Posted on 11/17/2002 5:08:05 PM PST by Commie Basher
WHY MICHAEL MEDVED NEEDS GLASSES
by L. Neil Smith
Exclusive to TLE Issue 199
Some years ago, I wrote a column that was an open letter to the just- diselected southern California congressman Robert K. "B-1 Bob" Dornan.
Dornan was bitterly complaining that he'd lost the election because there was a Libertarian Party candidate running against him, depriving him of votes -- in his peculiar view -- that were rightfully his. He pointed to other races that year where LP candidates had won more votes than the margin between the winning Democrat and the losing Republican, and chastised libertarians for failing to recognize and act for the "higher good" of helping Republicans defeat Democrats, as if libertarians were somehow the second-string team in the fight for freedom.
For some reason, Dornan never wrote back to me. I wanted to ask him why it was that he imagined libertarians -- many of whom had disgustedly departed Republican circles back in 1968, and others of whom had never been anything but libertarians -- should have any interest whatever in seeing any Republicans elected to any office, anywhere.
An election or two later, Michael Medved, neoconservative movie critic, syndicated radio host, and the most egregious dogwhistle this side of Cal Thomas began calling those who choose to live by the Zero Aggression Principle "Losertarians", whimpering, like Dornan before him, that individuals of that persuasion are essentially vandals who, without genuine reason or purpose, damage Republican electoral hopes by drawing off votes that would otherwise go to GOP candidates.
I trust by now that everyone knows what a dogwhistle is. I started to write an open letter to Medved, too, but selfishly allowed myself to get distracted by the frivolous desire to earn a living and feed my family.
We've heard it all before, anyway. I remember one election in which Patrick J. Buchanan, former Nixon speechwriter and mortal enemy of free trade, open immigration, and a woman's right to sovereignty over her own body, smugly advised libertarians to back his independent presidential campaign because it was "the only train in the station headed in their direction". Clearly Buchanan failed to understand what direction libertarians are actually headed in, but that's all right. Buchanan's presidential hopes (if not his aspirations) are gone with the wind. The Libertarian Party is still here, however battered and bowed.
This year, Medved's at it again, reportedly calling libertarian electoral efforts "masturbatory". Mind you, I haven't heard him say it myself. I used to keep four or five radios running all over the house, every weekday, so I could hear three or four conservative talk shows in a row (none of them Medved's), as my morning took me from room to room. I haven't listened to them since September 11, 2001, when they switched from talking about individual liberty (they were always good at _talking_ about individual liberty) and resistance to socialism, to spewing propaganda in support of the Bush Administration's naked fascism.
Blubberers like Medved and Dornan, however -- and their general ilk -- need to get something straight, for once and all: throughout its long, dismal history, the Republican Party has, time after time, promised to support individual liberty, and promptly betrayed it. There wouldn't _be_ a Libertarian Party if that wasn't true. On that account, if no other, we're not buddies, friends, allies, or fellow travelers. We're enemies, as surely as we're enemies to Democrats. We've always been enemies, but it was on an almost friendly basis until ...
Until when, exactly?
For me, it may have been until then-Senator Robert Dole, with no discernible motivation except his longstanding and utterly Nixonian loathing of freedom, helped the Clinton Administration ram the Brady Bill through, and with it (just as it was becoming clear that armed individuals were reducing crime by double digits) an unconstitutional prohibition on efficient personal weaponry and magazines of adequate capacity.
Or it might have been until "revolutionary" Republicans tucked their tails between their legs and slunk away, instead of seeking truth and justice in the matters of Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Oklahoma City.
Or it may have been until the same "revolutionaries" failed, like the Eisenhower and Reagan Administrations before them, to stamp out every remnant of the New Deal and run government on a constitutional basis.
Or it might have been ... to hell with that. The Republican Party was born for no other purpose than to oppress Americans. It has done nothing but that since the War between the States. The GOP is the party of conscription, the income tax, the loyalty oath, fiat money inflation, political censorship, and the midnight knock on the door. The only reason they got away with it is that Democrats were so much worse.
