ROTHBARD-ROCKWELL REPORT

and bunco schemes, precisely like leeches accelerating their vampir- Why Paleo? ism as their host‘s blood gets ever thinner and less nourishing. I: TheModal 1989, the year of the glorious Libertarian revolutionary implosion of commu- THE EAR In the January 1990 issue of nismlsocialism in Eastern Europe Neocon , edi- , published and the Soviet Union, has pre- tor of Reason, is in deep doo- an article, “The Case for Paleo- sented us with a totally new world, doo. To attack the flourishing ,” that set the liber- with new parameters for action. All paleo alliance, she wrote “The tarian world on its ear. It was the other ideological groups, conser- single most talked-aboutand con- vatives, liberals, and leftists, have, IdeologicalShuffle”for The Wash- troversial article in the history of with varying success, understood ington Post. In it, besides prais- that magazine, and indeed in the necessity of meeting the new ing statists Jack Kemp and Newt many years in the reality by rethink- Gingrich and smearing the anti- libertarian move- ing their focusand statist Rockford Institute, she ment. their strategies. repeated a lie: that Rockford had The reason is Only libertarians hosted a party for eco-wacko simple: the liber- have, as usual, Jeremy Rifkin. The Post had to tarian world has acted as ifthe real run a red-faced correction. been sunk, for world does not ex- ***** years now, into ist, and continued What’s happened to the Liber- torpor at best and heedlesslyto play tarian Party? LP leaders aren’t advancing decay their bunco talking, but there’s been a pre- at worst. It has games. cipitous decline in paid member- been marked by a Amidst this ship. There were, after the Ron lack of new ideas, pervasive mi- Paul campaign, 9,000 national of new thoughts or asma, Lew’s ar- LPers, but virtually no one is strategies. In the ticle came as a renewing. Membership is said to last decade, liber- spark of excite- be 7,500 and sinking. tarian ideas have ment, a trumpet ***** been advancing call announcing , hippie editor of the and permeating that there are big Libertarian Party News, has re- throughout the changes in the signed to write hisautobiography. world, but apart real world, folks, Karl wants his even-hippier busi- from the special- and that it’s high ness partner, the pony-tailed ized area of free-market econom- time we wake up and do some Randy Langhenry, to succeed ics, libertarian institutions have hard thinking about what it all him, but Randy is even less liber- been steadily crumbling and fall- means. For all libertarians not yet tarian than Karl, and he can’t ing into total irrelevancein Ameri- brain dead, Lew’s article heralded write. Can Karl foist Randy on the can culture. Instead of meeting a new dawn of purposive activity LP? Stay tuned. the challenge of chronic deterio- and creative thinking. ***** ration and decay, movement Unfortunately, such is the par- MeMe King-ballot-access leaders have huddled around, lous state to which the movement wiz and the only capable person hunkered down, and desperately has sunk that almost none of this on the LP’s national staff-has stepped up their host of scams (Cont. next page, col. 3) (Cont. next page,col. 1) (THE EAR cont. from P.l) ballot access, the California LP is (WHY PALE0 cont. from P.l) left for greener pastures (which dead. They can't afford to collect excitement was reflected in the wouldn't be hard). She's now the zillions of necessary signa- many tedious and uncompre- working for Howie Rich (of Lais- tures, so they put their hopes on hending comments on the article sez- Faire Books), who's set up a the state treasurer's race, where in Liberty: almost all of which company to assist tax-rebellion last time they beat the 2% barrier. were nothing ti0 much as the ballot measures. Great idea, and But nominee George O'Brien of irritable responsesof bears being great hire. San Francisco forgot to file. Ab- disturbedfrom their lengthy slum- ***** sent a miracle, California won't be bers. Indeed, the only intelligent Former LP NatCom'r Alan Lind- on the ballot, and Marrou will be and thoughtful critique of the say has left the party over an LP lucky to get 100,000 votes in the Rockwell article appeared not in fundraising letter about the death rest of the country. Liberty but by Justin Raimondo of a young soldier in Panama. The in the March issue of the Liber- soldier's parents ***** tarian Repubkan Organizer. and fiance have de- The paradig- So why paleo? As one of nounced the LP matic Washington Lew's critics piit it, why do we leadership as "vul- State LP is in an need another long word to tack tures," and Alan uproar over allega- on to the first one. (libertarian- agrees. tions of grand theft ism)? The standard critical sum- So LP bigwig involvingthe '87 Se- mary of the