Of Bullies, Trolls, Curmudgeons and Aspergers

“ ‘The Kid’ never races anybody. He just sits there and scares the hell out of ‘em.”
--- Paul Stookey, Paultalk

"Who is more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?”
--Obi Wan Kenobi, Star Wars: A New Hope

Yetzer ha-Ra: That Troll hole sure looks interesting . . .
Yetzer ha-Tov: Stay on target. Stay on target!Yetzer ha-Ra: Maybe we can have a productive conversation, he can’t be ALL bad!            Yetzer ha-Tov: Negative, Captain. That Troll’s female hatred index is 78%,  and the diction analysis indicates a high level of cruel cynicism. Recomend aborting the diversion and heading straight for an Objectivist bulletin board.  Yetzer ha-Ra: Poor troll, there’s probably just a scared little boy inside. You can bring out the . .
Yetzer ha Tov: Do NOT feed the troll! Do NOT feed the . . . . Damn. She’s gonna . . . there it goes! Libertarian Trolls are NOT rational. It’s gonna be ugly . . .                                     Ship: Ping! Brrrrwahahahahahaharhrhrhrh! Pow!
Yetzer ha-Ra: Beetle-bomb!                      Yetzer ha-Tov: Captain, impulse engines still operating. What are your coordinates, Ma’am?
Ship: (Coughing slightly and waving smoke away). Where is that Objectivist site, again?  I think maybe a fuel change is in order.  Earl Gray. Hot!

---- Fragment of Internal Dialogue

 

On the internet, bullies are people who derive a certain sense of power by sneering and whining, deliberately targeting those who take a discussion seriously or literally, and taking conversations off-track. In short, petty cyber-bullies—often called trolls—will do anything to keep a conversation from evolving in order to keep themselves at the center of attention, even as the circle of that attention becomes smaller and smaller. 

Outside of the cyber-world, the way to stop a bully is to call him out. A bully is generally  a coward with an aversion to picking on someone who will fight back. Running in and slashing at others, then retreating like a hyena is the typical bully style. This is why I taught my son that the manly thing to do is never to start a fight, but always finish it. Decisively.  

But in the cyber-world, where people have been intimidated by a false definition of censorship, and where the only person with any freedom of speech is the bully himself, what most often happens is that bullies are not confronted or removed. Instead, conversation at a site or page dwindles to just the few bullies, who jockey and sneer at imaginary foes, and the utility of the place is lost. This is a problem for site owners and administrators, who have often spent a good deal of time building a place for a certain kind of conversation, only to have it devolve into endless and meaningless bickering over tangential details, while the point—and the pleasure—is lost.

Although we all know that “feeding the troll” is pointless, most of us from time-to-time foolishly do it anyway, whether out of a misplaced sense of respect for the humanity of the little shit, or the transparently naive hope of breaking through to have a real conversation. And sometimes, we hope that by so doing, somebody else on the page will be drawn out of their silence and the page will become what it was. This seldom works, and the page generally continues its bully-induced slide into silence and obscurity, until even the troll moves on to greener cyber-pastures. 

At a Libertarian-sponsored site, the conversation was about the threat to the Second Amendment. The post was a quote from a Colorado State Senator who announced that with some bravado that he would rather die than give up his weapons. The Curmudgeon joined in, hinting darkly that there is no remedy to the present tyranny, and that bravado and courage itself will wither in the face of omnipotent police brutality. The Troll made his move: “I sneer at all those who . . .”
Dominance established. The original poster never piped up again.

 

As an administrator of the site, I though that perhaps a suggestion to the Troll that he should take his sneering to the source of his anger would bring the conversation back on track. Curmudgeons can be good discussion partners, but trolls never are. I then tried to bring the conversation back to the Curmudgeon’s salient point. The Troll was not having it. He responded with a hurt little boy tone, and I fell for it, against the better angels of my nature. They were saying: “He’s a troll. A TROLL! An unmannerly, babyish,  woman-hating, mom’s-basement, never-had-a-grown-up-relationship, T-R-O-L-L! TROLL!” Being low on estrogen and testosterone both, I ignored the warning.

Beetle-bomb! Shards of hope and sparks of action falling into the netherworld of Cyberspace. Neither the Curmudgeon nor the Troll will ever take any kind of purposeful action. The first wants to impress people with his cynicism, and the second, to prove what a tough guy he is by how badly he treats anyone who crosses his path.

 

There has been precious little dialogue in this group, and what is there dominated by the Curmudgeon and the Troll almost exclusively. Other members drop in, make announcements, and drop out. Why be bullied? It is difficult for members to confront the bullying, because they have no power to stop it.

Smart other members.

The current characteristics of the group alone tell the story. The group has become the Troll, with “ain’t it hopeless” choruses from the Curmudgeon, and a few— mostly ignored—attempts by new members to start a conversation. I have been dropping in to make announcements and to see if there are any libertarians who have mistakenly thought it was a place to discuss libertarian ideas with an eye to actually doing something. But as every idea that does not belong to the Troll or the Curmudgeon lands on the ground in a burning heap, and every suggestion for some kind of action is sneered off stage, the place has become  cobwebbed and dull, leaving the taste of dust and ashes in the mouth. 

 

“Don’t bother with Liberty, folks,” these types announce by the subtext of their behavior. “It can’t be defended, all is lost, and there is no point fighting for it. You’ll just fail and thinking otherwise shows how stupid you are. What we need to do is close the curtains, sit here in the dark, and keep ourselves from getting hurt. Because the animating contest of freedom is a hopeless illusion, and the power of the state is omnipotent. Anyone who thinks otherwise is either naive, deluded or posturing, and will be driven from this group by mean and petty sniping and malignant hatred.”

