believe that a large percentage of the protest is racist inspired. The focus on Obama the man, with some rather crude caricatures, and not on the policies, only fed into that. And you know when these people talk about "illegal aliens" they don't mean Canadians.

The politicians who showed up, with on exception, were the worst sort from the Republican Party. I won't go into names since most are only locally known. But we are talking hard-core, law and order authoritarians. These are the kind of politicians who want stricter state control of people's sex lives, want the police to have few restraints because of the pesky Bill of Rights, who think the 2nd amendment is important but the 1st amendment is a myth. These are the politicians who think the number one issue in America is not runaway government but Mexicans wanting to bus tables and clean yards.

One person told me Ayn Rand was a genius. I am not one to disagree with that since I have some idea what her IQ was, and it was impressive. And I'm generally sympathetic to Rand with some areas of disagreement. But another was equally as quick to tell me she was evil because she was an atheist. He was unhappy when I responded, "So was Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises." He clearly had no idea who Hayek and Mises were but said, "Oh, well Friedman was good." The only thing he knew about Rand was she was a non-theist but that was all he needed to know.

But isn't that the conservative creature in a nutshell? An atheist must be bad because he or she is an atheist. Nothing else need be known. A homosexual is bad because he/she is a homosexual. A "illegal" immigrant is bad because they don't a permission slip from a politician to be here .

I have a tendency to find libertarians where I go and I found very few today. A few spotted me and came over to speak. But out of the thousands of people there today I got a sense that less than 10% could be remotely described as libertarians. Even one alleged libertarian group was handing out flyers headlined: "Stop Illegal Immigration. Yes!"

When I attended the American Humanist Association convention, with a much smaller audience, I found far more libertarians than I expected. I was surprised and would have estimated that 20% of the audience was libertarian. At the Atheist International conference with Richard Dawkins I again got the sense that around a quarter of the audience was libertarian oriented. Michael Shermer and I were discussing the matter and he said his sense of such events were that one-quarter to one-third were libertarian.

When I last saw Carol Ruth Silver, Harvey Milk's good friend and ally on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, I felt nothing but respect from her for libertarians. And she really did seem to understand where libertarians were coming from and while she disagreed on some important matters she was respectful and sympathetic. But when I talk to conservative leaders I don't feel the same respect, but a dislike. To them a libertarian is merely a conservative who wants to take drugs, or is gay.

Carol Ruth told me that libertarians interest her because they take ideas seriously. Conservatives, don't take ideas seriously and dislike libertarians because they do. But more than anything the conservative has this haunting suspicion that a libertarian is merely an immoral conservative. They don't get us. Sure, some on the Left don't get us either. But many do.

I can talk to friends on the Left. They are willing to debate based on evidence, facts, information, etc. They have some sense of being reality-based. But what I get from the Right today is a disdain for the facts and reality. They don't need such pesky things since they speak for God, and they know what God wants—God, to their great fortune, happens to agree completely with them. And since God said it, that settles it, and evidence is immaterial.

Look at the Right-wing debate on marriage equality. They are against it because God is against it. Because their God is the only God, and their God thinks they are 100% correct. Anyone who says God disagrees has a false God since God hates fags. Hey, they won't be as honest as the Westboro Baptist crowd but in their hearts that is what they believe.

One old libertarian friend of mine was there. When I saw him I said: "I'm so glad to see you. You are an island of sanity is a sea of crazy." He found it amusing, saying he thought I always saw him as touched himself. But he had the same reaction I did. He was really disgusted by the tone and tenor of the participants. He was sick of the Godly preaching at him, pushing religion on him, and claiming that everything is based on the Bible. He couldn't stomach the event as long as I did and left with his wife, telling me he was looking forward to the upcoming gay festival instead. If anything his few hours among the tea party crowd made him more anxious to attend the festival.

There is a great line in the remake of Hairspray (2007). One actress I've always enjoyed, Queen Latiffah, plays Motormouth Maybelle. Her son is dating a white girl, this in the late 50s, or early 60s. When Maybelle realizes it she tells the couple: "Well, love is a gift. A lot of people don't remember that, so you two better brace yourselves for a whole lot of ugly comin' at you from a never ending parade of stupid." Listening to the Tea Party crowd here today I thought of that quote repeatedly. What I saw was a " whole lot of ugly coming from a never ending parade of stupid."

I certainly hope the mood wasn't the same at other Tea Party events. But I know the other major local rally, held earlier in the day, which I didn't attend, was similarly ugly—with a lot of immigrant bashing going on there as well, and the two thousand attendees applauded a well known law enforcement figure who likes to find excuses to stop anyone who looks Hispanic as an pretense to search them for a green card. He was considered a hero at that rally.

