Monday, November 19, 2018
No, I am not a libertarian anymore. However, I might still vote for a Libertarian (Capital L).
My views on politics would best be called Classical Liberalism or just plain Capitalism. However, there was a time that I had been part of the Libertarian Party of Canada. This was before I realized that libertarians philosophically had issues with reason and reality from the most core of its ideology. With its fill on subjectivism and anarchism among its ranks. Not all Libertarian members, but, people that are actually listening to and following it to its conclusions which are the anarcho-capitalism's very foundations. I would be quick to vote for a better, less insane and reason based member of the Libertarian Party of Canada still, but. I do not at all anymore sign off on the philosophical views called "libertarianism."
The issue was the lack of basing the philosophies view on reality and reason. As well its view on anarchism not only being OK, but, for many the ideal way of having society. It also does not care if its philosophy is based on reality or not. Or about morals at all. It does not care about anything, but, following its Non Aggression Axiom as just that an Axiom. No need to prove that it is right by appealing to reality or what is true. It acts as a faith not as a reasoned position, I agree that the initiation of coercion or non-consent is evil and a very specific evil. However, you get there by following the facts that we all should have our individual rights defended as the role of government which comes from looking at the facts. You do not get there out of nowhere as an Axiom.
You cannot get there out of thin air by saying it is an axiom and beyond evidence or proof, or reason of any kind. Rights are not somehow naturally inside of men or women. If you cut yourself in two; please do not! You will not see rights there in nature. Rights are the ability to think and act within society as one sees fit free from harm/coercion as long as your action is not itself infringing others same rights. It is a system in a social context of how people are free to be with each other. It is not an axiom granted to you by God or Nature. These are the so-called roots of the NAP of libertarians and is not based in reality at all. Non-coercion being an ideal is true, but, it is simply another way of wording individual rights protection by a properly moral and good government.
Libertarianism has no reason to be right as it does not even search for one. So, before you say I am a libertarian for agreeing with the defending of individual rights I am not. Libertarians can be great people individually, but. the actual underlying Axiom is not based in reality. If you are a Libertarian and a classical liberal I will agree with being called the latter. However, I would ask you if you are sure you want to use a term used by people like Murray Rothbard; whom think parents should have the right to starve and neglect their children till they died. Or the likes of Walter Block whom has said in his own words that the issue with the Holocaust was that Hitler forced people into Ovens and did not persuade them to walk in on their own. There are many names; Classical Liberal, the Liberal Right, Lassiez Fairest, Radical for Capitalism, Constitutional Republican.The bankrupt libertarian shipwreck does not own liberty.
Members of Libertarian Parties that do use reality as their base or are not intellectually really "libertarian." They need to emphasize their differences from lower case libertarian intellectuals and the other movement that uses the name. They should point out that they do not agree with the nutcases that treat libertarianism as a faith to an axiom that is really standing on shaky legs floating on top of quicksand.
The war from Islamo-fascists is very real and to deny it is exactly what they want from their victims.
Let me start by saying I am not as some will call me a Neoconservative nor am I a neoliberal as others will call me. I am if anything closer to a Classical Liberal politically and I used too at one time be a registered Libertarian Party of Canada member. However, there was always something that I found myself at odds with when it came to policy discussions of others within the party. That was the issues related to the Governments Foreign Policy.
I supported the Canadian involvement in Afghanistan; however, the party was and still is for removing Canadian troops from all Countries and for a full non-intervention or isolationist foreign policy. I support the complete removal of the ISIS threat; for the complete elimination of this horrific threat to all of our lives. The Libertarian Party was for doing nothing saying trying to stop the threat would cause the threat that already existed. I understood the Government had a role in protecting us from these sorts of threats and eliminating them where possible. The Libertarian Party due to its many pacifists, moral subjectivists and anarchists was against us having any foreign policy other than doing nothing at all.
They are not the only ones with their head in the sand though. Many modern liberals are also in the dark on these matters. Regressives on the left really do not want to do anything for some reason. Some due to them just hating anything military and others due to ignorance. For those whom are just ignorant I am talking to you here. I am not talking to the nihilists that just hate the Canadian Forces. Islamo-facsists like ISIS want to either eliminate us or enslave us to their oppressive ideologies which preach complete submission to their doctrines. This is not something you can ignore anymore than whatever you dislike about reality in other matters stops existing because you ignore it or close your eyes to existence outside of you.
If you like your civil rights then you need to always make sure there are not threats to them. Your right to life is being threatened by these sorts of groups if they are not tackled. The government that is protecting our individual rights to life, liberty, property and pursue our happiness is a good and moral one. It is the moral job of your government to protect you and the Islamic war of Terror being fought against us is a real genuine threat. One of the roles in the world that moral governments should do and should be doing now. If either the Libertarian or the Regressive left's Foreign Policies ever got enshrined we would all be in deep trouble and the government would be immoral ignoring actually governing in one of the areas where it should.
