Documenting Anti-Semitism Within the Libertarian Movement

Anti-Semitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. The term was coined by non-Jews in late 19th century Europe as a more scientific-sounding term for Judenhass ("Jew-hatred"). In recent years, as the libertarian movement has grown, so has the anti-Jewish movement within this clan of activists supposedly concerned with promoting liberty and freedom for all of humanity.
The word libertarian comes from the root word "liberty" and refers to individuals who favor less government intrusion and are distrusting of government power. In the U.S., the libertarian movement, broadly speaking, consists of think-tanks, Ron Paul activists and organizations, and those affiliated with the Libertarian Party.
The anti-Semitism in the libertarian movement has manifested itself in all three categories at alarmingly high levels. It's difficult to imagine how any libertarian activist or scholar can envision success for their movement with such anti-libertarian sentiment and malicious bigotry in its midst.
Alibi Jews in the Libertarian Movement
The libertarian movement is ripe with Alibijude, or alibi Jews. Their job is easy: If someone is accused of anti-Semitism, the alibi Jew is brought in as a defending witness. In a movement with so few genuinely Jewish individuals, it is easy for the alibi Jews to get away with just about anything. They are free to bash Israel, defend anti-Semitism, promote the idea that a non-interventionist foreign policy would have been wise from 1939 to 1945, and misinform people about Jews and Judaism. It's an easy and worthwhile endeavor for the Alibijude, because they help anti-Semites get away with their crimes while warding off any anti-Semitic images within the libertarian movement.
Some prominent examples of alibi Jews in the libertarian movement are the self-hating anti-Jewish late economist Murray Rothbard, non-religious Jewish-born Ron Paul activist Walter Block, and non-Jewish anti-Israel activist Sheldon Richman. Individuals such as these promote the idea that Jews are anti-Israel, anti-religious, and accepting of Jew-hatred. Of course, simply because they accept these principles does not mean that the Jewish community does as well, or that other Jewish libertarian activists do either. These examples are just a few of the alibi Jews. There are many others, too, who justify anti-Semitism in the various branches of the libertarian movement with the claim, "It's not anti-Jewish. I know, because I am Jewish". It is unlikely they are Jewish in any meaningful sense of the word. Do they observe the Sabbath? Do they read Hebrew? Did they have a Bar or Bat Mitzvah? The answers are almost certainly not.
Libertarian Think-Tanks and Anti-Semitism
Libertarian think-tanks are notorious for pushing an anti-Israel agenda. Of course, one can distrust the Israeli government while also holding no hard feelings toward Jewish individuals. But it is difficult to imagine that U.S. think-tanks would focus so much on Israel when one considers the small percentage that foreign aid constitutes in the United States federal budget. (Less than one percent of the federal budget goes toward foreign aid.) Three "libertarian" think-tanks do exactly that -- and much worse.
Justin Raimondo, the prime mover-and-shaker behind the antiwar.com website (and whose main source of income is antiwar.com), blames Israel for the attack of September 11, 2011. Of Jews, Raimondo says, "The savage mind, however, works differently. Shorn of what we would recognize as a moral sense, the savage glories in his capacity for pitiless violence. It's a survival mechanism: in his world, red in tooth and claw, instilling fear in your opponent means winning more than half the battle. As a survival strategy, it's like the one inmate who mutters ominously to himself while exhibiting all the characteristics of a violent psychotic: the other prisoners give him plenty of space because they think he's liable to do anything. So, too, in the case of the Israelis, who are signaling their willingness to go to any lengths in order to instill the fear of their wrath far and wide." He also calls Israel a racist theocracy and a "shitty little country".
A Raimondo colleague at antiwar.com, Tom Engelhardt, asserted in 2006 that a "Jewish Hitler" was about to rise to power. His assertion proved not only false, but off the deep end of Jew hatred. Yet antiwar.com continues, on a weekly basis, to promote hatred of Jews and Israel. The libertarian movement is silent -- they concur.
Mary Theroux, Vice President of the California-based libertarian Independent Institute (and wife of the president and founder, David Theroux), blames Jews for the death of Jesus. Her organization encourages readers to purchase books such as "How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success" -- which asserts that the world would be a "dark ages" had followers of Jesus remained Jewish -- and "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy". Of course, you would be remiss if you didn't purchase "The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering" at the Independent Institute website, cited by the Independent Institute as both a "worthwhile read" and "a valuable reference".
