Jason Lewis was a conservative talk radio host in Minneapolis, and a couple of years ago he quit, on air (most likely this was totally staged — his colleagues weren’t particularly convincing actors, and for people shocked about his abrupt departure, they sure spend a lot of time plugging his new website). This is his very Libertarian on-air announcement.
He’s an amazing jerk. He’s so Libertarian, he doesn’t see a problem with slavery.
In 2009, Lewis complained that “real Americans” believe Hurricane Katrina victims were “a bunch of whiners.” Last year he claimed, “the median income for blacks in America would make them rich in most African nations, not most – all.” He went on to argue that the United States government lacks the authority to outlaw slavery.”
“In fact, if you really want to be quite frank about it, how does somebody else owning a slave affect me?” Lewis said in an audio commentary added to his book Power Divided is Power Checked: The Argument for States’ Rights. “It doesn’t. If I don’t think it is right, I won’t own one, and people always say, ‘Well, if you don’t want to marry somebody of the same sex, you don’t have to, but why tell somebody else they can’t?’ Uh, you know if you don’t want to own a slave, don’t. But don’t tell other people they can’t.”
It’s rare to see a Libertarian quite so open about the fact that his philosophy is entirely “ME ME ME” and not at all about individual human liberty, since he doesn’t even consider the rights of the slaves. It’s very nice that if he disagrees with slavery, he just won’t own one…but what if he agrees with slavery, but his slave doesn’t?
Well, he’s come back from Galt’s Gulch to run for congress, and has actually won the Republican primary in Minnesota’s 6th district. We know you all miss Michele Bachman, so there’s a chance he’ll be there in congress to make Minnesota look just as ridiculous.
He’ll be running against Democrat Angie Craig in November. A woman. This could be interesting, considering what Jason Lewis thinks of women.
I never thought in my lifetime where’d you have so many single, or I should say, yeah single women who would vote on the issue of somebody else buying their diaphragm. This is a country in crisis. Those women are ignorant in, I mean, the most generic way. I don’t mean that to be a pejorative. They are simply ignorant of the important issues in life. Somebody’s got to educate them.
There’s something about young, single women where they’re behaving like Stepford wives. They walk in lock step – is that really the most important thing to a 25-year old unmarried woman – uh getting me to pay for her pills? Seriously?! Is that what we’ve been reduced to? You can be bought off for that?
You’ve got a vast majority of young single women who couldn’t explain to you what GDP means. You know what they care about? They care about abortion. They care about abortion and gay marriage. They care about ‘The View.’ They are non-thinking.
Sadly, it looks like it’ll be a close race, when it shouldn’t be.
I think he’s my brother-in-law in disguise.
how does somebody else owning a slave affect me?
It means that you live in a society that accepts slavery, and it’s only a matter of sheer luck that you’re not a slave yourself. Just because you got lucky on this round doesn’t mean your kids will, or the tables won’t turn – what if something happens and there’s a political or military collapse and you’re enslaved, are you going to sing happy libertarian songs while you work for your master?
What if he disagrees with slavery, but his owner doesn’t?
How dare young women care about protecting their personal bodily autonomy over wider economic concerns. It’s not as if ‘making medical decisions about how one’s body is used’ is covered under personal freedom.
(This makes it very clear that Mr. Lewis isn’t thinking of women, or the disenfranchised as people, or at least that he assumes all people have the same freedom needs as Mr. Lewis himself. He can’t get pregnant, and assumes he’d never be a slave himself, therefore he doesn’t need to focus on the personal freedom of women or potential slaves.)
Jason Lewis is a horrible human being. I feel ill that I am about to defend him….but…..he was NOT actually saying that slavery was acceptable. He was trying to draw a parallel between gay marriage and slavery to show why he thinks gay marriage is wrong. It would not be acceptable to argue, “if you don’t like slavery, don’t own slaves.” In his mind, the argument, “if you don’t like gay marriage, don’t have one” is the same. He cares about what other people are doing because he thinks that gay marriage (like slavery) is morally wrong and bad for society. He is worried that the behavior of other people will impact him in the same way that evils like slavery impacted even those who did not own slaves.
Again, I think he is wrong and his arguments horrible and offensive. But if we are going to criticize/critique his argument, we need to understand what it is. Otherwise we are railing against a strawman version of him and that gives him more power.
Even if they were non-thinking, surely that’s better than erroneous thinking? Jason Lewis probably couldn’t see that. And the moron destroys his own argument anyway!
It should be legal to take people at their word. If he doesn’t object to slavery (@#5: Perhaps, I’m not seeing it clearly but maybe you’re right) then he can’t object to be taken as a slave either.
