Ernest Hancock
Website:
www.ernesthancock.com
Date:
Subject:
Media: Radio
From: Lyndon O
Date:
Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 9:40 AM
Subject: "The Libertarians" and the VFW rifle
stunt
To: MicheleLarson@clearchannel.com
Hi, Michele...
You and Barry are making some
excellent observations on a variety of subjects this morning, but I must take
exception to the repeated cheap shots at "the Libertarians" on the matter of the
recent rifle publicity stunt at the VFW Convention.
I\'m sure that you and
Barry are strong supporters of Second Amendment gun rights, and you weren\'t
comfortable with having your position on that issue "represented", so to speak,
by this stunt, even though the people behind it share your convictions on gun
rights in general. Likewise, please realize that not all libertarians, either
with a small or a capital "L", thought it was a wise move either. And the stunt
was arranged by two individuals, acting on their own, who happened to be
libertarian activists; it was not an official act of the Libertarian Party. Why
is it wrong for the mainstream media to exploit this stunt to link Americans who
support gun rights with racists and loonies, but it\'s perfectly OK for you and
Barry to use the same stunt to suggest that "the libertarians" are all out to
lunch?
It\'s a marvel of hypocrisy that KFYI hosts in general, and
Limbaugh and Hannity in particular, have been delivering daily anti-Obama
commentaries, eloquently extolling the principles of free enterprise and limited
government, but these same individuals treated Ron Paul as a non-person while he
was running for president, even as a Republican, and Ron Paul was actually walking the walk, not only making even more eloquent speeches for limited
government but matching that with his specific proposals and his own track
record in congress. Apparently, on conservative talk radio, it\'s fine to talk
in general platitudes about free enterprise and limited government, but not to
put any of that seriously into practice, and even the word "libertarian" is not
to be mentioned unless it can be done in a context that deprecates all who use
the term to describe themselves or their political philosophy.
What is
the thinking behind ignoring libertarians 99.9% of the time, and devoting the
remaining .1% to patronizing overgeneralizations? Why are you less offended by
eight years of Bush and Cheney making a mockery of your "limited government"
principles than by those who live up to those principles but do so
outside of the mainstream hierarchy of the Republican Party? If you really have principles and you\'re driven by them, why not give credit--and
criticism--where it\'s due when it comes to those principles? If you disagree
with Libertarians as a group or as a party on particular issues, that\'s fine,
but why the systematic kid-glove treatment of hypocritical mainstream
Republicans and the consistent, snide dismissals of the people who practice what
you yourselves preach?
Thanks for considering these
observations...
Lyndon
Olson
lyndonolson@gmail.com
|