That's all over now. Doing exactly _opposite_ of what's really needed to ensure "homeland security", Republicans have turned this country's airports into rape zones where, if you protest at what they do to you, you're guaranteed a thorough anal probing as punishment for exercising your First Amendment rights. In the past year, Republicans have trampled the Bill of Rights at home until it's unrecognizable, while bombing, shooting, and otherwise terrorizing helpless peasants all over the planet in a bald attempt to corner the world supply of petroleum.
As hard as it may once have been to conceive, from the standpoint of individual liberty, Republicans are vastly worse than Democrats. George Junior has managed to make Bill Clinton look like a statesman. The only strategy libertarians ought to follow -- the only one that works for us, apparently -- is to prevent the election of as many of these goose-stepping imbeciles as possible. If it were up to me, I'd dedicate all of the Libertarian Party's resources to that and nothing else.
The truly silly thing is that all the Republicans have to do to eliminate the terrible threat that we libertarians represent is to be better than we are on the issues that count. Put a stop to the current War on Everything. Call the troops home for good. End the evil War on Drugs. Outlaw "civil forfeiture". Repeal 25,000 gun laws. Seriously reconsider taxation -- extortion and theft -- as a means of funding government.
The ball is in their court and always has been.
Why should anyone vote for candidates from a political party that not only failed to protect this nation from the attack on the World Trade Center (whose foreign policy, along with that of the Democrats, made the attack inevitable, and whose domestic policies made it easy) but cynically use it as an excuse to obliterate every remaining trace of the Founding Fathers' America? Something that we all need to get straight is that it doesn't advance the cause of liberty to elect Republicans, it hasn't for a long time, and it probably never really did.
So I would ask Medved and his fellow freedom frauds, given the choice between those who stand up publicly for what's right by voting libertarian -- in a venue where, in terms of swaying the public, one vote for a third party candidate is easily worth 100 votes for anybody -- and those who vote for Republicans in the demonstrably false hope of achieving freedom in our lifetimes, who's really masturbating, here?
And have you stopped shaving your palms?
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Three-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith is the author of 23 books, including _The American Zone_, _Forge of the Elders_, _Pallas_, _The Probability Broach_, _Hope_ (with Aaron Zelman), and his collection of articles and speeches, _Lever Action_, all of which may be purchased through his website "The Webley Page" at . Autographed copies may be had from the author at .
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L. Neil Smith writes regular columns for _The Libertarian Enterprise_ , _Sierra Times_ RoadHouse , and for _Rational Review_ .
Since when is a growing baby part of a woman's "body"? If it is then why not allow her to murder the child after it is born? Extend the logic and I should have the right to kill anyone as long as they are inside my home...based on my "sovreignty over my own property".
I used to have some respect for Libertarians, but no longer. They are revoltingly misguided and selfish.
This is one of the ten most stupid things I have ever read. Libertarians must be stopped. So funds should be spared to destroy their insane crusade.
The GOP has only itself to blame, bullsh*ting to everyone how conservative they are and voting like democrats or caving in to them.
Non-aggression isn't pacifism. The libertarians I know are far and away the most enthusiastic gun owners of any political affiliation. They buy'em, use'em, and then buy more. Their general principle is that they don't start the fight, but they sure as hell are going to finish it.
I know a lot of anti-gun republicans, or at least republicans who aren't particularly enthusiastic about people with weapons. Libertarians, for all their faults, are the quintessential weapon nuts. It is part of their ideology.
The only similarity is that both believe we shouldn't have been in the Near East in the first place, a position the Founding Fathers were in total agreement with (read Washington's farewell address, and his advice about staying out of foreign wars).
So ... electing Democrats makes you an enemy of AMERICA? So then, those tens of millions of Americans who vote Democrat are enemies of AMERICA? A TRUE AMERICAN votes Republican?
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Wanna allow smoking in your private bar? Sell guns in your store? Require a dress code for employees, even skirts for women? Only want to rent to people who live by your moral code? All permited -- for you and for those you disagree with.
