print“You’re a racist.” “No, you’re a bigger racist.” “No way; you hang out with Lew Rockwell, Hans Hoppe and Ron Paul; they’re racists, so you’re racist.” What on earth is going on here? Why are serious libertarians engaging in tit-for-tat spats with a twat? She is Cathy something or another, a sally-come-lately libertarian. Justin Raimondo, a life-long libertarian, has been credited with “smoking out” this woman—who has libeled Paul, Murray Rothbard, Rockwell and Hoppe as racists.
Are libertarians as dazed and confused as Republicans? The latter have certainly dignified the rival gang’s Stalinist show-trial tactics, partaking in the same silly tit-for-tat: “You’re a racist, I’m not. Democrats are racists; we’re the party of Lincoln.” Blah-blah.
And what will Mr. Raimondo do if the bimbo in question produces some “iffy” quotes from the men she has maligned, quotes that fail the politically correct test?
Libertarians should not partake in this dance done by the political establishment. By going on the defense—allowing themselves to be drawn into such a deeply silly exchange—libertarians are, inadvertently, conceding that speech should be policed, and that those who violate standards set by the PC set are somehow defective on those grounds alone, and deserve to be purged from “polite” company.
(Incidentally, allow me some latitude here when it comes to the liberal use of ad hominem, having already proven, I hope, that Cathy Whatshername is the dim bulb she is. It was hoped that “Libertarian Feminists Make A Move On Von Mises” would have provided “brutalists” with a temporary reprieve from her ilk. Alas, this is the “Age of the Idiot.” You can’t keep ’em down for long.)
JUNGE FREIHEIT, a German weekly, recently interviewed this writer. One of the questions was this: “Have you been blamed for racism because of your book “Into the Cannibal’s Pot”? What would you answer?”
The reply, taken almost verbatim from “Into the Cannibal’s Pot” (pp. 41-42), ought to help in warding off the fee-fi-fo-fems who sniff out the blood of speech offenders and thought criminals:
No, not really. The book is concerned with reality, not race. Res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself). Most intelligent readers can tell the difference. One individual from Media Matters failed, but he could hardly be called intelligent. In order to accuse me of racism, he needed to lie about what I had written. My answer to those who’d fault me for daring to make broad statements about aggregate group characteristics, vis-à-vis crime, for instance, would be as follows: Generalizations, provided they are substantiated by hard evidence, not hunches, are not incorrect. Science relies on the ability to generalize to the larger population observations drawn from a representative sample. People make prudent decisions in their daily lives based on probabilities and generalities. That one chooses not to live in a particular crime-riddled county or country in no way implies that one considers all individual residents there to be criminals, only that a sensible determination has been made, based on statistically significant data, as to where scarce and precious resources—one’s life and property—are best invested.
UPDATE (5/11): Comments harvested from the Facebook thread:
Jack Kerwick (Catholic, conservative philosopher): “‘Tit-for-tat spats with a twat.’ Vintage Ilana.”
Ilana Mercer: “From the fact that some dude is dumber than Cathy Whatshername, it doesn’t follow that CWHN is smart, Christoph Dollis. The Jeffrey Tucker I once knew was way too bright to have written the crap I critiqued in “Libertarian Feminists Make A Move On Von Mises”. Cathy Whatshername is the ‘brains’ behind it. The woman is the SE Cupp of lite libertarianism.”
The adorable Kathy Shaidle: “Libertarians should not partake in this dance done by the political establishment. By going on the defense—allowing themselves to be drawn into such a deeply silly exchange—libertarians are, inadvertently, conceding that speech should be policed, and that those who violate standards set by the PC set are somehow defective on those grounds alone, and deserve to be purged from ‘polite’ company.” (From the post above)
Exactly. Many so called libertarians just seem like low tax liberals whose big priority is getting to smoke dope without a helmet, and who have bought into the fashioable leftwing “multiculural/race/gender/transphobia” narrative. No thanks.
Ilana Mercer: “The inimitable Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe once told me: ‘If you are not called a racist, then, it seems to me, you are in intellectual trouble and it is high time to reconsider your own thinking.’ Professor Hoppe was attempting to console me, after someone marked us both with that Mark of Cain”.