Gratuitous insult of the day.

Is the Libertarian blog Hit and Run bigoted? This post contains a surprisingly unnecessary vilification of Catholicism. Responding to a National Review essay which, inter alia, argues that support in favor of assisted suicide increased when proponents were able to cast the opposition as being "Catholic," the Hit and Run post asserts:

At National Review, Wesley J. Smith analyzes the "good news" that assisted suicide has massively lost popular support—suggesting my own campaign for required suicide must really be doomed. Grain of salt: Smith, the author of Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope From Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder uses a set of presumptions and strategically [bracketed words] to reach the improbable conclusion that the campaign for assisted suicide was basically just an anti-Catholic smear campaign. (I'd feel better if Smith's views on cloning, stem cell research and various other doors man was not meant to open didn't track the Roman dictator's so closely.) (emphasis added)

Roman dictator?!?! I assume that the reference is to the Roman Catholic church and not to Mussolini. But why is there this gratuitious insult in this post? The last time I checked the RC church in America was a voluntary association. In other words, it is the kind of institution which was held up, when I was a libertarian, as the model of noncoercive social legitimacy.

This is the second really outre shot at Catholicism I've seen at Hit and Run. It makes me think that perhaps some Libertarians don't believe that RCs belong in their movement.

Update: I left this comment on the Hit and Run post:

I had to read this post a few times in an attempt at understanding why Mussolini was being invoked. Then I got it - the Roman Dictator is the Catholic Church. Sure, that makes sense. 25% of the US population is Catholic. Why should Catholic viewpoints have any input into politics or policy debates. After all, those "friggin mackeral snapping Papists" are just mindlessly marching in lock step with everything their priests tell them.

By the way, this is the second gratuitously offense slap at Catholics that I have read in Hit and Run. I hadn't realized that one couldn't be Catholic and a libertarian at the same time. Makes me think I my involvement in the libertarian law society at UCLA would have been black-balled if they had known my religion.

Posted by: Peter Sean Bradley on May 21, 2003 04:12 PM

This was the truly remarkable response:

"By the way, this is the second gratuitously offense slap at Catholics that I have read in Hit and Run."

Oh, don't get your scapular in a bunch. Freedom to make fun of the Pope is the greatest freedom of all.

Posted by: tim on May 21, 2003 06:50 PM

My response:

"Oh, don't get your scapular in a bunch. Freedom to make fun of the Pope is the greatest freedom of all.""

You are also free to sound like an ignorant Klan bigot. Congratulations, you have succeeded.

And by the way, that is exactly the point. The reference to a "Roman Dictator" harkens back to the era of the Know-Nothings and the Klan when charges against the "Roman tyrant" were a dime a dozen and there was an effort to stifle non-governmental schools among other things. One of the great decisions promoting liberty was the Supreme Court decision finding a liberty interest in individuals in sending their children to Catholic schools. But, hey, what's history compared to the Klan's, or Tim's, right to make "fun of the Pope."