- Joined
- Jun 21, 2012
- Messages
- 2,655
- Reaction score
- 942
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Libertarian - Left
I mean more than simply politically - though the Republican Party is assuredly bankrupt as anything approaching a vehicle for our ideals, and the Ron Paul wing of the Party is woefully inadequate to do so.
I mean rhetorically: the conservative wants to conserve a past that was not even close to being libertarian (the Constitution itself was the product of a betrayal of the American Revolution by the Federalists in the service of the eastern protoindustrial aristocracy). I mean historically: the Republican-dominated 1920s were most emphatically not remotely libertarian; H.L. Mencken, who was, had this to say about the GOP of his era:
We must not be content to once again play the lackey to a conservative Establishment, no matter whether that Establishment be 'neo' or 'paleo' in its leanings. We must repudiate the neoconfederates; it was the Confederacy that began the long American tradition of race-based Statist legislation with the Fugitive Slave Acts, compelling individuals to return into bondage escaped slaves who fell under their take. We must categorically reject Christian collectivism, that socialism-of-the-spirit that seeks to compel herd conformity to some imagined social standard.
We must likewise refuse the temptations of Randianism. During the height of the Vietnam War - a war as profoundly damaging to liberty as has ever been waged by Americans - she had this to say about the political choice of 1972:
That she then went on to suggest that a vote against Richard Nixon was "immoral", given "the circumstances", suggests a sort of Orwellian doublespeak: for Nixon was far more purely Statist than his opponent, the New Left-leaning George McGovern.
Digression aside, we must re-embrace a few former libertarian fundamentals that have been forgotten because of our alliance with the Right:
1. Unions, when had under the auspices of the private sector economy, are not Evil Incarnate. Quite the opposite: whilst the AFL-CIO is useless and corrupted, organizations like the IWW - "The Wobblies" - ought to have always had our fullest support.
2. Freedom, not capitalism, is the highest virtue, and the two are not synonymous. A syndicated industry, voluntarily owned by a worker's collective, can be much freer than a hierarchically-organized capitalist industry, depending upon the specifics of the business in question.
3. State and local governments can be every bit as tyrannical as the Federal government, and the tyranny of one is in no wise preferable to the other. Our end and aim is to free men, not to promote one form of subservience over another.
I mean rhetorically: the conservative wants to conserve a past that was not even close to being libertarian (the Constitution itself was the product of a betrayal of the American Revolution by the Federalists in the service of the eastern protoindustrial aristocracy). I mean historically: the Republican-dominated 1920s were most emphatically not remotely libertarian; H.L. Mencken, who was, had this to say about the GOP of his era:
We must not be content to once again play the lackey to a conservative Establishment, no matter whether that Establishment be 'neo' or 'paleo' in its leanings. We must repudiate the neoconfederates; it was the Confederacy that began the long American tradition of race-based Statist legislation with the Fugitive Slave Acts, compelling individuals to return into bondage escaped slaves who fell under their take. We must categorically reject Christian collectivism, that socialism-of-the-spirit that seeks to compel herd conformity to some imagined social standard.
We must likewise refuse the temptations of Randianism. During the height of the Vietnam War - a war as profoundly damaging to liberty as has ever been waged by Americans - she had this to say about the political choice of 1972:
That she then went on to suggest that a vote against Richard Nixon was "immoral", given "the circumstances", suggests a sort of Orwellian doublespeak: for Nixon was far more purely Statist than his opponent, the New Left-leaning George McGovern.
Digression aside, we must re-embrace a few former libertarian fundamentals that have been forgotten because of our alliance with the Right:
1. Unions, when had under the auspices of the private sector economy, are not Evil Incarnate. Quite the opposite: whilst the AFL-CIO is useless and corrupted, organizations like the IWW - "The Wobblies" - ought to have always had our fullest support.
2. Freedom, not capitalism, is the highest virtue, and the two are not synonymous. A syndicated industry, voluntarily owned by a worker's collective, can be much freer than a hierarchically-organized capitalist industry, depending upon the specifics of the business in question.
3. State and local governments can be every bit as tyrannical as the Federal government, and the tyranny of one is in no wise preferable to the other. Our end and aim is to free men, not to promote one form of subservience over another.