I bring this up, because I have seen other libertarian site administrators frustrated by the same or a similar senses of life imposed on their discussion groups, and more malignant, those who hate libertarians for whatever reason, and set out to deliberately hurt and destroy them. I have seen anti-Semites ruin the image of the Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty, and Nazi hunters crying anti-Semitism on Libertarian sites where it doesn’t exist. I have seen conspiracy theorists bully anyone who wishes to have a rational conversation virtually shut down all discussion over a minor reference, obscuring the actual point of the conversation because they lack the faculty to look critically at their own dogmas.

Site, page and group administrators are frustrated because if we are paying attention, we know the destructive end of such behavior is the same every time. A perfectly good site becomes useless, and someone’s (often many someone's’) work was all for naught. And yet, we often tolerate it. We sigh in exasperation, complain about the solipsistic immaturity of a certain group of Generation-Xer American males, and try to laugh it off over a beer with friends or take comfort in participating in more rational forums. But we TOLERATE what is not tolerable.

Why do we tolerate it? It is the use of subtle force by others to dominate, bully and harm the work of others. But when a site administrator does edit, block or ban someone wreaking such havoc, they immediately respond with the indignant cry of the cyber-bully: Censorship!
And many libertarians, having been brought up with an education that failed to teach them the (not so) subtle difference between liberty and libertine, immediately take it up.

In tones dripping with entitlement they cry that the administrator is a fascist pig, an authoritarian, and that they have the right (god-damn-it) to bully, disrupt and destroy whomever and whatever they want, because THEY are RIGHT, and more than that, they are MORALLY SUPERIOR to every being that has ever walked the earth before them. (Because of us the seas stopped rising, poverty ended, and heaven was brought to earth. “WE are the ones we have been waiting for . . .” and all of that bullshit). In other words, they have a serious case of the Vision of the Anointed. Good will toward others and simple manners were never part of their curriculum.

Many administrators, especially old-school libertarians, are caught off guard by this, and if one is not fully grounded in libertarian thought (and even if one is!), it is easy to be cut to the quick by the sheer virulence of the attack. It is usually delivered complete with a tone of dripping sarcasm and righteous indignation.

 

Being an Aspergian, I am almost always caught off guard by this, because no matter how often people are cruel and nasty to me, I never expect it. This, along with my tendency to be overly literal, and to fail to see the language pragmatics that warm Neurotypicals off, makes me an excellent target for bullies.

In any case, as a helpful guide to Aspergian and other Libertarians of Good Will, these people are wrong and most of them—particularly the bullies—know it. Censorship is a function that only a government can perform. Private individuals may indeed keep order and regulate the environment of their own private property, or do so on the behalf of other owners and stakeholders, in order to preserve the purpose of the site, forum or group for all.
But private property owners cannot and do not wish to stop the dissemination of speech or behavior that they dislike altogether. Only a government, with its monopoly on physical force, can do that. The disgruntled bully can always start his own forum, build his own platform, or hold forth on a public street corner, although in the last, he cannot abuse or detain the public.

 

People of good will follow the rules and regulations of a private property owner gracefully, as a matter of respect and good manners, and if they do not agree with them, they feel free to excuse themselves and go elsewhere. Being themselves self-respecting and effective individuals, they are capable of creating their own platforms for free-speech, and if they err on the side of passion, create a misunderstanding, or take a disliking to someone, they are amenable to the direction of the owner or administrator of the forum, and either correct themselves or move on.

But bullies are seldom self-respecting, effective individuals, and thus need to get and hold the attention of others in any way they can. Thus, they scream about their over-arching rights while ignoring the rights of others. And the libertarian movement seems to attract a large number of them. I believe that there are some philosophical reasons for this, but that is another blog.

The point here is this: although libertarians of good will are naturally hesitant to block or ban someone who is pissy, sarcastic, disrespectful of others, and subjects others to personal attack, it is right and responsible to do it. And it is appropriate to warn others who come crying “censorship” that such behavior will not be tolerated. In such cases, it might be a good idea to explain why it is not censorship, but if we find ourselves being called “fascist” and other names, it is a good bet that the name-caller is also a bully trolling for a response.

 

Finally, when a forum has been allowed through neglect or appeasement to become a place in which fruitful discussion can no longer take place, or when administrating it has become a tiresome and painful chore, it is time to move on. In my case, I should have done so long ago, before I got sucked in by my own naivety and desire to discuss something important to me. Bullies do not discuss or share. They attack and troll for a response, feeding on the pain of others, and like Dementors, they suck the joy out of everything. Curmudgeons are generally not malevolent themselves, but they believe that the world is. They are incapable of kicking around an idea because they have already decided that action is futile and nothing that anyone else thinks about can possibly be worth discussing.

As an Aspergian, I often get played for the fool because I don’t read the subtleties of the words or language pragmatics that NTs see right through. I tend to take longer to learn from painful experience. However, as an Aspergian, I do have empathy. I do feel pain and I see it in others. I just do not always know what to do about it. Although it is painful to be treated like crap by bullies and trolls, and although I often have the sinking feeling that I did it to myself again, I know this is not entirely true. Bullies and trolls are responsible for their behavior and I firmly believe that what goes around comes around. Although as an Aspergian, I am not really capable of delivering a proper and cutting retort--I always think of one in the middle of the night--there are others who are and will do it. In any case, their unhappy, unwholesome view on life, the universe and everything is punishment enough, and brought on by their own selves, leaving me free to enjoy the benevolence of more healthy people, elsewhere.