What I got out of this rally, other than some nasty sun burn, is a sense of despair, not on the part of these people, but on my part. What was made clear to me is that the Tea Party people are not the great hope for America that they think they are. They are no more freed0m-oriented than President Obama. These activists struck me as angry people, looking for scapegoats. These were the people who see anyone who disagrees with them as purely evil in nature. I got no sense that there were libertarian sentiments amongst these people. They are NOT libertarians but conservative authoritarians. They are driven by a law & order mentality and a fear of the different. They are more likely to see people as evil than wrong and less accepting of the choice of others. For them, to choice other than they do, threatens them. They want a world where they are surrounded by pale versions of themselves.

They are not my kind of people. This Tea Party reminded me more of the one thrown by the Mad Hatter and not the one thrown by the Founders at Boston harbor.

Conservatves come to defense of gays so he can bash them.

A conservative writer at Breitbart's Big Journalism site, Bruce Carroll, has come to the defense of gays, sort of, in order to bash them along with liberals for hypocrisy. Carroll blogs about three men who went to San Francisco in order to assault gay men. The three cousins were Shafiq Hashemi, Sayed Bassam and Mohammad Habibzada.

The trio of budding bigots took a BB gun in to the city and picked a man they assumed was gay. They shot him in the face and were proud enough of their assault that they video taped the incident. Police were called and found the men a short time after the incident and confiscated the tape. As far as I know the police, when they arrest individuals, do not ask them their religion. And the news media reported on the incident based on information given out by the police.

But Big Journalism is livid because the the media, gays and liberals report neither "the identity group, nor the motives...." By identity group Carrol means Muslim. There is a decent chance these bigots were Muslim, based on the name. But I can't find anything to confirm that to be the case. It is an assumption. It may be a good assumption, but until we have confirmation, it is only an assumption. Journalists shouldn't make assumptions in news stories. To do so does bias the report according to the journalist's personal opinions. Normally conservatives would condemn journalists if they did make assumptions not in evidence.

Carrol, of course, is not concerned about gays. He just wants to bash journalists, liberals and gays in general. He went looking to see if gay media sites reported that the men were Muslim, because he assumes they are—and they may well be, I assume they are, but don't have proof. Most of Carrol's attack on various gay sites is entirely based on their refusal to brand the assailants as Muslims. This is a "head-in-the-sand approach in the reporting of this Muslim-on-gay violence in America's homo mecca" says Carroll. He specifically condemns various web sites for this alleged approach.

The sites in question don't have journalists stationed in San Francisco who could possible ferret out the religion of the assailants, in light of the police not identifying suspects by their faiths. What these sites apparently did was report on the story, based on the news stories on the wire from San Francisco. Is it hypocrisy? Is that head-in-the-sand, or is that actually good reporting based on only the facts in evidence and not on personal assumptions?

Carroll claims:

Folks who aren’t in tune with the American gay community need to understand something fundamental. The gay liberal activists and thought leaders that make policy and advocacy decisions have long ignored the existential threat to gays and lesbians by Islamic extremism. Liberal “gay rights” groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, the Gill Foundation, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force are far more concerned about attacking American Christians on a daily basis than facing the real threat to gays around the world.

Carroll mentions the barbaric penalties imposed on gays by Muslim nations. All that is true. All that has been widely reported in the very sites and media outlets that Carroll is targeting in his tirade. But Carroll, in typical hysterical conservative mode, pretends that gays are "too concerned about court-forced marriage, educational indoctrination of kids and Federal funding to worry about such trivial matters as systematic killing of gays by Islamic regimes. Or the looming threat to American gays and lesbians on our shores." Wow! And you thought only the Greens got hysterical!

Carroll seems pretty silly to me. There is no "court-forced marriage" as far as I know. Allowing gays to marry is not forcing marriage. What a bizarre definition of force! And all the gay media has routinely reported on the killing of gays by Islamic regimes, including the very sites that Carroll bashes.

As someone who has condemned religious extremism, be it Islamic or Christian, I have to say that Carroll is going overboard. Muslims are not a "looming threat to American gays and lesbians on our shores." Yes, some individual Muslims in America will commit crimes of hate against gay people. But they are a small percentage of the population. There are more fundamentalists Christians in America who think gays need to be put to death, than there are Muslims in America holding that view. Yes, there are more fundamentalist Muslims in the world, who take that position, than there are Christians who take that position. But in America the odds are reversed.

And it is fundamentalist Christians who have the Republican Party by the balls, not Islamic fundamentalists. On a world-wide basis, Islamic fundamentalism is the bigger threat. Within the United States it is Christian fundamentalism that is a threat. This blog has reported on Christian fundamentalist clerics who have publicly called for executing gays under Biblical law. And the Bible does say that gay men should be killed, not that Carroll would admit it does.

If there is evidence, besides their names, that these three men were Muslims engaged in a religious attack on gay people, then it should be reported. Carroll unfortunately doesn't offer any.

What about the conservative head-in-the-sand approach to the extremism of their fundamentalist Christian allies and their antigay agenda? Fundamentalist Muslims and Christians both stand guilty of bigotry. Carroll blasts the purported hypocrisy of gays, liberals and the media in not reporting antigay animus among Muslims, but what about the conservative media ignoring antigay animus among Christians? Carroll's accusations are hollow. The groups he condemns have reported on verified Islamic attacks on gays. They didn't report that the three assailants were Muslims in this case, because so far no one has offered any real evidence that they are. But certainly commentators on the various sites have made the same assumptions that Carroll made.

