Under Discussion: The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gambling & Tax Cuts, Wayne Allyn Root, Wiley (2009), 400 pages. 

When I decided to read Wayne Allyn Root’s latest book, The Conscience of Libertarian, I wasn’t expecting to be impressed. A blabbering narcissist, who looks and acts like a cross between Mitt Romney and infomercial icon Kevin Trudeau, Root managed to con his way onto the Libertarian Party’s Presidential ticket in 2008 by brokering a deal with the equally appalling former GOP Representative Bob Barr. I believed this “reform” ticket was a Trojan horse peddling a stripped-down “libertarianism” that offered little for a decentralist like me and even less for those seeking to challenge the status quo of Beltway bureaucrats.

During the election, I was quite adamant in my denunciation of the LP for its crude political sellout. It was evident to me that the Barr/Root ticket was completely unacceptable, because it was so obviously a step back from the radicalism of Ron Paul’s primary campaign. Just as Americans were organizing around Constitutional principles, an America First foreign policy, and opposition to the Federal Reserve, why on earth would Barr and Root think it politically wise to back off these issues and turn the LP into a kinder, gentler GOP? The fact that this pair of used car salesmen were almost guaranteed to fall far short of the vote total achieved by Dr. Paul made the shameful descent into “low-tax liberalism” even less appealing. When the dust had settled in November, the Barr/Root ticket ended up as the massive failure I expected, and the LP had cemented its status as helplessly irrelevant for at least another four years.

This back history may seem unnecessary, but it is instructive in understanding why I read Root’s book.

For at least several years, there has been a growing trend on the Right of commentators’  disassociating themselves from the term “conservative.” On the dissident right, there is a sense that the term has been hopelessly compromised by its association with a series of neocons and warmongers dedicated to a National Greatness credo anathema to traditional American values and culture. Though I am personally torn on the subject of whether the label can be separated from the creeps that has appropriated it, the argument has much merit. In fact, at this point the abandonment of the “conservative” label by the next generation of Right-thinking people may in fact be a foregone conclusion.

One of the byproducts of this has been a massive increase in the number of self-identified “libertarians.” Contrary to the fantasies of many well meaning Alternative Righties, this phenomenon pre-dated the Ron Paul campaign by years—if not decades. As far back as the early-‘80’s, many pop celebrities had started to appropriate the label for their own purposes and by the ‘90’s radio talking heads like Neal Boortz and Larry Elder were peddling their respective brand of faux-libertarianism to discontented and dissatisfied Republicans from coast-to-coast. The total ineptitude of the ‘94 Republican Revolution coupled with the rise of the Internet accelerated this trend.

While the relative success of such figures expanded the usage of the term “libertarian,” it did very little to promote the central tenets of the philosophy. As a resident of South Carolina, I have been exposed to hours of the Atlanta-based Boortz & Co. for more than a few years. The non-aggression principle never seems to come up and criticism of the Federal Leviathian is always tempered by a safe deferment to the proper authorities on any issue that might involve the potential use of the U.S. Armed Forces. In other words, some of the most widely known, popular “libertarian” figures are in fact libertarians in name only. That the end result of this was the eventual corruption of the LP by a cadre of such folks should surprise no one. (Remember Bill Maher has been calling himself a “libertarian” for years.)

Keeping this in mind, the planned ascension of Wayne Root to the forefront of Libertarian politics in 2012 is something that seems uniquely awful. Reading Root’s first attempt at campaign biography did nothing to assuage these fears and much to feed them.

I began reading what I considered to be Root’s highly suspect election recollection wondering what the face of Libertarianism would become if turned over to the Wayne Roots of the world. I left the book wondering if the term “libertarian” is now on course to become as corrupted as the label “conservative.”

In fairness to Root, he’s not all bad. He does oppose the Federal Reserve. He mentions this factoid at least three times in passing, though the inflationary nature of fiat currency was apparently unworthy of a chapter length dissertation. After all this would mean cutting down on the gratuitous use of Goldwater quotes (many of them repeated) and “son of a butcher,” self-congratulatory one-liners (all repeated multiple times). Root also is clear about his opposition to the IRS, though his plan to “abolish” the dreaded income tax is needlessly complex. Instead of calling for the outright repeal of the federal income tax, Root treats us to a bizarre sub-chapter where he argues that we should devolve federal tax policy powers to the states as a roundabout way of starving the beast. Root also advocates for Presidential Impoundment as a weapon against a spend thrift Congress—a policy that may be Constitutional, but is not exactly ideal in the age of the imperial presidency.

