I agree with much of what Richard says here but I’d go much farther in my critique of the BNP. Its economic “philosophy” is Obama-ite in the extreme. They aren’t’ just for a “white” welfare state, they want state control of major industries, and, of course, they’re super-protectionists. They are, in short, national socialists—just as much of a threat to liberty as leftists, and perhaps more so, since they’re relatively novel. Much more interesting is the UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party), which did really well in the Euro-elections.

I see Andrew Sullivan is citing some “libertarian” blogger defending “anti-discrimination” ordinances as applied to gays. The blogger, one “KipEsquire,” lists a series of rather draconian punishments directed at “bigots,” such as a photographer who wouldn’t take pictures of a gay wedding (fined over $6000), a psychologist in Georgia who wouldn’t counsel a lesbian about her relationship (she was fired), a Christian ferility clinic threatened with closure for refusing to artificially inseminate a lesbian, and a Christian student group denied recognition by a California law school because they only admit members who are faithful to their spouses. According to “Kip,” these aren’t vicitms—they’re getting their just desserts! He writes:

“The “victimized” Christian bigots are of course not making a thorough, comprehensive (i.e., truly libertarian) demand for full entrepreneurial freedom of contract — and its reciprocal “right to refuse service to anyone.” All they want to do is discriminate against gays. Not “anyone and everyone.” Just gays.
“Which is precisely why they should not be allowed to do so. As I have blogged previously: Whether or not you approve of bans on private discrimination is not the point — we are not debating the creation of Libertopia.

“The point is instead whether, given that we already have such laws, are we going to craft and apply those laws consistently, logically and equitably — or are we going to short-circuit the entire raison d’être of such laws by allowing the majoritarian mob to fashion carve-outs for the very same insular minorities who are most in need of such laws?”

In other words, “libertarian” principles don’t apply when the consequences are politically incorrect.

Let’s apply this “libertarian” principle to, say, the bank bailout: the “victimized” taxpayers are (of course!) not making a thorough, comprehensive (i.e. truly “libertarian”) demand for full entrepreneurial freedom of contract – all they want is the right to refuse to subsidize the banks, AIG, and the other members of the “too-big-to-fail” club. Just big businessmen.

This is precisely why they should not be allowed to abstain from making such subsidies. After all, given that we already have such bailouts – to the auto industry, for example – are we going to craft and apply those laws consistently, logically and equitably – or are we going to short-circuit the entire raison d’être of such laws by allowing the majoritarian mob to fashion carve-outs for the same same insular minorities who are most in need of such subsidies (without which they’ll go bankrupt tomorrow, and bring the entire American economy down with them)?

You see how that works.

Since “we aren’t debating the creation of Libertopia,” all principles, both real and imagined, are thrown overboard, and it’s deuces wild. Which is just how certain “libertarians” like to play the game.

That we’re living in Bizarro World almost goes without saying, these days, and if you needed more proof, well, then, here it is: “In an informal survey,” reports Esquire magazine, “three out of four white supremacists prefer Obama.”

Yes, you read that right: some of the country’s most unabashed bigots are coming out for Barack! If you think the whole idea of an “Obamacon” is absurd, then what about an Obama-nazi? Too far over the edge? Well, not according to one Erich Gliebe, Lider Maximo of the National Alliance, the biggest neo-Nazi group in the country:

“Obama might be a better candidate for our cause because he’s racially conscious. One of our big things in the National Alliance is to raise the racial consciousness of our people. Young whites in universities, they’ve been stripped of any kind of racial identity. Obama may be a racist in a positive sense for his people—that will awaken a lot of the whites, knock some sense into them. They’ll see that non-white Americans are allowed to be proud of who they are, to be racially conscious, to talk about their people or their community without being attacked as being racist.  ... Perhaps the best thing for the white race is to have a black president. My only problem with Obama is perhaps he’s not black enough.”

O-kaaaay ... and it isn’t just Senor Gliebe, oh no: Rocky Suhayda, the Fuehrer of the rival American Nazi Party, not wanting to be left in the bandwagon’s dust, also jumps on board:

“White people are faced with either a negro or a total nutter who happens to have a pale face. Personally I’d prefer the negro. National Socialists are not mindless haters.”

