I suspect I am part of the reason why Pete has been given grief by the folks he is describing. Many years ago, I started taking a gloves-off, no-holds-barred approach to these what are now called “cancel culture” morons. For me, it’s never been a left/right issue. Back during the era of the Reaganites, when the dominant teams of busybodies and do-gooders were coming from the right-wing side of the fence, I was Noam Chomsky, Abbie Hoffman, and Richard Dawkins rolled into one. When conservatives started to be eclipsed by progressives, I came out swinging at them as well. In the future, it might be someone else (Islamists, fascists, environmentalists, therapeutists, transhumanists), and if I’m still around I will attack them with equal fervor as well.

It’s not even a question of who is a legitimate anarchist/libertarian or not. There are plenty of people I personally dislike or politically disagree with (and who feel the same way about me) that I would loosely include under the anarchist/libertarian umbrella, from ancap-neocon Tim Starr, to Wal-Mart apologists at Mises Institute, to anarcho-social democrats like Chomsky, to SJW/Antifa friendly folks like Gillis, Carson, Reid-Ross, or Spencer Sunshine. I would consider all of these people to be roughly under the anarchist/libertarian/anti-state umbrella, the same way organized Christianity includes everything from the Vatican and high church Episcopalians to Quaker mystics to snake handlers and storefront tongues-speakers to theonomists to the Metropolitan Community Church. If anti-state, decentralist, or anti-authoritarian movements continue to proliferate, all of these tendencies and others will be present, each with their own strengths or weaknesses (however one assesses “strength” or “weakness”).

Interpersonal and inter-organizational conflicts aside, the main danger presented by do-gooders of any kind is their co-optation by the ruling class as part of the ideological superstructure of the state. Right now, totalitarian humanism is the ascendant ruling class ideology, and too many in the anarchist/libertarian camp are playing the system’s game (although there are obviously “deviants” in the other direction as well, with “Libertarians for Trump” being Exhibit A).

By Peter R. Quinones

A small group who identify with the political Left have spent a good portion of the last decade making every attempt to remove people they perceive as enemies from their places of employment, organizations to which they belong, and even charities to which they donate time and money. Why? Mostly for the “crimes” of “wrong think,” verboten personal associations or uttered statements the hearer perceives as “violence.” If I had typed the preceding sentence in 2010 the average person reading it would have thought I was crazy. Now? It’s a daily news story.

When most people hear these reports they think of Bret Weinstein and Evergreen College or any guest-speaker to the right of Karl Marx at U.C. Berkeley. Most would not consider the ideology of libertarianism or the Libertarian Party a target. Yet, here we are.

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