Give Up Blog

Monday, October 09, 2006

Libertarians suck

I've been having fun over at Coturnix's blog mocking Libertarians. Let me make clear, I'm talking big-L Libertarians, not those poor deluded suckers like Kos who buy into their fuzzy ideological position and lend legitimacy to the crackpots by saying they have "libertarian" ideas. It is for this reason I really liked these two links he provided. First, libertarianism makes you stupid and second a non-libertarian faq.

In particular I like the point that the first site makes about the libertarian position statement, that is so vague that it is meaningless. And sure enough, in our discussion on Coturnix's blog, they end up bringing it out, as if anyone could disagree with something so banal. Here's what libertarianism makes you stupid has to say on this topic.

Libertarian proselytizers will preach some warm-and-fuzzy story such as

"We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized."

Now, how many ideologies have you ever heard state anything like

"We believe that disrespect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud are good things in human relationships, and that only through slavery can peace and prosperity be realized."

Libertarians are for "individual rights", and against "force" and "fraud" - just as THEY define it. Their use of these words, however, when examined in detail, is not likely to accord with the common meanings of these terms. What person would proclaim themselves in favor of "force and fraud"? One of the little tricks Libertarians use in debate is to confuse the ordinary sense of these words with the meaning as "terms of art" in Libertarian axioms. They try to set up a situation where if you say you're against "force and fraud", then obviously you must agree with Libertarian ideology, since those are the definitions. If you are in favor of "force and fraud", well, isn't that highly immoral? So you're either one of them, or some sort of degenerate (note the cultish aspect again), one who doesn't think "force and fraud must be banished from human relationships".

I think we should adopt a statement of ideology or platform that is similar. It will be as follows:

Here at GiveUpBlog we believe in the cuteness of puppies and the meanness of nasty fascists like Hitler and Mussolini. If you are against GiveUpBlog, you are for Hitler and puppy torture.

The second thing I enjoy mocking about libertarians is this pre-9/11 press release of five things to do to prevent the next Tim McVeigh. The long and short of it? Conceed to all of McVeigh's ideology short of the racism. I particularly like this line:

"No, we're not saying that the growing power of the federal government justifies what Timothy McVeigh did,"said Dasbach. "But the fact is, millions of Americans view their own government with suspicion and distrust."

I love that statement, "we don't agree with time McVeigh, except that we do." And that suspicion and distrust, maybe, just maybe, comes from the constant harping and hate that comes from libertarian think tanks and groups that basically impugn all the hard-working people in government as stupid and incompetent. Now, this administration seems to confirm this view, but the previous one didn't, and we shouldn't be surprised that when you elect people that mistrust and hate government that the inevitable result would be crappy government that we mistrust and hate. They don't think government can do any good, and clearly they're not motivated to make it work effectively. Katrina under Mike Brown wasn't a fluke, these people literally do not believe government can do anything and isn't worth taking seriously, hence putting cronies in charge of everything. Second, virtually every libertarian think-tank is behind the GWOT these days, so all that peace talk is total BS.

I'm surprised actually that McVeigh hasn't gone down in history as our first libertarian terrorist. If you look at what he was saying to reporters like Gore Vidal, or in the book American Terrorist you see that he was really just a very serious libertarian who thought the federal government had become to powerful and had to be stopped, even by violent means. I also believe that his kind of hatred for government is fed and instilled in this country by groups like AEI, Manhattan, Cato etc., that are just hateful towards our civil servants who work in government (I have heard libertarians, and prominent ones, say things like "the FDA has killed more people than Hitler") and who, for the most part, are conscientious people trying to do good, and succeeding when they aren't being undermined by anti-government r-tards elected by people who simply don't think hard enough about how much government does good for them in their daily lives. I am particularly stunned when I hear scientists describe themselves as Libertarian or Republican, after all, where do they think 95% of the funds for science come from? And really, who in their right mind is against the FTC? Or FDA? For people who are against "fraud" they seem to have a dim view of any government agency designed to make fraud difficult (the original purpose of many of these agencies is essentially consumer protection).

Ultimately what you end up with from fuzzy ideological statements and self-righteous blather about freedom is a party based on unenlightened self-interest, unrealistic views of regulation, on hatred of government and the people who work in it and ultimately a destructive pro-business laissez-faire worldview that would return us to a previous century in terms of consumer protection, workforce rights, regressive taxation, and dysfunctional national infrastructure. Screw these people, and all you little-l libertarians should stop giving them credibility by associating the name of their party with anything legitimate or sensible. Don't buy into their bullshit platform, it's just a ploy.

6 Comments:

bob koepp said...

Have you ever come across _any_ position statement, whether conservative, liberal, libertarian, progessive, reactionary, etc, etc, that wasn't nearly vacuuous? Just wondering.

11:45 AM, October 09, 2006

Rev. Dr. said...

They tend to be vague, but if you look at Republican and Democrat platforms over the last few elections they usually start with a couple platitudes then say we believe in increasing mininum wages or in "protecting marriage". Words that encode specific policy details.

Then if you look at the discussion over at Coturnix's blog, you see the libertarian apologists literally say, "look at our mission statement, how can you disagree with this?"

It's hysterical, yes they tend to be vague, but the libertarians actually believe in their vague mission statement, because it disguises their anti-tax, pro-business, anti-consumer protection idiocy.