paleo position is that (and public school- attle convention. Ju- we are setting out to "expel" all teacher) Don dicial commission non-paleos (variously defined as Ernsberger writes head Mike Dunn all non-bourgeois and/or non- Alan a hate letter full lays out the charges religious) from the libertarian of grammatical and in a 100t-page re- movement. This is an absurd spelling errors, port. State chair- characterization of our position, MUCH OF IT woman Marla Bot- and seems to reflect a severe TYPED IN UPPER temiller has re- reading (or thinking) disability. CASE. Donisaone- signed. They're In the first place, aside from man argument for running around like the Libertarian Party, there is no private education. pidgeons with their membership-typeorganization in There's been na- heads cut off. In the movement from which we tional publicity, and other words, busi- could expel anyone. And as for there may be a law- ness as usual. the LP, most of us have left it in suit. And Ear hears body and all of us in spirit. And that buddies from **** secondly, how can a small mi- the soldier's former California LPer nority (paleos) "expel" a vast battalionwill visit the Dick Boddie is a majority? LP personally. No wonder Chair- man with, as the first R says, "no man Dave Walter, as one news- visible means of support." During Separating Out paper noted, "would give his ad- the '84 Bergland for President So the point has been se- dress only as eastern PA." campaign, Dick-one of the few verely missed. The point of the blacks in the LP-was a full-time new paleo movement, including ***** fundraiser. A typical Libertarian, the designation, is to separate As California goes, so goes he cost the campaign more than ourselves out of the broader , at least for the LP. Cali- he raised. Now Dick says he may movement, to find and inspire fornia has more votes, members, run for prez in '92, although he'd other paleos, ,and to form our and contributors than most other accept the veep slot under Andre own separate and self-conscious states put together. Without Cali- Marrou. What a team! movement. fornia, the LP is dead, and without - S.B. pnr. P. 3, cor'. 1) 1 May 1990 (WHY PALEO, Cont. from P.2, the grand old phrase, enjoy “vis- are the other guys? Since the We are saying, in short, that ible means of support.” terms are on a different plane of liberty is great and we don’t wish In the Libertarian Party, the discourse, the simple word “liber- to weaken or dilute it by one iota, prevalence of these sorts of tarian” cannot suffice. I have but that for us, at long last, it’s people has kept the membership therefore dubbed the other guys, simply not enough. We are still and the votes low and even de- our opposition so to speak, as the hard-corelibertarians, but we now clining. But also in the broader “nihilo-libertarians” or “nihilos,” are not willing to settle, as a move- movement, these luffmensch- with the remainder of libertari- ment, for liberty alone. We insist types have almost succeeded in ans, perhaps in the majority, upon liberty plus. making the glorious word “liber- confused in-betweenerswho are We have said that a certain tarian” a stench in everyone’s not yet aware of any such distinc- cultural matrix is essential to lib- nostrils, synonymous with nut or tions. Many of these are instinc- erty. I can understand why liber- libertine. At this stage, the only tive paleos without being aware tarians might be edgy at this sort way to save the glorious word of it. of formulation; for example, the and the concept of There is no Oxford politicaltheorist John Gray “libertarian” is to af- way of knowing has, in recent year, marked his fix the word “paleo” the precise num- defection from classical liberal- to it, and thereby bers, but after ism (alreadyawatered-down form maKe the distinction almost forty-five of libertarianism)by talking about and separation crys- years as an activ- the need for a certain culture in tal clear. ist in the libertar- addition to liberty: this sort of talk But our reasons ian movement, I is almost always the prelude to a are not only strate- am certain of one call for State power-certainly in gic. For among the thing: that the ni- Gray’s case. people repelled are hilos, whether or But that is not the point, al- we ourselves, and not a numerical though l agree that liberty will although obviously majority, are un- tend to flourish most in a bour- we have a high tol- fortunately the geois, Christian culture. I am erance level, it has at last been typical, or “modal” libertarians. willing to concede that you can exceeded, and it is with a sense (The “mode” is a concept in sta- indeed be a good, hard-core lib- of joyous relief that we scrape the tistics designating that class or ertarian and still be a hippie, an detritus of the standard, or category