Libertarianism 101

I really had only a raw sense of my view of the Ron Paul vs. Some Libertarians (note: I am never referring to the LP, unless I write ‘LP’ or ‘Party’) over racists and other bigoted remarks in newsletters published under his name when I wrote this.

Karen De Coster does a far more thorough job of it, touches on other idiosyncrasies concerning the libertarian movement, and hashes out some good background. This is an interesting connection I’d never really thought about.

One thing rampant among libertarians is their lack of the ambition gene
outside of libertarianism and the web. So many of these people have no
real job, no career, and in fact, if they can’t align themselves with
some small-time, paid position at some libertarian outfit, they remain
unemployed. As such, they will do anything to not make enemies in the
movement, and in fact they must win friends in order to write columns
and hope for paid gigs. They are low-paid and no-paid libertarians.
Their perspective on the real world is warped because they sell their
principles for a paycheck or a job.

I’d always had a sense about that. I think it was Greg Swann who once characterized it to me as "the virtue of living in squalor." But I’d always wondered about how some of them finance their existence at all. Well, here’s maybe a clue:

The Kochtopus. That gigantic and powerful machine
that has funded much of the conservative and Beltway Libertarian apparatus. Just look who is number one on its list of organizations
funded.

I’m not really ashamed to admit that I once supported CATO, both in donations and attending luncheons they’d sponsor in San Francisco about once a quarter. I got to meet and hear P.J. O’Rourke at one of those and he’s among the more honest of the conservative-libertarian hybrid creature. Plus, they do some good work. But I was always irked that their approach is wholly and completely devoid of any moral foundation that I could see. Well, the sticky part of having a moral foundation is that those of us who do, invariably end up yelling at one another from time-to-time. Why? Well, because we can, but more importantly, none of it implies voting booths or goons with guns & jails to keep everyone’s thoughts in line. Practical, slide-rule efficiency "libertarian" politics al-la CATO and others implicitly summons the voters and goons. You have to be careful what you say. You might end up implying that one of your co "freedom champions" needs state reeducation, or worse. It’s all a matter of efficiency, you see.

Let’s continue, and this is the part that’s more directly related to my own post I linked, above.

The Kochtopus, and thus those tied to Cato, IHS, George Mason, etc.,
is made up of hired tongues who have to act within certain boundaries,
and those boundaries are a reflection of the state’s moral code: the
state makes the eradication of racism, homophobia, sexism,
anti-Israelism, and all other un-PC "isms" its top priority. The
cosmopolitan / Beltway / Centralizing / PC libertarians consistently promote
the state, and especially its moral codes. While Lew Rockwell is always
and everywhere anti-state, the focus of the anti-Rockwellians is not
the state and its effect on individual liberty, but promoting the
state’s thought control on racism, homophobia, gay marriage,
immigration, and all other pc topics. This has become the new
"libertarianism." Libertarians have become some sick and twisted
version of the Gestapo on thought control, motives, and guilt by
association.

Not one of these posts that I have seen, that brand Lew with all
these nasty tendencies, have produced a shred of evidence: a link, an
article, a byline, or otherwise. What it comes down to is this: Lew
doesn’t use his website to promote queer marriage, gay this and gay
that, Rosa Parks, MLK, or any other "hero" of the politically-correct,
libertarian Kochtopus. Instead, he promotes ideas which are against the
state and its collectivization of the individual.

So you guessed it – by not consistently promoting the
state-approved, pc agenda, one is therefore found guilty of all charges
by those who do promote The Agenda. If you don’t beat the drums for, say, gay marriage, that makes you a "homophobe." And on and on.

Why do so many people get so worked up about racism and other forms of bigotry and discrimination? Because, one way or another, they have some kind of win or lose stake in it; and that stake that promises a win, or forecasts a loss, is a consequence of the state, of public policy. So there’s a public fight at the voting booth, in the media, at the level of  general rhetoric and social discourse. Your words betray your thoughts, your thoughts your likely actions; so it is by your words that you signal to everyone else whether you need to be embraced as one who’ll help garner a win, or condemned as an adversary, a cost.

Remove the state, i.e., the organized coercion that sorts those who win from those who lose; those who pay from those who receive, and you get to yell at assholes all day long, be yelled at by others, and somewhere in that great disorganized mess, self-organize into freely chosen associations of people who mostly get along and value one another for largely who they are.

This is libertarianism.

And those on the attack seem to me to be more about singing in the choir for the beltway "libertarian" machine that is as reliant on the state as is the NAACP, NOW, ACLU, NAW, or any of the others. If they want to yell at Ron Paul because they think he is a racist, or too cozy with those who are, that’s fine. I’ve no quarrel with that and they’re welcome to make their case. Everyone is welcome to make their personal judgments accordingly.

But it isn’t about that.

Primarily, it’s about a potential president who promises to essentially remove a CATO and other’s raison d’être, though I’m sure they’d find something to do. There’ll have to be another school to "privatize" somewhere. But CATO and its ilk are rather like the NAACP, in that both rely on total state regulation of the private affairs of individuals. The principles are exactly the same. The NAACP requires, for its survival, that the state impose racism one way or the other (the other is called: affirmative action). That way, they can oppose the state, or support the state. Same with CATO. They fool libertarians when they "oppose the state," because they’re not, really, any more — not one bit more — than is the NAACP, which is to say: never on principle. Indeed; they need the state. They require the state; like a vampire needs fresh blood.

I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea. The point is that there’s a never-ending battle (which they all admit), and the reason it’s a never-ending battle is because the battle, by design, is over managing effects, not — and never — expunging the cause: which is the state itself.

And so, libertarians who fret about racism, bigotry, neo-confederacy, or whatever within the movement need to stop and think that if they’re fighting for a libertarian world, a real one, then it necessarily means putting up with the likes of racists, bigots, morons, idiots, small minds, neo-confederates, confederates, statists, commies, francophones, anglaphones, goths, and the whole bloody mess.

Consider this: in your anarchist life (that small part left that’s largely uninfluenced by state influence or control), how many of the above did you associate with, do business with, or cooperate with in one way or another today? Do you even know? Does it matter? Do you see?