The Death of Libertarianism in America
by Libertarianism has been on a slow decline since the 1930’s. We must rekindle the flame of liberty.
This country used to be a beacon for those of us who subscribe to a libertarian philosophy. Free markets, individual liberty, and private property rights used to characterize life in these United States. Over the course of the last 8 years, we have subsequently lost our right to privacy and freedom of speech. Bailouts, government intervention, and the Patriot act have made life for a libertarian quite difficult.
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Both sides of the aisle are players in the requiem of liberty. Republicans have lead people astray when they abandoned their core principals of individual liberty and small government. Democrats, somewhere along the way, have felt that people aren’t good stewards of themselves and government should take care of them. They now control Congress and seek to put a body of legistlation into effect that is 20 years in the making. We stand on the precipice of a situation where we could lose our right to choose our healthcare, lose the right to speak freely and lose the right to do what we please as long as we do not infringe upon the rights of others.
Now, the American people are not absolved of blame here. Our fellow Americans elected the ‘change’ that we now have. Obama, Pelosi and Reid (with their avowed Communist allies) seek to ‘fundamentally change America’. People like ‘Dr. No’ Ron Paul and Glenn Beck, and Penn & Teller stand as the vanguards of the death of libertarian philosophy.
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For example, Glenn Beck, through ceaseless reporting and pressure from Fox News, got Green Jobs Czar Van Jones to resign. He did so after mounting pressure brought on from his own statements and the fact that he signed, in 2004, a 9/11 ‘Truther’ petition that said that Congress should investigate whether or not the Bush Administration was complicate in the 9/11 attacks. Right now, most media outlets (CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC) critically dropped the ball when it comes to reporting on the ongoing ACORN scandal as well as Van Jones’ resignation. ACORN, thankfully, has been removed from the census. But they seem to think that when one of their own is outted as being corrupt for encouraging prostitution and the creation of a brothel, they can simply fire them so they can’t be subpoenaed when the inevitable trial comes around. This smacks of the corruption brought on the Bush and Cheney extending ‘no-bid’ contracts to Halliburton to take up the rebuilding of Iraq. Let us not forget that President Obama worked for ACORN as a lawyer.
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However, the main stream media would like you to forget this as they bury leads and try to focus our attention on a, as of yet unwritten, healthcare bill. They also, unfortunately, hold a lot of sway over how something is portrayed. They called anyone who spoke out against healthcare legislation a radical right activist. Furthermore, they accused anyone who said that of being un-American.
What we need is a return to the values and guiding principles that founded this country. The Founders did not intend for a government so large it cannot sustain itself. However, I feel that the way forward isn’t through established libertarian routes. Libertarians can’t attain power because they can’t agree of how they should take power.
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That needs to change…or we risk losing our country….
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Post CommentDarian
On September 15, 2009 at 10:08 am
> What we need is a return to the values and guiding principles that founded this country. The Founders did not intend for a government so large it cannot sustain itself.
You can’t move forward if you’re always looking backwards. Knowledge of the past is important, but liberty is the future and requires original thinking. The founders of America were not a homogeneous bunch, and being overly worried about what they intended is not going to get us anywhere.
>Libertarians can’t attain power because they can’t agree of how they should take power.
a) Liberty requires either (depending on how you want to look at it) the abolition of political power, or the equal distribution of political power among sovereign individuals. Not a Leninist-type seizing of power.
b) If we want a free market, we should use free market means to get there – that means competition, not a centrally-planned political program. The Alliance of the Libertarian Left (all-left.net) seems to best embody this consistency.
>Libertarianism has been on a slow decline since the 1930’s.
There really wasn’t much of a libertarian movement in the 30s. If you mean that America was better off in the 1930s, I disagree. We are making progress in undermining authority’s hold on the mind.
In the 1930s, everyone who wasn’t a straight white male (preferably Protestant) was a second-class citizen, males who were not among the political elite were subject to military slavery (the draft), and a fascist-inspired New Deal crippled the economy.