I think there has been some confusion among readers about who our political enemies and opponents are in America. Some of the emails I’ve received since I first opened the blog have given me the impression that I’ve sewn some confusion in casual readers! So I figured we may as well take a moment to discuss it, and clarify who are the real enemies of the movement and progress.
Question: I thought the Conservatives were our ideological enemy and opposite. Why do you say it’s libertarians?!
This is something hard for a lot of newcomer liberals, progressives and socialists to understand. But in order to understand this, we have a understand a reasonable way to classify politics. It’s often fine to say someone or something is “left-wing” or “right-wing”, and we know the right-wing is where our opponents live (over there in wacko land). But left-right classification is really only good for classifying economic thinking! The far-left represents “collectivism”; this is egalitarian/socialist thinking, which is often thought of as Communism/Marxism. The far-right represents free enterprise capitalism; that abomination of oppression, as we see it and know it to be. But we also have to consider the way people think of government and sociology! This could range from authoritarianism, the belief that we need a powerful government to take care of us, all the way to the opposite end: anarchism, the belief that there should be no government (I know, crazy!). We’ll come back to this later. But when you think about things with this extra dimension, you will realize you can actually have left-wing communists who are anarchists and those who are authoritarians — conversely, you can have anarchist capitalists and authoritarian capitalists. There are even “official” terms for these kinds of people, like “anarcho-communist” or “anarcho-capitalist”.
But we are “statist” leftists; we believe that our government (the state) is necessary to protect us from harm by others and ourselves. We serve the state and the state serves us back. A strong government is necessary to preserve our egalitarian way, eliminate socioeconomic class, equally distribute wealth, punish criminals and enemies of the state and our cause and lead us into the new era. Without a government able to protect us, greedy capitalists and criminals could overthrow our world and us! This is why we need our government and leaders. We embrace progressivism, liberalism, socialism and communism and represent a unique and powerful world view! And we need not mention that these are wonderful days for us, as we move step by step, hand in hand, towards realizing our ultimate goal.
However, the conservatives and Republicans are not really our “opposite”. They don’t even have a unique ideology. They’re just a collection of different types of capitalists, religious zealots, racists, sexists, homophobes and everyone who wants to stop progress. In fact, the name “conservative” is very fitting! They are, in America, the biggest group opposing us. But they are really the least of our threats, shocking as it may sound! The reason is because they don’t even agree on everything. But generally they are imperialists/nationalists (we are internationalists), somewhat authoritarian and only slightly “right-wing”. Sure, they preach that they love “small government” and “free market”, but these are empty words. Just look at what Bush did in office — he actually played right into our hands by federalizing banks and plenty of other things! They try to copy off of us to win votes, because they know their days are numbered. This is why “conservatism” is a dying cause, and we have little to worry about.
Libertarians, on the other hand, are the ones who we do need worry about. They practice what they believe, and they are serious about destroying socialism and our government! Unlike Republicans and Conservatives, they literally want a limited government, and they want to turn Americans loose with all sorts of freedom — something totally unacceptable. They argue that we should do things like legalize marijuana and prostitution because “they are not crimes” and “can only harm the individual”. This is nonsense! They often try to argue that we have 1-million non-violent drug offenders in prison, often for “just” smoking a joint, and that it’s too expensive for our nation. But NO cost is too much when it comes to punishing people who want to get high. They don’t understand that there’s a good reason it’s ok to drink alcohol but marijuana is illegal: because our government says marijuana is bad and it kills people with just one wrong puff! So we must spare no expense in punishing marijuana users. It’s unreasonable to question our government’s judgment, especially when we have such a brilliant leader as President Barack Obama — if marijuana was ok, our President would say so, but he has NOT! They also keep bringing up all of these scientists, doctors and studies who say marijuana is not dangerous; but we have to ignore this nonsense and trust our government over what some silly scientist or doctor says. If they start convincing you of these crazy ideas, just remind yourself that the government must be right and they are our leaders.