At the Future of Freedom Foundation website, its President, Jacob Hornberger, blames Nazi anti-Semitism on Hitler's father abusing him. Of course, Mr. Hornberger (like his mentor Ron Paul) doesn't believe that the U.S. should have done a thing to save the Jews in the Holocaust. He says, quite falsely, "With respect to the European Jews, virtually all of them were dead by the end of the war. World War II did not save them from the Holocaust." He then concludes that Hitler was not an "aberrant monster" but an "every man". There were more than six million Holocaust survivors (as well as six million victims), according to a post-war estimate by the company Barrington James.
Mr. Hornberger's colleague Richard Ebeling, a professor of Economics at the Christian-based Hillsdale College, discusses the causes and consequences of World War Two in an article he wrote in 1991. Mr. Ebeling mentions the words "Jew" or "Jewish" just twice. In one of the mentions, he actually attempts to minimize the number of Jews that died in the Holocaust.
The Ron Paul Movement and Anti-Semitism
Savvy readers already know about Ron Paul's long-time ties to neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers. It's no surprise, then, that the movement surrounding him has the same ties and conspiratorial ideas about Jews and Judaism. But the real question, asked by The New Republic's James Kirchick in 2011, is "Why Don't Libertarians Care About Ron Paul's Bigoted Newsletters?" Kirchick concludes that "the benefit of indulging in" the idea that the U.S. is on the verge of bankruptcy and collapse "is that it sets the stage for the arrival of a savior". Each libertarian think-tank, organization, or politician are setting themselves up to save the day. Conspiracy theories about the Federal Reserve, the bankers, Israel, and the Jewish Elders of Zion help fuel the narrative that the world is collapsing around us.
Ron Paul's long-time ally Justin Raimondo's problems with the Jews is outlined above. Another close associate of Paul, former chief-of-staff Lew Rockwell, now runs The Ludwig Von Mises Institute in Alabama. There, eager young students are indoctrinated in Austrian economics -- an anti-mathemics-based brand of economics that favors cultural conservatism, anti-interventionist foreign policy, and the gold standard. And Jew-bashing. The Ron Paul newsletters, approved by Paul and likely written by Rockwell, talk about Jewish conspiracy theories and Israel in newsletter after newsletter. Subsequently, these publications as well as fundraising letters from Paul were sent to mailing lists of the anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying mail list of Willis Carto's tabloid, The Spotlight. Willis Carto is one of the most influential American anti-Semitic propagandists of the past 50 years. Mr. Paul has never acknowledged or apologized for what everyone knows to be the truth. Lew Rockwell was paid as a Ron Paul staffer from the late 1970s until at least the mid-1990s. He was the operations man behind Paul's efforts to demonize Jews and Israel. Additional specifics about Paul's anti-Semitic activities are provided here.
Ron Paul's organization, a (c)(3) educational group called the Campaign for Liberty -- whose Board of Directors is comprised of various Paul family members that financially benefit from its successes -- permits its users to promote anti-Jewish conspiracy theories at its website. Campaign for Liberty activist Clay Douglas has been promoting "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", an anti-Semitic hoax purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination, at the organization's website since 2008.
Larry Flinchpaugh, another Paul cultist, has been busy promoting himself at the Campaign for Liberty website. Flinchpaugh is the author of "Secrets of Our Hidden Controllers Revealed", which reveals how international bankers financed global wars and advocates abolishing the "Global Anti-Semitic Review Act" that makes it "illegal to criticize the country of Israel or individual Jews." Flinchpaugh wants other Campaign for Liberty supporters to buy his book, of course. These are just two examples of over 600 posts about Jews by the users of Campaign for Liberty's website.
Several Ron Paul followers have become celebrities in their own right while promoting anti-Semitism. Anti-war activist Adam Kokesh, a former congressional candidate in New Mexico and Ron Paul promoter, targeted Jews in Florida because the final 2012 presidential debate took place in Jewish-populated Palm Beach County. The Israel Lobby, the Jews of Florida, and the Presidential Debate Commission -- according to Kokesh in an October 2012 video -- worked together in a grande Jewish-backed conspiracy to prop up Israel in the final presidential debate.
