Libertarianism: The absence of thought
November 25, 2011 by William K. Wolfrum
There are no great libertarian thinkers. Libertarianism is the absence of thought.
Lately, libertarianism has gained some weird popularity in the U.S. Sort of like Garbage Pail Kids did, but more offensive and less intellectual. Somehow, a growing group of maniacs has decided that things like paying taxes and making sure their handicapped grandma doesn’t die is an affront to their personal liberty.
I used to go by the theory that there are no homeless libertarians, but now I realize that was in error. The homeless are the quintessential libertarians, with no freedom-sapping things like shelter or clothing taking away from their personal freedom of licking the cheese off a three-day-old McDonald’s wrapper.
Libertarianism is like Scientology in that it’s a huge scam with a cult following of people who have completely lost the ability to think for themselves. Also, both libertarians and Scientologists believe in space aliens and that “Battlefield Earth” was Barry Pepper’s best work.
In the U.S., libertarians are under some bizarre fantasy that State governments somehow are better than the federal government. This fantasy is formed by being utterly ignorant to the current plight of states and the stupidity of state laws. Hell, why stop at States. How about we just live under City laws. Or better yet, let your neighborhood make all the rules. That way, you can have neighborhoods that have legalized dog fights and pedophilia. You know, Liberty.
And don’t even start with the, “Well, the Founding Fathers said … ” stuff. As soon as you have writings of the Founding Fathers talking about a nation of 300 million people with 50 states and run by mega-corporations, we’ll talk.
Libertarianism is a lot like the movie “Human Centipede” in that everyone involved is completely full of shit and it’s never actually been done in real life
Libertarianism was originally known as Anarchist Communism, because it essentially takes the worst of two hideous and failed ideologies, smooshes them together and calls it a philosophy. Human civilization has never tried libertarianism as a ruling ideology because humans aren’t, by and large, selfish and soulless monsters. Also, because it’s the type of ideology a 13-year-old comes up with when they’re angry that their parents make them mow the lawn.
Libertarians believe that masturbating in front of a mirror is the purest form of sex because it’s all you, baby.
Libertarians essentially believe that those who fall through the cracks of capitalism will be taken care of by charities. Because God knows, the majority of Americans who work 18-hour days for $2 an hour will spend their off hours working at soup kitchens and giving free appendix surgery to those who need it but can’t afford it. A libertarian regime would just mean we’d need to get used to wading through dead bodies to get to work. Because it would infringe upon our liberties to bury anyone who’s not you.
Libertarians believe the purest form of death is putting a bullet in your own head. Because you were free to own a gun and eat a bullet to get away from the nightmare of libertarianism.
Libertarianism is the belief that the poor of the United States aren’t suffering enough.
That so many people have seen how capitalism and unfettered free markets affect the common person and yet still consider it a perfect economic system can only mean one thing – that libertarians are just Republicans that have grown embarrassed in calling themselves Republicans. It’s not an ideology. It’s a way for rich people to sit back, feel superior and enjoy watching poor people fight to the death over a scrap of gristle.
Libertarians don’t have any idea what in the hell liberty or freedom mean. They are just a bunch of assholes who don’t want to pay taxes and want to get stoned and watch people who earn less than them wither and die.
In an era of winner-take-all capitalism, libertarianism is not just moronic. It’s evil.
–WKW
What do you think of America’s Founding Fathers? Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison… If they were alive today they would surely identify as libertarians above anything else. Thomas Jefferson more than any of them.
I’d say Thomas Jefferson was a pretty great libertarian thinker. You know, he’s kind of referred to as the “author of America” and stuff. Pretty well respected in intellectual circles and doesn’t have such a bad resume.
At least when you insult libertarianism, have the balls to identify who you’re really insulting. Read your post over and substitute names like Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Paine – some of the most outspoken liberty minded individuals of all time – for where you called out “libertarians.” Something tells me your silly diatribe would then fall apart.
Allow me to demonstrate how some of the article should read:
“In the U.S., Thomas Jefferson was under some bizarre fantasy that State governments somehow are better than the federal government.”
” James Madison believes that masturbating in front of a mirror is the purest form of sex because it’s all you, baby.”
“Thomas Paine didn’t have any idea what in the hell liberty or freedom means.”
“In an era of winner-take-all capitalism, Benjamin Franklin’s philosophy is not just moronic. It’s evil.”
The American Revolution was fought on the ideals of individual liberty, property rights, and the non-aggression principle. (If you don’t understand these terms look them up, they essentially make up basic libertarianism.) Granted, not all Founding Fathers favored those ideas – John Adams and Alexander Hamilton for instance profoundly disagreed. But when you make a sourceless, baseless rant completely devoid of facts, targeting libertarianism as some deadbeat, anti-intellectual ideology…. Think of who you’re really criticizing. Because Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine would all surely disagree.
