All posts tagged "Libertarianism"

Assigned, must-read reading of the day: Jane Mayer's amazing article synthesizing the political and "philanthropic" careers for David and Charles Koch. They are basically the funding arm of the Tea Party movement, secular libertarianism, and have their fingers all over global warming denialism. I put "philanthropic" in scare quotes, because while the Koches give lots and lots and lots of money to non-profits, they usually do so with their own self-interest in mind. Their self-interest is, of course, their enormous corporation Koch Industries. They're oil billionaires, giant polluters, and they really don't like environmentalists or the little, insignificant non-billionaire portions of the population.

We're already getting the world-weary sighing about how we need to move on from the Rand Paul thing---and don't worry, it's the weekend and we will---but I do feel the obsession over it that sprouted up needs a defender. Rachel Maddow did an excellent job on this front.

[rebelmouse-image 24748300 original_size="155x200" expand=1]Jacob Weisberg surveys our financial collapse and declares libertarianism dead. (Hat tip.) Alas, I wish I could feel as secure as he does on this front, but I'm afraid I don't, because while it's true that we can blame deregulation frenzy for our current economic situation---and that people trying to say otherwise sound like the ripe fools they are---I fear that the premise of his article is a bit off. Libertarianism may be extremely unpopular right now, but it's always been unpopular and that hasn't stopped it. In fact, your average pedantic libertarian gets off on the fact that most people wisely hate libertarians, because it confirms to the libertarian that he is a unique snowflake that the rest of the world is too stupid to get.* Libertarianism isn't popular, but it will always be well-funded because the class warfare at the heart of it appeals to embittered, willfully ignorant rich people who give money to think tanks.

[rebelmouse-image 24748084 original_size="300x378" expand=1]Had I not sold my truck to a local auto mechanic, I wouldn't have seen this article in Time about libertarians. And that would have been a shame, because the article's really good, exposing how silly libertarians are without straining itself or dropping the formal journalist tone. Without coming out and saying it, it's easy to see how libertarianism, despite all the heavy-handed rhetoric about freedom, is fundamentally a right wing authoritarian philosophy that only has anti-authoritarian trappings because libertarians believe (sometimes rightly, sometimes not) that the federal government is an impediment to establishing the authoritarian society they crave. Getting the government out isn't about rejecting authority, but making individuals of the proper sex (male), proper race (white), and proper socio-economic status (property owners and independent businessmen) the ruling classes of a series of small societies.