"10 Reasons Why Slate, Salon And The Progressive Media Are Afraid Of Libertarianism
FEBRUARY 8, 2014
libertarianism-movement-fist-power A lot of people are messing with libertarianism. We get it. If you see an alternative worldview gaining currency as your own is starting to lose out: attack, attack, attack. Strategically, it’s probably smart.
When Jane Mayer wrote that sloppy hit piece for The New Yorker against the Brothers Koch a few years back, it was way more strategic than personal: These are the folks who give money to organizations that don’t agree with you about lots of things. If you want to weaken those groups, villainize the funders by any means necessary to make their donations toxic.
Well played. The bigger problem for progressives, however, is that libertarianism has grown far larger than any billionaire’s money. So you have to do still more to kill the movement. At the very least that means using heaping helpings of intellectual dishonesty. Can you swiftboat a movement?
In a recent New York Times piece profiling Rand Paul, Sam Tanenhaus and Jim Rutenberg write that libertarians are a bunch of “antitax activists and war protestors, John Birch Society members, and a smatter of truthers who suspect the government’s hand in the 2001 terrorist attacks.” Why would the Times not instead describe folks like Times columnist Tyler Cowen, Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, or investor Peter Thiel? That’s not part of the narrative.
Let’s get to the heart of the matter: Progressives are afraid. Just when they seized the ring, their power is ebbing. Outlets have to make libertarian voodoo dolls so they act as pricks. But why is libertarianism gaining so much traction? What is the true source of the prog media’s fear?"...