I actually make the same assumption, but I wouldn't report it as fact without actually knowing it is a fact. Carroll doesn't know it is a fact, he just assumes it is, and no doubt hopes it is.

I did notice that Carroll left off one gay media site that I found in my search of stories on the case. On March 5th the Edge reported on the case and said that various conservative sites said the "three attackers are Muslim." Edge then discusses Islamic views toward gay people including calls for death. That was five days before Carroll wrote his piece. That article reported what it knew, that some people think it was a religiously-motivated attack, but it didn't offer it as if it were proven. Carroll's whole attack on gays, journalism and liberals relies on no one mentioning that the attackers might be Muslim so he has to ignore gay sites that did mention that very thing.

I have to say, as someone unhappy with both modern liberals and modern conservatives, that conservatives are the most hypocritical bunch in this debate. Conservatives like Carroll don't routinely report the wide-spread hatred against gay people within Christian fundamentalist circles. They ignore it. The groups Carroll attacks do report on that and they also report on Islamic assaults on the rights of gay people. Conservatives only discuss Islamic assaults on gays in order to bash Muslims, not because they actually care about the victims of those assaults. In Carroll's case he reports on Islamic gay bashing specifically so he can verbally bash gay people himself. His motivation is hardly pure, or honest, in my opinion.

By the way, to bolster his case, Carroll has a video of an antigay remark by a Muslim scholar, telling a black Muslim group in the US that gays ought to be killed. That video appeared at the Edge five days prior to Carroll's reporting it. Carroll never mentions that Christian fundamentalist have said precisely the same thing. But don't hold your breath waiting for Carroll to mention it.

Photo: I sincerely doubt that the holder of the sign is Muslim. I assume he is Christian and conservative, what does Carroll have to say?

Antigay Republican confesses he's gay.

The anti-gay Republican state senator from Bakersfield, California, Roy Ashburn, has admitted he's gay. He was the guy who got too tipsy at a gay bar in Sacramento and was weaving his way home. The police picked him up for drunk driving, he was in the company of a man he apparently met at the bar. After his arrest became news numerous individuals informed the media that Ashburn, who has voted against equality of rights for gay people, was in the gay bar.

Ashburn went into hiding for several days. With that information in all the media, Ashburn was pretty much pushed into a corner. During a radio interview he admitted: "I am gay... those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long." Press reporst say that Ashburn "said he is drawing on his Christian faith, and he asked people to pray for him." Perhaps that is one of the reasons he had so much trouble saying those "words."

I wonder what the "gay-is-a-choice" conservatives will tell the antigay Ashburn? Will they tell him that he just decided to become gay? Will they claim he is demon possessed (which for a Republican today seems fitting)? How many times do they have to witness such sad cases before they realize that there gay-is-a-choice theory is wrong? My guess is that the fundamentalist types will never admit the reality because it goes against their view of the Bible. And for them, reality has to be forced to correspond with their faith, no matter how disfigured reality becomes as a result.

Ryan Sorba: are you watching? We are all waiting to see what happens with you.

The ugly face of conservatism

The bigots on the Right (and yes, there are bigots on the Left as well) are not a pretty sight. Behold one Ryan Sorba from the misnamed Young Americans for (sic.) Freedom. Sorba does not want social freedom but state control. He is also an antigay political activist who goes around given lectures on the evil nature of gays and has written an antigay polemic as well that seems to be published only in pdf format. Sorba is clearly obsessed with the issue and seems intent to make gay baiting his full time occupation. The boy has issues.

The American Conservative Union puts on a conference that tends to be attended by a younger crowd. And while a lot of these students see themselves as conservatives (they'll learn) they don't hold the hateful agenda of people like Sorba. The conference, CPAC apparently allowed a Republican group for gays (similar to a Nazi group for Jews) to have a table in the display hall. And Mr. Sorba got his panties in a knot over the idea. So he went to the podium and denounced the conference for allowing gays to attend.

He ranted about "natural law" confusing it with theology, which is supernatural law and has no relationship to natural law theory. What is interesting, and this should worry Maggie Gallagher and her Mormon funders, is that the most younger audience started booing him. No doubt some of this was due to his being such a flaming asshole in public, but a lot of it appears to be because a lot of conservative youth don't share his prejudices and were appalled by him. Watch the video and see how vigorous a send-off Sorba received. Keep reminding yourself that these are the young conservatives.

If the anti-gay bigots have lost their own young activists they have lost the war. Maggie ought to go back to her church, Sorba back to his closet, and contemplate what this sort of response means for the future of social conservatism. For what it's worth, based on years of observing the crazy Right, I would say that if there exists a betting pool on which conservative is most likely to be caught in a sex scandal, I know where I'd put my bet.