It's really a wake for a ghost at this point, but perhaps that's what's so telling about the "death" of the libertarian movement. A while ago, one of the blogs I regularly read was asking what John Henke's addition to George Allen's campaign said about libertarian's ethics. At issue was the rather blatant theft of the text of another member of congress' bill by Allen and the presentation of said text as his own work. In and off itself, quite a display of pure and unadulterated chutzpah, if not a morally despicable act. The question was whether Henke joining the campaign right after this incident said anything in particular about Libertarians and Henke in particular.
In my bizarre world, the incident of outright theft of what - after all - amounts to public property is, in fact, no theft at all. It's really no difference who proposes the bill and so there can be no real theft. True, it's a rather egregious breach of good manners and comity, but there is no doubt in my mind that absolutely nothing unethical or immoral occurred. Does it reflect poorly on Allen? Sure. But only in the same way that farting in public reflects poorly on one.
What's more interesting to me, and what's more pertinent to the demise of libertarian (big "L", small "l", it's the same dead corpse) is the fact that George Allen is a fucking racist who spent his adolescence and adult life (although hiding it better in his adult stage) worshipping the confederacy. This identification with the confederacy has always been the "tell" in the libertarian bluff. They always couch the argument as one of "merely" an issue of states rights, but it's a bit like standing up for the parental right to beat the shit out of your children because you don't want to interfere with what goes on in a family "out of principle". Henke - like all libertarians (maybe there's a few that don't subscribe to this, but they're the exceptions) - is buying his libertarian wet dreams with the thirty pieces of silver paid to the racist bastards who seem to think there's a principle behind standing up for a) the right to enslave your fellow man and b) treason against your country.
The whole infatuation with the confederate state has always mystified me. I mean, not really. I certainly do "get" the whole "rebel" thing. I completely understand the contrarian, "don't tread on me", "screw you and the horse you rode in on", teen angst thing. But it has always mystified me as to why someone thinks that this principle is best displayed in the form of a civil war to preserve the right to own slaves. I just don't get that. I can see a civil war being fought for a lot of things - for example, the whole Tienaman Square incident in China. Freedom and democracy in contrast to communism and totalitarianism are something I can get behind in a civil war.
But fighting for slavery?
It takes someone who really parses with a fine, fine blade to come up with solid support for that. It takes someone who really doesn't give a shit about civil rights and individual freedom to overlook this in the person whose campaign you're joining in order to win some silly tax cuts or whatever the fuck it is that Henke thinks is *really* important in life.
Still, not everyone is Henke and (perhaps) not all libertarians think the civil war and the confederacy was bitchin'. But even with the obvious idiocy firmly out of the way, the entire premise of libertarian politics - i.e. that no government is the best government - is fundamentally insane. Although I can certainly see the appeal of the anarchist perspective - and, for example, I occasionally admit to being a Chomsky fan - it's clearly a Utopian strategy that simply won't work. Ever.
To me, the fundamentally stupid thing about Libertarian politics is that they simply have no alternative to the way things are done. The mindless drones making up the bulk of what minuscule percentage of actual people who subscribe to the philosophy are simply immature adolescents who really believe that selfishness is the pinnacle of human behavior - these thoughts and general masturbations of these can be cast aside like so much fluff in the wind. But even winnowing down to the "serious" practitioners, one simply finds that the best the libertarians have to offer is to be a counter force to the concept of "big government".
And quite frankly, they're not even much of a counter force. Take the current incarnation of the republican party. They're pretty much run by so called "small government" conservatives and libertarians. And one doesn't have to be a political junkie to know that precisely the opposite has occurred under the watchful eye of Grover Norquist.
The simple fact is that government won't go away. People will always band together to deal with those who are more powerful - it's how we survive. And the absence of a strong government leads to chaos and despotism - hell, that's why we call them "failed states". So, the question isn't how to get rid of government. It's how the hell do we make government effective and do the right thing. Yes, there's always going to be people who abuse government and power in general. That's why it it's a difficult and ongoing task which takes people who are smart, dedicated and willing to work their butts off and sometimes even give their lives.
We don't need yet another Utopian political philosophy that will never work unless everything works perfectly. We have plenty of failed philosophies we can choose from that have actual followings breaking the 1% mark even in American politics. We don't need more nagging nannies who wag their sanctimonious fingers at us and scream about their pet selfish issues while simultaneously selling out their stated principles for a few bucks. There's plenty of those to go around.
So, I hope we see the last of libertarianism as anything more than just a fucking foot note in the joke book of history. Good bye, good riddance and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
It's long since time that you blokes left the conversation.
Via 4 Non Blondes
Inspired by a surreal conversation I had over beers yesterday.
Woo Hoo! Happy times are here again. Time to throw those hybrid cars in the waste bin and break out the Hummer H-1 you've mothballed for the summer months.
As the saying goes, "ignorance is a condition, 
Okay, I know that below the belt mudslinging is part and parcel of political campaigns. But usually, the party doing the mud slinging tries to stay above the fray, giving the good old "who, me?" dumb look when accused of negative advertising. So, you have to love the smell of pure desperation at the front page announcement of the Republican's plan to spend 45 million in a last minute mud fest against their democratic candidates.
