Mad Analysis: My Problems with the Libertarians

MM vents about the Libertarians, their positions, and the effect they have on elections t the national level.

From The Mad Monarchist (12 November 2012)

Ever since the Presidential election in the United States, everyone, particularly on the “right” has been trying to explain it and diagnose the reason behind the defeat of the hapless Mitt Romney. And, if one is expecting to find people behaving with reason and common sense, it certainly calls for a thorough investigation. After all, never in the lifetime of most voters has a President been reelected when unemployment, the debt, the deficit, gas prices, food prices and general cost of living have been so high. Looking at the numbers, one would think that the Republicans could have nominated anyone and still coasted to an easy and overwhelming victory. Since Obama has been President, more people are unemployed and more people are having a harder time making a living if they do have work. So why did he win? More people voted for him than Romney. Simple. But why? Blacks voted almost uniformly for the President, Latinos voted overwhelmingly for him as did single women in spite of the fact that these groups have suffered the most during his first term. If one expects to find a rational reason for that, you are going to be searching for quite a while. The reason, it seems, was because Romney seemed worse. True, unemployment is worse among these groups but because of that they still voted for more of the same because more of these people are receiving government assistance and were told that Romney was going to cut off the government gravy train (which of course he could not do so long as the Democrats hold the Senate but, again, common sense has nothing to do with this). Some have blamed the Republican message while others have blamed the ability of Republicans to “sell” their message. Balderdash!

Some eminent Republicans have said that Hispanics are the key and that the GOP should embrace the idea of amnesty (with border security) to win over Latino voters. They are wasting their time. In the first place, this has been tried before and the left will never go along with increasing border security. However, if Latinos were most concerned with this they would have been more reluctant in voting for Obama considering that he has deported far more illegal aliens in one term in office than George W. Bush did in two. And why are these Republicans talking about attracting Latino voters rather than Blacks? Probably because (aside from considering them a lost cause due to the overwhelming loyalty Blacks have for the Democrat Party) this would reveal the stupidity of their position. If they think amnesty will win them long-term Latino support they should look to Black Americans and remember that it was the Republican Party that abolished slavery in this country and yet Blacks still do not support Republicans and so we have the ironic picture of the first African-American President of the United States belonging to the same political party as the late President of the Confederacy. Did Blacks defect to the right when Herman Cain was running for the top job? Did they get behind George W. Bush for appointing the first Black Secretary of State or did they embrace the Republican Party for George H. W. Bush appointing only the second Black Supreme Court Justice? Every time, “no” and if they think they will no longer be seen as the “racist” party by embracing amnesty they have another thing coming.

The left, of course, says what they say after every Republican defeat which is that the conservatives could win if they just dropped all that conservatism. What I find most entertaining though is the extent to which the Libertarians are saying the exact same thing. Since the election I have seen a parade of people from the Cato Institute and Reason magazine blaming the GOP defeat on their clinging to traditional moral values, immigration control and the “war” on drugs. Meanwhile, they are cheering the fact that Colorado voted to legalize marijuana and that several states voted to legalize gay “marriage”. Further, they bemoan the fact that conservatives will not drop their opposition to abortion and gay “marriage” in order to join with the libertarian throngs in saving the country from economic ruin brought about by the big-spending left. So, in other words, give up your deeply held beliefs to help foster our agenda. Again, much like the Democrats. Aside from the condescending nature of such an argument, one problem with that is the priorities of these libertarians. The argument also betrays the extent to which even the good ideas of libertarianism are often overtaken in their own minds by their most ridiculous arguments.

Can't you leave me alone
BEFORE you take over?

Gay “marriage” is a good example. If the libertarians really believed in what they claim, they would not be championing so-called “marriage equality” but rather for an end to all government involvement in marriage at all and an end to all benefits for married people be they gay, straight, polygamists or any other perverse combination. This really pains me because, as the national debt becomes higher and higher (and it is already to the point that I doubt it could ever be reasonably expected to be paid off) the libertarian argument is increasingly more likely to be the only possible solution. Yet, they want conservatives to abandon their values and come to them in order to unite on fiscal issues rather than themselves giving ground on narcotics and homosexuality to save the national economy. It seems ridiculous to the point of hilarity to me that it is the traditional right that must make concessions rather than the libertarians on the social issues because each side agrees that the current economic trend leads to disaster but by libertarians refusing to compromise on their moral positions they act as though they think these are somehow as important as the fiscal crisis. Can they be serious? Countries will certainly go to ruin if they spend more than they earn but I have never heard of a country going to ruin because there was not enough sodomy, abortions or drug use going on.

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson

Demographics do matter, partly because demographic change is permanent change. Laws, policies and regulations can all be repealed (though they seldom are) but once a population has changed it can never be changed back. This matters to the political race because the left has, for some time, controlled the culture, the media and the education system and have successfully branded the Republican Party as the party of racism and there is nothing the GOP can do at this point to “prove” they are not racists -and God knows they have tried. Take a look at the Bush cabinet or the last GOP convention which was essentially a parade of minorities, and women minorities better still. Because of the success of the left on this branding campaign, and because immigrants are more likely to depend on government benefits (as are single women -yes there is a pattern here) they tend to vote Democrat. Go down the list of ethnic groups; African-American, Hispanic-American, Jewish-American, Arab-American, Asian-American, Native-American: they all tend to vote Democrat. The Democrats realize this, which is why they oppose any effort to enforce immigration laws or secure the border. Rest assured, if Mexican-Americans voted the way Cuban-Americans have in the past, the Democrats would have built a border fence on our southern frontier to dwarf the Great Wall of China.

