Rare News Desk
In the lead up to the 2008 and 2012 elections, conservatives were branded as the worst thing to happen since Nazis marched across Europe. You couldn’t walk down the street without being assaulted by a headline or poster claiming that conservative candidates were out to steal your rights, toss your grandma off a cliff, and forcibly lay prayerful hands on your favorite gay—all while administering punitive paper cuts with copies of the Constitution printed on the remains of a majestic redwood. Liberals continued their message-controlling song-and-dance last week with a Bloomberg piece attacking “radical” libertarianism and its adherents:
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Let’s start with some definitions. By radical libertarianism, we mean the ideology that holds that individual liberty trumps all other values. By communism, we mean the ideology of extreme state domination of private and economic life.
Some of the radical libertarians are Ayn Rand fans who divide their fellow citizens into makers, in the mold of John Galt, and takers, in the mold of anyone not John Galt.
Some, such as the Koch brothers, are economic royalists who repackage trickle-down economics as “libertarian populism.” Some are followers of Texas Senator Ted Cruz, whose highest aspiration is to shut down government. Some resemble the anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, who has made a career out of trying to drown, stifle or strangle government.
Rand! Koch! Cruz! Behold, the evil triumvirate of cultural destruction, economic collapse, and general misery. How fitting that Hanauer and Liu, the authors of the article, would complain about radical libertarianism using nothing but the most radical interpretations of policies supported by people like Ted Cruz—who is actually pretty phenomenal at rounding up overly-aggressive talking points and translating them into something that will actually work in the real world.
The most important takeaway from this article isn’t the content itself, but the tone it sets and the mindset from which it flows. After Barack Obama was reelected in 2012, progressives continued their intellectual rape of classical liberalism by pulling the exact same tricks the authors of this article have now employed to lambaste “radical” libertarianism; instead of honest debate, we’re seeing an increase in the use of these tactics to cut conservatives and libertarians off at the knees without ever having to engage in an actual policy discussion.
The fact that progressive media outlets are now beginning their War on Libertarianism (“radical” has nothing to do with it) is a not-so-subtle announcement that both the media and the liberal machine are out to destroy the new wave of “conservatarian”-leaning activists and politicians who aren’t afraid to stand up against questionable military policies, token airstrikes in the aid of Al Qaida rebels, or the self-destructive and systematic dismantling of criminal jurisprudence. Their argument is not intellectual; like so many of those used against conservatives, its foundation is based in hyperbole, fact-twisting, and rhetorical wordplay.
Interestingly enough, Hanauer and Liu conclude their rant by hinting at the notion that progressives actually believe that the people should be allowed to govern themselves:
If the U.S. is to continue to adapt and evolve, we have to see that freedom isn’t simply the removal of encumbrance, or the ability to ignore inconvenient rules or limitations. Freedom is responsibility. Communism failed because it kept citizens from taking responsibility for governing themselves. By preaching individualism above all else, so does radical libertarianism.
How provincial of me to believe that the government shouldn’t be the final arbiter of what it means for the people to govern themselves. Progressivism as an ideology is so violently anti-democratic I’m surprised the authors managed to tap out that paragraph without suffering tandem strokes. For all their talk about “true citizenship” and “healthy capitalism,” the one thing the authors refuse to say out loud is that the driving force behind every single success, innovation, and victory had by the American people is not “cooperation,” but individual liberty.
The article itself is just one more drop in a sea of ubiquitous progressive nonsense, but its intent should put both conservatives and libertarians on alert. At first they came for the crazy conservative teabaggers, and all that. I have absolutely no desire to “eviscerate the government,” metaphorically or otherwise. I will, however, not hesitate to eviscerate intellectually dishonest and lazy attacks on an increasingly mainstream political ideology that has helped to reignite the hearts and hopes of the American people.
Amy Miller is a contributor to Rare. Follow her on Twitter @amyVRWC.