If your a Libertarian I would think you would oppose turning someone into a piece of property that you have coercive authority over because that violates your commitment to liberty. What this indicates is that Mr. Lewis is very much in favour of “private” tyranny over other people. And of course he seems to be utterly oblivious to the fact that slavery will require significant state coercive authority to be a viable institution. So much for being against big government. Once again a “Libertarian” proves that he is an authoritarian in disguise.
In the Roman days, the biggest reason to not own slaves was, given the chance, they will kill there owners or themselves. Slaves were expensive and as a asset, killing themselves was a total loss. The North American Indians could not be converted into slaves, they were too dangerous, and useless for work. Oh well.
Now we have many wage slaves, doing jobs that they tolerate for the money. Rent a slave by the hour, produce or no money. Day laborers are essentially slaves. Some of the sex trade are slaves, desperate for money, and unable/unwilling to move or leave an area.
Then there are the golden hand-cuffs of some CEO and Government positions. It is all about money. Oh well, in the end we just die anyway.
I have no idea why so many people seem to assume they get their own personal government that should cater specifically to them and no one else. That’s the only way of thinking I can imagine that would allow someone to vote for this guy or Trump or any other equally whacko person. I understand using government to redress inequalities. Any society has an interest in keeping it’s members on a largely equal footing, if you don’t you’re throwing away talent you could otherwise use. But then selfish assholes seem to think they should get something too and they make up some nonsense solution to their lack-of-a-problem. Throw a temper tantrum when they don’t get it. And suddenly all of us are wondering why nothing is working right in government.
Fred Tully@#8:
Oh well, in the end we just die anyway
Dying in a tumbril sucks just as much as dying in a ditch.
There isn’t one. What a wackaloon. That is way we are laughing.
Libertarians better watch out or Trump will poach this idea and then we’ll know the true meaning of “Look at my African American over there.”
This is in fact what the word “Libertarian” MEANS due to being thoroughly and successfully coopted by narcisso-capitalists. The ship has sailed.
@ analog2000 #5,
Good point if there’s some missing context to that quote. It is still a hideously flawed analogy that he’s making. In one instance, all involved individuals have autonomy/liberty and in the other situation, one of the individuals is stripped of their freedom. I thought that’s exactly the sort of thing Libertarians were supposed to care about.
Note to anyone who’s Bernie or Bust: this sort of race is where you can focus your energies and actually make a positive difference.
Who would’ve guessed that a libertarian doesn’t get (at least ostensibly) what makes slavery bad, but does get how to hurt millions of people with some asinine bullshit about it?
…. Oh, sure, I might have guessed that. Alright, never mind then, stupid question.
I bet if tax breaks for the rich were attached, he’d think gay marriage (like slavery?) is no big deal. You’ve gotta be pragmatic about shit like this, especially when you have nothing to support any of it and no interest in trying to support it. Maybe toss in the apocalypse if the tax breaks aren’t enough. That always seems to work, and I’m sure this goon would be first to lick the boots of the next dictator who called himself Jesus.
This guy is not only a candidate for the GOP but has a change of winning? In Minnesota ? It’s grotesque.
Sorry folks, the USA is a much sicker society than I had ever imagined.
In the first quote, he’s making a States Rights argument that each state should have the right to legislate marriage laws in that state. This was the strategy SCOTUS used to avoid marriage freedom rulings until Scalia died. Of course, the States Rights argument is the argument used by Southern bigots to oppose Federal legislation and Supreme Court rulings ending (more or less) sanctioned segregation. States Rights continues to be a stupid argument to allow states to oppress somebody.
The second quote is just plan old, stupid misogyny. He’s on a roll.
Hopefully the good folk of Minnesota District 6 will send him back where he came from. If they’re the same bunch that awarded us with the Bachmans, then I’m not very hopeful.
@pacal 8:
Of course. That’s what libertarianism means— it’s the belief that the government should be powerless to prevent private oppression.
robro@#18:
Of course, the States Rights argument is the argument used by Southern bigots to oppose Federal legislation and Supreme Court rulings ending (more or less) sanctioned segregation
Actually, the states rights argument was crucial in bootstrapping the american revolution. And one of the rights they were concerned about was the right to own people. I did a whole posting on it over at stderr. The southern secession, also ostensibly over states rights, specifically slavery, was a mirror of the revolutionary war. The US’ founding sin is one of the bedrocks of the nation, unfortunately.
Wonder if he realizes the Barbary pirates would have happily made him a slave. Didn’t the US fight a small scale war over that?
He won in the 2nd District. I live in the exquisitely gerrymandered District Six – formerly Michele Bachmann’s, but currently Tom Emmer’s.
