L. Neil Smith: 'Time for A Purge?'

Four-time Prometheus Award-winner and The Libertarian Enterprise publisher L. Neil Smith has penned a new op-ed for TLE entitled "Time for a Purge?," which blasts the LP's recent press release calling for more federal oversight and urging state and local authorities to "cooperate" for the purpose of cracking down on the scourge of kiddie porn.

Neil writes:

[T]he first priority of any real libertarian is to ensure everybody knows and thoroughly understands that anyone who refuses to take the Zero Aggression Principle seriously, as the central, indispensable tenet of the movement—or in the case of the LP, to take the oath of zero aggression—should not be regarded as a libertarian at all, but just another thug reserving a right he mistakenly imagines he has to initiate force against his fellow human beings whenever he finds it convenient.

I don't know enough these days about the internal politics of the national LP to say whether these specimens have anything to do with the vermin who raped the party platform last time around (in the 70s, the platform called for the abolition of the FBI), but they are of exactly the same ilk, not 'moderate' libertarians, not 'gradualist' libertarians, not even 'neo' libertarians, but anti libertarians, whose effect—whether they intended it that way or not—is the single most destructive force against individual liberty that I know of.

If this was indeed meant to embarrass all those pesky radicals out of the party, then it's bound to misfire. The trouble is, by 'radical' this collaborationist trash means anyone standing on principle, rather than navigating by perceived political expedience (which, as I've demonstrated on numerous occasions, usually proves incorrect in a practical, as well as ethical sense). 'Radicals' have been fighting this particular fight (some of them for half their lives or more) for better than three decades. They are hardened to an extent their opponents can't conceive. If anybody's going to get embarrassed out of the party, it's going to be these Vichy Quisling concentration camp trustees.

If they really want to play it this way—accusing anyone they dislike of favoring child pornography—then let them stand accused in public of ethically signing off on Waco, Ruby Ridge, the FLDS raid, and every other evil, murderous thing the state has ever done to children.

On the other hand, if this sort of ugly struggle is to be avoided, what needs to be done—and immediately—is for the LP board of directors to hand Cory and Davis their walking papers, and then to publicly retract and apologize for their original anti-libertarian statement. If the board fails with regard to principal in this affair, they, too, should be replaced, at the upcoming national convention in Denver.

To that end, THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE is asking you to join us in rectifying this sorry situation. We will shortly have an online petition up. Check back for it, look it over, and add your name to those demanding what's right.