What % of the so-called alt-right were just plain ol' libertarians before?

[Razer]

On 11/20/2016 12:34 PM, jim bell wrote:
>
>
> *From:* Razer <rayzer at riseup.net>
>> >Robert Taylor, 29, described the conference as a “victory party.”
>> Mr. Taylor was a committed libertarian, he said, working for Ron
>> Paul’s >presidential campaigns and even moving to New Hampshire for a
>> project organized by the like-minded. If Hillary Clinton had won the
>> >election, he said, he would have advocated secession.
>> >“I thought I had all the right answers and had read all the right
>> books,” he said. “I heard about the alt-right movement, and it just
>> lit a fire in >me.”
>> >Mr. Taylor said that with Mr. Trump, “we have breathing room; we
>> have a little time.”
>> >
> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/us/politics/white-nationalists-celebrate-an-awakening-after-donald-trumps-victory.html?_r=0
>
>
> Highly, highly misleading.  In a nation of 310 million people, it will
> be always possible to find somebody to focus on, a person who has just
> the right combination of negatives, as well as things you want to
> misleadingly attack.  That's precisely what's done, here.
>  Cherry-picking.  
>
> You (the person writing the NYT article) want to attack libertarians,
> right?  Okay, there are millions of them, and perhaps a million more
> claiming that but who don't actually understand libertarianism.  A few
> will have negative characteristics you will be able to exploit, just
> as we see above.  Focus on just those specific people, and you think
> you've made a valid point.  But you haven't.
> What superficial logic this seems to have should remind us that
> anti-Obama people didn't spend most of the last 8 years looking at
> what would probably have been hundreds of extremist groups that just
> happen to support him, rather than the various alternatives available.
>
> A good contrary example, which in the end actually proves my point, is
> Rev. Jeremiah Wright ("God Damn America!").  Obama had spent 20 years
> going to this guy's Sunday sermons, presumably to boost Obama's
> Christian credentials.  But by early 2008, Obama had a problem:  He
> needed to help shed the extremist image Wright had.  Obama couldn't
> just "discover" Wright's extremism:  I think it was necessary to
> coordinary (collude; conspire) to shed this.
>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Wright_controversy    Perhaps
> cooperatively, Wright put out a conveniently extremist statement,
> which Obama took and ran with it.  Even then, it took months for Obama
> to finally  "resign[] his membership in [Wright's] church".   
>
> At least that incident has an actual connection to Obama:  His
> voluntary 20 year membership (and presumably, attendance) in Wright's
> church.  It's not improper to point to this connection.  But if there
> is no connection, such focussing on these people confuses and distorts
> the fact.
>
> To merely identify some person, like this 'Robert Taylor', as having
> previously called himself "libertarian", is misleading.   The above
> article says "Mr. Taylor was a committed libertarian, he said..."
> The key words are "he said".  Notice that the article doesn't even
> bother to address the question, how accurate was his assertion?  No
> doubt that there are people with far less questionable positions who
> CALL themselves "libertarian", yet misunderstand what libertarian
> philosophy.  Is there any indication that Robert Taylor was a
> mainstream Libertarian, rather than just calling himself that?
> I did a Google search for '"Robert Taylor" libertarian', but even that
> was futile:  The name 'Robert Taylor' is so ubiquitous as to make it
> clear who this specific 'Robert Taylor' really is.
>
>             Jim Bell
>
>
>

The definition of "Libertarian, and how it plays out in real life are
two VERY different things. Just like the definition of Marxism varies
dramatically from what, lets say, Doug Henwood, Marxist investment
advior to American Lefties and a cruise missile marxist who never met a
US invasion he didn't (initially) support, believes.

I'll stick with empirically observed generalizations when discussing
politics, thanks.

In MY experience, EVERY SINGLE LIBERTARIAN I've ever met (a few decades
ago I got to interview the Libertarian presidential candidate for a
local college paper too) turns out to be an ostensibly socially
permissive republican with the full set of American exceptionalist
traits I despise regarding everyone else om the planet.

Further, Fascists lead you to believe people have rights until your
rights interfere with their sociopolitical needs. That's a US
Libertarian, defined. Libertarian techies are also well known for being
gentrifiers of communities belonging to others... Usually POC, So
they're Fascists. and racist even if you ignore the fact that Uber
drivers OBVIOUSLY don't care to be a 'sharing economy' version of an NYC
Gypsy Cab. OFC you can't tell by looking at their hipster exterior.
They're crypto-fascist and crypto-racist with a helluva set of
rationalization and denial mechanisms.

Rr

Ps. The underlying philosophy that drives US libertarians (using
schmucks like Ron Paul as example) dissuades me from believing in such
an animal as an anarcho-libertarian, or even one that actually believes
in democratic systems... Unless it's MOB democracy of course. Ie How
Hipster gentrification 'does it's thing' with utter disregard to the
people they're driving away from their new nest.
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