Libertarianism: Marxism of the Right

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by Helm

And a lot of you should red Zhukov with a bit less of a bias, because it's insulting you to actually call him names over what he's saying (Jeanette), or resort to ad hominem attacks (so says the communist) like Kevin.

Blow it out your ass you pompous jerk. Is that less of an ad hominem attack for you....?

I haven't dismissed Zhukov's beliefs. I did however dismiss what on his part was a terribly condescending and simplistic dismissal of Libertarianism. Then he went on to criticize the author for doing to Marxism precisely what he in fact did to Libertarianism.

What's amusing is that I thought this article might pull folks like Preechr and one and only out of the wood work, but instead, the socialists of the board have taken issue with the mere comparison. That's fine, but never did I intend to insult Zhukov.

Tough shit. This is rediculous. This argument goes right back to censorship, and to that I only have to say that real life is the osmosis of all things that exist, permitted or not, and putting your head (or worse, your child's head) in the sand whenever something you deem 'bad' comes along does not help anyone understand real life, and build up the necessary defenses to operate in it. What it does create, is people with an infantile, invented understanding of reality, that are prone to knee-jerk carpet-bomb other countries whenever reality chooses to barge in uninvited.

Thank you for the sermon Sir, but I don't think you got the point. The author (while he undoubtedly probably is the censorship type) doesn't care about what you think about insulating our children from sex, violence, and generally naughty things. He's critiquing the Libertarian argument that freedom would lead to a general condition of overall goodness, that with this absolute freedom, ultimately, everyone would aspire to be sort of Bourgeois and sensible. He doesn't care about censorship, at least not in this article, but he knows that a lot of pseudo-libertarian Republicans in America DO in fact care about those things, but they've been duped by guys like Harry Browne into thinking that Libertarian freedom would result in a morally sound America (the Red-State kind of morality, yes).

but I really can't take this article seriously on the grounds that it uses incorrect terminology extensively, seems to have a silly bias ("if I prove it's like Marxism, we all agree that it's wrong!") and generally only superficially touches specific issues.

It was an incredibly brief piece. He had to write in abstracts and such, otherwise he'd probably be saying a whole lot that doesn't really say anything.

Go far left enough, and you end up on the right. This is true for communism, but not in that if you push it left enough it will become libertarianism. Rather, it will become a rigid class system with a gigantic state machine more similar to italian fascism than anything else. There is little to no way to go from actual marxism to libertarianism. There is, however, a way to go there through anarcho-communism (I'm thinking Cropotkin and Bakunin here, not the jerk in your school with the mohawk), but I'm pretty sure most people here agree anarchism is silly enough on it's own in most of it's popular incarnations, and could only be discussed as a possibility in it's Bakunin-incarnation only after communism is achieved, so as to not credit this connection very much. It's like someone being in place B on the map, and wanting to go to place A on the map, by wanting to create an interdimensional portal to take him there or something silly like that. Meaning, the faults of libertarianism cannot be connected with communism through anarchocommunism. I understand the article doesn't deal with that directly, but this thread does, so I offer my thoughts on this too.

Lord, speaking of saying a whole lot without really saying a damn thing.....

Communism doesn't have to be the polar opposite of Libertarianism in order for this guy to make his point. Perhaps this unfortunately excludes those living outside the U.S., but this guy is indeed speaking from a very American party system sort of position (the publication is after all called the "American Conservative"). And like I said before, a lot of it is about perception.

I hate to break it to the Greeks, and uh, Tanzanians, or whoever else is on this board, but Communism/Marxism/Socialism is all but dead in this country. I'm not trying to qualify that, I'm simply stating it as a relatively accurate reality. In writing this article, he isn't debating whether ideologically speaking Libertarianism is sort of like the American Right's Communism. The latter has already been dismissed and beaten in this country, but the former has gained a strange degree of appeal. According to the Libertarian Party, they are the fastest growing third party in the country (this is of course what every third party says, but with the recent decline of the Green Party, they may be right).

No third party has more elected officials at the grassroots level, and prominent pundits like Neal Boortz can comfortably call themselves at least "sort of Libertarian" and be accepted in Conservative Republican circles. This guy, obviously being a conservative, wants to point out why that shouldn't necessarily be the case (in fact, if you read the article carefully, a lot of his comparisons have more to do with Libertarian/Conservatism, rather than a comparison between Libertarianism and Marxism).

The center-left in this country has been forced to distance itself from Marxism. Heck, even the label of "liberal" hs become damaging. This guy's point is that Libertarianism hasn't been fully evaluated, and thus sort of gets a pass amongst conservatives (much like the accusations made against the Dems and the unions in the first half of the 20th century). I take it he thinks they deserve equal scrutiny.