 

In the meantime, I refuse to give up on Liberty. It may be a struggle because of those who hate and fear it, and sometimes we may be called upon to fight and lose, and fight again for our freedom, acting from Liberty makes me feel happiness and wholeness. And for me, that makes it worth the work.

 

Technorati Tags: Aspergian World,Libertarians,Internet,Property,Trolls

Pottage: Ron Paul, His Groupies and their Jewish Problem

One day, when Jacob was cooking pottage,
his brother Esau came in from hunting in the field
and said to Jacob: I am starving, let me eat some
of that red, red stuff! Jacob said: Sell me your birthright here
and now. And Esau said: Here, I am going to die!
What good is my birthright to me now?
--Breshit 25:26-33

Ron Paul became quite a phenomenon during the 2008 election because of the enthusiasm and inventiveness of the young people who seemed hungry for liberty, and who found many unique ways to support his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the Presidency of the United States. Ron Paul, a libertarian at heart, was once a candidate for the same office for the Libertarian Party. That was in 1988, and I voted for him then, as he seemed a solid enough libertarian candidate, and was certainly better than the mainstream choices.

But during the 2008 election, some of Ron Paul's supporters, and supporters of the Ron Paul R3volution began to display a distressing lack of critical thinking skills, and many of them brought a more leftist agenda into Paul's campaign, including a virulent hatred of Israel, and far worse, some of the most classic of the antisemitic cant, charging American Jews with dual loyalty, and complaining that Jews control the banks and the money--with an undertone that money is inherently evil and corrupting--and that Jews control the media. This all seems to be at odds with what ought to be Ron Paul's libertarian values, and with capitalism, which he espouses.

I came late to the R3volution, having put off reading Paul's book by the same title after Obama had sworn an oath to the Constitution and promptly violated it. I thought Paul's book was reasonable enough. He did not advocate a one sided removal of foreign aid to Israel, for example, but instead advocated the classic libertarian idea that no foreign aid is moral. And yet, I had heard odd things about him from other Jews of all political stripes, and particularly from Jewish Libertarians. I heard that Ron Paul was an antisemite, or at least that he tolerated antisemitism among his followers, and that it was rampant among the most fanatical of them, the ones I call groupies.

At about the same time, through a series of acquaintances, I began working on the problematic Retake Congress effort through a company called Common Sense, Inc. (Someday I will tell that story of my naivete and failure, but not now. There are some innocents that still need to be protected). In doing the work, I had reason to frequent many of the social media and blog sites where Ron Paul R3volutionaries gathered, and read their comments. These included the Daily Paul, Liberty Forest, and various local and national Campaign for Liberty (C4L) blogs, message boards and discussion groups. And I began to understand what other Jews had warned me about with respect to Ron Paul's groupies.

They have a Jewish problem.

And it goes far beyond reasonable disagreements about aid to Israel or politics. Rather, it seems to pick up on the old classical antisemitic canards described above. They come right out of the history of Christian and collectivist Europe, and are particular to the antisemitic racism that replaced earlier Christian anti-Judaism with what become classical Nazi dogma and doctrine. It is the same racist antisemitism that the Nazis exported to the Middle East, absurdly claiming that while Jews are an inferior race, the Arabs are "little Aryan brothers." (When one believes absurd racial theories as the Nazis did, one more absurdity does not matter). It seems that some of the leftists who converted to the Ron Paul R3volution brought along with them the same classic antisemitic ideas that the Nazis took to the Arabs.

When it comes to American Jews, it appears that the "love" in the Ron Paul R3volution does not apply. It applies to everyone but us. Last year, I wrote a blog entry about my experience of antisemitism in the local Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty. The cant there was taken lock, stock and barrel from Arab-Islamic antisemitic claims that included the blood libel, and was served up with a side of the dual loyalty charge. In that blog entry, I opined that Ron Paul might very well be ignorant of the kinds of antisemitic cant that was posted on Liberty Tree, in the comments to The Daily Paul, and in other Ron Paul forums and social media on the web.

The antisemitism at these sites is also of the classically European variety, made into American conspiracy theories about Jews and Money. You know the type. They include the word "Jew" linked to one or more of the following: "the FED", "the Rothschilds", or "the Bilderbergers". The "Jews control the media" trope is equally represented, whereas the blood libel claims of the Islamists are usually only present in great abundance when Israel is in the news. Which means that it is present often enough.

Whether he likes it or not, Ron Paul has a Jewish problem.

Although I have been hard pressed to find solid evidence that Ron Paul himself has ever made any of these claims, it would be stretching my credulity and yours to continue to claim that Ron Paul probably does not know about the libels against Jews perpetrated on websites devoted to his cause. That these claims come more often than not from his more devoted but kookie followers, the ones who indulge in believing that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney singlehandedly wired the twin towers for demolition (because, you know, steel does not melt), does not excuse his silence on the matter. If he wants the support of rational people for his presidential run, then Ron Paul must address the Jewish problem in his campaign and clearly differentiate his own ideals from the beliefs of the antisemites among his followers. (Addressing some of the more truly bizarre conspiracy theories wouldn't hurt, either).