Seems you're yet another Republican smoking reefers. War on Islam? Even Bush Jr. says we're not at war with Islam. Or are you accusing Bush of lying?
It's not -- and doesn't have to be. The fetus is in her sovereign body. And she's expelling it.
Well, I know quite a few sci-fi folk, professionals and fans, and as best I can tell, the vast majority have no problem with the term sci-fi, Harlan Ellison notwithstanding.
Our foreign policy has been insane for decades. It was only a matter of time until Americans would have to suffer personally for it. It is a terrible tragedy of life that the innocent so often have to suffer for the sins of the guilty.
When will we learn that we can't allow our politicians to bully the world without someone bullying back eventually?
And it would be very very easy to supply a large number of such quotes.
Now I grant you that, although the majority of libertarians are opposed to the War on Terror & War on Islam, That a smaller faction of libertarians is in fact supporting our government. One is now on the city council I think of Leadville, CO but I can't recall his name.
To CommieBasher-"Republican smoking reefers"?? Please, that exposes your absurdity. As to the War on Islam - true Bush does not call it that - and in fact defends Islam the religion. But consider: "War on Terror" does not compute. Terror is a tactic, not a person or group. You might say instead that we war on Islamic terrorists. But check out the polls on Mideast Arabs. The majority hate America, either think that 9/11 was a Mossad action or if UBL did it then he is a hero. No, I think this is Crusades II, except that Chistendom is gone and now it is just Western Civ.
Our foreign policy has been insane for decades. It was only a matter of time until Americans would have to suffer personally for it. It is a terrible tragedy of life that the innocent so often have to suffer for the sins of the guilty.
When will we learn that we can't allow our politicians to bully the world without someone bullying back eventually?"
And exactly how are these comments untrue?? And, of course, have nothing whatsoever with supporting the "War against Jihadism". They apply DIRECTLY to my (and Harry Brown's) point, that if we had stayed out of foreign wars in the first place, 9/11 would probably never have happened. Now that it HAS happened, however, it is up to us to finish it.
My take on this is that the critical juncture for staying out of foreign wars happened with World War I. If we had simply stayed out of THAT one, the probability is that Communism in the Soviet Union would never have happened, nor would Nazism in Germany, nor would jihadism in the Middle East, nor would 9/11. Simply put, we got suckered by the British into getting in to that one on their side--we really had no stake in WWI.
That said, the genie is out of the bottle, and we have no choice but to try to put it back in.
It seems transparent to me that these quotes have everything to do with the "war against Jihadism." You also blame America for 9/11. So is Chomsky your hero? This is exactly why I ditched the libertarians.
I don't know what to say about your comments that the road to hell started with WWI. I'd agree that the US would have been better off to have stayed out of it. But how would that mean that Communism and/or 9/11 would not have happened?
BTW I want to stay out of "foreign entanglements" also. It is just a matter of where to draw the line. I opposed the first Gulf War. It was not incumbent on us to save Kuwait. And even if Iraq had prevailed they still would want to sell their oil.
The current conflict however is very very different. We are in WWIV whether we like it or not. We were attacked and will continue to be attacked. To suppose that, if we just become less aggressive that the Muslims will love us is a delusion. Dude, they want to conquer the world and convert it to Islam.
Small-"l" libertarians hold certain priniciples and generally vote republican.
Libertarian candidates (the Libertarian Party) tend to be pro-drug, pro-porn nutcases whose idea of freedom is getting high and laid.
But there is a spectrum with druggie anarchists at one end and social/economic conservatives at the other end. The Libertarian Party hierarchy tends to favor the former.
Would we notice the difference in those areas. The murder of babies is legal now, even while being born - one of the things on which I strongly disagree with the LP.
Now do you really think legalizing drugs, porn and prostitution would make it any more rampant. I don't see how.
Not supporting the LP, but just asking how you think their stand on these issues would make a lot of difference.
If you you really think our government is really, really trying to do something about these evils, then you have to admit they are totally loosing the war. Personaly, I don't think they are trying
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