Tom Metzger, former Grand Dragon of the KKK and currently Supreme Nutball of the “White Aryan Resistance,” concurs:

”Obama, according to his book, Dreams Of My Father, is a racist and I have no problem with black racists. I’ve got the quote right here: ‘I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s white race.’ The problem with Obama is he’s being dishonest about his racial views. I’d respect him if he’d just come out and say, ‘Yeah, I’m a black racist.’ I don’t hate black people. I just think it’s in the best interest of the races to be separated as much as possible.”

These people are crazy, of course, as are all racialists: they have race on the brain, and very little else in their brains. But it just goes to show—in an incredibly perverse, Bizarro World kind of way—how widespread the Obama-mania has become, and how readily people succumb to mass delusions.

Oh, by the way, the one black racist interviewed by Esquire is, naturally, for McCain. Going by the name of Yahanna, this dude declares:

“Every black leader that has some form of power has given black people false hope, when in fact, the closer they get to the white establishment, the more they become an actual enemy to black people. ... McCain is definitely the better shot for black people.”

I get a lot of letters from readers of my Antiwar.com column, which run the spectrum from “Why don’t you reveal the real truth about” [fill in the blank], and a large proportion of very thoughtful ones, such as the following:

“In Claudius the God by Robert Graves the Emperor Claudius laments the saying of his friend and mentor Asinius Pollio “it will have to get much worse before it can get any better.” Nothing could be more true. The prospect of McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Clinton or Obama in charge is as worse as it gets. There is no hope. The election of any of these candidates is a reflection of the moral bankruptcy of the nation as a whole. I am a Roman Catholic who belongs to what one would consider a fairly conservative parish. Here is an intention read every Sunday ‘Let us pray for those who are protecting us and those who seek to harm us.’ Can you believe it? What of those who we have harmed by incessant bombing? The Emperor Claudius sums it up the best “let all the poison that lurks in the mud hatch out.”
“Sincerely,
“A Cornelius Cossus”

By the time of Claudius, the empire had already passed mid-point in its descent into the imperial bone-yard, although it still had a thousand or so years to go, if you count Byzantium. Our agony, I trust, will not be quite so prolonged.

Well, here‘s one red state that won’t go blue:

”An Israeli pollster says that if the country were on the U.S. election map, it would be bright red. A survey of Americans in the Holy Land released Thursday found that absentee voters supported Republican John McCain over Barack Obama by a three-to-one margin. The survey interviewed 817 Americans who have cast absentee ballots for next week’s presidential election. It was conducted by Vote from Israel, a nonpartisan group that has encouraged Americans to vote.

“Pollster Mitchell Barak said there is no formal list of American citizens living in Israel, so it’s extremely difficult to find a random sample of voters. Nonetheless, he said his survey was a good indicator on how people are voting this year. He said roughly a quarter of American voters in Israel cast their ballots through the Vote from Israel group.”

After being crushed at the polls this Tuesday, why doesn’t he enter a race he could actually win—and run for Prime Minister of Israel? McCain versus Netanyahu—what a cage match!

Alex Cockburn goes Libertarian:

“Wouldn’t [Libertarian presidential candidate Bob] Barr be the first mustachioed occupant of the White House since Teddy Roosevelt?  Even if you don’t like the man, vote the mustache! This would be change we can see. “

“I can just hear McCain barnstorming the country in ‘08, denouncing “Russian imperialism” and demanding that we ‘stop Putin’ in the Caucasus before Russian troops cross the Bering Straits.”

—Antiwar.com, November 20, 2006

Looks like Bush would like to to do to her what he’s done to the rest of the world.

Over at ThinkProgress, we get a report of a talk by Seymour Hersh in which he describes a meeting of top level Bush administration officials, held in Dick Cheney’s office. Subject: how to provoke war with Iran:

“There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up. Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.”

And to think that I hesitated, for a moment or two, before I wrote the following in my July 30 antiwar.com column:

“I have to say, at this point, that the War Party isn’t above engineering just such a provocation: the phrase “War Party” is short-hand for a variegated bunch, including US neoconservatives, the arms industry, Joe Lieberman, and at least one foreign nation – Israel. The Israelis have been urging Washington to attack Iran for months, if not years, and anyone who thinks they wouldn’t dare undertake a false flag operation doesn’t know the story of the Lavon Affair.”

Never understimate the evil of the neocons: whatever perfidy you can imagine, they’ll live up to your worst expectations every time.