Not Me Man, I'm a Prosperitarian

I don't want to pile on the Ron! supporters around here. But things are playing out that reinforce my beliefs about the state of the liberty movement.

In discussing the Ron Paul Newsletters imbroglio on this blog, no one has refuted my central thought that neither big nor little-l libertarians will ever have a chance of influencing our electoral system until they weed out some of their toxic elements. They've got liberty to sell for cryin' out loud -- they don't need to muddy it with racism or millenarianism.

ReasonOnline has an article on the newsletters that makes substantive but unproven accusations that Lew Rockwell wrote them. Again, there is no proof, but there is a good circumstantial case. More telling to me is the recounting of toxic, millenarian sentiments from Rockwell and Murray Rothbard, recalling their history as paleolibs.

I repeat my claim that the liberty movement needs two leaders. They, firstly, need their own William F. Buckley, Jr. Bill chased the John Birchers out of the conservative movement in the fifties, and created the structure that paved the way for Goldwater's quixotic run in '64, and built strength to Reagan's successful run in 1980. Secondly (I gave away the ending), a libertarian Reagan will be needed to communicate ideas beyond the confines of the movement.

One person to create the infrastructure and one to communicate beyond. But the first guy has to chase all the Lew Rockwells, Murray Rothbards, and Leonard Piekoffs out. Then, somebody will have to articulate an incremental vision to rolling back American collectivism.

Rothbard and Rockwell want to rebuild a libertarian utopia out of the ruins of a race war. In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand had to shut society down. The Buckley-Reagan conservative axis didn't produce utopia (immanentize the eschaton?) but they turned back sizable hunks of the New Deal-Great Society collectivism at home and freed 50 million people from communism abroad.

I'm glad that people have been exposed to some classic liberal ideas through Ron Paul, but fear they will take away some of the wrong ideas and give up on the right ones. Here's the close of the Reason piece:

Yet those new supporters, many of whom are first encountering libertarian ideas through the Ron Paul Revolution, deserve a far more frank explanation than the campaign has as yet provided of how their candidate's name ended up atop so many ugly words. Ron Paul may not be a racist, but he became complicit in a strategy of pandering to racists—and taking "moral responsibility" for that now means more than just uttering the phrase. It means openly grappling with his own past—acknowledging who said what, and why. Otherwise he risks damaging not only his own reputation, but that of the philosophy to which he has committed his life.

I have perhaps, in one post, angered every regular reader, writer, and commenter on ThreeSources. All in a day's work.

Politics Posted by jk at January 16, 2008 12:29 PM