Libertarians also carry other very dangerous ideas. They believe the government should only have the authority to stop acts of aggression (like stealing, hurting someone, rape or killing), and that the people should control the government. This is also nonsense! We need our government to give us moral guidance, punish us when we’ve done wrong, help us raise our children and take care of us. We can’t survive and uphold civilization without our government leaders. Can you imagine what chaos would break out in your own home if the government wasn’t watching you and telling you what you need to do? Libertarians also believe the government has gone too far by spying on us and trying to monitor us online. But we need the government to keep an eye on us and make sure we aren’t doing bad things on the internet. If you’re a good citizen, you shouldn’t care if the government watches everything you do! We also cannot control our government. It doesn’t work that way, and the government controls us for very good reasons. If we had control of our government, the whole country would fall apart and people would be able to do whatever they wanted in private, as long as they didn’t hurt someone else, without fear of the government kicking in their door and throwing them in jail. That would be unacceptable, and it’s a mad idea. They have to fool themselves into believing Americans are capable of making their own decisions. Could you imagine what could happen? People could grow a marijuana tree at home, smoke it and as long as they keep a job and behave normally we would never know they were on pot — they would actually be able to get away with it!
They also have frightening economic ideals that which are of great concern to us and our government. The Republicans and conservatives preach about “free markets” and “deregulation”, but we know it’s nonsense. Most libertarians, on the other hand, really believe in this laissez-faire economics stuff and would put it into practice! They buy into the absurd notion that people (businesses, workers and consumers) can manage their own economic affairs without government control. I could think of nothing more outrageous! We need the government to to dismantle businesses which grow too big, take heavy taxes from the rich and redistribute wealth equally in society. Marx put it quite well: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. Libertarians would probably say something crazy, like: “…to each according to his accomplishments”, or maybe “…from oneself according to one’s effort, to him/her according to success”. This is crazy thinking. Just because someone is smart and works hard it does not give them the right to own lots of land and be wealthy. They often try to discredit us by saying that “people who can work but don’t should not be getting “handouts” from our tax dollars”. But what they don’t want to accept is that even people who refuse to work need food and other things. We can’t just force them to work or do without, which is sickening. How would THEY feel if they didn’t work and didn’t get any support from society? Not so good, I don’t think. It’s just their way of discriminating against poor people who don’t work even though they could. Certain people actually should be allowed to not work because of things we did to them in the past, such as slavery. We made them work for nothing for hundreds of years, so it’s the least we can do with our tax dollars. Don’t let them convince you to buy into this trash.
Maybe the most despicable ideal libertarians throw around and delude themselves into believing is the idea of “self-ownership”, or “individualism”. In case you don’t know, it’s basically the crackpot idea that every person “owns” their own mind, body, and will — some of the religious ones say “spirit” too, haha. But they forget about something…what about society and our government? Do they really think they “own” themselves, and that we aren’t all shared among society and the government? If this was true, then marijuana and prostitution would be legal, ha! They think that if an individual was able to do something bad to themselves, like smoke a marijuana cigarette without anyone knowing or ever getting caught, that they didn’t harm society? Nonsense! That would undermine the entire government and our War on Drugs. They would go even further to tell you that you have the “right” to put anything (any food, drink or substance) into your body you want. But we know this isn’t true…just look at the obesity epidemic and all of the people victimized by fast food and junk food! Look at all of the people victimized by careless corporations like McDonald’s which are selling these awful foods to Americans, and our own children. They say it’s “the individual’s choice”, but they know these corporations don’t care about people! We have these big tobacco companies preying upon American children (they’ve even tried things like making flavored tobacco!), but they will claim it’s the children’s fault for smoking it! This is totally outrageous that they would try to claim that our children (and even adults) are to blame when these tobacco companies have practically forced them to start smoking. You might think I’m joking and they aren’t really crazy like this, but you’ll have to see it to believe it!