The left, the party of government dependency, therefore has always embraced the ideal of open borders because they know it means more and more people who will loyally vote Democrat no matter the circumstances. Here again though, I marvel at the libertarians of the Cato Institute and Reason and so on for making the same argument. Their belief in absolute individual liberty is such that they too want open borders even though this has resulted in more and more popular support for the very government programs these same libertarians claim to most oppose! But, unlike the conservatives of the GOP, they will never change because it is a matter of principle to them and they see no distinctions when it comes to their principles of the “self” above all. That is why, apparently, they see the fact that some states refuse to condone homosexuality as just as big a problem as the fact that the USA is $16 trillion in debt and almost half the population depends on the government to some degree. I will repeat, there is a great deal I agree with libertarians on even though I could never be a total one, mostly because, like most political groups, they would not have me even if I wanted to join them.

Legalize and regulate -even
though they oppose regulation

Again, I think the libertarian ideal of a “wall of separation” between economy and state is rapidly becoming not just a better solution but the only possible solution. However, fundamentally, I could never be a total libertarian because I do have some attachment to my own people, I do regard tradition as important and, most fundamentally, because, like Thomas Hobbes, I think that if left totally to his own devices the life of man would be, “nasty, brutish and short”. I agree with them on most of their economic ideas, I certainly agree with them when it comes to the debt and the dollar and I totally agree with them when it comes to private property and their opposition to socialism and communism. But I cannot agree with them on everything and I cannot agree with their priorities. For example, they think all narcotics should be legal. Having seen the damage drugs can do to people (and not just the people who take them), that scares me a little but I see the merit of their argument. However, I would never, ever go along with legalizing drugs until the welfare state was abolished because I don’t want to be saddled with paying for the 24/7 care of a population of drug-addled wretches. I have never understood why the libertarians do not first devote themselves to abolishing the welfare state and THEN campaign to legalize drugs. Well, maybe I do, because a great deal of their support comes from pot smoking college kids. Similarly, why fight for “marriage equality” instead of getting the government out of marriage altogether which would result in the same thing anyway?

Another problem I have with them is national security. And, again, it is not that I disagree with their position as much as I disagree with their priorities. In most cases, I agree with them that the policy of interventionism has been a disaster but I could never adopt their position while they also adhere to the open borders policy. Right now, a major concern is the nuclear program of Iran. They don’t care if Iran gets the bomb but I do. However, I do specifically because of how open our borders already are. If Iran got the bomb right now there is still no way they could directly harm the United States. They have no missiles to stick it on that could reach America and they have no bombers that could get close to America without being shot down. But if we adopt the libertarian policy of open borders it would not be terribly difficult to get a “dirty bomb” into the country and wreak havoc. In fact, the whole “War on Terror” would never have been an issue if the USA had simply taken greater care about who is coming into the country and what they are doing while on American soil. None of these terrorist groups control any ballistic missiles, tank divisions or long range bombers. They can only attack America by getting inside and hijacking a plane or setting off a bomb. If America had real border security none of these terrorists could ever touch the United States at all. I have often been eager to tell the rest of the world to fight their own battles but I cannot go along with the libertarian position so long as they refuse to stop potential enemies overseas and at the same time refuse to allow the military to guard the borders at home.

You know, if you voted
in a state that mattered...

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is the issue of abortion, something I will never support nor even tolerate at all, period, no discussion. Not all libertarians support abortion (I know Judge Andrew Napolitano does not, God bless him -and I also salute him for having the courage to point out that FDR manipulated the US into World War II by provoking Japan -not a popular truth) but every major libertarian institution that I know of does and certainly the people at Reason and Cato I have seen on TV do. I understand why they do, because they believe in absolute individual rights and the absolute inviolability of the “self”. An individual woman has every right to an abortion if she wants one just as, in the libertarian view, she has every right to prostitute herself if she wants to. When it is all about “me” and a pregnancy would be detrimental to “my” happiness, abortion is perfectly acceptable. However, at the same time, this libertarian position puzzles me because they also claim to be all about individual responsibility (and I am certainly in favor of that -all the way). They say they want personal freedom and personal responsibility. However, abortion seems to me to be the total negation of that position.

Consider it like this: we live in a world where women have access to every variety of artificial birth control known to man (and the shrinking population to prove it). So, other than in the event of a rape (which are thankfully relatively rare in the United States) if a woman is impregnated it is because she made a decision and exercised her individual right to have “unprotected” sex or chose to do something that would interfere with her clear thinking (like getting drunk) and as a result made a bad decision and ended up getting pregnant. It does not seem at all ‘libertarian’ to me to then allow this woman a medical “bail out” from a situation she willingly got herself into. Of course, I also believe it is the murder of an innocent child but I’m assuming libertarians do not, otherwise they would apply their principles to the individual rights of the unborn child. But even from their own perspective, I do not see how supporting abortion is in keeping with their devotion to personal responsibility. But then, that half of the equation often seems to be neglected doesn’t it? They favor allowing drug abuse without first eliminating the welfare state that would force drug addicts to be responsible for their own actions and they support abortion even when rape is not a factor which allows people to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions. To me, that just seems crazy. But, it would, being … The Mad Monarchist.

(Note: Libertarians may not leave angry messages in the comment box below telling me what a horrible person I am but please, whatever you do, don't click on the "libertarian" label below and read any of the other articles I have posted on the subject in support of various libertarian positions or it just might cause serious damage including brain injury to you. -MM)