Posted on 11/07/2013 4:59:55 AM PST by Kaslin
There was a time I called myself a Libertarian. And there was a time I was a Libertarian. I just wanted to get government to leave me alone, to leave people alone and to go all crazy and limit itself to doing only that which is spelled out clearly in the Constitution. That was what a Libertarian was. But it’s not anymore.
The word no longer has any meaning, no definition or parameters, certainly no coherent philosophy to speak of. And there’s no one to blame for that except Libertarians themselves.
So what happened?
By not even loosely defining the parameters of a set of beliefs, Libertarians allowed their brand – as it was – to be hijacked by anyone willing to wear the label. They went from the movement for individual responsibility, small government and free markets to a gaggle of misfits who want pot and prostitution legalized and a total non-interventionist foreign policy.
That pretty much sums it up.
Honestly, what does being a Libertarian mean beyond legalizing drugs, banging hookers and sitting by while the rest of the world blows itself up?
The great Reason magazine is a wonderful publication filled with great articles, solid journalism you won’t find elsewhere…and a voice that does little more than complain.
Reason is great at highlighting abuses by every level of government, stories ignored by other media outlets. But you won’t find much in the way of philosophy or solutions. (There’s some, it just doesn’t seem to be a focus.) They preach to the choir, and it ends there.
I love the Cato Institute and have a lot of good friends who work there, and they do offer some good solutions. They just refuse to do anything about them. Cato has a deserved reputation for refusing to play nice with anyone else. When was the last legislative “victory” spearheaded or introduced by Cato?
What Libertarians do exceedingly well is sit on the sidelines, arms folded, and complain. No idea was ever put into action by complaining that it wasn’t so, yet that seems to be the Libertarian modus operandi.
On election night 2008, I was at a Reason/America’s Future Foundation (another Libertarian group) election night party in a Chinatown bar in DC. The results of the election were a forgone conclusion, so what better way to mark the night than with a few drinks and friends. Hell, the band played as the Titanic sank, so why not imbibe a bit as the nation hit the iceberg?
It’s not like anyone was thrilled to vote for John McCain that day. But as bad as McCain was (and still is), he was better than Barack Obama. At least that’s a conclusion you’d expect anyone who supported liberty to draw.
Yet that night, as each state was declared for Obama, cheers rose from the crowd. When Obama won Ohio, you would’ve thought you were in a bar in Green Bay and the Packers had just won the Super Bowl. High-fives and laughter filled the room.
It wasn’t as though these self-described Libertarians wanted Obama to win. Well, actually, many of them did. But the majority of them wanted McCain to lose. They wanted Republicans to lose. Their victory was to let the country lose, to get that smug sense of self-satisfaction they were feeling.
In the years since, that attitude has only grown. And what it means to be a Libertarian has blurred even more than before. So much so that a “Libertarian” candidate for governor in Virginia – many of whose views would disgust “real” Libertarians – pulled 7 percent in a race decided by much less pretty much solely on the strength of his party ID.
Libertarians have devolved from the pro-liberty wing of the right side of the ledger to the annoying kid who, when he doesn’t get 100 percent of what he wants, takes his ball and goes home. The team he agrees with more than half the time loses to the team he barely agrees with at all, and he cheers while marinating in his smugness.
Perhaps the best-known of the bastardized self-definition of Libertarian is Bill Maher. Maher is a Libertarian like David Ortiz is a world-class sprinter. But with a definition as firm as a bowl of Jell-O, there’s no one to say he isn’t.
In his largely ignored HBO show, Maher labels himself a Libertarian. On the Internet, a lazy, compliant media perpetuates that label, and soon it becomes accepted fact. In reality, Maher doesn’t have the first clue about the virtues of individual liberty, nor does he possess any love of a Libertarian philosophy beyond wanting to smoke weed and bang hookers.
But who’s saying he’s not a Libertarian? Who challenges his claim in any public and sustained way? No one.
