Libertarians in general are often confused with conservatives. With my particularly reactionary views on race and gender, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm mistaken for a conservative by some. I reject that label for several reasons, some of which I have listed below.
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1. Conservatism is an incoherent ideology.
Like liberalism, conservatism is characterized by cognitive dissonance. Conservatives claim to support limited government, but they also support wars, censorship, the police state, and anything else that increases the scope of the enforcement arm of the government. Also, when was the last time you heard a conservative politician other than Ron Paul seriously advocate abolishing most of the federal government, social services, and income taxes?
Conservatives claim to oppose big government and taxes, but the fact is, due to the giant military budget, it will be impossible to drastically cut the size of the federal government and federal taxes without cutting the military budget and using the military solely for national defense, rather than foreign adventures.
2. Conservatives worship the military.
According to conservatives, there is no institution more worthy of praise than the United States military. Personally, I don't see what's so praiseworthy about invading countries halfway across the world that pose no threat to us and killing thousands of their citizens. If the military was deployed along the Mexican border, I would support it, but the fact is the US military as it currently exists does not defend America, just the interests of certain Americans.
Also, far from being a conservative institution, the United States military is probably the most PC-infested organization in the United States.
3. Conservatives are Christians.
My religious views are somewhat complex and I will probably write a future post describing them in detail, but for now it suffices that I am not a Christian. I believe that Christianity is a detriment to America and all of white European civilization. It is a global religion, not an ethnic religion, and its adherents are generally at the forefront of the liberal agenda, usually unwittingly (i.e. the refugee importation movement).
4. Conservatives are statists.
The current conservative anti-government sentiment is fraudulent. From January 2001 to January 2009, conservatives did all they could to increase the size of the federal government, from No Child Left Behind and faith-based funding to the Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act. Lew Rockwell aptly dubbed this "red-state fascism."
Conservatives only whine about big government when they are not controlling the government. If John McCain had been elected and expanded the welfare state, there would be no Tea Party protests.
5. Conservatives are corporate sycophants.
This applies to many libertarians, too. While liberal attacks on the free market should be opposed, supporting corporations does not defend the free market. Corporations are a product of the state and many of them, such as the military-industrial complex, subsist entirely on taxpayer dollars, while others are privileged by the state, such as media industries with their Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
6. Cultural and social conservatism are abject failures.
The 2000s were a decade dominated by conservatives. And what happened? Our society moved closer to Idiocracy, our culture became trashier, rap music became accepted by whites, women became sluttier, and our values further declined. The Clintonian 90s were more socially and culturally conservative than the Bush 2000s were.
7. Conservatives are blind on racial issues.
Mainstream conservatives are as liberal on race as any Democrat. They may oppose affirmative action, although many don't, but none will defend freedom of association, nor will any acknowledge human biodiversity and racial differences in IQ.
8. Conservatives worship democracy.
Democracy will probably end up destroying conservatism; as the percentage of nonwhites increases in the United States, the likelihood of the Republicans winning the presidency will decrease (John McCain would have won if 2008 America's demographics were the same as those of 1976 America). Yet, conservatives are so fond of this ideology that will destroy them that they seek to export it.
9. Conservatives don't have better moral values than liberals.
Conservatives, particularly those of the religious variety, fashion themselves as having better moral values than liberals. Indeed, this was one of the main themes of the 2004 election. The fact is, outside of the Left Coast, liberals and conservatives have about the same moral values.
Neocons, in my opinion, have worse moral values than liberals. At least liberals acknowledge that lying to start a war that kills hundreds of thousands of people is wrong.
10. Conservative women are no less slutty than liberal women.
This seems like a minor issue, but I've long been irked by the fact that conservatives blame women's sluttiness on liberalism. The fact is, conservative women are no less slutty than liberal ones, especially young conservative women. Plenty of conservative girls go off to college to become binge-drinking dorm rats and if you take a look at pictures from CPAC, College Republican events, conservative internships, etc., you'll find that just like liberal and apolitical women, young conservative women are incapable of dressing professionally.
Sarah Palin's family is a good example. They are often described as a conservative family, yet her daughter spawned a bastard child. Sarah doesn't exactly dress very conservatively either - last year, as the Huffington Post reported, she wore a short skirt, bare legged, with sandals to a Memorial Day commemoration.
