Dear fellow libertarians , there is a wolf amongst us. Someone who deep in his heart is a bigot, a racist…someone who at the very least used to hold deep disdain for people of color in his heart, even writing about it in newsletters to fans. All of you probably know this man. You likely see him at conferences lecturing sanctimoniously against fascism, racism and bigotry or reading his writings where he unapologetically promotes leftist ideals such as political correctness and social justice, ideals which largely infringe upon core libertarian principles like private property and self-ownership.
Those addressed in this piece are not LP (Libertarian Party) members, but principled libertarians, people who truly and deeply love liberty, subscribe to the Non-Aggression Principle and understand that individuals own themselves and the State is virtually a criminal gang thriving on theft and extortion in order to survive.
Years ago, when Ron Paul was running for President, several news reports exposed what is clearly racist and bigoted content in his newsletters. The newsletters went out under Ron Paul’s name in the 1980s and 1990s under the name of Ron Paul’s Investment Letter, Ron Paul Survival Report, Ron Paul’s Political Report and Ron Paul’s Freedom Report.
While virtually everyone agrees that Ron Paul himself did not author the bigoted letters, two individuals were identified as possible authors: Lew Rockwell and Jeffrey Tucker. Rockwell himself denied any involvement with the content in question. Tucker did not deny involvement and simply refused to comment, saying
“I just really am not going to make a statement, I’m sorry. I’ll take all responsibility for being the editor of Mises.org, OK?”
Having been reading Rockwell for years, it is clear to me that the style of writing is not his, and that he is not behind the letters, leaving Jeffrey Tucker as the one solely responsible for writing the racist content. This does not necessarily exonerate Rockwell from the authorship of the content, but his denial involves
Now, much of this is not news to many people aware of this particular subject. Major news outlets have published investigative stories on the topic. The Economist, New Republic, VICE and many other outlets wrote on the subject in the late 2000s and early 2010s, all largely focusing on the fact that Ron Paul is himself a racist or that he perhaps stoked the flames of racial division in an effort to gain an upper hand in his political career. Perhaps this is true, but no supporting evidence was ever provided showing that Ron Paul was involved in the daily operations of his publishing enterprise, so the fingers should be pointed to the individual who actually authored the content, likely Jeffrey Tucker or Lew Rockwell.
Tucker promoting Sasha Polakow-Suransky’s defense of liberal ideals
Wendy McElroy, the right-wing Canadian feminist who has been an associate of Tucker for years, wrote on her blog that the author of the racist content was “an open secret within the circles in which I run.” She never directly identified the author by name, but there is no secret that Wendy has close ties with Tucker, even writing and publishing content on his website, Liberty.me.
But to Tucker’s supporters, this will not matter much. Tucker has embraced leftist ideals wholesale and has been pitching libertarianism to leftists, encouraging them to come into the libertarian fold, thus surrounding himself with donors and supporters who choose to whitewash his racist past and focus on the feel-good words he is uttering: virtually a daily cacophony of “everyone who disagrees with me is a Nazi’ or “everyone is a fascist” articles he writes and shares on social media.
Tucker has shifted so far to the left that he is now promoting pieces by far-left journalist Sasha Polakow-Suransky who writes at length about why the State must use virtually all means necessary to protect liberal values in Western society, including coercion. Tucker wholly embraced Sasha’s defense of liberalism and democracy while fear-mongering against the faceless, unknown right, who according to him will strip the West of liberal democratic ideas.
Tucker’s defense of democracy and liberal ideals is beyond disturbing. Democracy is not something a liberty advocate should ever defend as it has never set anyone free from the tyranny of the State. Nor is liberalism; at least not as Polakow-Suransky is defining it, as he is not using it in the classical sense. But Tucker doesn’t seem to care as he has apparently decided to shift his message to an audience easily triggered by key-words like, fascism, alt-right, racism, white-nationalism, feminism, democracy, etc.
Tucker promoting feminism on fee.org, a piece later removed from the website
Jeffrey Tucker is now even using his position at FEE (Foundation for Economic Education) to also promote third wave feminist ideas implying that men are mysogynistic pigs for refusing to go along with feminist principles of equality. Or at least he tried to use his position at FEE. On October 10 2017, Tucker published an article on fee.org by Sarah Skwire titled Two Faces of Sexism: Exclusion and Exploitation. The piece, which was later removed from the website, is a sort of hand-wringing by the author, complaining that women have “less power” than men. Tucker never explained why the article was removed from the website, however it was published later on libertarianism.org.
As someone who has followed Tucker closely for years, his slide towards the left was easily noticeable. Since Trump has won the US presidential election, Tucker has sort of lost his mind when it comes to the alt-right and what he perceives to be a bunch of fascists or Nazis taking control of the United States.
This was greatly illustrated in an incident where a drunk and belligerent Tucker started screaming at white nationalist Richard Spencer in a private bar where Spencer was sitting peacefully after being invited by other attendees. Ignoring his own advice on how to promote liberty, Tucker’s virtue signaling went a long way to bring him into the lime-light with the anti-Trump media which praised his stand against fascism and white-supremacy. Quite an odd approach as I too reject white-nationalism and fascism, yet I do not find it necessary to discuss this daily or engage in screaming matches with fascist in public venues.
But is it possible that Tucker’s newfound hate of racism is offering him both redemption from his past sins but also helping him build new inroads into a new audience of younger, college-age millennials thirsty to defeat the fascist boogeyman, whoever hit may be? I am not alone thinking this.