This is an editorial.
Many within the LP refuse to see the obvious. Like major party voters, if someone tells them what they want to hear, it’s enough.
Evidence that a self-proclaimed libertarian is actually anti-liberty rarely seems to matter, but here we go.
From Florida Carry:
Likewise, neighboring Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel is quoted in a March 1, 2013 statement as saying:
“I fully support legislation to reinstate the federal assault weapons ban. Enforcing a uniform national background check before the sale or transfer of firearms and prohibiting large capacity magazines and armor-piercing bullets are also essential steps in better protecting our communities. The passage of these reasonable restrictions also allows for the protection of our Second Amendment rights for all law-abiding gun owners.”
Scott Israel is a Roger Stone backed politician. As payback Stone’s associates have been hired by Israel as “community liaisons.”
This is just one small bit of evidence about Stone’s anti-liberty history.
If you are presented with a Roger Stone candidate, such as Gary Johnson, you should question whether that candidate is really libertarian.
Of course, in my opinion, you should reject any candidate with any ties to Stone.
In the interest of full disclosure, for those who don’t know, I am currently suing Stone for defamation.
Reason’s actually been pretty good lately. I don’t think they would want him.
He seems to be the kind of libertarian that’s a standard Republican except enjoys his strip clubs and drugs ’cause he’s a happenin’ cat, and the ‘coolest kid on the block’ unlike those fuddy duddy normal Republicans.
Maybe he should get a job writing for Reason.
🙂
Yep, that’s about right.
A visit to Roger Stone’s FB page recently is just him talking about how LBJ killed Kennedy. Which is odd for an establishment type like himself. He seems to be the kind of libertarian that’s a standard Republican except enjoys his strip clubs and drugs ’cause he’s a happenin’ cat, and the ‘coolest kid on the block’ unlike those fuddy duddy normal Republicans.
I’m betting Stone probably wrote Kristin Davis’ attrocious article on the “ground zero mosque” or at least agrees with it.
“paulie December 4, 2013 at 9:42 pm
‘I forgot Arlen Spector, also a great hero to Stone. He wrote a very moving piece when Spector died.’
Holtz is a fan of Spector also.”
Uuuuggggggg! Yuck. I suppose this explains a lot.
Holtz is a fan of Spector also.
All true.
On the other hand…
His wife headed up Republicans for Choice, he’s a swinger, etc. So it’s certainly plausible that he is a liberal on social issues, but thinks other issues are more important overall.
He’s made remarks since supposedly becoming a Libertarian about how he hopes various non-libertarian Reublicans win. So at best, he’s not fully converted.
I forgot Arlen Spector, also a great hero to Stone. He wrote a very moving piece when Spector died.
Roger Stone was a Republican for the first 60 years of his life. He changed his party affiliation in 2012.
His heroes are Nixon, Buckley and Reagan. His blog StoneZone contains photographs of him with each of them.
Jeb Stuart Magruder hired him to work for CREEP in 1972 and his career working for many influential Republicans took off since then.
Roger is a pro at what he does.
He dropped Kristin Davis like a hot potato when she was arrested earlier this year for selling prescription drugs (not very libertarian of him).
He likes to take credit for causing the LPNY to miss ballot status in 2010 by less than 1700 votes. Whether his efforts were the reason we were 3% shy of the 50,000 mark is supposition; his candidate came in last place out of seven candidates that year, while Warren Redlich came in fourth place and had more than twice as many votes as any Libertarian candidate for Governor in New York ever before.
As far as I can tell..he is mostly libertarian on domestic issues, which does not mean he is a good person or unwilling to support bad politicians. Hi involvement with the LP may or may not be a dirty trick; it’s hard to say.
Agree with Steve. If your career is tied to political and ideological organizations, sadly there is little money to be made with purely libertarian clients.
However, there is a vibrant base of organizations that move the nation closer toward Liberty — so the option to pick and choose your clients do exist for consultants like Stone.
Stone is most likely personaly a libertarian, but like Art Finkelstein, he makes his money off of Republicans.
Steve M, exactly.
This editorial argues that because A is associated with B and that B is associated with C that C therefore must be just like A.
Using this “logic” there are no libertarians because all libertarians are going to be associated with at least 1 non-libertarian.
I think a much better case could be made that Stone is a phony (L)ibertarian than what Warren did in the editorial here. And the slam at Johnson was gratuitous; if there is a second Johnson campaign I’m not to what extent if any Stone will be involved. The dots were not connected either. Stone supports a variety of politicians, some libertarian or libertarian-leaning and some not so much. I don’t know how or why the sheriff’s actions in Florida relate to Johnson just because Stone supports or supported both at some point. Also, Johnson’s team allegedly had a falling out with Stone; they never went pubic with it because I still haven’t taken the time to document the evidence that Stone was behind trying to sabotage campaign fundraising at the end, probably because he was not getting a big enough cut of the pie or enough influence in decision making.
Jed, he has a picture of Richard Nixon tattoed on his back. For a while, I think he had the tattoo as his profile picture on Facebook.
I guess I’m new, I’d never heard of the guy. Famous tattoo? I shudder to ask.
Thanks, Nicholas.
I have heard about Roger’s famous tattoo, which is quite telling in itself.
Stone is a snappier dresser and more effective political player. He also is older and has more gray hair.
Since I’ve never met Roger Stone of Florida, or Richard Burke of Oregon, somehow they tend to look the same when I visualize them. Am I way off base here?
The both seem to inspire similar levels of dislike for similar reasons, it seems.
I wouldn’t say before he ever heard of Stone, but Jeremy is correct.
I think there’s a big difference between a Roger Stone puppet candidate like Israel or Kristin Davis and a candidate who accepts Roger Stone’s help without really knowing his history, like Gary Johnson. I do think it showed poor judgment on Johnson’s part to be willing to work with Stone, but it’s important that Johnson started running for President as an LP candidate before he ever heard of Stone, and that he didn’t allow Stone to replace his existing campaign apparatus. That makes him an entirely different beast from the candidates Stone essentially controls as an old-school political boss.