For “libertarians” like Root, radicalism is a rhetorical tool and nothing more. He can rattle off a laundry list of federal bureaucracies he wants to throw under the proverbial bus, but at the end of the day, it’s the same, tired “balanced budgets,” “fiscal restraint” schlock that gave us Newt Gingrich. Mentioning the Empire is off the table, and anything more than a hint of non-interventionism is anti-American liberalism to be stamped out immediately.

Even worse than this thinly disguised statist accommodation is Root’s inability to grasp the logic of his own arguments. While page after page is devoted to the problems posed by taxation, Root spends nearly as much time advocating for a new “sin tax” on Internet gambling. Considering the fact that Root made his name, and at least part of his fortune, off of online gaming, this is a position that transcends hypocrisy and hurdles head first into the absurd.

Equally troubling is Root’s take on drug legalization. Whether or not this is an issue that should be a primary concern for the Alternative Right is debatable. What isn’t debatable is that the current prohibitionist position is a failure. One would expect a “libertarian” to be more than willing tackle this taboo in a hardcore fashion. Instead Root talks the talk about the ridiculous nature of drug laws and the toll that takes on our penal system—before going far out on the establishment limb and advocating for medical marijuana. Root will be happy to know that this tough stance puts him just slightly to the “libertarian” right of such luminaries as Bill Bennett and Charles Rangel.

Ron Paul garnered millions of votes, organized an impressive base of young supporters and activists, put monetary policy back on the table for discussion, and set the stage for a serious, anti-imperial politics on the right. Meanwhile, LP activist and leaders are still promoting the old canard that Murray Rothbard was a GOP infiltrator and Mary Ruwart is a Hakim Bey style anarcho-pederast. And people wonder why the good doctor didn’t want to tie his horse to that wagon.

<iframe src=“http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=taksmag-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&asins=047045265X” style=“FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 120px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px” alt=”“></p>

</iframe></p>

Over the years I’ve suffered through many poorly written books. Several of them have been penned by egomaniacal hacks whose hubris rivals Root (no small feat).  Still, it is rare to encounter a book as shamelessly self-absorbed and foolish as The Conscience of a Libertarian.

Snake oil salesman like Root are all to willing to commandeer the burgeoning liberty movement for their own ends. The final result of this would be the completion of a decade-long drive to make the term “libertarian” safe and cuddly for establishmentarian types and consumption-addicted yuppies. Holding court against this trend should not be the long-term goal of the Ron Paul Revolutionaries—but it’s a short-term necessity for anti-statists of all shapes and sizes.

“Uncle Tom.” Among African-Americans there is no bigger insult. Originally used to denote a black man all too willing to submit to campaigns of racial terrorism in order to save his own skin, today the term is most often used to smear those deemed “unauthentic” in their “blackness.”  The silliness of the former charge notwithstanding, the real absurdity of the term today is that the historical figure most often cited as a living symbol of this epithet is a man who’s “authentic blackness” cannot be seriously questioned—and who’s refusal to play by the rules of the State often spat in the fate of the sweeping progressivism so dominant among many whites of his era.

A former slave, Southern patriot, neo-agrarian capitalist, and founder of the famed Tuskegee Institute, Booker T. Washington is perhaps the most unfairly maligned figure in American history.  In an age where revisionist history has become the norm, and consensus accounts are usually viewed critically, the standard appraisal of Washington has largely stayed the same. Heavily influenced by Washington’s primary ideological rival W.E.B. Du Bois (a man Washington once offered a job), these histories always seem to paint Washington as an accommodationist of the worst aspects of the post-Civil War South—and often as an outright opponent of his people.

The recent book “Up From History” by Robert Norrell attempts to fill this void, and to a large degree, is successful. Though Norrell is clearly sympathetic to Washington, he does not pull punches that need to be thrown and his overall assessment provides the reader with a detailed and rich portrait of a complex and decidedly conservative figure, who for nearly twenty years was the unquestioned “leader” of his race in the United States.

Outlining the life of the often-controversial Washington is not easy and there are many gaps.  There is very little on young Booker and his personal experiences as a slave.  Norrell does an admirable job making what he can of Booker’s personal life, but Washington’s admirable trait of keeping private matters private does not lend itself to a thorough treatment of his personal relationships.

But in not conforming to the tired pattern of many pop biographies, Norrell largely avoids the armchair psychologist routines that have ruined histories written by bigger names. More to the point in establishing a framework through which one may analyze the actual Washington, the mythical anti-hero morphs into a titan of “economic independence and self-help.”