It has been suggested to me by some of Ron Paul's followers, as well as by other Jewish Libertarians, that it is likely that this antisemitism within the Ron Paul social media sites are the result of leftist infiltration meant to hurt Ron Paul, and that the perpetrators are therefore not Paul supporters. This is certainly a possibility given what we know about the Alinsky tactics outlined in Rules for Radicals. It would be hard for the casual observer to know that this is what is indeed happening, sans a full investigation of the sites and origins of the offending posts.

However, if this is the case, it is clear that the antisemitism meme is not difficult to spread among Ron Paul's young followers. It is truly frightening to witness their credulity and even eagerness to pick up on it, and spread the notion that Jews are to blame for all that is bad about their world. What we are seeing here is the abject failure of public education to teach the current generation to think critically, to question what they are told intelligently, and to reject the concept of collective responsibility. Sadly, through one hundred years of progressive education, young people in America who are not privileged enough to go to elite schools, or to have parents who can counter the indoctrination of collectivism, have been taught to bargain away their birthright of individual liberty for a pottage of "that red, red stuff."

These young fools may claim to be libertarian, but their propensity to make blanket statements such as "the Jews control the media" and "the Jewish-controlled banks" gives the lie to these claims. Libertarian thought insists on the responsibility of the individual for his actions. Collective responsibility is a collectivist notion, and it is not compatible with the radical individualism that lies at the heart of libertarianism.

And there is a real danger to the acceptance of such notions, for hand-in-hand with the doctrine of collective responsibility comes the concept of collective salvation. Hundreds of thousands of Hitler Youth members marched to certain death when the Wehrmacht was spent at the end of WW II, simply because they did not have the critical faculty to understand that Hitler was no messiah. Hundreds of Islamic young men, and now women, and even children, are induced to blow themselves up, convinced that the murders they commit will be rewarded by Allah. They are encouraged not to think, because their salvation relies on the collective not on responsibility for their own actions. To watch American young people accepting such ideas is terrifying. If they can uncritically accept groundless conspiracy theories and baseless hatred of other human beings, what else will they accept? What will they do?

If our young people who claim libertarianism as their credo are not to be cheated out of the blessings of liberty as a result of selling out their birthright, it is up to all of us to confront racism and any other form of collectivism for the evil that it is, and to refuse to support Ron Paul in any way until he does the same. His silence is shameful, and a man of his years ought to have the wisdom to understand what such ideas will do to the young people who espouse them for his sake.

Irrational Patriotism and the Freedom of Association: The Case Against New Mexico Campaign for Liberty

Being libertarian and Jewish while being active in the Patriot Movement is interesting and sometimes maddening. Most of the people I encounter within it are conservative, and although we disagree on certain fundamental principles, they are rational in their approach to news and events. We may understand them differently, and often I find myself taking the more radical stand. For example, they oppose illegal immigration and support the Arizona law, whereas I oppose the welfare state and the war on drugs that make free movement across the border a problem. In this case, we both know that there is an invasion going on across our southern border, and we both know that the lives, liberty and property of Americans living near the border are threatened, but we respond to that knowledge from somewhat different perspectives. As a libertarian, I see the source of the problem differently, precisely because I do not accept the notion that the government has any business regulating drugs or "spreading the wealth around." However, we can talk with one another, attempt to bridge differences, and work together on our mutual goal: to restore the Constitution of the United States.

But just as there is a wing nut fringe on the left--those who tell us that Mao is a philosopher and equal to Mother Teresa in charity and those who believe that Hugo Chavez is a statesman--so there are wing nuts operating on the fringe of the patriot movement. They are far from the majority, and unlike the wing-nuts on the left who seem to surround the president of the United States these days, they have no power, except that of chasing reasonable people away from patriot groups. They are often the people who end up creating the conditions for small groups to engage in infighting and to finally fall apart from lack of participation.

My latest experience in this regard:

I have supported Campaign for Liberty for over a year, and I have supported Ron Paul as one of the few principled members of Congress, and for his primarily constitutional stances on many issues. However, I do reserve the right to disagree, as we all should, based on differences with respect to issues. In that time I have noticed the acceptance of a kind of post-modernism among many of Ron Paul's young followers, that is combined with what appears to be a deliberate illiteracy and a terrible ignorance of history and the values of Western culture. This leads to an uncritical acceptance without reason of whatever new conspiracy theory* happens to hit the internet. Sometimes these theories have a kernel of truth, but have been generalized to such an extent that they become meaningless.

* NOTE: I am using the term "conspiracy theory" in the neutral sense rather than the pejorative sense. That is, I accept that there are conspiracies in the world, and that people really do gather together to secretly plan and accomplish illegal and immoral actions. However, a conspiracy theory is a claim, not a fact, until it is substantiated with evidence. Although conspiracies do happen, and at every level, every bad thing that happens in the world is not necessarily a conspiracy, there is room for human error and folly in history.

Further, this generalization leads to a stance of powerlessness in the face of this conspiracy theorizing that is a type of conspiracism, which is the tendency to accept that everything bad that happens in the world has been engineered by the ubiquitous "they" who have god-like powers and have so brainwashed humanity that they control every decision made by every person on earth. Thus, it becomes acceptable to sit and complain, but it also becomes unnecessary to actually develop solutions or to do anything about the problem--whatever it is--because "they" are in control.

Twisting together threads involving an international banking conspiracy (which has a basis in truth but has been over-generalized), and the old myth of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world (which has no truth), some of Ron Paul's young supporters have uncritically bought into a particularly ugly form of anti-Semitism that hails from the left. They have learned that making anti-Semitic statements outright is frowned upon by most Americans, but that by couching their anti-Semitic sentiments as criticism of Israel, they can claim the moral high ground, and turn and accuse those who point out that the demonization and delegitimation of Israel is anti-Semitic of "censoring" their "criticism" of Israel.