Ben Swann, a self-promoting "journalist" employed by FOX 19 in Cincinnati, Ohio became notable in the libertarian movement after he began to vigorously promote Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential campaign. Swann recently published several videos aimed at attacking Israel. One of the videos blames Israel for boosting up the anti-Israel terrorist group Hamas. Swann cites just one source to verify his take on the Israel-Gaza conflict, and the libertarian movement has ingested every word of Swann's misleading video hook, line, and sinker. In fact, Hamas has its origins in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood movement. During the 1990s and 2000s, the organization conducted numerous suicide bombings and other attacks against Israel, as Wikipedia's History of Hamas outlines in detail. Nothing mentioned in the article on the origins or history of Hamas was mentioned by Ben Swann in his video.
All of the individuals and organizations mentioned in this article have actively promoted Congressman Paul, in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- his anti-Semitism. It is no surprise, then, that each of these elements of anti-Jewishness in the "liberty movement" are working together.
The Libertarian Party and Anti-Semitism
Not to be outdone, the Libertarian Party also has a growing anti-Semitic wing, led by Carol Moore, Ernest Hancock, and John Jay Myers. The Texas Libertarian Party is currently in charge of the National LP. They have invited activists from CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, to speak at their conventions. CAIR has connections to the terrorist group Hamas -- which has been launching rockets into Israel for the past seven years -- and the radical Muslim Brotherhood. The Libertarian Party of Texas has never invited any Jewish group to speak at their events. Because of the Texas Libertarians' prominence in the party, anti-Semites run the Facebook page of the National Libertarian Party and have purged Jews concerned with the growing anti-Semitism in the Libertarian Party from their page.
The ironically-titled LibertyForAll website, run by the Vice-Chairman of the Libertarian Party, R. Lee Wrights, also has an anti-Semitic article posted on it. It ponders, "Why have Christians and Muslims lived in peace for centuries in Egypt with the only expulsion being Jews?" The author assumes historical anti-Semitism exists because of Jews, not because of those practicing bigotry, intolerance, and crimes against those different than themselves.
At the "Freedom's Phoenix" website run by anarchist Libertarian Party activist Ernest Hancock, a many-times-failed candidate for office in Arizona, one can be directed to any number of vile anti-Jewish articles. Hancock redirects to an article called "The Ship Wreckers" by George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. He also links to articles asserting that "Communism was Jewish" and "a whole, secret world -- the world of the Jews." A search of the "Freedom's Phoenix" website shows that the term "Jewish" shows up on page after page at the site. In another article at "Freedom's Phoenix", you can discover that Israel is going to "Judaize" East Jerusalem and that Jesus was a Palestinian. Mr. Hancock's website is filled with lies and misinformation. But he is treated with respect by the Libertarian Party, having been a past candidate for National Chairman, and is a frequent speaker at Libertarian Party events both nationally and in many states.
At his website, the past Vice Presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, retired California Judge James P. Gray, advocates ending foreign aid to Israel and Israel alone. He also suggests the government investigate the death of Rachel Corrie and the attack on the USS Liberty. Judge Gray's idea of "justice" targets Jews only. Wonder why?
Conclusion
There you have it. These are just a few of countless examples of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and blatant lies in all three branches of the modern libertarian movement. Other libertarian leaders refuse to address the issue. They maintain that Ron Paul is not anti-Semitic. They say anti-Semitism is not a problem in the libertarian movement. They ignore historic anti-Semitism and actively seek to minimize the atrocities of less than 80 years ago in the Holocaust. But the libertarian movement will be in for a surprise when they never find success at the polls or in public policy due to the blind bigotry and intolerance outlined above.
Jewish libertarians or classical liberals -- or others who are pro-equal rights (pro-decency, really) should refrain from further participation in the libertarian movement. It actively works against Jews. It is not concerned about liberty for religious minorities; rather, quite the contrary. Moreover, there is little doubt that the modern libertarian movement is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.
Milton Friedman would be ashamed.

