Thursday, December 22, 2011

A Look At Modern Libertarianism

I've mentioned before Libertarianism is racist. I wasn't kidding, and that wasn't snark. American libertarianism is all about White Male privilege expressing itself and justifying itself through the presence of the Free Market. If there's nothing to make sure that the corporations are playing fair, and regulate them, then who gets trampled on? The poor. And no, you can't just sue them - you can't see someone if you're fucking dead. And your family can't sue them if they're poor and can't afford multimillion dollar hot-shot lawyer to take on a corporation run justice system - what did you expect, a public justice system? That's a vehicle for the government.

Like most other Right-wingers, Libertarians are all over the "I got mine, fuck you" mentality. In addition, they're all over the whole "government for me but not for thee" business; after all, they have to get to work somehow, and they certainly aren't using private roads to do it.

Society is geared towards a certain group of people. That's what privilege is, and that's how it works. Now, privilege is formed of interlocking gears and wheels; one person might have White male privilege without having Christian or wealth privileges, or cis-gendered straight privileges. It generally sets itself up as a tiered system; at the very top you have White straight cis-gendered wealthy Christian males, and it takes itself apart from there. Libertarianism is geared towards protecting this White, straight, cis-gendered wealthy Christian male privilege. After all, if there's no government to lift up people who are disadvantaged by the system, then these White, straight, cis-gendered wealthy Christian males (WSCWCM?) don't have to worry about sharing their social privilege - or, rather, the privilege that society awards them. If there's no entity to try to equalize the playing field and make sure that nobody is starting at a serious disadvantage, then the only people who benefit from it are WSCWCM.

And that's before we get into corporations and such, and how they exploit everyone. Modern libertarianism is just a tool expressed by those who want to exploit.

And if you need a look into that mindset, just take a stroll through the comment thread over on Ashley Miller's blog. She asks the question "Why does anyone like Ron Paul?"

I'll admit that Ron Paul is like the stopped clock of modern politics. He's done a handful of things that I agree with - not because he's Ron Paul, but because I'm a liberal social libertarian myself (in the class sense; I believe that the government should level the playing field for everyone so that nobody is starting this race blind with two broken legs, while things like the "War on Drugs" are a waste of money). However, like a stopped clock, he's wrong most of the time, but we're not talking the "five-o'-clock somewhere" wrong; we're talking incredibly, egregiously wrong.

Like his supporters, more than a fair share of whom are misogynistic gasbags, asshole racists, and generally blind to the faults of their "messiah." It's popular to mock libertarianism as a religion, but I think there may be more than just a fair share of truth to that. It's certainly one of the weirder economic cults.

I have no respect for most modern libertarians, or modern libertarianism. I view them with the same disdain I direct towards anti-vaxxers and creationists, or towards birfers, or 9/11 trufers.

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