Sometimes I think that these young Ron Paul supporters are not only illiterate with respect to history, but that they are also illiterate with respect to vocabulary, and mistake the term "censor" for the term "censure". There is a difference. But more to the point, without any sense of time or history--which was robbed from them by their post-modernist education--these young people are cannon fodder for any demagogue that begins by claiming to be a champion of liberty and freedom. Ron Paul is a legitimate champion of liberty. He is not a demagogue. But when an historically innocent young person enters the heady waters of the Ron Paul pages, message boards, blogs and discussion groups, his uncritical desire to appear smart in the new milieu is ripe for the demagogic sharks that inhabit the dark waters at the edge of the reef. It is a kind of modern gnosticism.

This is exactly what is happening with the local Ron Paul group, called Campaign for Liberty New Mexico. One person has gotten control of the message boards at the New Mexico Campaign for Liberty Meet-Up group. He has done so by re-posting lurid, over-the-top "criticism" of Israel, much of which would set off the alarm bells of a critical reader. These re-posts come from the kinds of internet sources that have replaced the yellow journalism and propaganda rags of the first Progressive Era in the early 1900's.

For example, a few weeks ago he re-posted an article that claimed that Israel has been caught red-handed stealing organs from Palestinian corpses for the purpose of selling them in the illegal organ trade. That this is irrational from a medical standpoint is the least of it; the article supports a clearly modern form of the blood libel, and can be traced to the standard Palestinian blood libel claim that Jews are ritually murdering Palestinian children to put their blood in the Passover Matzot. (Never mind that the only ritual murders that are proven have been done by Islamists who have slit the throats of Jews like Danny Pearl in some sort of bizarre human sacrifice while shouting "Allahu akbar!" for the You Tube cameras. I guess the point of demonization is to accuse your enemy of your own darkest acts).

At that point, I wrote to this young man asking to be removed from his e-mail list. I had received the post by e-mail and had not realized that the 'announcements' were going out via the Meet-Up Group.

A week or so later, I received another post from this young man, entitled "Support for Israel is Treason!!!!" (multiple exclamation points in the original). Again linking to some Alex-Jones-type breathlessly yellow journalism, he wrote a page-long one paragraph screed complete with the capitalization, multiple exclamation points, bad-grammar and misspelled words that I have come to expect from these young and illiterate intellectual wanna-be's.

Unfortunately, I took the bait and tried to appeal to the reasonable people who might be reading this stuff. I wrote the usual rational arguments and was promptly accused of attempting the censor ideas on the website. This was clearly false since there was barely an idea present in the mishmash of unfounded rumor and over-the-top emotionalism in the post and in the response to my response. When I saw that on the e-mail responses, this young man was being lauded by a few supporters as a visionary patriot, I did some further research. I checked out the on-line message board at the Campaign for Liberty New Mexico Meet-up site. And there I saw that there were some healthy discussions about other topics posted by other members. However, this young man's posts rarely had any responses--it's hard to respond to such irrationality effectively--and that further his new topics were almost all intended to demonize Israel.

What had happened was that this young man had effectively stopped any censure of his views and stopped any argument or any censure of the nature of his posts by effectively using the argument that he was being "censored" for criticizing Israel. Those who lauded him responded, and everyone else apparently did not want to even be associated with such arguments. Further, this young man has put himself up as the next leader of the group through an emotional campaign of screeds against the current group leader, and is likely to become the leader of the group. Whereby he will continue the kind of ranting and emotional demagoguery until the group becomes an ineffective splinter, unable to campaign effectively for Ron Paul because it has become associated with irrational attacks on anyone who doesn't buy the latest conspiracy theory, or who refuses to be associated with demonization of Israel--this guy's pet theory.

I am certainly among those who refuses to be associated with this back-door anti-Semitism. I am well aware of what it is and where it will lead. I have--like the naive scholar that I am--futilely tried to point out the inevitable splintering and the inevitable end that will follow, as this young man and his few followers become more and more isolated until there is nothing left of the original group or its mission. Of course, I have played right into the hands of the demagogue, who has in turn accused me of being part of the world-wide Jewish conspiracy that is trying to silence him because he has the rare truth that Israel is the point of that conspiracy. There is no reason in it, and a rational person will do what I have done. I have disassociated myself with this group not only because I am a Jew, but because I do not want my good name ruined by association with such irrationality.


Unfortunately, this kind of thing drives the splintering of patriot groups often enough that the whole of the movement can be easily tarred with the same brush, rendering the vast majority of patriot positions invisible. It is a problem. It allows the same kind of demonization of the patriots out there that has been done against Israel. It can be used by the progressives and the left to divide and conquer, should we allow such people as the young man I described above to speak for us. And we will be admonished to do so by people who worship at the altar of unity. But unity for the sake of unity is a false god; it has no power. The power to accomplish our goal comes from the Principles of Liberty.

Those of us who want to be successful in the restoration of the Constitution must focus on these principles. That all men are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights. That among them are the rights to life, liberty and property. That governments are instituted by the individuals in order to protect those rights.

