Richard Spencer

December 23, 2008

Dylan Hales, who’s attempting an interesting Left-Conservative-synthesis thingamajig at his blog, has a long response up on the anti-Paul articles at Reason. Of note is Hales discussion of Murray Rothbard’s oft-misunderstood and oft-misquoted writings on the David Duke gubernatorial run in ‘91. Rothbard was struck by the fact the Louisianans voting for Duke weren’t voting for Holocaust revisionism, or Klu Kluxism, or racism, or anti-Semitism etc. They were voting to slash taxes and government, end affirmative action, cut down on immigration etc. Rothbard’s point was that libertarians could capture this spirit and begin to refocus it through new leaders (who weren’t, you know, actually Holocaust revisionists and anti-Semites.) This kind of populist strategy is, of course, totally unthinkable for your average Reasonoid.