Then again, I’m sure you know better than the people that literally created the country you were born in, whose writings are taught, studied, and analyzed by today’s greatest geniuses, and who went down in history as some of the greatest most revolutionary political philosophers of all time.
After all, Thomas Jefferson believed that masturbating in front of a mirror is the purest form of sex because it’s all you, baby. Now THAT’s an argument. Sure, your argument had literally zero facts or sources and was all just opinion. (To the point that I could take any of your points and say “I disagree” and that would hold the same weight as your argument – a mere opinion with nothing else on top of it.) I’m sure your resume and intellect trumps those great and revered libertarian thinkers.
One can read such anti-libertarian screeds on sites like DemocraticUnderground and FreeRepublic.
Pathetic, Wolfrum. If you’re going to write satire, at least be original.
Sarcasm or just ignorant?
Geez, Bill, way to piss everyone off. For what it’s worth, I thought it was funny.
Q: How did the Libertarian cross the road? A: What road?
After reading the article, it’s clear that the writer is suffering from a massive case of projection. He substitutes logic and evidence for cleverly cobbled together one liners: a collection of teenage schoolyard insults and straw men. But that’s today’s culture – style over substance, clever word play and images over genuine thoughtfulness. The TV culture wins.
The people who would love this article are the kind of people who would never read history or economics (actually written by economists and not pop journalists); The only thing they read are screeds to confirm their biases. Even more preferred are knee slapping tweets because these people are too intellectually lazy or dishonest to do the hard work of real thinking on current issues or political philosophy or economics or history. “No deep thinkers.” Right, and who is this guy? A journalist who has often written about sports. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.
“That so many people have seen how capitalism and unfettered free markets affect the common person and yet still consider it a perfect economic system can only mean one thing – that libertarians are just Republicans that have grown embarrassed in calling themselves Republicans.”
What economic system, pray tell, has affected the common person more positively than capitalism? Nearly all of the major advancements of the past century have been the product or refinement of private capital. We wouldn’t be having this forum on the world wide web were it not for capitalism (and yes, I know DAPRA Net preceded this, but I find it hard to believe government would’ve come up with the Internet as we now know it). In fact, the biggest downside to libertarianism writ large is that it guarantees idiots like you free reign to spout utter bullshit. But hey, it’s your right to keep your head in the sand.
As a qualified libertarian, I resemble these remarks. It’s invective at 40 paces, Wolfrum! (slaps face with a copy of Hayek’s ‘The Fatal Conceit’). Actually, on some ponts I agree with you… to an extent. Local government is not necessarily better/wiser than the federal government, and can be worse on such things as civil liberties. This was most obviously true in regards to Jim Crow. Then again, the feds have sometimes been worse on civil liberties. Take the Fugitive Slave Act…please… which greatly strengthened the insitution of slavery. This is not isolated: there have been a host of acts and supreme court decisions – Dredd Scott, Plessy vs. Ferguson, etc. – etc. that greatly weakened civil liberties. More recently we see this played out in abuse of eminent domain (Kelo) the drug war and the issue of medical marijuana. Taking the last point, cities and states have voted or are getting closer to voting to making marijuana legal or at least medical marijuana. But the DOJ is fighting this all the way – considering the people suffering who need mm to deal with chemo or other AIDs medications, this is not trivial. The only advantage local has to federal overall, is not in which is ultimately the better protector of the people’s rights (it swings both ways), but the more local the statutes and acts are, the greater potential you have to either change them or to move. Much more cumbersome to move out of America than out of my neighborhood or even city. Hey, but thanks for letting me post.
On the point about wanting people to die, not getting enough health care: I can’t speak for all libertarians, but I prefer watching people getting tortured first, then watchign them slowly die.
But serially, I’m actually very sympathetic to having a robust social safety net, government assistance with public goods, and even up to and including a universal health care system. My concern though is that health care is a scarce good like any other, and it has to be rationed somehow. First come, first serve is one way, but then you get very long wait times. Do we accuse people of wanting to kill grandmas because some of those grandmas die while waiting to get a check up? One way is through a pricing system, but if you have a legal monopoly, costs go only one way – up. This is the reason many countries with ‘universal care’ systems are looking to reform theirs. They are struggling to find ways to control costs. Maybe a universal care system could be efficient if it was operated with some mechanism like a negative income tax. I certainly wouldn’t object to that.
The problem with the U.S. system is that it is very very heavily regulated, so that costs also continue to rise sharply. It’s probably the worst of both systems -privatising part of the sytstem and socializing the other part! I’d rather have what France has than what we have. But if you look at the history of businesses, products that were only available to a small group of people in the beginning, like refridgerators and tvs, gradually become affordable to a wider group of people – this is because they were allowed to compete in an open market. The opposite effect is found when you have heavy regulation. And health care is so heavily regulated. The FDA further has killed tens of thousands of people through their hold-ups in the use of new drugs, treatments, and medical technology. Are they granny killers? Do they get their rocks off on watching people die?