which has the highest aggressive anti-bourgeois and “modal,”libertarianfromthe soles frequency of members.] anti-Christian, a drug addict, a of our shoes. Lew Rockwell and myself have moocher, a rude and intolerable When, in the Libertarian fo- been severely critical of the Lib- fellow, and even an outright thief. rum, I used to fulminate against ertarian Party, especially since But the point is that we paleos the “unreal people” and the cra- the debacle at the Philadelphia are no longer willing to be move- zies, later dubbing them luftmen- national convention in Septem- ment colleagues with these sorts schen, I was treated as either a ber of last year. But while the of people. For two separate and lovable or an odious crank, but Libertarian Party is indeed irre- powerful reasons, each of which the point is that these cultural deemable and has in fact not yet would be good enough reason to positions were not taken as in been subject to enough of an form a separate and distinct palea any way relevant to my libertar- expose, the Party is not the sole movement. One is strategic: thal ian doctrine. They are relevant, problem. For the Party is simply these sorts of peopletend, for ob- though on a different plane, than the most visible, and most organ- vious reasons, to turn off, indeed the doctrine itself. But the point is ized, institution of the movement. to repel, most “real people,’ that it can no longer be accept- The sickness of the Party is only people who either work for a liv- able to neglect the “paleo” part of the visible reflection of the under- ing or meet a payroll, middle class the equation. lying rot of the movement as a or working class people who, in But if we are the “paleos,” who whole.

May 1990 3 That is why Lew and I are not lrom reality. As a result, the aver- or a worshiper of crystal-power callingfor a new LibertarianParty age rank-and-file member of the or some otheir New Age hokum, or for an immediate replacement most ineffectual Trotskyite sect and that person will be treated as a substitute mass institution knows far more about world affairs with great tolerance and respect. for the movement. The disease than all but a tiny handful of liber- It is only Christians that are sub- cuts far deeper, and so the solu- tarian leaders. ject to abuse, and clearly the tion must be far more radical, and The MLdoes not, unfortunately, reason for this difference in treat- unfortunately must take longer hate the State be- ment has noth- than another quick fix. The first cause he sees it as ing to do with step is to separate out, and to the unique social atheism. But it form our own paleo-libertarian instrument of or- has everything organs and institutions, begin- a n ize d ag g r e s - to do with reject- ning, of course, with RRR itself. !;ion against person ing and spurning ;md property. In- bourgeois Portrait of the Modal stead, the ML is an American cul- Libertarian adolescent re be I ture; any kind of It is easiest to begin our defi- against everyone kooky cultural nition of “paleo” by explaining around him: first, cause will be what we are not, what we are de- against his parents, encouraged in termined to get away from. And second against his order to tweak the easiest way to explain that is family, third against the noses of the to limn our portrait of the Modal his neighbors, and hated bourgeoi- Libertarian, his nature and his tinally against soci- sie. attitudes. ety itself. He is es- In point of And the Modal Libertarian pecially opposed to fact, the original (henceforth ML) is indeed a he, institutionsof social attraction of the because the movement has al- ;and cultural author- ML to Randian- ways, of course, been over- ity: in particular ism was part and whelmingly male. And unfortu- against the bour- parcel of his nately, the few female libertarian geoisie from whom adolescent re- activists suffer from much the he stemmed, against bourgeois bellion: what better way to ration- same syndrome as the males. norms and conventions, and alize and systematize rejection The ML was in his twenties against such institutions of social of one’s parents, family, and twenty years ago, and is now in iluthority as churches. To the ML, neighbors than to join acult which his forties. That is neither as then, the State is not a unique denounces religion and which banal, nor as benign as it sounds, problem; it is only the most visible trumpets the absolute superior- because it means that the move- and odious of many hated bour- ity of yourself and your cult lead- ment has not really grown in geois institutions: hence the zest ers, as contrasted to the robotic twenty years; the same dreary with which the ML sports the but- “second-handers” who suppos- people have merely gottentwenty ton, “Question Authority.” edly people thte bourgeoisworld? years