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Aging Hippie Dispatch

Libertarian – 2012 Version

by on Apr. 27, 2012, under Arizona, Atheism, big government, Bigotry, Blogging, Libertarianism, Ron Paul

 

Well I see that blogger Don Lacey has discovered that writing critically of Ron Paul in Arizona is akin to writing critically of Muhammed in Afghanistan :)

So it looks as if it’s time for me to mention how we arrived at this point in history – which in this case is the story of two melding ideologies.
Ideology 1 – Libertarianism – begun by Ayn Rand with her popular novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and her collection of essays (with her boy toy Nathaniel Branden) The Virtue of Selfishness.

As has been famously noted:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. – John Rogers

Rand was a refugee from Communism and her ideology was basically a celebration of free market individualism and a hatred of socialism.

She also was a dedicated atheist who hated religion, supported abortion rights and what she saw as human rights being oppressed by government.

ANY government.

She was not a “patriot”, did not justify her ideology with rigamarole from the US Constitution or founding fathers and was a believer in individual rights – not “State’s rights”.

Ideology #2 – the Confederates. Even after losing the Civil War the South Shall Always Rise Again in the hearts of the Confederates. These southern gentlemen remain commited to maintaining the privileged place of the white christian male and are fiercely dedicated to the Constitution – or at least those antebellum parts of it that extol “States Rights” – and hate the Federal government ( previously known as the “damn yankees”).

They will extol the virtues of “State’s rights” at every opportunity, human rights not so much, and they love Jesus.

Now it would seem that these ideologies have little in common, which is true, but they have just enough in common – at least in rhetoric – to have become the jumble that Jim sees in his comments thread.

They share a paranoid fear of the “federal government” and they both fetishize firearms.

So when a Confederate like Ron Paul attacks the “Federal” government, they hear it as an attack on “government” – and they are willing to let that little “State’s rights” plug he always inserts slip past. And soon they believe it themselves.

That is why, in 2012, “Libertarianism” looks suspiciously like those idiots arguing with Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind:

You simply do not understand the Libertarian philosophy that is embedded in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution (as per Thomas Jefferson).

The point of this bill was to return more rights to the states

You mean the constitution would have to be obeyed under this act. As it stands, the state governments are forced to bow before the “anti-religion” religion you are a devoted follower of.
The idea of promoting States rights is because you can represent the values of your constituents better that way,
That’s why we believe in state’s rights and limited government,

The federal government shouldn’t have anything to do with the laws of the state. Furthermore, If a state wants to endorse or promote religion then they have that right. It’s up to the state to make just and moral decisions form themselves; even if those decisions turn out to be mistakes.

States rights is a very big deal but the author just does not understand this. If a state has bad laws or ones that I disagree with, I can move away from the state.

Abortion is the most unilateral use of force I can think of. A zygote is not the same as a fetus, but life is life and it should be protected.

It is very clear in the constitution where the federal government should be in relations to the individual States,out of their hair.

Take the California Supreme Court, they created policy from thin air that Gay marriage is to be allowed

Honestly the biggest thing about states rights that appeals to me is the whole mantra of “Don’t like it? Move to a state that runs the way you like.”

The Constitution is explicit as to what the rights of the American people are and the Bill Of Rights gives the protection enforced by the “Federal” government. The Constitution also is clear on the restraint of the federal government with interfering with the sovereignty of states.

Using the argument that without the Federal government mandating every aspect of our daily lives this country would be a state dictatorship with slavery is an outrageous statement.

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2012 at 5:29 pm and is filed under Arizona, Atheism, big government, Bigotry, Blogging, Libertarianism, Ron Paul. Tags for this post: , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  • http://knappster.blogspot.com/ Thomas L. Knapp

    Libertarianism was “begun” by Ayn Rand in the same sense that the United States was “begun” by Gerald Ford (in other words, no sense at all). 

    Libertarianism existed long before her, and her particular form of it, which she did not describe as “libertarian” — she mocked libertarians as “hippies of the right” and her followers to this day vocally oppose libertarianism by name even though their political values resemble it — while influential within the libertarian movement, is only one of many influences.
    She also praised the US Constitution and the founding fathers, considered herself a “patriot” (she even wrote a “Handbook of Americanism”), and explicitly supported the existence of government.

