re: #19 Charles

I got a flood of hate mail last night from Ron Paul cult members.

More than one tried to argue that it’s impossible for a libertarian to be a racist, because libertarianism is the opposite of collectivism and racism is a form of collectivism.

These people actually seem to believe this ridiculous hooey.

That’s an Ayn Rand idea FWIW. She wrote

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage — the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.

I’ve also noticed that you use what I consider to be an overly broad definition of race in the course of declaring a person or comment is racist, similar to what the UN uses when it refers to “racial discrimination.” I tend more toward the narrower definition in which race, in which race and racism are entirely genetic. Both of these definitions are colloquial and subjective. Neither of these definitions is supported by scientists and the whole thing is really up in the air.

So, for example, while anti-Arab or anti-Muslim or anti-Christian or anti-Canadian sentiments might be really crappy, they aren’t racist per se, because Arab, Muslim, Christian, and Canadian aren’t races.