Government is needed and it is.... "aghast many Libertarians" is good! A Government that is governing properly and only active in areas needed to protect a free society. A Military is a needed and good thing in any free nation. It has a role to protect us from those that would do us harm. It has a role in finding threats and taking the needed actions to protect the innocent. Policing is needed for a free society freedom does not equal a free for all.. anarchism is not liberty, but, another form of might makes right. Or in the case of anarcho-capitalism riches buy might which makes right as well. A police-less and prison-less world is a world of oppressive Tyranny just as much as a Police State.
This idea that the worst threat is always the Government in our Countries erases from Libertarians and Regressive Leftist's sights that there are real threats outside The State. It does not mean Governments should be granted rights to due "anything." It means that there are some threats even more dangerous "at this time" to Canadians and others than our own States. The sort of world we would live in if Islamo-Fascists win this War will make every State the Western World has ever known look like Utopian ideals. That is if we were not all dead in graves. Islamism is a force of the sort of oppression that many of the No-State or Military do nothing types project onto the very functions of the government that is working to save them from said oppressors. It is a moral and reality inversion of the most vile and most hideous. Those that are blind remain so at their own risk.
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Persistent Ayn Rand Myths that are incorrect courtesy www.aynrandmyths.com
| The Myth She died of lung cancer,alone and miserable in a hotel room. | |
| The Truth:"Ayn Rand died on March 6, 1982, in her New York City apartment." aynrandlexicon.com Copyright © 2010 Ayn Rand® Institute "Ayn Rand died on March 6, 1982, of heart failure. She was buried in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, N.Y., next to her husband Frank O’Connor (who died in 1979)." See also: “To the Reader,” by Harry Binswanger, The Objectivist Forum, Vol. 3, No. 1. As to her being alone and miserable, Leonard Peikoff described her final hours in a talk at Boston's Ford Hall Forum. "Ayn Rand did NOT die “alone and bitter.” I know, I was among her best friends at the end of her life. She was working on a screenplay for Atlas Shrugged, until she got very ill (heart disease) and died 6 weeks later. She planned to produce the movie herself and move to Hollywood to get it done (she lived at 120 E. 34th St. in NYC). She held the same philosophy up to the end, and had the same love of life as the fictional heroes she created." Comment by Harry Binswanger — November 7, 2011 @ 7:56 pm |
| The Myth Alan Greenspan, long time Chairman of the Fed, was a great admirer, in fact an accolade, of Ayn Rand, and his attempt to implement her ideas destroyed the U.S. economy. | |
| The Truth: He abandoned her ideas long before becoming Fed Chairman. "There were 51,000 NEW regulations added over the last 12 years. Banking, housing, and insurance are the most regulated areas of the economy. They are strangled by regulations. "This is the failure of the regulatory state. "As to Greenspan, this is the penalty of betraying Ayn Rand's philosophy. "To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen's famous riposte: Dr. Greenspan, I (Dr. Harry Binswanger) knew Ayn Rand, and you're no Objectivist." Dr. Harry Binswanger, The Harry Binswanger List, October 27, 2008 |
| The Myth She was a Fascist | |
| The Truth: She was an opponent of fascism and communism and wrote... "The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man—or group or society or government—has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut: it is the difference between murder and self-defense. A holdup man seeks to gain a value, wealth, by killing his victim; the victim does not grow richer by killing a holdup man. The principle is: no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force." “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 32.
and
"It is obvious what the fraudulent issue of fascism versus communism accomplishes: it sets up, as opposites, two variants of the same political system; it eliminates the possibility of considering capitalism; it switches the choice of “Freedom or dictatorship?” into “Which kind of dictatorship?”—thus establishing dictatorship as an inevitable fact and offering only a choice of rulers. The choice—according to the proponents of that fraud—is: a dictatorship of the rich (fascism) or a dictatorship of the poor (communism).
"That fraud collapsed in the 1940’s, in the aftermath of World War II. It is too obvious, too easily demonstrable that fascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory—that both are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state—that both are socialistic, in theory, in practice, and in the explicit statements of their leaders—that under both systems, the poor are enslaved and the rich are expropriated in favor of a ruling clique—that fascism is not the product of the political “right,” but of the “left”—that the basic issue is not “rich versus poor,” but man versus the state, or: individual rights versus totalitarian government—which means: capitalism versus socialism."“‘Extremism,’ or The Art of Smearing,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 180. | |
| The Myth She was selfish. | ||||
| The Truth: In the popular sense of the way the word selfishness is used, no this is not true. She held that rational self interest was a virtue, which is the opposite idea. See this short explanation.
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The above is just the cream of the crop of debunked and disproved myths about Mrs. Rand available from the magnificent website Ayn Rand Myrh. Which can be found at www.aynrandmyths.com and all content above is copyright to them with no infringement intended. This article is intended as an educational look at some of the top myths and all rights belong to the respected site and its own sources linked within.
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