older. The ML is fairly And hence, too, the fanatical A cult, furthermore, which calls bright, and fairly well steeped in hostility of the ML toward Christi- upon you to spurn your parents, libertariantheory. But he knows anity. I used to think that this family, and bourgeois associates, nothing and cares less about his- militant atheism was merely a and to cultivate the alleged great- tory, culture, the context of reality function of the Randianism out of ness of your own ego or world affairs. His only reading which most modern libertarians (suitably guided, of course, by or cultural knowledge is science emerged two decades ago. But Randian leadership). fiction, on which the ML is an atheism is not the key, for let There is a certain raffish charm expert, and which manages to someone in a libertarian gathering to adolescent rebels at twenty; at keep him very nicely insulated announce that he or she is a witch forty however, thesameattitudes 4 May1990 and outlook become odious. The opportunity and to go on at great “Basta!” “Enough!” We have had charm has gone. Lew Rockwell’s length about his own particular it up to here and we’re not taking critics conveniently leap to the “great discovery” or about his any more. As I will point out in a assumption that what he and I mighty manuscript which iscrying future installment, the glorious have been attacking is noticea- out for publication if only it hadn’t events of 1989 have ended the bly “hippie” hair, manners, and been suppressed by the Powers Cold War and have made an alli- clothing. But this is a highly That Be. He is, like all fanatics, ance with “paleo-conservatives,” superficial view. The only good totally humorless; his idea of high a reconstitution of the Old Right, thing about hippiedom is that it wit is someone being on the re- possible and feasible. But our makes the modal nihilos easy to ceiving end of a hotfoot. accelerating disgust with our lib- spot. But even those MLs who But above all, the ML is a ertarian movement comrades is look like real people, who wear moocher, a bunco artist, and of- a separate phenomenon, al- suits and ties, really aren’t. The ten an outright crook. His basic though it dovetails neatly with our important point is the personality, attitude toward other libertarians new movement and has given us the attitudes. is “Your house the word “paleo.” In short: the is my house.” Years ago, when I was la- ML, if he has a How many liber- mentingto an old friend about the real world oc- tarians in the crazies in the libertarian move- cupation, such rare privileged ment, he counselled: “Let’s face as accountant position of living it. In a kooky movement, you’re or lawyer, is in an apartment going to get a lot of kooks.” True, generally a or house have but our ideas are not that kooky. lawyer without not had the While all movements are im- a practice, an pleasure of perfect vessels for their pure accountant hearing their ideas, the marvelous libertarian without a job. doorbell ring, doctrine by no stretch of the imagi- The ML‘s mo- and being con- nation deserves this. Once my dal occupation fronted with old friend Ralph Raico, comment- is computer someguyonthe ing on some movement atrocity programmer; doorstep who or other, took his cue from the the ML was a says, in effect; wonderful line in the movie The computer nerd “Hey man, I’m a Godfather, when Lee Strasberg, long before the libertarian,” and as the Meyer Lansky-type, was inventionofthe expects to be delivering Old World homilies to personal com- put up for the Corleone: ‘When Moe was killed puter. Comput- night, the week, (by the Corleones) did I say any- ers appeal in- or whatever? thing? Did I ask questions? No, deed to the How many liber- because I said to myself: This is ML‘s scientific tarians have had the business we have chosen.” and theoreticalbent; butthey also to chuck such people out into the Ralph paraphrasedthis into “This appeal to his aggravated cold? Libertarians, in short, is the movement we have cho- nomadism, to his need not to whether they articulate this “phi- sen.” have a regular payroll or regular losophy” or not, are libertarian- Okay. That worked as a con- abode. Furthermore, it is easy to communists: anyone with prop- solation of sorts for years. But we call yourself a “computer consult- erty is automatically expected to paleos have had it. We’re opting ant” when what you really are is “share”it with the other members out. We’re unchoosingthe move- unemployed. of his extended libertarian ‘Yam- ment We’reforming anew move- The ML also has the thou- ily.” ment of ur own: paleo-libertarian- sand-mile stare of the fanatic. He We paleo libertarians are ism. N.6.:This is the first of multi- is apt to buttonhole you at the first people who are finally saying, part article.) -M.N.R.

May 1990 5