Though it would be unfair to call the leading proponent of “industrial education” a Luddite, there is no question that Washington saw land ownership as the key to uplifting blacks. A harsh opponent of unionization, in the soil Booker saw a path to independence that could not be achieved if one was confined by factory walls.  One can only imagine what he would have thought of the cubicle.

Still the popular perception that the Tuskegee Institute was primarily an agricultural school is false.  Though Washington often let his donors assume this was true, the real purpose of the school was to provide teachers for communities in desperate need of grassroots economic development. As a firm believer that economic interdependence would require whites to act in moral and mutually beneficial ways toward blacks, Washington was right to promote a communal approach to racial uplift. Contemporary globalists would be appalled, but his contemporaries were not.

In actuality, the Tuskegee Institute was arguably the most magnificent expression of the Do-It-Yourself ethic one could find anywhere at the turn of the 20th century. Few other schools were as self-sufficient, and no other campus was built from the ground up by its students. While its bigness would pose problems later on, the value of Tuskegee can in part be revealed in its enrollment, which at various points dwarfed that of Auburn and the University of Alabama—combined.

In building such a successful alternative institution, Washington was playing with fire. Race antagonists surrounded him and Norrell’s favored term for them—“White Nationalists”—hardly seems inappropriate. Washington’s refusal to fuel the fires of the Klan or demagoguing, race-obsessed white politicians, was an attitude that guaranteed his vision for “race improvement”—based on broadly materialist grounds—would at least have a chance of getting off the ground.

Not surprisingly this drew the fire of critics from within “the race,” a large number of whom coveted the status and supposed influence of Washington and “The Institute.” Symbolically represented in the cruel visage of the Leninist and faux-black nationalist W.E.B. Du Bois, those who opposed Washington worked night and day to portray the man as a slave-like buffoon, completely beholden to his white masters. In turning his wildly successful Atlanta Exposition speech into a quasi-endorsement of segregation, these propagandists willfully missed the point of Washington’s now infamous line:

In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the five fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

Denizens of modern day New York City live in arrangements that closely fit those sketched by Washington above, and no one bats an eye. More importantly however, is the fact that Booker was not calling for a State-enforced segregation policy. He was not calling for segregation at all. Washington was simply noting that blacks didn’t need whites to define their lives or black worth. The lives of African-Americans, and their quality, should be defined by black men, for black men, and integrationist schemes that would dilute this integral independence were counter-productive. It is true that Booker was ultimately an integrationist of sorts, but he was not an “accommodationist.” While the difference is a matter of degree—that difference is a chasm—too large to ignore and worthy of its own category.

It is true, as Norrell writes, that “few men in an open society get to set the terms for the historical memory of their avowed enemy, but W.E.B. Du Bois was one who did,” and we are all the worse for it. In denigrating Washington’s name, Du Bois and his allies sought to wreck the traditional view of post-Civil War blacks—a view that was diametrically opposed to that of the white paternalists that ran Du Bois precious NAACP from the outset. According to Du Bois, these professional liberals were to form a vanguard with a “talented tenth” of the black population, in order to “improve the race” through trickle-down bureaucratic management—and these phony radicals did far more to slow down the progress of poor blacks than any speech given by Mr. Washington or his thousands of followers and supporters.

Conservative critics that cite Washington’s willingness to utilize government on behalf of his self-help agenda are standing on shaky ground as well, as these instances were rare. The Tuskegee Institute was funded primarily through private donations and philanthropy. Despite the fact that the school’s heyday was in the midst of the Progressive Era, Washington never asked for federal favors.  Much to the annoyance of the “talented tenthers,” Washington eschewed forced integration schemes, and purchased the land the school owned rather than relying on the favored eminent domain tactics of the period.  At times, the activities of the school and Washington were so radically anti-Statist, today they would recognized as libertarian.  Lots of contemporary anarcho-capitalists theorize about private roads. Washington actually built them.

When and where Washington did promote government expansion, it was always as a defense of black taxpayers who were getting little or nothing for their “contributions” to the State. And while it is true that Washington made expanding public education for American blacks a major facet of his cause, it is hard to imagine the man from Tuskegee advocating for consolidated school districts, let alone the Department of Education.

Ironically, Washington’s greatest fault was the same of that of so many self-identified conservatives today—a blinding faith in a Republican Party, led by a messianic warmonger, totally uninterested in the desires of his constituency. By trading political favors and advising the truly awful Teddy Roosevelt, Washington corrupted his name during an era when his message was needed most.