via chelm.freeyellow.com

The Mistake That Is the Libertarian Party

In tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal is my op-ed, The Mistake That Is the Libertarian Party.  Here are some excerpts:

In 1972, the Libertarian Party nominated University of Southern California philosophy Prof. John Hospers as its first presidential candidate and ran Tonie Nathan for vice president. When Roger MacBride, a Virginia Republican elector pledged to Richard Nixon, voted instead for Hospers-Nathan, he cast the first electoral vote in American history for a woman. The Libertarian Party was off and running. In 1976, it nominated the renegade elector as its presidential candidate.
As a young libertarian, I was very enthusiastic about the formation of the Libertarian Party. I proudly cast my vote for Roger MacBride for president. I attended the 1975 national convention in New York that nominated him. [Omitted from the piece was my recollection of seeing Robert Nozick and Murray Rothbard making motions for the party platform from the floor.]
But, while I am as libertarian today as I was then, I have come to believe that the Libertarian Party was a mistake.
The reason is simple. Unlike a parliamentary system in which governments are formed by coalitions of large and small parties, our electoral system is a first-past-the-post, winner-take-all one in which a winning presidential candidate just needs to get more than 50% of the vote. This means each contending “major” party is itself a coalition that needs to assemble enough diverse voting groups within it to get to 51%. Hence the need to appeal to the so-called moderates and independents rather than the more “extreme” elements within.
To the extent that a third party is successful, it will drain votes from the coalition party to which it is closest and help elect the coalition party that is further removed from its interests. The Libertarian Party’s effort will, if effective, attract more libertarian voters away from the candidate who is marginally less hostile to liberty, and help hand the election to the candidate who is more hostile to liberty.  <snip>
Libertarian activists should choose whichever party they feel more comfortable working within. That’s what Ron Paul did. Likewise, Rand Paul has brought his libertarianism inside the GOP tent. The small-”l” libertarians in the tea party movement identified the Republican Party as the coalition closest to their concerns about fiscal responsibility and the growth of government power, and they have gone about making the GOP more libertarian from the grass-roots up. They have moved the party in a libertarian direction, as has the Republican Liberty Caucus. <snip>
Libertarians need to adjust their tactics to the current context. This year, their highest priority should be saving the country from fiscal ruin, arresting and reversing the enormous growth in federal power—beginning with repealing ObamaCare—and pursuing a judiciary who will actually enforce the Constitution. Which party is most likely to do these things in 2013?  <snip>
Libertarian activists need to set aside their decades-old knee-jerk reactions to the two major parties, roll up their sleeves, and make the Republican and Democratic parties more libertarian. When it comes to voting, libertarians need to get serious about liberty and give up on the Libertarian Party. Nov. 6 would be a good day to start.

In the omitted portions, I reply to some arguments commonly made on behalf of the LP.  Read the rest of it here.  [It appears as though the link I am using is behind the subscription wall.  If so, my regrets.]

via volokh.com

Juden Hass Attracts: Ron Paul fans meet the Left in Keffiyehs

They deserve each other... Totally!

If you believe in the 10th Amendment, stay out of their business.

That’s Rick Perry’s position on the NY same-sex marriage law:

Perry, who is considering running for president, at a forum in Colorado on Friday called himself an “unapologetic social conservative” and said he opposes gay marriage — but that he’s also a firm believer in the 10th Amendment, the Associated Press reported.
“Our friends in New York six weeks ago passed a statute that said marriage can be between two people of the same sex. And you know what? That’s New York, and that’s their business, and that’s fine with me,” he said to applause from several hundred GOP donors in Aspen, the AP reported.
“That is their call. If you believe in the 10th Amendment, stay out of their business.”

