Green Comet

I think that most people who fancy themselves libertarians don’t understand what it is and only use it to justify their selfishness. That might be a bit brief. Fortunately, RJ Eskow, writing on AlterNet, has approached the subject in much more detail. He’s made a post called, “11 Questions You Should Ask Libertarians to See if They’re Hypocrites.” Here are a few choice quotes from that article:

“(Ayn) Randian libertarianism is an illogical, impractical, inhumane, unpopular set of Utopian ravings which lacks internal coherence and has never predicted real-world behavior anywhere.”

“At no time or place in human history has there been a working libertarian society which provided its people with the kinds of outcomes libertarians claim it will provide.”

“In their world, democracy is a poor substitute for the iron-fisted rule of wealth, administered by those who hold the most of it.”

“(How did) Internet billionaires become wealthy? They hired government-educated employees to develop products protected by government copyrights. Those products used government-created computer technology and a government-created communications web to communicate with government-educated customers in order to generate wealth for themselves, which was then stored in government-protected banks, after which they began using that wealth to argue for the elimination of government.”

Here is a sampling of the 11 questions:

Relating to the last of the quotes above: “Does our libertarian use wealth that wouldn’t exist without government in order to preach against the role of government?”

Since Ayn Rand called people who “live for others” parasites: “Does he think that Rand was off the mark on this one, or does he agree that historical figures like (Martin Luther) King and (Mahatma) Gandhi were parasites?”

Since libertarians are opposed to the undemocratic power of government: “Does our libertarian recognize that large corporations are a threat to our freedoms?”

Libertarians revere the idea of “property,” but they object to government interference. “Does our libertarian reject any and all government protection for his intellectual property?”

Libertarianism is a dead philosophy. Unfortunately its zombie lurches on.

rjb