Robro at 18.
They also used states right arguments before the 1967 Loving vs Virginia decision.
@Robro #18
The Supreme Court ruled on Obergefell v. Hodges while Scalia was still alive.
analog2000 wrote:
The problem is that you can’t just argue one side of that equation and pretend they’re equal. “If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get gay married” works for both participants of the marriage. If you want to equate that to slavery, you have to both argue, “If you don’t like slavery, don’t own slaves”, and “If you don’t like slavery, don’t be a slave”, but the latter is obviously nonsense and disingenuous.
And regardless of what he really, really thinks about slavery, he did engage in slavery apologetics. Frankly, I don’t much care what he believes in his heart of hearts.
“States rights” are a dogwhistle for institutional bigotry, Has been ever since I can remember, which is back to the 1950s.
A strawperson would be a big improvement for you.
No gay marriage and slavery aren’t equivalent any more than straight marriage and slavery are equivalent. This is a false analogy.
The critical question here is…what does the slave think of slavery? Slaves are just as human as you, me, and more so than Jason Lewis.
Marriage gay or not is a consensual arrangement between two people. Slavery is the exact opposite, a coercive arrangement by one person over another.
I hate how the issue of contraception assumes that women are simply standing around looking for a handout – not that they pay taxes and insurance premiums and should be able to demand appropriate medical care.
On the idea that women are ignorant of ‘important issues’ – it seems odd that a white guy who argues that slavery is a non-issue based entirely on the fact that it doesn’t concern him – that ‘important’ is entirely about what’s in it for you – can also argue that there are ‘important’ and ‘unimportant’ issues. I mean, will he take slaves to task for focusing on ‘unimportant’ issues like abolition?
Libertarians are basically proponents of feudalism.
Marcus @ #18 — Indeed you are right, and an important part of the 2nd Amendment and the reason there was a Civil War. I’ll check out your post.
robertbaden @ #23 — Yes, as with so many other things. As with same-sex marriage, SCOTUS tried to avoid ruling on miscegenation under the guise that marriage laws were a state affair. The Lovings were legally married in Washington. DC, but lived in Virginia. They were convicted of breaking a Virginia law for something that was not a crime in D.C. This is exactly the kind of thing that make state-based social prohibitions problematic.
colinday @ #24 — I lost track of the time. Still, SCOTUS tried to defer the question of marriage equality to the states for a long time.
Nerd @ #26 — States Rights were a cornerstone of the institutional bigotry embedded in the Constitution, so the question of Federal vs. state power goes back well before 1950.
Marcus @ #18 — Indeed you are right, and an important part of the 2nd Amendment and the reason there was a Civil War. I’ll check out your post.
robertbaden @ #23 — Yes, as with so many other things. As with same-sex marriage, SCOTUS tried to avoid ruling on miscegenation under the guise that marriage laws were a state affair. The Lovings were legally married in Washington. DC, but lived in Virginia. They were convicted of breaking a Virginia law for something that was not a crime in D.C. This is exactly the kind of thing that make state-based social prohibitions problematic.
colinday @ #24 — I lost track of the time. Still, SCOTUS tried to defer the question of marriage equality to the states for a long time.
Nerd @ #26 — States Rights were a cornerstone of the institutional bigotry embedded in the Constitution, so the question of Federal vs. state power goes back well before 1950.
All that and he still comes across better than this tool, who’s running for office in my district for the fourth time.
“In fact, if you really want to be quite frank about it, how does somebody else owning a slave affect me?” You may be the slave they own.
It’s unsurprising that those who defend or promote slavery always cast themselves as the slave-owner, and not the slave.
Found it amusing that he choose GDP as a concept young single women were ignorant of.
A) He just pulled the fact that they are ignorant of it out of his ass.
B) GDP at its the very best made up number which doesn’t have a universal standard for making it up.
So to paraphrase; how dare these silly little girls worry about real world issues and not know about an economic measure of dubious validity!!!
I just hope this pig keeps right on spreading his ignorance so everyone will know what kind of jerk he really is.
I think Analog 2000 is correct about the intent of the jaw dropping argument, and that he is arguing for states rights to illegalize gay marriage rather than arguing that the government doesnt have authority to ban slavery. It’s a bit perplexing as i thought the argument “gay marriage doesn’t affect me” *was* the libertarian argument and that true libertarians did support gay marriage exactly for this reason.
No liberal I’ve known has ever argued his strawman argument of “don’t like gay marriage; don’t get one– it doesn’t affect you” but instead argued “marriage is a right we take for granted for straights; everyone is deserving of this right so banning gay marriage is a denial of rights”. It doesn’t affect a liberal if another persons rights are violated but liberals can not stand for injustice– even if it happens to people who are not them.
