Radical Right Reality Check

It's time to stop referring to Raleigh's right-wing think tanks as "libertarian"

For years, conservative writers and commentators in the collection of think tanks funded by Raleigh chain store magnate Art Pope have claimed that were about advancing a "libertarian" message and agenda. Hence the endless stream of columns and reports and blog posts about "liberty" and "freedom." The Locke Foundation even entitles its budget proposals "Freedom Budgets."  Over at the Pope Civitas Institute, the group's website claims to be about promoting "limited government" and "personal responsibility" and its Media Director is identified by Raleigh's News & Observer as a "libertarian blogger." Then there's the group Americans for Prosperity, whose mission is to promote "limited governments and free markets."

Of course, it is true that all three organizations are regular critics of government. At least, that is, when government is used for purposes that they oppose - like educating children or fighting poverty and homelessness or extending health insurance coverage to those without it. In each of these areas - particularly when it comes to regulation of corporations - all three are zealous in their opposition to government and have some overlap with, for instance, the national Libertarian Party.

But, of course, such incidents of libertarian overlap are also the case for many progressive organizations. In addition to being anti-government, the Libertarian Party is pro-choice, anti-Iraq war, pro-gay rights and, at least in North Carolina, anti-death penalty and pro-immigrant. So does that make The Nation magazine, which shares these "libertarian" principles, a "libertarian" publication?

More to the point, what do these truths about libertarianism say about the Pope groups and their attempt to appropriate the label?

Tilting even further right

For many years, it seems, the Pope groups largely ignored the right-wing social agenda. Veteran readers of the various Locke publications recall very few instances in the early days of the group (the oldest Pope organization) in which it made explicit overtures to the religious right or other supporters of an ultra-conservative social agenda. Indeed, there were multiple occasions in which Pope/Locke staffers made public statements disavowing interest in the right's social agenda.

Things have been very different in recent years, however. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when the shift occurred, but the Pope groups have all clearly abandoned any pretense of a substantive commitment to "libertarianism." At the Locke Foundation, the group features regular "exclusives" and opinion pieces in which its staffers decry instances of supposed discrimination against "pro-life" groups or supposed public biases in favor of "pro-homosexual" groups. As we reported earlier this year, one of the group's most prolific staffers these days is a person who writes regularly in support of the extreme right social agenda. He's even written on the group's website about his efforts to infiltrate a Planned Parenthood gathering. Locke staffers have also weighed in favor of the aggressive application of the death penalty for years.

In a similar way, Americans for Prosperity has become little more than an attack group for Republican candidates like Senator Dole - who, of course, wholeheartedly endorses the religious conservative social agenda. 

Meanwhile, over at the Pope Civitas Institute, the group has taken matters to an even more extreme level. In addition to making the promotion of anti-immigrant fervor a top priority, the group publishes regular installments on what it calls the "pro-family agenda."  Though never explicitly defined, the term "pro-family" is clearly a surrogate for "religious conservative." This fact was on full display last week in an article (entitled "Life & Family Legislation: A Coming Storm?") in which the group takes several distinctly un-Libertarian, anti- "limited government" positions, including:

• An attack on a modest and painstakingly crafted bill sponsored by a conservative Republican senator to clarify and improve state law concerning advanced health care directives. Though designed to provide individuals with greater control over their own end-of-life decisions, the Civitas piece attacks the bill as anti-family and "a follow-up to a 2003 attempt…to indirectly legalize physician-assisted suicide."
• An attack on legislation that promotes family planning and the use of contraception. The group takes particular umbrage to the notion that such services will be made available to "illegal aliens."
• An attack on legislation that seeks to prevent the bullying of schoolchildren because it would have acknowledged the demonstrated reality that many children are victimized because of their sexual orientation. According to Civitas, it's "anti-family" to have the words "sexual orientation" on the statute books.
• Complaints about the Legislature's failure to pass a bill that would have required state government to, in effect, mandate an anti-abortion lecture to every woman who seeks such services and another measure that would have amended the state constitution to limit marriage to heterosexual couples.

As we also noted in March, the author of this "pro-family" piece is the same person who wrote the following for an ultra-conservative religious publication:

 "Physically stronger, men are ultimately responsible for creating the conditions in which women may freely choose to be chaste. The medieval notion of chivalry is grounded in this reality. Men can no longer condone-and participate in-the subversion of feminine modesty. Married men must devote themselves with zeal to the care and comfort of their wives and children. Single men must shield themselves, their sisters and their girlfriends from impurity. The very preservation of our nation's liberty requires such self-restraint, virtue, and-yes, boys-chastity. It is time true patriots and real men led the way."

Glibretarians?

Given that the Pope groups and their staffs have abandoned all pretense of any real commitment to the consistent promotion of libertarian ideals - particularly when it comes to social issues - why do they continue to cling to the label?  Perhaps the most plausible explanation comes from a self-proclaimed libertarian blogger who joined in an online discussion last year critiquing a pro-Iraq war piece written by the head of the Locke Foundation:

"Hood is not a libertarian, but a right-wing conservative. Given how badly institutional libertarians (by those, I am referring to libertarians engaged in think tankery) have behaved since 2001, it's no surprise that liberals would have trouble seeing the difference.

And, though it may not make a difference to some left-of-center partisans… it does make a difference to me, a "hardcore" libertarian if by "hardcore" one considers civil liberties and the war to be the preeminent issues of the day…Hood and his ilk like to use the language of libertarianism when it suits them, because libertarians are, they think, hip with the kids!

Such people are more or less glibertarians.

But libertarianism is bad for the business of think tankery, which is funded by right wing conservatives who are cultural neanderthals and prowar. I knew I was not long for the world of think tankery when I attended my last Heritage Foundation gathering two years ago.

So while my left-of-center friends are fully justified in taking shots at institutional libertarians and glibertarian, I do hope they understand that truly thoughtful libertarians with whom they might strenuously disagree are out there."

In other words, the Pope groups adhere to the "libertarian" label because it's a convenient way to spin and modernize a philosophy that takes so many of its cues from the Jim Crow era and the antebellum south. Like the term "neoconservative" it is a clever way of prettifying the politics of greed, division and reaction. Let's hope that, like this insightful blogger, more and more people step up to help expose this hypocrisy.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, September 20th, 2008 at 9:40 am and is filed under Radical Right Reality Check. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.