Libertarians To Glenn Beck: No Thank You

Glenn Beck, is again attempting to reinvent himself. Apparently, the evangelist thing didn’t work out. Beck has declared his plan to launch a “global Libertarian news network.” Andrew Kirell at Mediaite notes the absurdity of this in an open letter to the chameleon which says, in part:

Congratulations on your slow move towards libertarianism. We are glad for your newfound support for legal marijuana, gay marriage, and your backing down from Bush-era hawkishness.

But many of us libertarians prefer to say “thanks but no thanks” to your attempt to become the “libertarian” leader of a so-called “global news network.”

As I’ve written before, you make it really hard for people who believe in limited government to be taken seriously. In the past, you’ve only given the media more reason to dismiss a largely intellectual movement as being just a bunch of tinfoil hat-wearing, overly aggressive crazy people.

You’re free to call yourself whatever you want. But that doesn’t mean we should accept you…many of us dislike your rhetoric and your chalkboard-and-puppets conspiracy version of history.

Look, we libertarians try to operate as a big tent. And I’m happy when non-libertarians like yourself aspire and draw towards it. The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg recently pondered whether he is a libertarian, and that’s a welcome step forward for the movement. But when you or (the far, far worse) Alex Jones label yourselves “libertarian,” it is most certainly not a progression for us who already feel marginalized by the political process and much of the media…

Sure, some of your more ardent fans will back you up on your self-labeled “libertarianism,” but I challenge you to walk down the halls of Reason magazine and not have them snicker at your bizarro connect-the-dots version of history; or speak before 1,200+ college students at the annual Students for Liberty conference and not be booed or laughed off the stage when you lament the downfall of Western civilization at the hands of pro-gay shows like Glee; or submit an article to the Rothbardian types at LewRockwell.com and not have them pick apart every hysterical myth contained within.

Now, of course, you may say we sound like the cool kids at the lunch table telling the weird kid that he can’t sit with us. But this isn’t the school cafeteria; this is a battle of ideas. And we are currently losing it because of people like you who have helped give limited government types a bad name. Rush Limbaugh makes conservatives look bad on a regular basis; and you assumedly want to be the libertarian version of that? No thanks.

Ouch!

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.