I was idly googling on Michael Italie, the sewing machine operator and SWP member who was fired from his job at Goodwill after he ran for mayor of Miami, when I came across this gem: The Importance of Blacklisting, hosted at the Objectivist Center.
In this article, one Roger Donway describes the case of Michael Italie and argues that Goodwill was in their right to fire him, that in fact this was a tactict objectivists should emulate. He argues that blacklisting is justified in defending “bourgeois standards”:
The central issue of the Goodwill case has nothing to do with the right of free speech or the right to run for office, for those rights were not touched. The central issue of the Goodwill case is nothing but the right of citizens to weaken their destroyers by refusing to fund them. Of course, when alumni and employers withdraw their money, Marxist professors and anti-capitalist employees will whine, “Don’t I have a right to my own opinion?” To which the proper answer is: “Yes. And I’ll be happy to debate your opinion, if I have time. Meanwhile, I decline to support those who attack the political-economic system that makes my support possible.”
[…]Consequently, I believe that libertarians should openly align themselves with the philosophical advocates of bourgeois morality, whatever the cost in popularity may be. They should point out that a major virtue of abolishing government regulation and subsidies will be a greater need for rationality, personal responsibility, and productiveness; a greater need for prudence, sobriety, and thrift; a greater concern for one’s own reputation and a greater reliance on the reputations of others, with a corresponding esteem for those behaviors — patriotism and cultural assimilation, marriage and child- rearing, decorum in conduct, speech, and appearance–that are commonly thought to be indicators of personal solidity.
But libertarians should go further still. They should also urge plausible, non- political mechanisms –ostracism, boycott, and blacklist–that will impose severe costs on those who flout bourgeois standards.
In short, Dunway argues punishing people for their political beliefs by taking away their livelyhood is okay, that objectivists should in fact use this tactic to “defund the Left”. Pretty vile, if you ask me. It’s typical of a certain breed of Libertarian: quick to claim the moral high ground, though their deeds are anything but moral.