Rothbard and Rockwell went through this thing where they felt the evil libertines with their atonal music and weird architecture were holding back libertarianism and the right way forward was to sell it to either Pat Buchanan style Republicans (Rothbard) or "regular Americans" (Rockwell) and what do regular Americans love? God plus hating blacks, immigrants, gays and Jews. And if Republicans are on board with that, two birds one stone.
http://mises.org/journals/liberty/Liberty_Magazine_January_1990.pdf (Page 34)
In its 17-year history, the LP may never have gotten 1% in a national election, but it has smeared the most glorious political idea in human history with libertine muck. For the sake of that glorious idea, it's time to get out the scrub brushes.
Most Americans agree that aggression against the innocent and their property is wrong. Although these millions are potential libertarians, they are put off by the Woodstockian flavor of the movement. Hair may have left Broadway long ago, but the Age of Aquarius survives in the LP. The cultural anti-norms that mark the libertarian image are abhorrent; they have nothing to do with libertarianism per se; and they are deadly baggage. Unless we dump that baggage, we will miss the greatest opportunity in decades.
...
unless we cleanse libertarianism of its cultural image, our movement will fail as miserably as the LP has. We will continue to be seen as a sect that "resists authority" and not just statism, that endorses the behaviors it would legalize, and that rejects the standards of Western civilization. Arguments against the drug war, no matter how intellectually compelling, are undermined when they come from the party of the stoned.
...
It is...understandable and desirable that libertarianism have a cultural tone, but not that it be anti-religious, modernist, morally relativist, and egalitarian. This tone rightly repels the vast majority of Americans and has helped keep libertarianism such a small movement.
...
Libertarians have to catch up with the American people, who are fed up with modernism in arts, literature, and manners that is really an attack on the West.
...
Pornographic photography, "free" thinking, chaotic painting, atonal music, deconstructionist literature, Bauhaus architecture, and modernist films have nothing in common with the libertarian political agenda-no matter how much individual libertarians may revel in them. In addition to their aesthetic and moral disabilities, these "art forms" are political liabilities outside Berkeley and Greenwich Village.
...
The present State monopoly over the production of domestic security is a failure. The streets of our big cities have become the realm of barbarians (if that is not a libel against the Visigoths).
...
Libertarians can and must talk again with the resurgent paleoconservatives, now in the process of breaking away from the neocons. We can even form an alliance with them.
...
Together, we have a chance to attain victory. But first we must junk the libertarian image as repugnant, self-defeating, and unworthy of liberty.
Paul responded on page 50 of a later issue:
http://mises.org/journals/liberty/Liberty_Magazine_March_1990.pdfI hesitate to comment on Rockwell's article because I see the debate as being more divisive than productive. I prefer to use my energy attacking those who support statism, whether they do so intentionally or out of ignorance.
Having said this, I will make one comment: it's obvious to me that the Libertarian Party would be a lot bigger than it is now if its image were perceived as more libertarian and less libertine.
From that NYTimes article a few weeks ago:
Crane, a longtime critic of Mr. Rockwell, called Mr. Paul's close association with him "one of the more perplexing things I've ever come across in my 67 years." He added: "I wish Ron would condemn these fringe things that float around because of Rockwell. I don't believe he believes any of that stuff."
Mr. Paul said in the interview that he did not, but he declined to condemn Mr. Rockwell, saying he did not want to get in the middle of a fight. "I could understand that, but I could also understand the Rothbard group saying, Why don't you quit talking to Cato?" he said.
Mr. Paul described Mr. Rockwell and Mr. Rothbard as political provocateurs. "They enjoyed antagonizing people, to tell you the truth, and trying to split people," he said. "I thought, we're so small, why shouldn't we be talking to everybody and bringing people together?"
I think Ron basically just wants to keep the small libertarian coalition together warts and all because, as he noted, it's so small in the first place.
Rothbard pissed at Crane and the Koch over Cato plus those damn libertines taking over the LP:
http://mises.org/journals/lf/1981/1981_01-04.pdfKoch-hating, especially those "cosmotarians" who just want to attend cocktail parties in D.C. and thus don't support TRUE liberty as passed down from the tomes of Lew Rockwell has been around for ages in the Libertarian infighting before others discovered the Koch's secret evil plot to destroy the government through funding NOVA. (Which is a crime in Rockwell land, they should be destroying the state not funding their programming!)
The Objectivists reject voting for Paul because he doesn't believe in "defending our rights and liberties" by bombing Iran immediately and North Korea and China next. (And completely shutting off all global trade with China in the mean time.) The Rockwellites refuse to support Gary Johnson because he thinks there should be incremental changes towards liberty and that sometimes there are least bad options available for now like gay marriage rather than smashing the state immediately over night. A lot of the Libertarian Party members refuse to support him because he was a Republican candidate and thus is distrustful. (These are the people calling on Jesse Ventura to come back from Mexico to become the party nominee.) The Rockwellites and Paultards were running around attacking libertarians who even mentioned the newsletters as traitors who were undermining Ron Paul and how they'd be the ones to blame if he didn't win the Republican nomination and that this was an intentional plot by Koch and Cato to defeat Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell so they could maintain their popularity and power in D.C. Then there's the people who always support Republicans and reject Ron Paul because he can't win the nomination and thus the best thing for libertarians is to support Mitt Romney in the primary and general election.
And some guy who is convinced that Ron Paul and Gary Johnson are the biggest threats to liberty and libertarianism because they're promoting the idea that the electoral system can work to protect liberty. And that what libertarians should really do is help build up the police state so that people will revolt and restore liberty.
Fringe political movements are great. You've got the same exact thing on the other side but formally organized with all those 2-5,000 vote socialist/communist parties. The old Socialist Labor Party's had Debs split off the Socialist Party and then their split off Workers World Party and their splitters in the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
My favorite of the fascist/Nazi spin-offs is
http://www.american3rdposition.org/ because they "aren't white supremacists" they just believe it's the job of the government to protect white people and maintain their culture because it's objectively the best. That's all.
