Salon has never met a political subject that they couldn’t twist into a race issue. That trend continued in their latest hit piece, this one bashing right-leaning libertarians. Author Conor Lynch suggested that libertarianism is popular among white males because they seek to protect their "dominance in society." He claimed, in part:
While looking at the larger conservative movement, it becomes a bit more clear that the hostility towards government and collective movements in general tends to attract white males who want to preserve their dominance in a society where they are quickly becoming minorities.
Lynch went on to use the tired liberal argument that libertarians like Rand Paul are racist because of their hesitance to support some aspects of civil rights legislation:
Sure, that was more than three decades ago, and its not fair to go after someone for something they wrote back in those naive college days. But has Paul’s outlook changed at all? Not really. In his now infamous interview with Rachel Maddow, he admitted that he had a major problem with the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
particularly the provisions that “harbor in on private businesses and their policies.” In other words, he didn’t like the government telling businesses that they had to serve black people. According to libertarians, this is a clear violation of one’s freedom to discriminate; that if a business owner does not want to serve a black person, that is their right.
The Salon author added that the movement – while not inherently bigoted – does attract bigots who seek to “protect their ‘right’ of intolerance.” He continued:
The free market ideology is particularly well-suited for the robber barons, while the freedom to discriminate comforts the neo-Confederates. Like the larger conservative movement, libertarianism is a sanctuary for nostalgic white males.
A piece like this, coming from Salon, is not exactly unexpected. The left has long misconstrued traditional libertarianism as racist because of their beliefs on private property rights. However, labeling libertarianism as a movement determined to maintain white supremacy is completely off the rails.