Those of us who want to be successful must also disassociate ourselves with anyone who promotes unfounded conspiracies, and who participates in the demonization of any person or group. Such behavior takes us off the path and promotes endless internal debate that does not rise to the level of reasoned argument. It can't, being essentially irrational in its very nature. The danger of this particular time is to be carried off track and to fall spectacularly from the heights of principle to the depths of populism and demagoguery. We must not do it. We cannot stop it happening at the fringes, but we cannot buy into it or allow it to destroy the essence of the cause of liberty.

What will happen to the Ron Paul R3volution itself is not our concern. I think elections, although important to slowing down the destruction of our liberty, are not the fundamental answer to the problem. Further, Ron Paul sparked the enthusiasm of many young people for liberty. He cured the apathy of many libertarians, like me, who had given up on seeing liberty restored in our own day. But he also inspired true believers who, in their their terrible ignorance and adulation will do what true believers tend to do, and accept any claim associated with him uncritically. And they will turn on him when he disappoints their sanctification of a mere mortal by acting rationally. Indeed, many have done so already, disappointed that he ended his 2008 campaign when it became clear that he was not going to even place in the primaries.

For myself, the way is clear. I cannot be associated with Campaign for Liberty New Mexico. And I need to do a little research to see where Campaign for Liberty national stands on these questions. If there is any hint of anti-Semitism by proxy, or the uncritical support of other such demonization, then I cannot be associated with it either. I will withdraw my support, no matter how good the strategy or how strong the group appears to be.

My grandma Fran used to say to me: "Show me your friends, I'll show you your future." And as an adult I appreciated her down-to-earth wisdom. I have applied it to examining the associations of politicians, and that is ultimately why I do not trust the current President of the United States to support my liberty. He surrounds himself with outright communists and revolutionaries, with admirers of murderers like Mao.

I cannot be friends with anti-Semites--even those who substitute Israel in order to prevaricate upon their actual sentiments. And I understand now what it means to say so. Although I value the right of anyone to have his say, I do not value indiscriminate acceptance of what he says. I simply cannot be associated with unreason that is likely to lead nowhere good. I cannot befriend anti-Semites. To do so would be a suicidal denial of the value of my own identity and being.

"Choose life," we are commanded. "That you and your children might live."

In a Libertarian Society . . .

Note: I delivered this speech to the Libertarian Party of New Mexico on Saturday, April 17, 2010.
I wrote it the night before, but I had been thinking about it for a while. My delivery was not great since I had very little practice time. Nevertheless, it was well received. However, they drafted me as Vice Chair anyway. That puts me on the Central Committee. Somebody must not have liked the speech.

In a Libertarian Society

Growing up in a Libertarian household was an EXPERIENCE. Between normal kid and teen activities, my baby sisters and I also regularly attended Libertarian candidate interviews, party county and regional conventions, and Libertarian social events. Those last were real hoots. I mean where else could you experience the combination of politics, smoke and beer that was carefully calculated to bring the situation to critical mass at a carefully indeterminate hour, resulting in table-pounding, chair slamming, and the inevitable walk-out by one or another of the county or regional central committee members. We kids thought it was hysterically funny, unless we were the ones that got dragged out with one of our disgruntled parents.

When we did not have ringside seat for the libertarian contact sport of DEBATE OF PRINCIPLES, we received our educations in Liberty at home or at the mall, where our parents would wax poetic about the wonders of Capitalism and the depredations of those evil twins of Wesley Mouch down in Springfield or over in Washington DC. And whether we were discussing Atlas Shrugged at Papa’s Kitchen Table University—“Where REAL EDUCATION Begins”--or helping our parents get unsuspecting citizens to sign the unlabeled Bill of Rights at the Eastland Mall—where we all got hauled off by the mall staff for distributing subversive materials—(I kid you NOT), we heard the same phrase over and over: “In a libertarian society . . .”

In a libertarian society . . . there will be no Federal Reserve Notes and people will mint their own gold and silver.
In a libertarian society . . . private charity will be responsible for making sure that the bums down on Center Street get a hot meal.
In a libertarian society . . . people will take responsibility themselves for negotiating intersections and a private police force will mediate the resulting standoffs at the corner of College and Fell Avenue.

We heard this so often that my sister Madge started up this joke:
“How many libertarians does it take to screw in a light bulb? (Pause)
“None. In a libertarian society . . . light bulbs will take responsibility for themselves.”

At very tender ages, my sisters and I swore a solemn oath never to inflict that phrase – “In a libertarian society . . .”—upon our own children.

I did pretty well at it for a while. That was before Ron Paul cured my apathy. In 1988. And the other day, I heard myself say it to my son—down at the DMV. There is nothing like the DMV to make you wish for Revolution. I mean the kind without the backwards “L” and “e” in it.

But I digress. My point is that libertarians have a great many ideas about what a libertarian society should look like. They argue about it a good deal. And sometimes—especially after a morning at the DMV—Libertopia (another Madge-ism) looks wonderful to me. I’ll even take the arms race at the intersection of San Mateo and Menaul. We all have our ideas about what Libertopia looks like, but other than the electoral process, it doesn’t seem like we have a clear idea of how to get there. And you’ve got to admit, all our hard work through the LP at getting people elected at the presidential level has netted us exactly 1 electoral vote. In 1972. And working on electing Libertarians to Congress has not yielded much better results. All of this costs a lot of money, turning our national party into a full-time fund-raising organization, and creating problems for the state organizations. Here in New Mexico, our recent Ballot Access lawsuit was brought in order to mitigate some of those problems.

