17 Dec 2008 @ 20:42, by Unknown
Next stop, the Ludwig von Mises Institute:
The Ludwig von Mises Institute is a libertarian mecca based in Auburn, Alabama.
The institute is named for a libertarian Austrian economist, but it was founded by Llewellyn (Lew) H. Rockwell, Jr., who remains its President---its philosophy derives largely from the work of the late Murray Rothbard, a self-described anarcho-capitalist.
While the people surrounding the von Mises Institute may describe themselves as libertarians, they are a different breed than the urbane libertarians who staff the Cato Institute or the libertines at Reason magazine. Instead, they represent a strain of right-wing libertarianism that views the Civil War as a catastrophic turning point in American history--the moment when a tyrannical federal government established its supremacy over the states.
After breaking with the Libertarian Party following the 1988 presidential election, Rockwell and Rothbard formed a schismatic "paleolibertarian" movement, which rejected what they saw as the social libertinism and leftist tendencies of mainstream libertarians. In 1990, they launched the Rothbard-Rockwell Report, where they crafted a plan they hoped would midwife a broad new "paleo" coalition.
Rockwell explained the thrust of the idea in a 1990 Liberty essay entitled "The Case for Paleo-Libertarianism." To Rockwell, the LP was a "party of the stoned," a halfway house for libertines that had to be "de-loused." To grow, the movement had to embrace older conservative values."
The most detailed description of the strategy came in an essay Rothbard wrote for the January 1992 Rothbard-Rockwell Report, titled "Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement." Lamenting that mainstream intellectuals and opinion leaders were too invested in the status quo to be brought around to a libertarian view, Rothbard pointed to David Duke and Joseph McCarthy as models for an "Outreach to the Rednecks," which would fashion a broad libertarian/paleoconservative coalition by targeting the disaffected working and middle classes. [link]
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The L Word - part 2 and a half (baked)
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