So the progressive pap that slips past his bleached teeth and onto the Internet is associated with, and is becoming, Libertarian orthodoxy with a new generation of confused people.
Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform, famously tells the story of how Maher came to his Wednesday Meeting once and made his Libertarian claim, then proceeded to rant of how government needs to do this, that and the other thing. And they need to raise taxes to pay for it all. Grover, in a room of 150 people, ask Maher, “So you’re from the pro-high tax wing of the Libertarian movement?” Everyone in the room laughed hysterically, except Maher. He didn’t get it. At least it didn’t seem like he’d gotten it, but maybe he did. Maybe it was everyone else in the room who didn’t get it.
Thanks to Maher and his ilk, the term Libertarian does now come closer to what he thinks it is than it used to. If prominent Libertarians and Libertarian organizations continue to accept through silence this bastardization, it will continue to intensify. If they continue with their “my way or the highway” approach to electoral politics, their 100 percent-or-nothing purity tests, I’m not sure there will be anyone except them left to give a damn.
There’s a lesson in all this for the GOP establishment too. The disintegration of Libertarians is similar to what we’re seeing happen in the counterproductive battle between conservatives/Tea Party and the Republican establishment. If the GOP establishment can’t win with their candidate, they’d rather lose. It’s not cutting off your nose to spite your face; it’s more like cutting off your head to spite yourself.
The Virginia gubernatorial race wasn’t lost by Ken Cuccinelli. It was lost by the GOP establishment. The national party took their ball and went home early, leaving the Republican candidate astronomically outspent. Even with that disadvantage, he barely lost. Say what you will of Michael Steele’s tenure as GOP Chairman, at least he won. That’s more than can be said for the elections under Reince Priebus.
Much like Libertarians, the GOP establishment took their ball and went home in Virginia. How’d that work out for them? They “succeeded” – the guy they didn’t want to win didn’t win. But Terry McAuliffe, perhaps the sleaziest person in all of the Clinton universe, is now governor of Virginia. Pretty perverted way to make a point.
Dead Corpse, you are just that. You have reading comprehension problems caused by jumping to conclusions that I have not stated and do not endorse.
This concludes my attempt to discuss with you, since your rage is not yet dead.
It's an obvious fact, if you look around you since the personal freedom extremists have been in power.
I do not endorse any form of theocracy such as the ones in the Middle East, or the former Holy Roman Empire, where the leaders of a religion are also the deciding power of the government. Our late Constitution allows for the will of the people to govern. If most of the people happen to have beliefs that gay marriage, for instance, is wrong for their state, their will should be allowed to hold sway from the ballot box and through their representatives. Manifestly, the imperial judiciary has shown that it believes its mandate is to overturn the will of the people. I deplore that. But that is a long way from wishing for a theocracy.
There certainly is a lot of projection on this thread about what Libertarians fear.
Libertarianism in any of the ways I’ve seen it presented is a fantasy utopian cult. If it’s not statist and it doesn’t reckon with Natural Law, then what is its ultimate guiding principle?
Like I said, being concise is good. That is what your long winded paragraphs boiled down to. Nanny State, Socialism, and myopic stupidity.
If you don’t like it, learn something and change your philosophy...
Nothing I have written states or even implies that I favor using the coercive power of the state against smoking or drinking. As for moral certainty, if a person has lived into their seventh decade and does not have any measure of moral cerainty, that person has wasted their life, and I have tried not to waste mine. Rest assured that any moral certainty on my part has been subjected to rigorous rebellion and questioning before I came to any conclusions.
My personal views of morality have little to do, however, with whether citizens of the United States should elect a libertarian government. What I do support is government "of the people, by the people and for the people"; but this concept used to be taught in schools in a positive way, stressing personal responsibility for one's actions and towards one's fellow beings -- areas in which individuals in the past considered it noble to make some sacrifices of their personal desires for the greater good, especially the good of the most vulnerable, such as children. The "state" existed for the protection of its citizens, and as such was a necessary function; it was the federal government's only function other than interstate and international commerce.