In response to which Rick Santorum tweeted: So Gov Perry, if a state wanted to allow polygamy or if they chose to deny heterosexuals the right to marry, would that be OK too?

from Legal Insurrection

A wisely spoken statement, but obviously you can't go "Ron Paul" about this and run into absolutes.

Gay Marriage doesn't cause Gays, it causes straight people to fuck less

...not surprised. Same Sex Relationships obviously is just one big Cock Block... or at least that is what the study shows. You can't make a Gay person Gay... but you sure can sexually frustrate a Heterosexual person. This is the nail in the coffin for progressive arguments towards greater freedom. Gay Culture isn't autonomous from straight culture. It's predominance comes at the cost of sexual freedom for heterosexuals. Any male that has been to a college campus in the last 20 years would have a very repressive experience. I wish it were not so, but my experience tells me likewise. Your study revealed something most dudes know, but can't talk about without being hushed by the Feminist police.

There’s long been something of a debate about this question, and I thought I’d note an interesting and apparently quite credible article touching on it, Nanette K. Gartrell, Henny M. W. Bos & Naomi G. Goldberg, Adolescents of the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study: Sexual Orientation, Sexual Behavior, and Sexual Risk Exposure, Archives of Sexual Behavior (2010). (I learned of it because one of the coauthors is affiliated with the Williams Institute for sexual orientation and the law here at UCLA School of Law.)
The study was part of an ongoing study that, at this stage, involved 77 families, “31 continuously-coupled, 40 separated-mother, and six single-mother families,” and 78 17-year-old children (one family had twins). Of the girls, nearly 50% described themselves as at least partly homosexual in orientation, though 30% out of that 50% were “predominantly heterosexual, incidentally homosexual.” (None of the girls, though, identified themselves as predominantly or exclusively lesbian.) Of the boys, a bit over 20% described themselves as at least partly homosexual in orientation, though 13% out of that 20% described themselves as “predominantly heterosexual, incidentally homosexual.” (Two of the boys identified themselves as predominantly or exclusively gay.) “The ... Kinsey self-identifications [of the girls in the study] and lifetime sexual experiences were consistent with Stacey and Biblarz’s (2001) and Biblarz and Stacey’s (2010) theory that the offspring of lesbian and gay parents might be more open to homoerotic exploration and same-sex orientation.”
As to actual sexual behavior, 15% of the girls had had sex with other girls, compared to 5% in a sample of 17-year-old girls at large; 54% of the girls had had sex with boys, compared to 63% in a sample of 17-year-old girls at large. The boys showed no greater participation in homosexual sex compared to the sample of 17-year-old boys at large, but showed a markedly lesser participation in heterosexual sex (38% as opposed to 59%). For both the boys and girls who had had sex, the age of first sexual contact was about a year later than in the samples of 17-year-olds at large. All these differences are statistically significant.
The study has obvious limitations: It’s fairly small (though large enough for the authors to get statistically significant findings). It might be subject to various confounding factors; the families in the study and the comparison families from the population at large “were neither matched nor controlled for socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, or region of residence.” It doesn’t speak to children of gay men, including children raised by the men either alone or with male partners. It doesn’t tell us what will happen to the 17-year-olds in the future (though a planned follow-up will interview the children when they are 25).

via volokh.com

image via feministe.us

the beauty is it is their own study. meant to prove that gay marriage children will not end up being gay. what they proved is the boys are victims of this culture.  It is easy to find a study that proves something that you want. how often do you find your opponents study proving your own point? 

In the pre-1970 era, when surveys showed women
with higher levels of happiness, most men held jobs that
enabled their wives to be fulltime homemakers.
“The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness” is a peer-reviewed reseach publication by Drs. Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, forthcoming American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/papers/Paradox%20of%20declining%20female%20happiness.pdf

Alexis de Tocqueville traveled the United States in the early-19th century, he recognized the fact that respect for marriage is very American. He wrote: "There is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is more respected than in America, or where conjugal happiness is more highly or worthily appreciated."

