In a day when any anonymous ass can start a blog and libel people as racists, nazis, pedophiles, democrats or republicans, it can be hard to take any exposes about alleged bigotry seriously. On the other hand, the mainstream news is filled with Bill and Hillary obviously trying to undermine Barak Obama on racial grounds, golf magazines that adorn their covers with nooses to illustrate a story about a sports caster's lynching joke, and Mike Huckabee pandering to South Carolinians who like the confederate flag by talking about using a pole on those who would criticize his state flag. So racism and bigotry do remain a part of the national, as well as the secessionist, dialogue.

Hopefully I’ll soon finish my next entry about why secession is good for racial and other minorities, in this country and worldwide. This time around I’ll just describe and quote from recent entries at my personal blog about how macho sectarianism among pro-secession libertarians has been more trouble than its worth over the last twenty years.I have three blog entries related to the widely publicized flap over about 10 rather bigoted statements against gays and blacks in old Ron Paul newsletters. I explain why they are important not only in analyzing libertarian history but current secession movements.

In this May 2007 entry On Rosie O’Donnel’s Support for Ron Paul I describe my organizing Pro-choice Libertarians to oppose Ron Paul’s nomination as the 1988 Presidential candidate unless he promised not to use his campaign to promote outlawing abortion.

On January 15, 2008 I issued my first blog entry on the “Ron Paul newsletters,” excerpts from news letters from the 1987-1994 period that the neoliberal (or neocon?) New Republic alleged were bigoted and extremist. Finding the references to gays and blacks very problematic, I dug out my old libertarian files from those years. I list evidence from 1987-1989 that Paul’s newsletters even back then were pandering to conservatives and possibly bigots, as a way of bringing in supporters and money to beef up his faction of the Libertarian Party.

Paul claims moral responsibility for not paying enough attention to what was going out under his name. I suggest that whoever wrote them confess, apologize and move on. As I write: Confession is good for the soul. And it convinces people that you still do not hold or express such obnoxious views, that they are not central to your political philosophy and that you are not a raving lunatic.

Just to put these charges Ron Paul and friends in context, on January 19 I presented Recent Mainstream Bigoted Statements and on January 21 I presented Recent Items on Anti-Arab and Muslim Bigotry.

Finally today, January 24, in Macho Sectarianism in the Libertarian Movement I get down to the nitty gritty of the problem harming secessionist movements worldwide - sectarian power struggles and violence.

Actually, all you have to do is look at the blog entry's photo or link to the video of the fighting male hamsters to get the point! It’s just so silly! (Even as a high testosterone and competitive female I tire of the macho games quickly.)

I review the struggle between the Ron Paul and more radical factions of 20 years ago - as well as the current struggles between the pro-secession Paul and anti-secession statists. I write:

Ron Paul’s success as a presidential candidate has been an increasing irritant to both neoliberals and neocons. It might have been the issue of secession that helped bring it all to a head. The blood pressure of statists left and right must have shot to the moon when Ron Paul said during a December 23, 2007 “Meet the Press” interview that he opposed Lincoln’s war against Southern Secessionists, that it would have been cheaper to buy the slaves than wage a war that killed 600,000 people, did massive economic damage and caused a century of bitterness that southern whites took out on blacks. On December 24th a New York Times blog published a charge about Paul’s alleged racist ties by an unreliable source, which they had to retract the very next day.

The New Republic attack on Ron Paul for “bigotry” was meant to destroy Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, the Ludwig Von Mises Institute and as many other libertarian organizations as they could bring down with them. So “TNR” itself was just engaging in the kind of macho sectarianism that got Rockwell and crew in trouble in the first place; "TNR" is quite willing to instigate their own “civil war.”

Feel free to read the entries that you find of interest! There are a lot more links, photos, graphics and videos on the blog entries.