The idea that local and state organizations should focus on local issues, and get people to volunteer for or be elected to low-level political posts certainly has some merit; these elections are often uncontested, and voter turn-out is low, making it easier to get out the Libertarian vote (large and small “L”), and put someone in office. The trade-off is that these positions also carry very little power to reach and educate the average voter about the advantages of Liberty. Libertarians in such positions become simply cogs in the big-government machine organized and managed for the benefit of the statists in charge.

If we are to ever get to Libertopia, we clearly need a new road map. From the very beginning in 1971, one of the main criticisms of forming the National LP has been that we were starting in the wrong place. (And I can tell you that those arguments were a wonderful source of Libertarian Contact Sport, leaving Central Illinois weekend warrior Libs bruised, battered and bleeding). Libertarians very quickly organized a political party, the objective of which is to get people elected, when it might have started as a social and educational organization, whose objective is to change how people think about philosophical and moral issues related to individualism. This was one of the criticisms that Ayn Rand leveled at the LP from the beginning, but she mixed it up with what L. Neal Smith calls her “Russian Grandmother” issues, and couched it in smears and vitriol, to the point where her important message to us went largely unheard.

The result is that our LP has been relatively ineffectual as a political party—and has been quickly shut out of the national and state scenes by the statists on the so-called right, and the statists on the so-called left. Both major parties used their power and clout to teach—with no evidence—that our political structure was founded upon the “two-party system”, removing Liberty entirely from the menu of political options. All this in a country founded on the very bedrock of Individual Rights! The fact that the statists have been able to pull this off speaks volumes about the sad state of American History as an academic field, and as a subject in public schools. (No. I’m not going there. In a libertarian society . . . there would be no public schools and parents would take responsibility for the education of their children.)

These past 40 years we have been wandering in the political wilderness, seeking our freedom at the feet of idols, none of which has the power to grant what we desire. Liberty does not come from the outside; it is a quality that is inherent in the very nature of the human individual. And yet living liberty requires a recognition and respect for natural rights from enough people to form a society.

Does this mean we ought to form our own libertarian societies? Even with all the talk about “going Galt”, the development of “Paulvilles”, and even ideas about floating cities outside the jurisdictional waters of any extant nation-state, this would be a long process, and I am concerned that we do not have much time left to reclaim our birthright of liberty. Not that I would obstruct the free efforts of others in that direction. Laissez-faire! Leave them alone, and see what comes of them. However, the statists have been working towards enslaving us to their purposes for a very long time, and they now have the systems in place to move in for the kill.

But all is not lost! Those years of wandering in the wilderness of elections, where have become ensnared in the pits of the false left-right dichotomy, and gotten lost in the badlands of party power politics, have not been entirely in vain. For during that time, rumors of Liberty have gotten out among the people, and the philosophy of liberty has been disseminated to a new generation. Actually--two new generations.

And help has come from an unexpected source. For as the statists have tightened the chains of our encroaching slavery, so that they become heavier upon us, and Americans have begun to notice. Everywhere, people are waking up, and the fires of liberty are beginning to ignite in their hearts. The sparks are beginning to take hold, and people are beginning to question and protest the loss of their freedom.

Some of you have seen it for yourself. As I have, traveling in New Mexico for the New Mexico Patriot Alliance, and to Illinois as a delegate to the Continental Congress. I have seen big changes among the awakening people from last year to this.

At the Tea Parties last year, the focus was on taxes and on the evil of the Democratic Party Progressives. The concept that salvation would be found by electing Republicans was everywhere. However, even there, the fires of Liberty were being stoked by Libertarians, by Objectivists, by Constitutionalists.

Since the Tea Party movement began last year, the statists have increased the velocity their drive towards fascism, towards socialism, towards whatever you want to call it, and their end game is a world collectivist state.

And in response, I have noticed that more Tea Party goers are carrying signs that, rather than just vilifying the current administration, and rather than just protest taxes, point to the founding principles of the United States, and the Constitution. Principles that Libertarians can agree—despite those among us who would rather go much further—are nevertheless principles worth restoring.

At Continental Congress 2009, we elected a Libertarian to preside over the proceedings: Michael Badnarik. And he is the real deal. Although there were small coalitions of theocrats and other conservatives, some of whom wish to use the power of the state to enforce their particular theologies and moralities, the majority of the body, and a group of dedicated libertarians (small “l” AND large “L”), worked long and hard to promote the cause of Liberty with good (though not perfect) results.

The work of the Continental Congress 2009 resulted in the Articles of Freedom, which documents fourteen major violations to the Constitution—including such violations of liberty as the income tax, the federal reserve, undeclared foreign adventures in “nation building”, and the violation of private property rights. The Articles of Freedom also include instructions to the federal government and the Sovereign States for the remediation of these violations through such actions as tenth-amendment assertions and restrictions on the activity of the feds to those stated in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution. In addition, the States are instructed to protect the people from Federal incursions on their rights through the empowering of the county sheriffs via the Supreme Court decision, Printz-Mack vs. the United States, and through the formation of Constitutional Militias.

Since we do not expect any more response from the present imperial presidency, and the present congressional elite, than the Olive Branch Petition got from King George III and the Parliament, the Articles of Freedom also contain suggestions for Civic Action on the part of Liberty-loving Americans. This civic action is planned to culminate in the withdrawal of support to the federal government by a “goodly number of millions” of patriots create a mass movement to restore their liberty by Constitutional means. A huge goal, to be sure, and fraught with problems in the details and the scope; but the journey to Liberty is not begun by those who nit-pick the problems. The pioneers who settled this country had a saying: “The cowards never started, and the weak died on the way.” If we are to be a force for freedom, we can neither be cowards nor weaklings. And we must begin with the first steps.