Liberty Point: ‘How serious is the Libertarian Party about being taken seriously?’ | Independent Political Report

there is nothing to win in Afghan. war must have goals. our goal should be setting a punitive precedent to those that attack us and should never be about rebuilding our enemies. time to leave the Afghan and bomb Iran’s nuclear capability on the same day. we don’t need ground troops to do this. as for the Ron Paul’s of the world they have no creativity. their solutions are what led us into this mess to begin with. Paul forgets that the root of the problem began because of internationalist free trade that Ron is now pushing again. the West supported the Shah because he promised to pay back debts, but it is obvious that a free market in societies that are not ready is not the solution. Capitalism can not be internationalist and can only work within Republican frameworks. when I say Republican framework… I don’t mean the party, but rather I mean the idea of checks and balances within a border. Internationalist Anarcho-Capitalism aka Libertarianism is as bad as any other Internationalist theory without limit. it is nothing but the NWO in a new guise. It is no surprise that Ron Paul is appearing on Russian television all the time. the man obviously has bias and investment in those that would benefit from monopolizing resources like natural gas to Europe. It isn’t that Libertarianism is a theory it is rather that is is deliberate bias and orchestrated prejudice against what would be good for citizens of any Republic.

Holocaust Museum Shooting

I don't care if it is the left or the right that did it. they are both bad. but the website of the killer today reads out of an Alex Jones Text Book. it is Bilderberg Conspiracy crap. Lies about the Rothchild family... the FEDERAL Reserve.... you get the idea?






and we wonder why these people think these things?

more confused libertarians

www.flickr.com

Ignorant Libertarians

Baby Rhino

Economy is like a PIMPLE

what we need is a Strident that works... leaving it alone is not going to help anymore. What is the better wipe?

from Seesmic Post http://www.seesmic.com/video/fPGHA2YlFE

my Ron Paul high school friend

Original Seesmic Post http://www.seesmic.com/video/XyuBqlvZd8

running into a best friend from the past and realizing we both had changed

You want accountability for value? I'm down with that! by not by going back to what didn't work. You want inflation? Look at the Weimar Republic in Germany... and it was "Gold" that did it. We need leadership with ideas... and charisma to push it. Ron Paul is reacting to Richard Nixon... am I the only one who believes the solutions to this era are because we are looking at things right now!

since when is the Constitution a cult? It is a social contract. crikey! a great agreement... that some people have gone Cabalistic on. Where is the "logic" in that? Paul says he is against a virtual economy... but the very heart of "gold" is virtual. the very heart of a social contract is virtual as well. you want real? you want real exchange value and yet you set your foundation on rare rocks.


revolutions are not based on old rhetoric. Paul might sound snappy... but having a big mouth is not understanding what is going on around you. Ayn Rand's ghost is knocking on Ron Paul's door. she says he didn't get it. there isn't method. if pure logic were so easy we wouldn't need leaders

principles never start with rhetoric, they come from life. orthodoxy is a cancer. we need a man who can think, not follow.


We are wasting creative people's time with teasing when original thought is exactly what we need right now. we can't get real thought out "Change" if we have fallen in love with a man who bastardized Austrian Economics with diversional arguments. How about Iceland? Notice Ron Paul doesn't talk about what went down there. The media is using Paul as a tool to radicalize the GOP. Ron Paul (An eccentric old man repeating thirty year old ideas) knows that, but he is so vain with CNN it is disgusting. The modern Bugs Bunny on a news network owned by Warner Brothers. "What's up doc?" Paul's logic had just been put into paradox with a cult used to destroy the GOP with "Pablum". Get a job working at an old age home if you feel empathy for those who are looking to repeat themselves. Everything the man says is cloud nine and isn't amusing to me to see people parroting bad decisions.