The libertarian Moorfield Storey Blog has an interesting, if long, post on a point that some libertarians don’t seem to get about prejudice when they suggest that if no physical injury is inflicted, bigotry isn’t a big deal. (Note I said “some” libertarians; others feel prejudice is indeed something to vigilantly counter, just not through the blunt instrument of government.)
The Moorfield Storey blogger addresses a typical libertarian, whom he terms “Calvin:
For a libertarian Calvin, it is pretty simple and easy. He sees a minority upset by the use of bigoted words and he laughs it off with remarks about “sticks and stones” and how they don’t break your bones. Gay kids across America were subjected to those words and killed themselves when they couldn’t take it anymore. Not Calvin; he was unlikely to be targeted merely because of who he was.
I imagine the impetus for this post was basketball superstar Kobe Bryant being fined $100,000 by the NBA last week for calling a referee the “f” word (and then some). Graying rocker Ted Nugent, now a right-wing (not a libertarian) columnist in the Washington Times, penned a defense of Bryant that declared, “Mr. Bryant committed this egregious verbal foul because he used a word demeaning to homosexuals, the most protected class of people in America.”
As the Moorfield Storey Blog states:
What makes the situation worse for the libertarian Calvin, is there are conservative Calvins who sound just like him. The libertarian Calvin (LC) may not be bigoted against minorities, while the conservative Calvin (CC) may be. Unfortunately when they speak they speak the language…minorities listening to the LC can’t tell how he differs from the CC. Individuals victimized because of who they are, hear the same comments coming out of both groups. And thus the libertarian stereotype, that we are just conservatives, but “more so” lives on, perpetrated by our own actions.
Which is an unwelcome outcome that some of our fellow libertarians, in making the case for limited government, may want to ponder.
More. And then there are government actions that chill the blood of many libertarians, like this Canadian prosecution for insensitivity: “Lesbian Insult Gets Comic Fined.”
Added. Man Arrested in UK for Singing “Kung Fu Fighting”.
Still more. Not now, but someday? The Wall Street Journal reports:
Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson…is jumping into the 2012 Republican presidential race, adding variety to what already promises to be a crowded field. The two-term governor, who left office nine years ago after proudly vetoing 750 pieces of legislation, promises to run a long-shot campaign heavy on libertarian themes of limited government and personal freedom. …
A Johnson campaign will differ sharply in content and tone from that of other Republican contenders. He opposes U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, but favors work visas for the 11 million illegal workers now in the U.S. He supports gay marriage and abortion rights, while advocating a balanced budget and a sharp reduction in government regulation, taxes and spending.
5 Comments for “Libertarians and Prejudice”
posted by Moorfield Storey Institute on
Thank you for the link and comments. The inspiration of the article is not Bryant, however. We originally ran an article about what we call “me-libertarianism,” the tendency of some libertarians to judge the progress or demise of freedom only by the issues that directly benefit or harm themselves. A discussion broke out on numerous sites and Facebook pages concerning that.
One woman wrote in basically dismissing the approach we advocated because she is a libertarian who lives in a liberal states and she feels that she could be in danger for going to tea party rallies. No threats were made. But she said people assumed she would be liberal and she isn’t. She then made the comment that we all have “disadvantages” to overcome, putting her heretofore imagined oppression on the same level of the impact of racism or anti-gay bigotry.
The response, using a scene from Blast from the Past to kick it off, was on why we don’t all have “disadvantages” to overcome, that this things can be extremely different depending on personal circumstance. And one person circumstance is the bigotry imposed on specific marginalized groups.
posted by Jorge on
“…Unfortunately when they speak they speak the language…minorities listening to the LC can’t tell how he differs from the CC…”
This is a very astute observation. Things like this happen all the time.
posted by Houndentenor on
I once met an anarchist who was convinced that we could have gotten civil rights in the south through social pressure. Although alternative history is a dangerous (and usually delusional) exercise, I’m pretty sure that without the feds addressing the issue a good part of the south would still be segregated.
I think there are two kinds of people who say that we shouldn’t regulated who can get hired and fired and for what reasons. Group A really does believe that in the absence of outside interference, employers would hire the best employees and retain those who did good work because that is in their long-term self interest. Group B resents having to hire women/minorities/gays/you name it. Hardly anyone is going to admit to being in Group B even though I suspect (from personal contact) that there are a lot more people who talk like libertarians on this issue who are in Group B.
posted by another steve on
And what do you think about fining comics for telling jokes that insult lesbians?
posted by Tom Jefferson on
1. I generally support public and private sector anti-discrimination and anti-harassment laws. One of the reasons that I am not a libertarian (although I did end up dating one) is their opposition to civil rights laws.
1b. I would say that their probably need to be certain reasonable exceptions to civil rights laws and that civil rights laws are not set up to address every discriminatory situation, which is not really related to what people need to live and be successful in America.
2. If the 14th Amendment means anything, it has got to mean that the Federal Bill of Rights needs to apply to the States and that their has to be limitations on what States can do in terms of denying a class of citizens public equal opportunity, equal protection, due process of the law.