And yet an excess of loyalty is not something one can condemn without a hint of admiration. In staying true to his friends Booker made his biggest errors, but also showed he was human, in a time when the emerging elites were defined by their inhumanity. One can find many faults with Washington, to be sure, but does the punishment fit the crime? Clearly not.

The relegation of Washington to pariah of his race is a gross injustice, which, thankfully, Norrell does much to correct. There is much to Norrell’s book that is not favorable to Washington, but to focus on that would miss the broader point.

Just as the black capitalist, Afro-nationalist Marcus Garvey became a “fraud” and the Second Amendment practitioner Robert Williams became a “communist,” their authentically black conservative forefather became the quintessential “Uncle Tom.” Not because he kowtowed to terror or because he was not sufficiently black—but because he challenged real power in the name of those who were black. 

You Shall Love Your Country—By Order of the State!

If searching for a personification of everything that is wrong with modern American conservatism, Tony Blankley might be your man. With his impeccable movement credentials, the former staffer for Newt Gingrich has long been deft at disseminating GOP talking points for any media outlet that will give him a hearing, and as the talking points shift, so does Blankley, dutifully following the wind and orders of his Republican masters.

Like his conservative talking head contemporaries, Blankley has a shtick, and the Englishmen’s current song and dance is too adopt the physical appearance of a Soprano’s cast member, couple it with a dose of Churchillian idolatry unparalleled by anyone this side of John Lukacs, and pass it off as the true voice of Middle America. It’s a well paying act that has earned him plenty of face time over the years. It also happens to be completely at odds with reality.

Considering the source, it’s no surprise that Blankley’s latest book, American Grit: What It Will Take To Survive and Win in the 21st Century, is a near perfect representation of the military-statist mentality that has come to dominate conventional political thinking on both sides of establishment divide.

Declaring himself a “nationalist” early in the introduction, the remainder of the book is spent shamelessly promoting a mass centralization project of Rooseveltian proportions. Blankley is brazen about this, arguing on behalf of a cryptic “collective destiny” and favorably quoting President Lincoln on the paramount importance of preserving the total power of the State. “Sacrifice” for the aforementioned “collective destiny” is seen as the patriotic duty of all Americans, and requires different things from different people. To be specific, the younger generation must morph into a class of military serfs, and submit to living in an America devoid of
Constitutional liberties. In exchange, poor old Blankley is willing to forego his Medicare entitlements. Clearly, a fair trade.

Whatever one’s definition of nationalism, Blankley’s call for American “dominance” is not born of a healthy sense of place or love of country. As the book progresses, the reader gets an even better vision of Blankley’s perverse perspective, as the author suggests that the military might of a nation is the proper measuring stick by which citizens should determine whether their country is worthy of their love. And consistent with his “taking orders” vision of America, Blankley’s unwillingness to answer tough questions - even when he asks them - is a sign of man firmly committed to an ideological model untethered by the constraints of common sense.

For example, Blankley argues that his advocacy for a draft is based on a “need” for more troops primarily to fulfill our broad military commitments. A true nationalist, in the conservative sense, might question the legitimacy of such alliances in an age of great economic peril. Instead Blankley declares that “we will soon be faced with the choice of severely scaling back our role in the world or expanding the army through conscription,” and charges ahead, discussing the virtues of American supremacy and the wonderful bounties a draft will afford. In other words, there is no “choice,” the draft is a necessary good and reexamining military defense pacts is beyond the pale.

And the critics of this arrangement, like Blankley’s “friend” Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul? Those “isolationists” are to be effectively marginalized as promoters of “anti-Americanism,” precisely because they are willing to address the costs and consequences of American Empire. The “existential” nature of “Islamo-facism” is never to be questioned, and new threats lurk at every corner.

By taking up the mantle of “nationalism,” Blankley is perverting a tradition that has played a major role in the intellectual history of the American Right. Though often identified as a strict libertarian, the Old Right writer Garet Garrett was a fiercely nationalist thinker, who never let his ideological sympathies get in the way of his patriotic duties. He was also an “isolationist.” By contrast, Blankley equates servitude with service and duty with deference to the State. His “Nationalism” is globalist internationalism on steroids.

Where Garrett always put America First, Blankley is a pundit first and treats readers to the usual Republican hypocrisies on the warfare state. Multiculturalism is bad - except when it (supposedly) makes our military stronger. Immigration is a problem - except when it means more troops. Liberalism is dangerous - except when exported by U.S.
Marines. And on and on.

