Libertarian My Ass: By Any Other Name It Is Called Hypocrisy

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/7381

Libertarian My Ass: By Any Other Name It Is Called Hypocrisy
by Alan Bisbort | May 10 2007

Lately, I've heard more people (men, mostly) proclaim themselves "libertarian." My gut feeling tells me that most of these new "converts" aren't really libertarian, or that they don't understand what libertarianism is and that they are really just angry at how far off the rails the Republican Party -- their natural habitat -- has drifted under the Moron in Chief. They are doing this to psychologically remove themselves from the mess they created by voting for Bush and for, until a year or so ago, blindly voting a straight GOP Party ticket for as far back as they can remember. These "libertarians" are Republicans without the guilt by association or, rather, without the remorse.

By comparison to the utter ineptitude and willful stupidity of the Bush Regime, "libertarianism" sounds smart and sexy, ruggedly individualistic and hardboiled. Famous libertarians include such hardboiled legumes as Ayn Rand, Grover Norquist and Pat Buchanan. "Famous" and "libertarian" don't live in the same sentence for good reasons. It is a philosophy meant for a fantasy world, a world with, say, 300,000 people in it, tops. At the moment, the U.S. is home to 300 million people, and the planet is teetering under the weight and environmental demands of 7 billion people and both totals are rising daily as the ice caps melt away available land. Libertarianism is an intellectual luxury that a lot of angry Republicans are affording themselves.

What exactly is it about libertarianism that lapsed Republicans find so appealing? After all, libertarianism at its purest is a fairly radical philosophy. Among the beliefs, straight from their official documents: "People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others." "Repeal all laws that presume government knows better than the individual how to run that person's life." "Encourage private sector dissemination of information to help consumers make informed decisions on products and services." "We oppose all taxation." "An armed citizenry is essential to a free society." And so on.

I'm always being told that libertarians have a lot of "common ground" with "liberals." And this may be true, on paper. They are against coerced military service, government spying on citizens, discrimination against gays, and they are for reproductive rights, the inviolable right to free speech and dissent, strict separation of church and state. These are good things, to be sure.

And yet, to libertarians "common ground" is a foreign concept. They don't think any thing should be "commonly" owned, the "common good" is not worth preserving. To libertarians, government is evil. It should not regulate anything: drugs, food, pollution, guns, drugs. Conversely, everything should be privatized and deregulated. And, while few libertarian candidates are ever elected to office, their ideas have infiltrated government policy, during the Reagan years, which turned out disastrously.

To a libertarian, a person is his own free agent. If they were allowed to live by their credo they would have to agree that any person, including their neighbor, can have as many guns and weapons systems as they want and they can shoot them off when they like, as long as they don't kill your pet dog or children. Libertarians are opposed to all zoning laws. A libertarian believes that if he bought the lot next to your house, he could erect a convenience store, skyscraper, munitions plant or gas station there.

One thing I've noticed about these faux libertarians: I've yet to meet one who'd turn down an unemployment check or a Social Security payment. I've yet to see a libertarian pick up his own trash, repave the potholes on his street, reject FEMA funds when his beach home is washed out to sea, etc. It's amazing how quickly the libertarian strain disappears when those professing it lose their jobs or get sick without insurance.

[Redneck Socialist]

1. A Libertarian is a Republican who likes to smoke pot.

That old saw is largely true in my experience.

[Joe Bacon]

20. Libertarians live in their own little LASSEIZ FAIRYLAND

They live in their own little walled off Galt's Gulch, ignorant of the pain they cause to others.

[bigbluetoad]

2. The Majority of Libertarians are frauds

These are people who are ashamed of Bush and their voting
record.  American blood is on their hands.

[zanne]

3. Democrats against Social Security and Medicaid. nt

[mrreowwr_kittty]

4. I've met more than one libertarian male who was against abortion

They wouldn't necessarily extend the same personal freedom to women that they insist on for themselves. Most of the libertarians I've met have been white males who honestly believe that in a true meritocracy, they would rise to the top with ease due to their innate superiority to all other groups of people. I've rarely run across a libertarian who came from less than an upper middle class socio-economic strata. Their much vaunted bootstraps are really just unrealized privilege.

[xchrom]

7. kinda like re-incarnation -- nobody was a serial murderer

or a shit shoveler in a past life.

i'm teasing a wee bit -- i actually kinda believe in re-incarnation.

[Prophet 451]

12. Actually, there's lots of them

They just don't make for good copy in magazines. "I was Cleopatra's high priest" always scores more readers than "I was a bartender".

[xchrom]

5. yeah -- not into libertarianism at all.

[bunkerbuster1]

6. a philosophy meant for a fantasy world

Yep, where that thar "invisible hand" of the marketplace is always beneficial the the greatest number of citizens.

I piss on Libertarianism. Frequently.

