Time to clean house: Evil bigotry has no place in liberty movement

By David McElroy · August 18, 2011

It’s time for the liberty movement and some people loosely associated with us to take a hard look at something that’s been ignored for too long. We have some vile bigots among us — and it’s time to speak the truth about it.

I tend to be very open-minded about the discussion that I’ll allow in forums that I control, whether it’s in the comments here or on Facebook. There are very, very few reasons for which I’ll block people or delete comments, but wholesale, outright bigotry is one of them.

Earlier today on Facebook, I posted a question for discussion that concerned where the concept of majoritarian superiority came from. Is it somehow a natural part of human psychology or did it come about at some point in history? (My guess was that it probably started somewhere during the Enlightenment.) One of my recently acquired acquaintances on there had this to say in response:

“It stems from the Jews. The Jews have manipulated history to advance their own worldview, whether to create sympathy or world domination.”

I want to make one this very clear. If you’re going to blame “the Jews” for random things and talk about their alleged worldview of “world domination,” you’re not a friend of mine. Period. No exceptions. If you don’t understand why that’s unacceptable, there’s no way I could possibly explain it to you. I’ll defend your right to set up your own enclave of bigots and live the way you choose, but we’re not really friends. That’s evil, and it goes too far for me to be able to ignore.

For too long, I think some of us have sat by uncomfortably and failed to confront things that need confronting among those who claim to stand for individual freedom. We’ve generally done it in the name of tolerance and accepting a person’s freedom to hold his or her own beliefs. But just because a person is legally and otherwise entitled to his own beliefs, that’s no reason for us to remain silent in the face of evil.

Not only is it a moral issue, but it also makes it appear that those who talk of freedom really just want the freedom to hate others more openly. That’s not the case with the vast majority of very decent, scrupulously fair and loving libertarians I’ve known. We don’t need to remain silent about the few who speak evil and make it appear that their evil is in our name, too.

There’s a long history of anti-Semitism, and I’m not going to try to recount it. I wasn’t even aware that anti-Semitism still existed until sometime when I was a teen-ager, because I had been taught (in my very Southern Baptist family and church) that Jews tended as a group to value things that made them successful in the world. I knew that we disagreed with them, but I admired them because of what a small minority had been able to accomplish as compared to their relatively tiny numbers. It was a surprise to me when I got old enough to start understanding that some people still agree — somewhere in their hearts — that Hitler was generally right about the Jews.

Over the centuries, people have used many excuses for hating Jews. The most ugly example is when Christians have tried to hold the Jews responsible — as a group of people — for the crucifixion of Jesus. It doesn’t seem to occur to these people that they couldn’t claim salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection without this, and it also doesn’t seem to have occurred to them that it was clearly God’s plan, according to scripture. Nor does it occur to them that the Bible teaches that Jesus had to die because of everyone’s sins, so there’s zero theological basis for blaming Jews or any other group.

The sad thing is that many who are otherwise decent, productive and exceptional people have been seduced by various kinds of bigotry. Henry Ford is the foremost example that comes to mind. Although Ford’s genius gave the world decent transportation at prices that were undreamed of before, he was virulently anti-Semitic. The newspaper he owned, The Dearborn Independent, sent a message of hate to its 700,000 paid subscribers. It even compiled much of the hate into various books, including, “The International Jew, the World’s Foremost Problem,” in 1920. It also published the infamous hoax called “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which some people today still persist in believing might have been real.

We have people among us who believe that there is some Jewish conspiracy to control the world. As a matter of fact, we have people who believe all sorts of goofy conspiracies with no basis in factual reality. Just because someone shows some grainy footage of something that isn’t clear and then claims that it’s evil people plotting against us doesn’t mean the interpretation is accurate. (I can take footage of a group of people walking into a building and make it look shadowy and grainy and secretive — and make it look like it’s a conspiracy even if it’s just people walking into a church service.) If you want to believe in chemtrails or whatever your conspiracy is, go right ahead. I’ll leave you alone. You’re welcome to believe what you want to.

But if you’re attacking entire groups of people for their various conspiracies — especially groups which are typically or traditionally attacked, such as Jews, blacks, Muslims or gays — you need to realize that you are no longer seeing people as individuals. You’re seeing people as part of a collective. You’re doing something that’s no better than what the collectivists of the state do.

The truth is that people are individuals. People are just people. Some are evil. Some are good. Some want good things for others. Some want to destroy others. To think that one group is all one or all the other (or even mostly one or the other) is intellectually vapid and morally vile.

As a movement, I don’t think those of us favoring liberty have done enough to call out those among us who have made the rest of us look bad. We’ve ignored racists and anti-Semites and those who hate gays — and that needs to change. I don’t want to take away their right to hold evil views, even though they’re beliefs that have led to millions of deaths before. I’m an absolutist when it comes to your right to believe and say what you want. But I’m also an absolutist in saying that the point finally comes when decent people don’t allow themselves to be associated with evil, even passively. It’s time for more of us to take this issue seriously.

(As a side point, I want to make it clear that attacking the state of Israel isn’t the same thing as attacking Jews as a group. I’ve come to oppose what that state does, but it has nothing to do with the religion, culture or ethnicity of the people who live there.)

As I told someone earlier about the issue on Facebook this morning, I’ll let people’s statements go pretty far, because I like a wide variety of opinions, even if I disagree with many of them. There are just a few things that I can’t allow in good conscience. I’ll defend their right to say whatever they want somewhere else, but not when I have the private right to stop it.

It’s even different is someone is bashing a group I’m a part of. If someone wants to attack Baptists or southerners or libertarians, I’m generally going to let it happen, even if I point out the statement’s unfairness. But when someone is attacking groups I’m not a part of — and it’s a common prejudice — it feels as though I’m tacitly supporting it by not saying that it’s unacceptable. There’s a thin line between blocking dissent and showing disapproval of something evil, and we all draw our lines at different places about how to balance the competing interests. For me, though, the statement I quoted above that someone posted on my Facebook page wasn’t a close call.

You don’t have to agree with everyone. You don’t like to like everyone. You don’t have to link arms with others and sing “Kumbaya.” You don’t even have to respect everyone. But evaluate people as individuals, not as stereotypes to represent a group. We’re supposed to be a movement of individualists. Let’s see others as individuals, too.

It will help our movement — and it’s the right thing to do, too.

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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