Still I’m stunned in his argument, strawman or otherwise, he never considers the right of the enslaved and doesn’t think others will either.
Jaw dropping.
I think a useful distinction is to separate real libertarians and people who only use libertarian language.
Real libertarians are a relatively small group, as far as I can tell, and can be identified usually because they’re liberal on social issues – abortion, gay rights, drug use, church-state separation, etc. I think they’re hopelessly naive about how modern economies actually function, but if someone is liberal on social issues while being a “free market” type, they’re probably a genuine libertarian.
The use of libertarian language by right-wingers dates (as best as I can tell, having grown up in the South) to the later 1960s, when intelligent racists/segregationists realized that they had lost the battle for open segregation. So they began using libertarian language to claim that businesses had the freedom to choose whom they served, so they could deny service to black people. They downplayed state’s rights for a good while, although it remained in the background. Reagan used the phrase as a dog whistle to racists in 1980. The argument that states can decide on gay marriage, contraception, abortion, etc. sounds libertarian to many but is simply an argument to defend legal discrimination, whether people who use such words realize it or not.
Theocrats, bitter about Supreme Court defeats in the 1940s-60s (and many of them racists also), fell in with the pseudo-libertarians by arguing that they had a right to force their beliefs on others using the power of government. They don’t argue that they can force people to attend a specific church, but have the “right” to have their belief-specific prayers in government meetings, religious symbols on government property, etc. It’s why some judges and clerks of court claim they can refuse to perform duties in regards to same-sex marriages, as that is their religious “right.” It probably doesn’t bother most of these public officials that the same argument was used to try to block interracial marriages. They likely agree with that “right” also.
Lewis is not, to me, a libertarian but pseudo-libertarian. They are much more numerous than real libertarians and, as I said, are identifiable because of their bigotry and/or hostility to church-state separation. Also, they don’t recognize that governments don’t have “rights,” they have powers. Only people have rights, and those rights circumscribe the powers of governments. One legitimate role for government is adjudicating between conflicting rights. In the case of Lewis et al, their right to discriminate against blacks, gays, atheists etc. is inferior to the right of people to live their lives free of someone else’s bigotry or desire to own other people as slaves. Lewis et al either don’t see how they’re on the wrong side of such conflicts or they’re simply bigots using libertarian language to make themselves sound like “freedom” lovers, And the latter started in the later 1960s among segregationists and was then adopted by theocrats also, a process I observed.
A point I failed to mention. It was in the late 1960s that I noticed people began arguing for “school choice” in which children could choose their school, rather than the government. Of course, as any Southerner knew, you’d end up with white kids segregating themselves and black students who wanted to go to white schools would be discouraged in one way or another. “School choice” sounds libertarian, but was just another attempt to re-segregate or block desegregation of schools. The voucher movement these days is just a variant of the racist “school choice” movement, with the added dimension that it also can be used to get around church-state separation by giving public money to religious schools. Similar libertarian-sounding language has since spread into other places, such as the gay rights issue in which people claim they have a religion-based right to discriminate. Some libertarians might agree that businesses can discriminate as a “right,” but I doubt they support bans on same-sex marriage. I could be wrong, but my impression has always been that libertarians generally oppose government discrimination against groups, such as blacks, gays, etc. even if they think businesses have a “choice” of which customers they will serve.
@18 Robro.
This reminds me of a comment I left in a thread not too long ago. How, in this “enlightened” age, could a state possibly oppress somebody? We’re all beyond that now, right?
(It’s comment #26 if my link doesn’t bring you right to it. )
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/08/07/discuss-moments-of-political-madness-5/comment-page-1/#comment-1034158
@wsierichs,
The religious freedom bills that have cropped up lately use the same language and often involve infringing on the religious freedom of employees so that the employer can have religious control.
There is a third purpose for this, as well. The voucher and charter school programs allow for the privatization of public education. This can then feed back into further cutting off funding for poor, minority districts.
Ck, the Irate Lump
I agree. You’re quite right that commercial interests are part of almost all privatization schemes in the last few decades, so they can siphon off public funds in a variety of ways. Making money off schools fits nicely with the racists’ goal of trashing education for minorities.
and Real Scotsmen.
false analogy is false.
not saying that’s not what Lewis is doing… but you have not in any way provided clear evidence this was his intent.
Please don’t
+++
When people say they’re against “gay marriage” or “gay adoption” they actually mean “I’m against gay people and their families”, because neither marriage equality nor gay adoption create anything new. They just extend equal protection to those families. Gay couples, gay families and children in gay families already exist, but those people would prefer to roll the clock back on that as well.