20 thoughts on “The “Pipeline” From Libertarianism To The “Alt-Right””

  1. It’s all about attacking strawmen because nobody is ideologically pure. Those attacking others can never allow them out of the boxes they put them in. It’s fraud.

    I thought, thought control was evil? What an evil thought!

  3. The alt-right is “the set of all people who are sick of the Left’s ****.” It must be very confusing to people looking for a unifying ideology or a set of puppet-masters behind the scenes.

    1. Well, maybe that’s a little too broad. “Sick of the ****, and unwilling to continue being polite about it.” Still no unifying ideology. Still no puppetmasters.

  4. Shades of 1960! I’m old enough to remember all those “Danger on the Right” books in which (and this is an actual example) the pacifist libertarian anarchist Robert LeFevre was linked or put under the same umbrella with George Lincoln Rockwell and the KKK. Anything to avoid rational thought.

  5. I don’t know. They are both far right groups and many libertarians have been participating in these political rallies. Wasn’t the make bitcoin great again girl that got attacked a libertarian?

    Gillespie falls back on a no true Scotsman fallacy and incorrectly identifies the beliefs of some of those who consider themselves, or have been labeled, alt right. He didn’t even try to define what alt right is. It isn’t something easy to define but it is easy to throw out a label.

    Gillespie should be careful because the far right libertarians and the far right alt right do have a lot in common, many differences too, but why would anyone get down in the weeds looking at distinctions when both are far right?

    The closing paragraph was interesting. I didn’t realize you can’t be libertarian if you don’t believe in open borders.

    1. You apparently can’t be a true libertarian if you recognize the need of having a military or the role the Pax Americana has played in elevating all of humankind. Gillespie apparently thinks Trump only wants white people to get social security and medicare. Does he realize that most of the country wants to keep those programs and not just for white people?

      Gillespie always comes off as naive and as a bit of a SJW nutter.

      1. “You apparently can’t be a true libertarian if you recognize the need of having a military or the role the Pax Americana has played in elevating all of humankind.”

        There seems to be sarcasm in this. But not sure:).
        There isn’t a true libertarian nor true conservative.
        Of course one can claim to be a true anything.
        But I am libertarian and recognize the need of a military, but don’t see much role of Pax Americana elevating all humankind. Or not certain humankind has been elevated.
        I could go along with idea that Christianity has elevated humankind, but Pax Americana seems to me to be closely tied to the State Department.

        But If Pax Americana is the US military, the US military has been useful in terms of being a policemen in terms of global trade. And more trade is better- in terms of global wealth and US wealth.
        Or US military has been part of elevating global wealth- though the Military is about protecting US interests [which is related to allies].

        Anyhow- are libertarian supposed to be against having an US military- sounds like Lefty who are always wanting the US to be weaken.

          1. Awesome.

            The ability to coin new words has always been a sign of intelligence… unless you are a conservative.

    2. “I didn’t realize you can’t be libertarian if you don’t believe in open borders.”

      Twenty years ago, no libertarian I knew believed in open borders. Allowing billions of non-libertarians to move into a libertarian nation was obviously insane.

      I don’t think the problem is that libertarians are shifting to the alt-right, but that libertarianism has been pulled out from underneath them as the left co-opted it.

        1. But welfare state or open borders, chose one.

          I would say there is more to it.

          Or briefly, I think opening the space frontier, will open borders.
          I don’t see that as bug, rather it’s a feature.
          But I also don’t see the Moon having a vacuum as a bug.

      2. Suppose there were a libertarian seastead – or even a libertarian boat, like the Scientologists have. Then a raft full of Syrians or Congolese floats by. The libertarians rescue them but then the rafters say they have a right to stay on the boat, and to bring their extended families onto the boat too. What then?

        (This line of thought is partly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat.”)

      4. Hasn’t there been a lot of controversy at Reason because a lot of their staff embrace SJW ideology?

        I hate to break it to them but the SJW think they are NAZI too.

  6. “Along the same lines, libertarians mostly believe that private actors have a right of association that would allow businesses to refuse customers even for racist, homophobic, or sexist reasons. That is in no way an endorsement of such behavior, but it clearly creates space for alt-right haters to catch their fetid breath.”
    I think I should have right to sell to anyone you chose.
    [Just as you have the right to buy from anyone you chose.]
    Though in general, the above seems like bad business.
    But one has the right to poorly run a business [though not if you are CEO- but that is not a State thing- except in a sense it is [but not going any further in to this, as not well verse in it]].
    But anyhow, not all business is a corporation.
    But there are laws, and laws could outlaw selling soda more than 16 ozs.
    There is exactly no end of what government can restrict and enforce.
    Of course much of the subject of racism [and etc] is about the government making laws, that a government should not have made.
    And idea of current governments now being correct about everything is exactly, crazy.

  7. According to Gillespie, the key libertarian tenets are “cosmopolitanism versus parochialism, individualism vs. group identity, and libertarianism or autonomy versus authoritarianism”, but I really feel like the first of these is kind of pasted on. “Gillespie is libertarian, Gillespie is cosmopolitan, hence libertarians are cosmopolitan” isn’t valid.

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