Constant,

I agree with you that any value other than non-aggression could, when combined with the notion that it is O.K. to use the State to enforce values other than non-aggression, lead to aggressive actions or policies. Anti-racism included.

You also don’t have to convince me that government-imposed antidiscrimination policies are harmful. I think everything unjust is (therefore) harmful, and that they’re harmful in other ways besides the fact that they’re unjust. (Although we might disagree on the exact details as to why, I don’t think we’d disagree in a way that matters for this discussion.)

However, I think that there is good reason to say that a belief in natural orders of superior and inferior social rank, based on race, are more conducive to aggression than a belief in social equality among people of different races. It could quite easily be argued that it takes a bigger inferential step to get from “Racism is a social evil” to “The government should make specific policies to force people not to promote that evil” than it takes to get from “White people are naturally superior to black people and should be in a socially dominant position to them; black people who are not submissive are vicious and dangerous” to “The government should make specific policies to enforce white dominance.” I don’t think that in either case the premise logically necessitates the conclusion (without auxiliary principles), but an independent belief in the propriety of the State as a means of social change has more of a leading role to play in the first case than it does in the second case.

For what it’s worth, I also think that there are other reasons why racism is vicious and not merely foolish. The precise reasons why generally depend on what we’re discussing (prejudiced attitudes or beliefs? exclusionary actions? antagonistic actions? etc. etc. etc.). Part of the issue here is that I think there are things that are naturally classed as examples of racism, and not easily divorced from the fact of the perpetrator’s racism (for example, racist harassment, slurs and insults) which I regard as vicious, and which are very widely regarded as vicious. I don’t know whether Arthur means to deny that acts like these are vicious (if not, why not?), or whether he means to say that they are vicious, but should not be classified as a part of racism. So I’m asking him to clarify what he means to say about cases like those.

I might prefer to have a female secretary. If this is not as legitimate as preferring to marry a woman, why not?

I don’t know what you mean by “legitimate.” Are you asking me whether or not this is within your rights, or are you asking me whether or not it’s morally licit for you to do?

If the former, then certainly it’s within your rights. You have a right to prefer all kinds of things. If the latter, well, reasonable criteria for a good romantic partner for you are presumably different from reasonable criteria for a good secretary for you, and I suspect that the former allows a lot more leeway for unargued idiosyncratic preferences than the latter does. While nobody has a right to force you to go along with somebody else’s judgement about what criteria are the reasonable ones, it may very well be the case that they have good reason to suggest that your own understanding of the matter is mistaken, ignorant, foolish, or even vicious. (After all, you might have reason to change your own mind at some point; and if you can have good reasons for differing with your past opinion, then other people could have had those good reasons, too.)

As for whether such a preference really is mistaken, ignorant, foolish, or even vicious, I suppose it depends on what your reasons for having that preference are. Most of the historical reasons that men had during the 20th century for preferring women (as such) over men (as such) as secretaries have been fairly sleazy. But any serious discussion of a preference like that will require more details than just its existence.

For what it’s worth, while sexist hiring practices are a serious concern for those who are concerned with gender equality, there are a lot more issues involved than just that, many of which go well beyond exclusiveness in terms of who you want to associate with at your job or on your own property.

Libertarian outreach by whom? By me in particular or by libertarians in general?

If the former, then I would find libertarian outreach to leftists much more palatable for me to do than libertarian outreach to white supremacists, because I know how to talk to state leftists in a way that some small number of them will find convincing, whereas I don’t really know how to talk to white supremacists in general, let alone statist white supremacists in particular, and I think it would be extremely unpleasant to learn.

If the latter, then I have much weaker preferences, because I think generally if people are going to do outreach they should specialize in what they are best at. But I would suggest that outreach to state leftists may be more likely to succeed in the long term than outreach to state white supremacists, because both of them tend to share the common cognitive or moral vices of statists (majoritarianism, legalism, constitutionalism, contempt for private property rights), but the state white supremacists tend to add some peculiar vices of their own on top of that (e.g. violent racism or xenophobia). Turning state leftists in an anti-state direction tends to produce anarchists, whereas turning statist white supremacists in an anti-state direction tends to produce paleocons at best.

In either case, I’m not sure what this has to do with the question of whether racism or majoritarianism is (1) more offensive, or (2) more dangerous. I’d rather have dinner with a polite absolute-monarchist than with a very rude individualist anarchist. Not because I think that rudeness is worse than absolute monarchy, but rather because other factors enter into my decisions about who I should dine with. Similarly, decisions about who you should reach out to in your propaganda are not necessarily decided solely based on whose deviations from your position you consider to be the least dangerous or destructive.

