I have been thinking about Jake Witmer’s idea that a pro-freedom political party has to pretend to be statist to get elected, at which point it can do what it wants and screw the voters to whom it had pandered. That’s how the GOP has gotten libertarians to vote for it, by making libertarian noises in campaigns and then doing just the opposite when in power. They talk about values, and then rule corruptly and immorally. And the libertarians and the religious right fall for it every time. So maybe Jake has a point. Maybe libertarians could masquerade as authoritarians and get the votes of bedwetters and fascists and nannies in order to get elected. Once in power, they’d start abolishing whole departments and repealing scads of laws, all the while telling the public that this is for their security and safety.
I think the secret libertarians will have to seize power and keep it forever by establishing a dictatorship and imposing freedom on an unwilling populace. This will unfortunately involve a massive apparatus for internal security and surveillance and a system of re-education camps. We will want to federalize the schools and compel every student to undergo a curriculum of indoctrination in freedom and informing on statist neighbors and family members.
In order to enhance the legitimacy of the regime and reduce the costs associated with oppressing the people, we will have to maintain a system of entitlements and social programs for the benefit of the public. Let’s say a form of old age pension for every American and health insurance for everyone. That would buy a lot of complacency. Of course, to keep these costs under control, we would have to regulate the lifestyles of the people and take an interest in the minutest details of their lives.
We’ll need a huge defense apparatus to keep aliens from taking away our hard won freedom. We’d probably decide to fight them over there instead of waiting for them to attack. In any event, we’d need to keep the people terrorized so they won’t question what we are doing and will accept the freedom we are forcing on them. We’ll need to gin up fear of some vague and abstract threats.
How to pay for all this? A confiscatory income tax would probably be required. We wouldn’t want to tax people too heavily, because that might cause them to be less productive. We’ll need to figure out a formula for optimal tax rates to get the most out of the people. This is all for their own good, so they should be the ones to pay for it.
Ultimately, legitimacy might be enhanced by having a form of sham elections that give the people the illusion that they are choosing their rulers. We’d set up two ideologically indistinguishable parties that would put forward candidates from whom the people would choose at intervals.
Then we’ll have our libertarian utopia.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
This is Jake. I have terminated my friendship with Dondero, due to my gaining additional information about his low character. I have asked him to remove the outdated quote from me on his website. That he refuses to do so further reveals his low character. I have since become less optimistic about the Libertarian Party, and more optimistic about libertarianism.
Yes, of course, Libertarians must pander to the public so as to not sound completely libertarian. This can be done without lying, it simply means that most people are not ready for the truth.
That you assert that my argument implies the apparatus of the police state clouds any real discussion of the issues. It is simply my point that: because the general public is not libertarian, and not ready to move in the direction of libertarianism until they are uncomfortable, any strategy for advancing freedom will have to do one of 2 things:
1) appear to not offer true individual freedom (...but rather to generalize the principles that our servile public has come to physically reject, but to revere in incomplete form)
2) make the public more uncomfortable
Without one or both or some part of those two things happening, there will be no movement towards freedom. Moreover, no libertarian will ever win office while people are as uneducated as they are. A sub-rule is that people will not educate themselves until they are less comfortable than they are now (and not even then, if there are no libertarians in the public spotlight).
A subrule to that above rule is that: There will be no libertarians in the spotlight if we have not pandered enough to the comfortable majority, to reach the coming less comfortable minority and the following uncomfortable majority.
For those who don't like to think, my suggestion is not that we "sell out". It's that we appear to sell out, via implementing internal controls that prevent a non-libertarian from running as a libertarian. After such controls are implemented, we can be better assured that suggestions to moderate one's language will not be abused.
Of course, I still advocate as radical a libertarianism as is possible WITHOUT VIOLENCE.
The people on this board suggesting otherwise are very similar to Eric Dondero.
Post a Comment