Btw, Ron Paul, is probably the most hard core of libertarians, but according to people who have worked with him in his medical practices, he doesn’t turn anyone away. If they can’t afford it, he still treats them. Cynicism gets a chuckle, but it might not actually reflect the reality of how real doctors would behave in a more open system.
Here’s a contradiction. First you say, “it’s never been tried.” Then you talk about what “unfettered free markets” have done. So, which is it?
Here’s something else I wonder about: why do modern liberals or progressives seem to be so little concerned with government abuse of power. Unless it’s a Republican in charge, you don’t hear much about it.
The notion that people become libertarians simply because they are still rebelling against their parents or just want to sit around getting high is an old one, in a lot of different forms. Possibly consider this: Some of us found libertarianism intrigquing as we were concerned about ‘freedom from aggressive others”. One of these others, is obviously the state. Good lord, look around man. On a daily basis there are many instances of state agents abusing their power, from police officers, to the department of justice, to Congress and the White House. Both sides signed the Patriot Act, and the government continues to torture, to engage in renditions, to wire tap, etc. States, in the form of capital punishment, have the power to kill citizens all too frequently. Politicians want to federalize a ban on gay marriage. These are the reasons I became somewhat libertarian (maybe liberaltarian). Aren’t you too concerned with governmental abuse of power?
IMO, most self-proclaimed Libertarians in this county are Anarcho-capitalists and/or Objectivists. Neither of which has much common ground with the enlightenment philosophies that served as the foundation for American political tradition.
Thomas Jefferson died not just penniless, but deeply in debt, due to an attempt to launch one of his most innovative visions for a great America: a concept he called “public school.” Were he alive today, he would be disgusted by all of us probably, but especially libertarians.
*with libertarians.
Geez, Bill, you haven’t pissed off this many people since you wrote that thing about Jesus punching the Pope in the face. Apparently you hit a sore spot. Well done!
Jesus, Ron Paul. No real difference in them to their followers.
> Thomas Jefferson died not just penniless, but deeply in debt, due to an attempt to launch one of his most innovative visions for a great America: a concept he called “public school.”
I just thought I would mention that the above comment is not true. Oh, it’s true Jefferson was broke, but it had nothing to do with public schools/
I thought Jefferson died broke because he spent too much on wine and books.
“Ron Paul, Jesus. no real difference in them to their followers.”
Elisabeth Warren, Jesus. no real difference in them to their followers.
This is the best essay on libertarianism I have ever read.
Actually he is absolutely right. And none of the “Founding Fathers” were libertarians because they formed “….a more perfect UNION…. or federal government because they were FEDERALIST! You see, “history zeros”, they saw first hand what happened in a society where everyone was at the mercy of the wealthy who were supported by an army backed by a monarchy or oligarchy only interested in making money for himself. This is kind of the Ron Paul “survival of the financially fittest” agenda. The reality is that none of you would survive. If you have seen Kevin Costner’s film “The Postman” then you have seen what the US would become under a Libertarian “non-government”. The guys with the most guns would choose a leader and rule by Martial Law and our Democracy would be similiar to that society within a Maximum Security prison system where discipline exists on paper but only the strong rule. 99.99% of the so-called Libertarians today would end up washing the shorts and socks of the strongest as “jail-house” bitches in a society where government did not exist. It’s been done, bitches, a few hundred times since the beginning of time on this planet and it always ends up the same with revolution and an overthrow and establishment of a governing body, the only way man can exist together in harmony, as a free Democracy with everyone being equal and a centralized government or “collective” to provide law and order and the enforcement thereof.
I wish people would stop using the word “socialized” to mean something that is provided by the state. Could you look the verb “socialize” up in the dictionary, please? I think this came about when certain right-wing pundits started scrabbling around for a term of abuse and couldn’t bring themselves to say “socialist”. That brings me on to “anarchy” and the misuse of that word as well – the bit in the thread above about the origins of Liberatianism seems to me more along the lines of Kenneth Waltz and the realist idea of the world being an anarchic, dog-eat-dog place (see Thuycidides, Machiavelli, Hobbes etc). Don’t even get me started on that odd American usage of the word “liberal” by people who are, in fact, classical and neo-liberals. I wonder if Libertarians have been properly socialized.
Silly boy. Don’t you know? There’s no such thing as a Libertarian! There are just Republicans who want to smoke pot and screw hookers.
I’d mock this article… but the challenge is gone.
Love the article. Tweeted it and the Paulbots felt the need to educate me. Best line in the article? To quote @Wolfrum “Libertarianism is a lot like the movie “Human Centipede” in that everyone involved is completely full of shit and it’s never actually been done in real life.”
Thanks Bill
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Jonathan: “… If they were alive today they would surely identify as libertarians above anything else. ”
Thank you for that gem. I will file it away in the special folder containing the letter from a Creationist who told me that if Charles Darwin were alive today, he would be a Creationist; because of all the evidence.
“Also, both libertarians … believe in space aliens…”
Got some data on that?
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