12:52 PM, October 09, 2006

Ted said...

You know, I think that libertarians in general are out there (as you pointed out on coturnix), but for my money, McVeigh took his execution pretty well.

I was following the execution on the tube as it went down, and he seemed pretty serious and solemn about the whole thing. I don't think he expressed any regrets to the disappointment of talking heads.

I just reviewed the Wikipedia entry for McVeigh and saw this line:

In interviews following the Oklahoma City bombing, McVeigh said he began harboring anti-government feelings during the Gulf War. Some question the veracity of this claim in light of McVeigh's attempts to become a Green Beret after returning from Iraq.

I don't question the veracity of this at all. SF people commonly believe to be above the common law that guides the military and have been a hotbed of racism and white-supremacists; they don't necessarily flame racist, but it's very implicit in many conversations and actions.

In 2002, Coulter said, "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."

Since I'd never read the trash that woman(?) writes, I wonder if it has the lasting power of the Turner Diaries.

2:06 PM, October 09, 2006

Rev. Dr. said...

I don't know that I'd call Coulter a libertarian exactly. She's much more of a fascist, although she'd probably call herself a libertarian.

You should take the Hitler or Coulter quiz Ted.

It's tough nailing down exactly what libertarianism is, and it's interesting that on Coturnix's blog, one of the defenders MattXIV (who I usually am aligned with over on scienceblogs) acknowledged that the party had been taken over by radicals and was justifiably marginalized.

So, I think even he is a little "l" libertarian, but he was really taking my attacks on big "L" Libertarianism personally. Kind of odd.

The other thing to remember is that all ideologies, given enough adherents usually generate some kind of violent radicalism. The left has ALF/ELF and groups like the Weatherman (in other countries many other violent leftist groups exist), the right has operation rescue and terrorists like Eric Rudolph. I'm not saying that McVeigh is representative of Libertarianism, but he is a product of it. Just like anti-abortion terrorists are products of rhetoric that compare abortion doctors to Hitler and murderers, McVeigh is a creation of a zealous hatred of government.

Not a big deal, they shouldn't take it personally, but it is a sign one should tone down the rhetoric. Good luck making Coulter do that though. Sheesh. And when she apologized do you know what she said? It was, "I should have said after everybody but the writers and editors left."

2:17 PM, October 09, 2006

Ted said...

Hey, thanks for responding.

I didn't mean that Coulter was a libertarian, only that she was advocating blowing up NYT back in 2002. My point is that she/he doesn't have the staying power of real radical press like The Turner Diaries. Coulter wouldn't be shit without the marketing engine and TV face time, but the Turner Diaries is the disfunctional gift that keep on giving despite no airtime.

I did take your Hitler/Coulter quiz a while back and scored quite highly, but I found your test disingenuous because you altered the text to make it fit. I get your point, but the text was altered so Hitler didn't say those words either. :-)

I generally agree with you on 95% of your good long rant on coturnix. The problem is it's hard to find a party that you can align with and not be in the party of radicals and loons. I typically get in arguments over on Dispatches because I don't follow their rules on what a libertarian should behave like and I get about 100 people telling me that I'm unamerican, stupid, illogical, inconsistent/hypocritical and cowardly.

As if I care. Why? Because I believe in RAW philosophy that states 1) that maybe logic is valid and 2) that the only way you can talk to people is as communication between equals without preconceived elitism, and 3) without dogmatic devotion to logic because pattern recognition is important too.

In my limited opinion, I think this is one of the main reasons for radicalization within any party -- this refusal to communicate as equals and a dogmatic approach to logic without recourse to pattern recognition.

I just wanted to say that I enjoyed your rant although some of the negatives that you lay at the feet of libertarians can certainly apply to democrats and other free-range liberals as well.

6:05 PM, October 09, 2006

Rev. Dr. said...

A few things for Ted.

One, he/she in reference to Anne Coulter.

Ha!

I love it.

Two, in terms of radicalism in one's party, part of the point I was trying to make with MattXIV is that you have to own your radicals.

Every philosophy is going to end up with extremists. It's the job of people who really believe in the ideology to call it out, denounce it, make it untenable, etc., in order to prevent it form taking over your platform.

This is part of the problem with Coulter, people aligned with her respond to her with a wink and a nod, when she is actually highly destructive to conservatism.

By the way, the quiz is meant to be modified, the point being made isn't that Coulter is being a Nazi, it's that she's dehumanizing her opponents in a manner that is similar. The quiz, in the intro, specifically says that I've modified the Hitler quotes to talk about the same people as Coulter. The point is she is using similar rhetoric. Both here and at Coturnix's blog that was the point I was trying to make. It's not the ideology, but rather the way one deals with one's opponents that breeds extremism and violence. When one dehumanizes one's opponents, refers to them as subhuman or as murderers etc., that's what breeds political violence.

The problem is, when people behave that way, it's difficult to denounce them without similarly dehumanizing them. That is why I must emphasize, we are not calling Coulter a Nazi, she just sounds like one. She uses similar rhetoric to attack her opponents to demonize them. Pointing out the tactic is in itself, almost dehumanizing, because really, only shitty people argue this way.

That's what we're trying to say.

12:22 AM, October 10, 2006