After perverting, inverting and all but annihilating the term “conservative,” if successful, the ripened, full-blown “nationalist” militarism of Blankley and co. promises to damage or possibly destroy the American Right at large. Their hyperbolic denunciations of those who dare harbor doubts about the Global War on Terror and hysterical exaggerations of the threats facing us, will not only serve to further discredit all critics of expansive federal power—but if Blankley had his druthers—all critics period.

Bob Conley is a virtual unknown who defeated an establishment candidate supported by the usual coterie of party insiders and special interest groups. The primary victory was narrow (1,058 votes) and the turnout was very low (only 17%), but nonetheless Conley, a conservative, observant Catholic from a blue-collar background, will be his party’s candidate for the U.S. Senate come November—as a Democrat.

“Flattop Bob,” as he is often called, would likely be the first to tell you that he was a long shot to win the Democratic nomination, as he is no conventional Democrat. Whereas his opponent, well-known lawyer and longtime party activist Michael Cone, was the safe and obvious establishment choice

Maverick Conley bolted the GOP a few years ago over amnesty, war and trade policy and was a vocal supporter of Ron Paul’s presidential bid.

Though his primary campaign was poorly covered by the media (a blessing in disguise), Conley represents a unique combination of dissident, anti-establishment themes running on the fringes of both major political parties and his candidacy is perhaps the best hope for putting a paleoconservative in the U.S. Senate this November.

While most of the grassroots conservative support in the Palmetto State was focused around former Republican National Committee member Buddy Witherspoon’s effort to defeat the pro-amnesty, McCain-enamored, Lindsey Graham, Conley was then, and remains now, the most consistent conservative in the race. Conley’s Buchananite views on trade and immigration are as tough as anything Witherspoon was offering, and his advocacy of sound money strikes a chord with many fiscal conservatives that would otherwise never give a Democrat a second look. It is also not unreasonable to assume that Conley’s traditional Catholic positions on abortion and gay marriage were contributing factors to his success.

Though Conley lacks the ground support that drives most populist insurgencies, the political realities on the ground in South Carolina are ripe for an underdog candidate of his ilk. In contrast to Conley, incumbent Lindsey Graham has elected to run as the moderate in the race. Graham’s attempt to marginalize his Democratic opponent as an extremist, ultraconservative is an odd tactic for a man who is regarded with contempt by a huge portion of the GOP’s base. In South Carolina, “moderate” is a dirty word and extreme is often seen as a synonym for principled. Graham’s positioning of himself as a centrist may have helped in a primary race where low turnout allowed for socially liberal retirees from the Northeast to wield a disproportionate amount of influence. In a general election race, where turnout is expected to be relatively high, this sort of tactic defies all logic. With Graham willfully contributing to the narrative of Conley as the race’s true conservative, the real issue will be securing the Democratic base.

On the surface, an overt opponent of multiculturalism would seem to be at a distinct disadvantage, but again the circumstances work in Mr. Conley’s favor. Conley’s trade position will likely be attractive in the upstate where the textile industry has been ravaged by outsourcing. The phony economic nationalism of John Edwards played well enough in his home region to give him one of his strongest showings in the primary season. Conley’s more authentic version is complimented by a cultural conservatism that Edwards lacked. While it’s not a lock, if a serious effort is made, the former engineer could sweep the region.

Perhaps the best news for the Conley campaign will be his presence on the same ballot line as Barack Obama. Though it is unlikely that a Democrat will win South Carolina in the presidential race, it was only a few months ago that Obama received more votes in the state’s Democratic primary than the top two Republican presidential candidates combined. In SC, thirty percent of the population is black, Obama’s appeal to them is undeniable and they unquestionably remain enthusiastic about electing one of their own. A record turnout of Democrats voting straight ticket would no doubt benefit Conley.

Though it may be tempting to write him off due to his lack of funds and organization, it’s worth noting the electoral upheaval that took place in Virginia just two years ago. While Jim Webb was not a political neophyte, he was an underdog, running against an establishment Republican in George Allen. Allen was viewed by many politicos as the best possible GOP candidate for president in 2008. Despite early polls that showed him far ahead of Webb, Allen lost in large part because of Webb’s ability to build a broad constituency around a variety of populist issues. Graham is an even more egregious symbol of unrepresentative government than Allen was, and Conley is in a much better position politically than Webb was.

The day after the primary race, a mutual friend sent me a message about his pal “Bob” who ran for the Democratic nomination and “accidentally” won.

Accidental or not, the unique candidacy of “Flattop Bob” Conley may be just what the doctor ordered for the second stage of The Revolution. A Democrat, in the cradle of secession, who asks that we help fight the neocons and advance “the cause of liberty” by supporting his candidacy. I like the sound of that.