    • tiponeill

      Oh fine –  and today’s libertarians love state’s rights and some parts of the bill of rights – number 2 is very popular.

      All of which goes to show how devoted to “liberty” they are :)

      • http://knappster.blogspot.com/ Thomas L. Knapp

        There are a number of different kinds of libertarians.

        And yes, some of them have fallen for the conservative/Dixiecrat “states’ rights” BS.

        Not all of us, though: http://c4ss.org/content/1120

  • Your_Uncle_Karl

    Reading the comments, I note that the word “freedom” comes up a lot in support of the Libertarian philosophy.  This is just one of many words and phrases that probably conjures up different visions in the mind of every reader; not unlike “family values”.  At least one libertarian refers repeatedly to “coercion” as a feature of present societies that presumably would disappear with the adoption of libertarianism. Perhaps coercion is the antithesis of freedom in his mind. In my mind, the bedrock of libertarianism is completely unrestrained, winner-take-all, free market capitalism, with no government oversight of business.  Nothing is more coercive and less “free” than the situation of the worker under such circumstances. 

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bobby-Marks/1432576223 Bobby Marks

      There is a fairly large difference between what you describe (Anarchy) with what Ron Paul espouses (Constitutional Libertarianism). The former has as you say no government oversight of business, while the latter has no FEDERAL oversight of business that is not interstate in nature.

      States still protect workers, as does the federal government when it comes to Constitutional rights. Libertarians support legitimate Constitutional amendments when the Fed wants to enact policy. States are free to protect the workers and their economy in the ways that work best for their population.

      Libertarianism is the logical opposite of logical Socialism. Socialism holds that a single entity setting policies and taking care of the population is more cost-effective and results in higher quality services than individual decisions do. This would hold true in an ideal world where the government and it’s leaders were truly interested in helping their citizenry and not working for special or self interests. Currently, I don’t know how that kind of untainted governing body could come into existence.

      Libertarianism is the other side of that coin, which says that we will never have a government that truly and perpetually cares for the citizenry and therefore the central body of government should be as small and limited as feasible. That is why the Taxation Clause of the Constitution says that the Federal Government can only levy taxes for national defense and general welfare of the state, and that anything not mentioned in the Constitution falls to the people and their State governments to sort out. These concepts are also commonly held by Libertarians as needed at the state level as well – that the government at any level only need to be just large enough to handle its essential functions. We all disagree on exactly what essential functions are, but the underlying idea is that we don’t want people telling us how to live our lives or what to do with our property.

      In the end we are left to choose how we want to handle the balancing act of individual liberties and government oversight. Is there one right way to do it? Absolutely. Will we ever figure out exactly what that is? Probably not.

      • Your_Uncle_Karl

        Well, as much as Libertarians and other conservatives distrust the Federal government, so do I distrust local government.  One can look at past civil rights struggles where “State’s Rights” was the cry against Federal enforcement of civil rights laws, or, more recently, one can look at what is happening in Phoenix right now and the complaints of the likes of Jan Brewer, Tom Horne, et.al., regarding Federal interference.  I for one am glad that there is at least some adult supervision going on. 

        “…we don’t want people telling us how to live our lives or what to do with our property.” 

        This statement probably highlights as much as any the reasons why I don’t favor Libertarianism.  There is way too much emphasis on property rights and individual rights.  This, to the extent that it takes precedence in the minds of libertarians over individual responsibilities to the collective and the welfare of the collective.  Additionally, from what I can see, property rights already take precedence over human rights and needs as it is.  I can’t imagine elevating property rights to a greater extent without creating an even more unjust society.

  • Your_Uncle_Karl

    I was fortunate.  I did read both novels as a teen.  I read Lord of the Rings because everyone else was raving about it.  I read Atlas Shrugged at the urging of a friend.  Even though I could not articulate why at the time, I knew in my gut and my heart that it was just not right. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1448292239 Mike Cook

    The libertarianism that Ron Paul represents can be found in the philosophy of great thinkers such as Voltaire and Thomas Jefferson.  As one earlier  comment correctly points out, Dr. Paul’s version is not some “absolute” version of anarchy or even of libertarianism in a vacuum – but rather based essentially on the U.S. Constitution — the social contract between American citizens and our government.

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