Of course, they have some other wild theories. One of their other economics theories is that we should get rid of our Federal Reserve and fiat money (our current money) and go back to an old gold or silver standard. In case you haven’t heard of this, our current money is called “fiat money”. It’s not backed up by anything, and the government controls it and how much of it there is. But in the past, we used to use money which was backed up by a certain amount of gold — in other words, a dollar bill was like a note which you could exchange for a certain amount of gold. But today, our government controls the money supply. Our money is money because the government says so and we believe it is. This is how they are able to make the economy fair. If we followed libertarians who want to go back to a gold standard, that would mean citizens would be in control of money and the economy! They’re all hung up on this idea because of the Constitution saying this stuff; but it doesn’t take a genius to know the Constitution is wrong and written by a bunch of foolish old men (who were racists too). They will try to argue with you and tell you that our fiat money is “totally at the whim of politicians and controlled by the government”, but that’s the whole point! The ultimate goal is to eliminate money and balance out all of humanity, so that no one can be richer than anyone else. It doesn’t matter how hard someone works, we have to learn to be kind and share; this is what egalitarianism is about. We have to trust our government with the money system we have today, and they will work towards abolishing it soon enough, so don’t worry. They might try to scare you and sew confusion by telling you the government is in cahoots with the banks, credit card companies and insurance companies…and they might even tell you the Federal Reserve can do whatever it wants and they use inflation and bad policies to tax us and penalize business. But don’t let this fool you. Have faith in the government, and you must remember they are working for our good and the good of humanity. If you ever think the government is wrong, you need to stop and question yourself! Our leaders, like President Obama and the faithful Timothy Geithner know what is best for us and our economy. It’s an absurd conspiracy theory if you don’t believe the government is right and only trying to do good for us. If we had stopped trying to question and resist the government just twenty years ago, we could already be living in a better country — think about that before you try to question the government and authority!
But, my friends and comrades, this is why I’m so outspoken against libertarians and free enterprisers. Sure, we hear the Republicans and conservatives saying some of this crazy junk, but it’s just talk. Libertarians are hardcore rebels who not only really believe in this “limited government”, “individual liberty” and often “free market” stuff, but they will try to put words into action if we give them a chance. If a Republican gets elected, it’s only a small loss. We can usually get them to do what we want and they even play into our hands. Republicans also know America wants change and progress, so they sometimes even do what we want them to so they can save face and have a chance to get re-elected. But there ARE dangerous Republicans who are actually libertarians — they’re rejected by the mainstream Republicans — like Ron Paul. If Ron Paul got elected, things could get ugly and the government could lose authority and power…Americans might even get away with all of these crazy “individual liberties” and get too much freedom, when we already know human beings are incapable of handling freedom and making their own decisions without government. So we have to watch out for a few of the Republicans, who are libertarians in disguise. But most of them are just sheep who we can bend to our will and progress. Stay away from any libertarian thinking and any libertarian politicians (even if they come in the guise of being real Republicans). And I shouldn’t have to tell you to avoid Republicans because we will get more done with good, progressive leaders. If we lose a seat to a Republican, it will usually be ok 99% of the time, because there’s only those few we have to worry about. The biggest danger is that those wolves in disguise like Ron Paul will take over the party or even gain enough popularity to start their own, original libertarian party.
To sum things up. All we really have to fear from conservatives and the vast majority of Republicans is nothing changing. The word “conservative” itself means “to support/protect the existing social order”. They don’t actually want to change anything, they really want a powerful government instead of a small/limited one and they at least are against “individual liberty” and “self-ownership” (e.g., most conservatives/Republicans are at least smart enough to support the War on Drugs). But libertarians DO want to change things…and in dangerous ways. They would like to turn you loose you all sorts of freedom and power, and they would try to make it so people can control the government through some sort of democratic means. They could undermine the government’s efforts to redistribute wealth among the people and eliminate social classes, and force all able-bodied people to work for a living. They would try to eliminate our Federal Reserve and put the economy in our hands, something we can’t handle! And their brains are full of rugged individualist ideas and beliefs in the Constitution and these so-called “rights” we should have.
This, my friends, my comrades, is why libertarians are our ideological and state enemy, rather than Republicans or conservatives. The conservatives and Republicans are the people who do nothing (except those few like Ron Paul who are libertarians trying to win office — I can’t warn you enough about these few dangerous ones!). But libertarians are against everything we stand for as allied and strong liberals, progressives, socialists, communists and egalitarians. Hopefully you now understand why I’m so serious about warning you about them, and consider the Republicans and conservatives to mostly be a joke.
Thanks for your time!
Efrem
Efrem A. Sanders
