Topic: Politics
Faith and Fear Vanquish Logic and Reason (and Hope and Change) Looking through the veil of faith and fear to see the interplay of force and oppression all in the name of winning elections that provide an illusion of choice.by Jahfre Fire Eater
(libertarian)
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Liberty demands tolerance. Liberty fosters diversity. Intolerance, or more precisely, the fear of those who are not yet assimilated, stands at the center of US politics. The left and the right use this fear to herd folks towards the center. Independents were already there, thus their independence only means they don't have to be led to the center. Libertarian leaders use this fear to herd their faithful into the tippy top peak of the Nolan Chart scale.
For all of these groups, anyone who is not perfectly assimilated is an enemy to be feared. Fear always fuels bullying, procedural maneuvering, and a fanatical devotion to the faith that their herd can eliminate the feared beings once and for all.
Progressives have always been up front about it. They dislike liberty and have no tolerance for diversity of thought and faith. They believe all tactics are justified to eliminate liberty and enhance conformity through the power of the State. Their faith is in the benevolence and wisdom of big government. Since this has been disproven throughout history it takes a powerful faith to discount the evidence at hand.
The Religious Right dislikes liberty also because it puts man above God's word. To be fair, most will embrace liberty right up to the point they believe it allows something God intended to exclude from our so called free will. Since God wasn't up to the task, the right wing feels it necessary to fill in for God's lack in this area. If your flag winds up at the end of a convoluted chain of reasoning that challenges God's intentions or his plans for our country or his plans for our country as determined by Israel, your flag is toast. The patriotic, nationalistic and nostalgic right overlap with the religious right but the religious political leaders set the course.
At turns, but together, the right and the left grow our government and increase the oppression of liberty. For both of these groups who now control our politics, our media and our government, fear is the power that is needed to obliterate morals, ethics and conscience. Fear and faith can subvert any reality into a surreal nightmare.
The libertarians and anti-political navel gazing academics will shout from their little tippy top niche at the top of their lungs that individuals have rights. But they will not do a damn thing to prevent the Right or the Left from taking those rights to feed the homogenization machine. I mean they will not do anything constructive. They will shout and write. They will cite quotes and wear patriot outfits for the press. They will preach to their choir with a fervor that rivals Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show. They will revel and delight in creating public spectacles. They will emote and wail with outrage but they will steadfastly refuse to participate in constructive political behavior aimed at wresting control of our government from the left and right progressives who now rule the land. They deliberately choose self-marginalization. They are to politics what karaoke night at the local watering hole is to Woodstock. Only a magnificent faith could possibly shroud such a blatant absurdity. Their faith isn't necessarily rooted in man over God nor in God over man. No, neither of those faiths is powerful enough to obscure such obvious futility from a group who simultaneously prides itself on being rational and logical. It takes great power to bring those contradictions together in one belief system.
Their faith is that rights, like the emperor's new clothes, become more real with each increment of better description and definition. They believe that with the right definitions and constraints, rights will suddenly manifest into world-changing non-forceful force that will non-forcefully eliminate all diversity of thought and thus eliminate the need for the notion of community (State) and enable their utopian world of pure anarchy through homogeneity. Every last human will suddenly fit into the tippy top niche in the Nolan Chart scale and we'll all live happily ever after...and best of all, NO ACTUAL CONSTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR NEED BE DEMONSTRATED!!!
Is it possible to create a society where tolerance of those who have different faiths is enabled, fostered or even guaranteed? Our constitution was an attempt to do that but we have come to the point of mutually assured fear-fueled oppression as we slide into the cesspool of Socialism under that very constitution. Words on paper do not change the behavior of individuals. Defining ever more rigorously those desired outcomes, specifying in endless detail the nature of what is a right or what is a sin will not prevent individuals from opposing those rights or committing those sins.
No plan that rests on the premise that "If everyone would just..." is a viable plan in the real world. It is just as absurd to pursue a plan for everyone to put the needs of strangers above the needs of their own offspring and self as it is to pursue a plan requiring that everyone must be governed by the constraints of any one religion. It makes no difference if that religion is diety based, ego based or rights based. The intolerance inherent in every religious homogenization effort is used as a justification for force to oppress non-believers.
Libertarians will claim to be against force because their faith conveniently shrouds the logical necessity for force to be used to eliminate diversity and guarantee their "freedom from" any struggle to defend liberty. The proof is simple. I am that proof. So long as I exist I will defend the right for individuals to form communities and enforce the will of those collective participants. Therefore, force must be used to prevent me from defending the right for individuals to form communities. There is no alternative. Without the application of overwhelming force, the notion of "freedom from" is just a thought exercise aimed at rationalizing one's unrealistic expectations placed on others; entitlements.
I love the balance, with all the logic and reason applied to the descriptions and definitions of the tenets of their rights-based faith, there is nothing left but absurd fantasy to describe the way to achieve their goal. I call the force implied in the logic of a rights-based, Rothbardian utopia the "unicorn force." (I really liked "the Emperor's New Force but opted for the "Unicorn Force and this parenthetical disclaimer) No libertarians believe in the Unicorn Force yet their faith requires its existence. No wonder there are so few libertarians; it must be really hard to live in such a quandary day in and day out.
In my lifetime of political consumption and participation I have never met an individual besides Ron Paul who has consistently understood the implications of force and the necessity of constructive political behavior to avoid being logically inconsistent or hypocritical. The power of the rights-based faith even shrouds Ron Paul's most important messages and examples from his libertarian, would-be supporters. They remain independents or LP members yet claim to have a great affinity with Ron Paul. The absurdity and contradiction is startling sometimes.
Fear and faith so easily combine to nullify logic and reason (and Hope and Change.)
-Jahfre Fire Eater
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The views expressed in this
article are those of Jahfre Fire Eater only and do not represent
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employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2009-12-08 05:20:29
Nice article. I want to make one small but important correction, however. Libertarians are not against the use of force. Rather, they are against the initiation of force. There's a big difference, because libertarians are not generally pacifists and support the idea of self-defense.
Similarly, libertarians are not opposed to people banding together to use defensive force to protect themselves. Where libertarians draw the line is on initiating group force in order to achieve desired political objectives. Contrary to what pro-big-government folks will tell you, there is no need to initiate force in order to protect groups.
Good article. Especially the part about the self-absorbed poofertarians, those like Tully, Messa (of late to name a few) who think that by posting the 700th article on "why the Fed is bad" or some xenophobic crap about immigrants is going to change the mind of a few anti-liberty liberals.
I'm amazed of the continuing absence of people who fail to see that it is liberals who we should be trying to convince, not conservatives. Liberals aren't predisposed to be anti-liberty, in fact, they mistakingly believe big government will "secure" this liberty.
This is the fallacy of their faith, as you put it. And if more self-proclaimed "libertarians" around here would try to have a dialogue with them, and convince them that government is not the solution to inequality, I think we would actually have a shot.
Overall, this all reminds me of the allegory of the "Ship of Fools". Poofertarians are as much to blame for our mess as liberals and conservatives they so despise. Thumbs to you.
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