11. Conservative men are usually white knights.
While conservatives acknowledge the damage that feminism has wrought on American society, whenever they discuss one of the consequences of feminism, they inevitably find some way to blame it on men. Just like feminists, they believe that women hold no responsibility for their actions, but that men are to blame for every problem women self-inflict. Many also believe that women are naturally morally superior to men.
For example, when they write about campus hook-up culture, instead of blaming it on college girls being sluts, conservatives blame it on predatory men and claim that it harms young women ("women need relationships," etc.). Same with abortion. Instead of blaming women who have abortions, they blame the abortionists - men like George Tiller.
Conservatives also decry the fact that men have responded to female empowerment by becoming decidedly less chivalrous and often question the manhood of men who are reluctant to risk their lives for ungrateful, empowered women. Christian conservatives especially are critical of the lack of gallantry found in the modern American man (there's even an organization of suicidal men and brainwashed boys dedicated to restoring this - the Christian Boys' & Men's Titanic Society). I remember back in 2007, Christian conservatives were astounded that the men at Virginia Tech on April 16 did not throw themselves at Cho Seung Hui to protect the women in their classes.
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Note that most of the items on this list do not apply to paleoconservatives, but paleocons have been excommunicated from the official conservative movement. When the word "conservative" is used, people don't think of Pat Buchanan, Alternative Right, and The Political Cesspool, they think of Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, and talk radio.
Conservative women are no more sluttier than liberal women.
ReplyDeleteI presume you meant "less" instead of more here.
Er, yes, thank you. Fixed it.
ReplyDeleteSolids points, all. However, I think you are failing to realize how fully you just condemned libertarians. As you recognize, libertarians are corporate sycophants, but they also fall into a number of other of your condemnations.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I would think you would agree that cultural and social libertarianism are abject failures, in fact, totally disgusting and destructive in their support of sexual deviance, for example.
Clearly, libertarians also fall under condemnation number seven, also being blind on racial issues, and they default to blaming minority pathologies on government programs rather than facing biological realities.
As for number eight, don't libertarians also worship democracy? I can't think of any libertarian theorists who have suggested anything else, can you?
Can libertarians claim to have better moral values? Aside from Christian libertarians like Ron Paul, the only other libertarian morality I can think of is Ayn Rand-style Objectivist elevation of selfishness. Which of course lead us into the acceptance of all the moral degeneracy that makes cultural libertarianism attractive to the Left.
As for libertarian women's sluttiness, well, I dunno, are there women libertarians? :-) You must admit, they are few and far between. In my own sample, for what it's worth, the girls I knew who were into Ayn Rand were total sluts, and often consciously proud of it.
Maybe just being overly semantic here, but saying paleoconservatives aren't conservatives seems a bit unwarranted. In fact, as you seem to recognize, you fit the bill rather squarely as a paleoconservative yourself. I would say you are either a paleocon, or simply Radical Reactionary.
Many of these points apply just as well to libertarians, yet you call yourself a libertarian.
ReplyDeleteI'd be curious to know why you are ok with the libertarian label.
I've ditched both. Calling yourself a reactionary is a better conversation stopper.
I think the central issue here is that the labels of conservative, liberal, progressive, socialist, marxist, libertarian and (now) reactionary are not well understood by most of the people who use them. Define the terms and if they end up describing you, then you are one whether you like it or not.
ReplyDeleteYour central arument is that you are not a conservative because you don't like the other people who call themselves conservative.
I put my own long-winded response at my site instead of here.
http://rebeluniv.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-flyover-libertarian-should-be.html
You are welcome.
"5. Conservatives are corporate sycophants.
ReplyDeleteThis applies to many libertarians, too. "
This is because many libertarians don't understand the history of corporations in America. After the Revolutionary War and machinations of the East India Tea Company (a tax to support their stupid investments, sound familiar?), corporations were heavily regulated entities.
As a classical liberal/libertarian, I despise corporate statism as much as government statism.
I agree with much of this article; however, you are overly generalizing. It is important not to confuse real conservatives with establishment "conservatives" such as Zionist talk radio hosts, pundits that are allowed to give their views on television, or the Republican party. These "conservatives" are actually liberals. And I am not using the term as an insult. I'm referring to an actual set of philosophical principles. For example, I would not consider democracy to be a conservative idea, either philosophically or historically.
ReplyDelete