Clearly, our entire system has been grossly distorted by communist influences in education and law. I fail to see how the imposition of an abstract freedom and isolationism such as that put forward by Ron Paul can protect citizens in today's world of very concrete challenges internationally and very great vulnerability due to dependence on mass systems of communication and data-gathering. The last thing I care about is whether people smoke or not.
As for the argument between Catholicism and Protestantism and its place in the run-up to the Nazi takeover, I'm not convinced by what you have written that that particular history has strong parallels to our own at this time.
So, if you believe in libertarianism, perhaps you will lay out for me a positive view of what it has to offer, with some indication how it can work in our present situation with our huge, dumbed-down, hypersexualized, entitled and ignorant sector of the population riddled with illegals, unionists and communists. I've yet to read one.
Not just wrong; Dead wrong.
There are no “guiding principles”. It’s about enforcement of govt defined values. The statist demands govt enforcement. This is not Liberty.
Morality is differentiated by liberalism and conservatism.
That said, there is certain validity in the charge that Libertarians are depraved idiots, but that’s not a comment on the libertarian that is in strong opposition to the police state and nanny govts we’re now suffering.
I took your affirmation that the “evil” against which government is to be a terror include such things as drinking and smoking. As you now state, there are things that are wrong, but don’t rise to the level of evil that the coercive power of the state need be employed against them. I hope I said that correctly. So, I think we agree in principle.
I don’t refer to such as alcohol and drug abuse as “victimless crimes.” I call them self-victim crimes. The punishment is built right in.
As for the other part of Romans 13, praise those who are good, a Christian government is not neutral on personal morality. It uses its coercive powers to suppress evil, and it uses its moral authority to exhort us to do good.
As for the good that comes from getting things at least halfway right in terms of freedom under the rule of law, I think the tremendous increase in our standard of living that we have enjoyed since the Founding speaks for itself. On the other hand, as we have turned away from our country’s legacy during the past decade or so, the fall in our standard of living is palpable.
With freedom and self-responsibility, there is a natural reward to working, saving, being honest and fair with others, and so forth; at least in the long run. So, goodness is reinforced. But, with an entitlement society, people become lazy, imprudent, and even anti-social. Being a tad older than I am, I’d bet you would agree with me that the culture of the country has been going down the toilet. However, your are right, that drawing a parallel to the Nazi experience would be a gross exaggeration. Democratic socialism has its faults, but is not comparable.
Thank you for your patience and fairness.
Yes, you have it completely. Looks like we do agree on much.
Thank you for your reasoned reply!
Enforcing your morality at the point of a government gun, decry self interest as “selfish”, and not understanding where such policies lead in a historical context?
I’d say I nailed it pretty good.
Depraved idiots don’t last long without the force of law to protect them from the repercussions of their actions.
A lot of folks overlook that part while denigrating a philosophy of individual freedom.
I took the time to respond to you with care, and you whine about it. This is a discussion forum, not Twitter.
Making it personal (against FR's stated policies) is not only a sign that a poster has nothing of substance to add to a discussion, but that he or she falls back on the liberal's favorite trick of ad hominem attacks when they are losing an argument.
Grown ups learn to defend their ideas with reason, facts and research instead of childish snarks.
>> Depraved idiots don’t last long without the force of law to protect them from the repercussions of their actions.
Exactly.
We have a Constitutionally restricted Republic. One of the Houses of our legislative Congress was to be Representative of the public’s collective will.
We don’t have that balance any more. Your “representative government” is just another way of saying “democracy”. Something we were never meant to be.
You took the time to post a multi-paragraph screed on why you thought codifying Leviticus into law was a splendid idea.
Reasoned discourse? You aren’t interested...
The undead rears its head again.
That must be an example of those “facts and reason” you were blathering about...
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