You would think with the current economic, social, and political tensions Conservatives would be just a tad bit more respectful towards us but even that seems to be a pipe dream. With the negative conservative reactions that came from Ron Paul's CPAC victory (or as Lew Rockwell puts it the first Republican primary) it's reasonable to believe that attacks on Libertarians and Libertarian thought are going to increase especially since the youth vote (which is the voting demographic I'm in by the way) has accepted Ron Paul's message. Which unfortunately for them means that the message of military/police socialism and social authoritarianism is being rejected by the future leaders of tomorrow.
Last week I got an two emails from an Examiner.com writer I follow documenting two attacks on Libertarians. The first one was a claim by the conservative magazine The American Spectator that the Southern Poverty Law Center has included Libertarians in a report titled Rage on the Right - The Year in Hate and Extremism. The Examiner article reports that neither Libertarians nor the Libertarian Party is mentioned in the report. I have also read through it and searched for the word Libertarians and the Libertarian Party and came up with nothing. That means only one thing that the Spectator is lying and/or the author of the article Robert S. McCain (no relation to the Arizona Senator) has a problem with the Libertarian movement. Which even in itself is abit confusing since the Spectator publishes writings from Libertarian thinkers Thomas Sowell and P.J. O'Rourke. Pinning it all on McCain wouldn't be too truthful either since (at least according to his wiki) he supported Bob Barr in the 2008 election although this could've just been out of dislike for John McCain. From reading his wiki his fight with the SPLC might have been the chief motivator to write up the lie. If McCain has a problem with the SPLC thats all fine and dandy but I would ask him not to create lies to get others to fight on your side. Thats a trait of collectivists.
The second article is from a site called renewamerica.com which from what I've from various authors on the site seems to be a mix of Paleoconservative, Neoconservative, and Religious Right thought, although Neos and Paleos hate each other. None of these groups have a history of being a friend of Libertarianism, so in turn I'm not shocked by this paleoconservative attack. Granted we share a very, very, very thin ground with paleoconservatives, although in my opinion like regular conservatives, paleos will dump us as soon as they're back in charge.
This attack is directed at Ron Paul personally resorting to the same smears he faced back in his 2008 campaign; kooky, out of touch, blaming America, etc. The article starts by comparing him to the rabid dog in the Steven King novel "Cujo", Cujo was the name of a nice and gentle St. Bernard who got rabbis and went insane. Apparently Paul A. Ibbetson is one of those paleos that can't take legitimate criticism of Reagan when he negatively notes that Dr. Paul was a huge critic on how Reagan used the CIA. The man doesn't seem to keen on personal liberty (shocking I know) with Dr. Paul's position on the drug war, despite Paul himself has stated that he has never done drugs in his life. His negative reaction to the CPAC poll isn't surprising at all since the site seems to be touting Palin as the next Conservative messiah. Little news for you Mr. Ibbetson, you can't win without the youth vote anymore. He says that Paul is the albatross of the Republican Party and hes right, a man who believes in true liberty is an albatross to a statist and military socialist party.
So Paleos, Neos, and regular Conservatives, continue your smears and Liberal-style attacks on Dr. Paul and Libertarians it will only make us stronger.
American Spectator article
renewamerica article
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