[bigbluetoad]

8. Make no mistake about it -- libertarians are Republicans...

....but too cowardly to admit it in this political climate.

[Prophet 451]

13. Hardly unique in that

One could make the same comment about Marxism: Great idea but never works in practice.

[bunkerbuster1]

17. Difference is, most sane Americans will grant that Marxism doesn't work

But the Libber fantasy, for some reason, continues to be worshipped.

Probably because it's never really been attempted, because no such thing as a "free market" exists or has ever existed.

[Prophet 451]

19. Yeah, I think that's it

Notice that the "free market uber alles" stuff only started becoming fashionable again when everyone who remembered the crash of '29 was either dead or ga-ga.

[Don Davis]

9. LIBERTARIAN EQUALS FAULTY LOGIC

The essential premise of libertarians is that government should only exist where it is absolutely necessary and where people couldn't otherwise protect themselves -- so that a police force, for example, would be one case of a justifiable governemental function.

However, the reality of the modern world is that people face more danger from defective products, "polluted" food, water, drugs, etc., and other "corporate" action, than they do from a literal physical assault.

Indeed, there arguably would be less chaos amd mayhem from abolishig local police forces than from elimination of federal regulatory authorities.

And do the libertarians even think capitalism could survive without a Securites & Exchange Commission?

Perhaps an argument for libertarianism could be made in a by-gone era where the only way someone could hurt you is to attack you in your home; but any justification of this philosophy today is sheer madness.

[Demeter]

11. Hence the Attraction to Former GOPs

Sheer madness, denial, inability to handle reality, and unwillingness to abide by limits on personal prerogative: all the psychological hallmarks of modern GOP and Libertarians.

[MrPrax]

10. The Hippies are Back!

Remember the Hippies -- when everyone else was talking about qualitative change, they were 'living their own rules, re-claiming the land, getting the government's war machine off their backs' Same rap as the libertarians -- they hate government as well and don't want society to tell them what to do.

Instead of positive input into how government/democracy/economy can work together in a benign (dare I say, transparent role), you'll always have a 'little' movement coming out of nowhere repacking 'classical liberalism's ethical' claims. The media then uses this 'fake' to smear the larger political movements while reinforcing the historically inaccurate role of the private sector in the creation of political rights.

History has proven that classical liberalism doesn't work and inventing 'new' words simply because right wing Americans hate using the term 'liberal' and don't want to confront their prejudices and deficiencies inherent in a corporate oligarchy, doesn't help. Simply declaring yourself a 'free man' doesn't excuse legitimate questions of HOW the private sector controls and dictates to government, by simply ignoring government as collective expression that is MORE legitimate than the grab bag of private deals that are far more coercive to 'individual rights' than anything government might do.

These are ideas that appeal to young people mostly...like Hippy talk and logic puzzles.

You get to defend the oligarchy, while appearing to be a rebel.

[Forrest Greene]

14. "A Libertarian Is An Anarchist..."

"...who wants a strong police force available to protect him from his slaves."

— Kim Stanley Robinson

[leftwing9]

15. This reminds me of something Chomsky talked about

In the book Understanding Power, Chomsky was asked about libertarianism and what it meant to him.

His answer? In Europe, the word "libertarian" has a very different meaning than in the United States. In Europe, every libertarian is/was also a socialist, because he or she recognized that private capital constituted just as menacing an authority as the government. If one truly opposed all forms of authority and compulsion, one must be a socialist.

American libertarians, for some reason, are never socialists. (Actually, in my experience, it's because libertarians want to use their technical degree to earn a six-figure salary while feeling more enlightened than a cookie-cutter conservative.) In truth, American libertarians are much more wedded to existing power than most.

[Odin2005]

16. Right-Libertarianism is self-refuting nonsense.

The policies Libertarians support in the name of liberty lead to corporatist rule and thus the loss of the liberty. This self-refutation is the result of Libertarians having a profound misunderstanding of nature of individuals and thier relation to society.

[BridgeTheGap]

18. The only legitimate question is "what do we want OUR

government to do and how much power is necessary to get the job done?"

Government should not have absolute power - individual rights, as spelled out in the Constitution's "Bill of Rights" - should be protected by that power and not encroached upon by it.

Clearly, people's wants and desires are often in conflict. In a democracy, the majority gets to decide, if they choose to participate. However, the Constitution spells out the procedure for amending it and that requires more than a majority.

Clearly, the oligarchy in our country has worked since day one to un-do the revolution and gain power back for themselves. They have packed courts, up to the supreme court and passed down decisions that made corporations citizens and turned money into free speech.

It's time for "we, the people" to assert our rights as guarunteed in the Constitution. Otherwise, we will find ourselves living under fascism, if we're aren't already!

[derby378]

21. This article expressed sentiments similar to my own take

I'm convinced that real Libertarianism is only sustainable if everyone who participates has a minimum IQ of 130. And even then you're gonna have problems.