Go to Articlesoffreedom.us, sign the pledge, and get your liberty-loving friends and neighbors to do the same.

Continental Congress, the Tea Parties, the Ron Paul R3volution, and state-based patriot coalitions like the NMPA—these are all part of a movement that has coalesced because our present federal government has stepped on the gas in its drive toward an all-powerful, collectivist state.

The LP stands at the edge of its current map—the map of the political process of electing candidates—and now must decide how to expand that map so that we can leave the wilderness, and lead on in the drive towards that “libertarian society” our parents envisioned. Although educational, the political process of electing candidates to offices to serve a statist government, has become (in and of itself) a dead end for libertarians. I submit that it is time to do some back-of-the envelope calculations, and take into account where we actually are, and who is here with us, in order to redraw our road-map to Libertopia; and to include other highways and byways than just partisan political action.

I believe that there are (at least) three ways to get to our goal—a libertarian society—and that we need scouting parties and shovel-ready construction teams working actively on all of them.

One road is the political action highway. This is currently the main LP route to Libertopia, but the road is too narrow to carry the traffic needed to restore the Constitution. It needs to be broadened to include more than elections. Political action entails lifting our voices for Liberty through protests and forums; it requires that we get the unadulterated message of Liberty to the people, one by one, through education and example. The people are waking up—but in their yawning and stretching—they have not yet understood that the coffee needs to be hot and caffeinated. It cannot be a tepid mix of statism with a dash of Liberty. One cannot expect to be free and control your neighbor’s marriage or his money. We know this, and through political action in the broadest sense, we can present an uncompromising philosophical case for liberty everywhere we go, thereby “lighting the fires of liberty in one heart at a time.” (I LIKE that Badnarik quote!).

Another route to Libertopia is the cultural bypass. Our vehicles in the culture are education and entertainment. Speaking for myself, this is the way that the idea of Liberty became real in my pointed little head as a child and young-adult. At Papa’s Kitchen Table University, I read and discussed the founding documents of the United States from a libertarian perspective. And I was given the books and papers that formed the ideas in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson’s Virginia Resolution on Religious Liberty, and the Constitution itself. I read and discussed Locke and Smith, and Bastiat. This education was a powerfully firm foundation for making the cause of Liberty my home in this world—even if I explored other ideas along the way.

The educational aspect powerful as it is does not alone ignite people’s visions of Liberty. Libertopia has been envisioned through novels, stories and movies, and counterexamples in these media can also instruct, by making the horror of tyranny very real. Books like Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress; Smith’s Probability Broach, and classics like 1984, have all influenced the vision of Libertopia, and increased our desire to work toward it. Currently, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, though out more than 50 years, has sold more than it ever has, as people strive to find a philosophical vision of what the world is now, and what it might become. We must get these books into the hands of newly awakened people, and recommend movies like The Matrix series, to get them thinking. We must introduce them to the very vocabulary of liberty, so that they may have a sustaining vision to get them through the hard and rocky way that lies between us and the land of living liberty. The vision thing is important—this is people change their hearts and minds, and commit to ideas.

The third road is that of preparation for Living Liberty. As the statists tighten their grip, their unworkable economic and social systems are beginning to show signs of stress and strain. The mixed economy cannot sustain the spending they need to do in order to achieve their goal. And as the current system falters, their response will accelerate the economic collapse.

This is their weakness and our opportunity. But it comes at a price. We ourselves, as well as our friends and neighbors, and those just beginning to awaken to this reality, are dependent on the workings of this economy. We can fiddle while Rome burns—sitting around and complaining about the evils of the state, and the state of the world—but that will do nothing to get us to Libertopia. The enemies of liberty mean to use this kind of crisis to create their slave-state, and we are meant to be so dependent on them that we willingly give up our freedom for the security of three squares a day.

We, too, can prepare for the inevitable crisis that has been built into our mixed economies. We must be the watchmen at the gate, calling out to the denizens of our current camp in the wilderness that it is time to prepare for the coming battle. And we must prepare ourselves by beginning to live Liberty. We can do this by making ourselves more self-sufficient, and less dependent on those who would be our masters. We can start living liberty by developing alternate, local economies and the means for personal self-defense. On this road, I believe that we will find that even as we are preparing for the worst, we are also developing the best within ourselves; and that when we arrive at Libertopia, we will be ready to live there.

At R3volution March, Adam Kokesh asked the question: Is it time?
In the past two years, as the march to statism has not only continued, but accelerated, I believe that the answer is: Yes, it is time. And I also believe that the years Libertarians have spent in the wilderness have been fruitful, perhaps even because of the pits and blind canyons we have fallen into. We know what roads we have tried, and we can preserve what worked. But the times demand that we come out of the wilderness, and in coalition with others who are fully awake to our peril, we must expand our maps, and prepare for the end game. The battle is on, and the crisis is imminent. The result will be either Liberty or slavery; individual rights or collectivism. This may be a long and arduous road—but our feet are already on the first marches.

One of the sages of my tradition put it this way: “The task is great; the taskmaster is exacting, and the day draws on towards evening. And yet-lo alecha hamlacha ligmor—it is not up to us to complete the task—lo aval ben chorim l’hivote minena—but neither are we free to desist from it.

And at the end of the task—way up yonder, is that shining place—Libertopia!-- where we can sit under our vines and fig trees and begin all our sentences this way:
“Here, in a libertarian society . . .”