Kennedy,

In that is it any more offensive or dangerous than a reverence for majoritarian democracy?

Maybe more offensive; probably not more dangerous. How offensive a particular view is, on the whole, depends on a lot of factors, not merely how dangerous it is to individual rights. Vices aren’t crimes, but they are vices, and sometimes a vicious attitude merits taking offense.

Nobody gets atwitter about advocacy of democracy, so why should racism be any more alarming?

I don’t know what counts as getting “atwitter” or what domain you’re quantifying over when you say “nobody.” Most libertarian writers that I know are fairly contemptuous of majoritarian democracy. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three libertarians whose criticism of Ron Paul (Micha Ghertner’s, Wendy McElroy’s, and Brad Spangler’s) has specifically revolved around how the campaign promotes the myth that freedom can come about through majoritarian democracy.

As for Long, as far as I know, his position is not that racism is somehow worse or more alarming than political majoritarianism. The claim is just that racism is objectionable from a libertarian standpoint, not that it’s more objectionable than something else.

There’s no real trade-off between racism and statism involved in this scandal.

As far as I can tell, pretty much all of the nastiest things that were written about black people in the early-90s newsletter articles were said in the context of articles directly calling for more aggressive and violent police tactics. Or, sometimes, directly making excuses for actual acts of police brutality–among them the police beating of Rodney King (that was in the same article as the crack about the welfare checks, and also the line that about 95% of Black men in D.C. could be considered “semi-criminal or entirely criminal,” whatever that means).

So what we’ve actually got, in the case in question, is both racism and violent statism wrapped up in one vile package.

Micha: And I see the milquetoastiness of IHS as a feature, not a bug. Inforcing ideological uniformity entails devolving into a cult, ala Ayn Rand’s inner circle.

I don’t understand this argument at all, Micha. Arthur was referring to the way in which the so-called “urbane” libertarian outlets tend either (1) to shy away from hard or unpopular applications of libertarian principles — such as anarchism or criticism of bayonet-point Unionism — in the name of public relations, or else (2) to hold positively the wrong view on what libertarian principles entail. If (1) they are dissembling about their views in order to avoid public embarrassment, and if (2) they are being inconsistent. In either case, criticizing dissembling or criticizing inconsistency is a distinct issue from intolerance of dissent, n’est-ce pas?

This is not to say that the paleos in particular haven’t been intolerant of dissent on many occasions. They certainly have been. But I think the reasons have to do with something other than the radicalism of their views.

Micha: I’ll take the minarchist, pro-interventionist deviationism of Beltway libertarians over the not-so-thinly veiled racism, homophobia, goldbug-crankism, evolution-denial, fundamentalist Christianity and Confederacy apologetics of the Paleo alternative any day of the week.

Well, O.K.; it’s your business which features you choose to treat as decisive or defeating for dealing with someone as a friend, ally, or comrade. But I don’t understand how this meshes with your previous argument. As far as “enforcing ideological uniformity” goes, how is treating anti-racism, gay-positivity, evolutionism, “urbanity,” “cosmopolitanism,” or whatever as a litmus test different in kind from treating anti-interventionism or Civil War revisionism as a litmus test? Surely both of these involve demanding a certain degree of ideological uniformity; it’s just that they differ in the particular ideological features that they require.

This is not to adjudicate whether the paleos are right about their litmus tests, or whether you’re right about your litmus tests, or whether you’re both wrong, or whether it’s just a matter of taste. But I don’t see that the difference between their standards and your standards amounts to what you seem to suggest it amounts to.

(Personally, I tend to think that you’re both right, or both wrong, depending on the level and purpose of association that you’re talking about — who you’re willing to form issue-based coalition with, who you’re willing to read and cite, who you’re willing to consider yourself part of a common movement with, and who you’re willing to be friends with are all quite different questions.)

Not being a hip or “urbane” libertarian, perhaps these questions were not directed at me. Nevertheless…

Mark: Do you judge Thomas Jefferson so harshly? He was no less than a slave owner!

Of course I do. What a stupid question. Why would you take it for granted that libertarians must approve of slavers, rapists, hypocritical scoundrels, and Presidents of the United States?

Mark: Do you distance yourself from the Declaration of Independence because you worry what other people think that says about your views of racism?

No. Admiration for a document or an argument, and admiration for its author, are two different things.

Mark: Do you think that it was a tactical mistake for the founders to establish the minarchist government they did …

Yes. Also a moral mistake.

Mark: … should they have established a familiar tyranny on American soil until such time as they agreed on an ethically pure political philosophy?

No.

They should have simply left people alone. You act as if this were not an option. Why?