Ashley Rae Goldenberg is an economics major at George Mason University. She is the author of the blog CommunismKills, a popular anti-left blog which has led to her becoming a target to thousands of death threats, stalking, and other behavior typical of the “tolerant” left.
The children of the counter-revolutionary “hippies” are starting to rear their heads in the political realm. Having grown up on a strict diet of proverbial Woodstockian herbs, these children have adopted a mantra of moral relativism as an absolute truth. Cultural Marxism—the application of Marxist thought to issues such as race, gender, and culture–comes natural to the children raised on tales of the great revolutionaries and civil rights heroes of their parents’ times.
Due to a deliberate misunderstanding or a mere confusion of terms, the “let everything hang out” libertines have latched on to the libertarian movement. To the youth, libertarianism appears to be the political ideology that allows their degenerate behavior to flourish.
Masquerading under the banner of libertarianism, student groups such as Students for Liberty hold webinars calling for a Progressive-libertarian alliance. The moral relativist, cultural Marxist libertines whom Murray Rothbard eloquently described as modal libertarians are openly admitting their left-wing sympathies when they claim to be “bleeding-heart libertarians” “seeking Progressive reform through free-market.”
Progressivism and libertarianism are two diametrically opposed ideologies, yet they seem to be reconcilable to the misinformed. Out of these ideological mistakes, Progressive-libertarianism, left-libertarianism, and self-proclaimed libertarians with communist sympathies have been spawned.
I have first-hand experience interacting with numerous Progressive libertarians. In a Facebook post advertising the Students for Liberty seminar about a Progressive-libertarian alliance, the former editor of Reason took to calling me a “child” for my opposition to such an alliance. Once I explained the viability of a conservative-libertarian alliance, the former editor took the “Bush” route, and the conversation ended there.
I have also attended multiple Students for Liberty conferences. The 2012 International Students for Liberty Conference started off with an awards ceremony (a pat-on-the-back “we’re all winners here” affair), with the favorite pony being Zach Wahls, a man who did nothing more than go into a court room to say he has two mothers. As if waltzing in to a court room to talk about the destruction of the traditional family is something that deserves a special snowflake award.
Wahls was even given the privilege of a speaking spot at the Students for Liberty conference. It is important to note that Zach Wahls was a speaker at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, supporting Obama for being “in favor of gay marriage.”
At the Students for Liberty conference, Zach Wahls hosted the featured discussion about a Progressive-libertarian alliance. The big event at the Students for Liberty conference was a taping of the Stossel show, which included kids “booing” the Tenth Amendment and attacking a conservative constitutional lawyer for his personal beliefs in the traditional family. When John Bolton walked on stage, I was ashamed to even have been attending that conference. Acting like children, the students employed Progressive tactics to silence dissent.
Students for Liberty has not even been trying to hide their agenda. The Students for Liberty organization has a longstanding tradition of censorship, deleting Facebook comments and rejecting publications that go against the Progressive ideology. Shouting down conservatives, even conservatives with libertarian beliefs, is nothing new.
The Progressive libertarians opt to support an agenda of demolishing Western civilization, pillar by pillar. The Progressive libertarians concern themselves with ideas such as fighting “the patriarchy,” “classism,” and “the man,” as if there’s a constant struggle towards true freedom.
These libertarians compare the traditional familial hierarchy to authoritarian regimes in order to diminish and trivialize the role of parents. Militant atheists demonize all Judeo-Christian, traditional values as hindrances to freedom. Gary Johnson, the 2012 Libertarian Party nominee, believes that the government must coerce the population into accepting government-sponsored “gay marriage.”
The Progressive libertarians believe that in order to produce a society rid of unfortunate concepts such as social stigma, everything must be viewed as equal. If something is not equal, it must be forced to be equal. For example, instead of supporting the government getting out of the traditional institution of marriage, the Progressive libertarian supports further government intrusion into religious liberty “in the name of equality.”
Religious institutions, to the Progressive libertarian, are hindrances to progress. The Progressive libertarians vocally support forced non-discrimination legislation and expansions of the Civil Rights Acts to cover a whole host of alternative lifestyles. Anyone who does not support the alternative lifestyles for any reason—especially religious reasons—is an intolerant bigot whom the state, apparently, has a duty to stop.
Members of Students for Liberty, in particular, have stated that they wish to ban the Boy Scouts from using public land that their members paid taxes to fund, since the Boy Scouts have a “homophobic” agenda. To the Progressive libertarian, tolerance of everything except perceived intolerance is required.
The Progressive libertarians, unaware of the philosophical libertarian reasoning behind political issues, rely on emotional appeals. Progressive libertarians believe that there is a government-sponsored right to gay marriage and that to deny any individual of the “right to marry” would be a human rights abomination. The Drug War is attacked not for being an assault on individual freedom and economic liberty; rather, the Drug War is presumed to be evil because more people with dark skin color are impacted than whites. In general, war is opposed not because it is a violation of the non-aggression principle; war is evil because it kills innocent, peaceful brown people.
Since cultural Marxism requires animosity towards Western civilization, it is no coincidence that the Progressive libertarians champion the Islamic totalitarian cause. Instead of seeing Sharia Law as diametrically opposed to the classical liberal tradition and therefore incompatible with freedom, Progressive libertarians hold that any ill feelings towards Islamic law must be due to some “phobia” and latent hatred of dark-skinned people.
From supporting the Arab Spring as “true democracy” to calling any criticism of Sharia Law a form of “racism,” the Progressive libertarians silence all dissent against creeping Sharia. The ideas which have allowed Western civilization to flourish, however, are intentionally absent from Islamic society. In order to keep the populace subordinate to the fascist government, no economic or social freedom is allowed. For instance, capitalism, or “usury,” is considered a crime throughout Islamic societies and, with Islamic governments, is punishable by death.
When Progressive libertarians openly endorse Islamic governmental systems against the “imperialistic Westerners,” they are implicitly supporting governments that behead adulterers, jail Christians, and vocally support destroying Western civilization through terroristic means. How Progressive!
Perhaps the most obvious hurdle to any Progressive-libertarian alliance is the fact that Progressives do not understand economics. Progressive libertarians often call themselves “mutualists,” priding themselves on their hatred of capitalism and private property in the vein of Proudhon. Mutualists ascribe to the labor theory of value, the flat-Earth theory of economics. Mutualists, such as Kevin Carson, openly call for “free markets to achieve full communism.” Kevin Carson has even referred to capitalism as “state intervention,” likening it to the Pharaoh’s rule. With libertarians like these, who needs communists?
While a libertarian society would allow for communes to fail the same way New Harmony collapsed, there is nothing libertarian about forcing communist ideology on peaceful individuals. Perhaps the most communist notion of mutualism is the idea that the employee-employer relationship, and all wage labor, is inherently “exploitation.” The rhetoric that views the voluntary, mutually beneficial relationship between an employer and an employee as “exploitation” just shows how deep the Marxist sympathies of the “bleeding-heart libertarians” run.
Progressives, in general, do not understand the simple laws of supply and demand. The free-market principles that are the backbone of libertarianism are completely foreign to Progressives. Progressives do not care about the debt, the deficit, or the ballooning unfunded liabilities problem. To the Progressive, all social welfare programs funnel money to “the common good.” To Progressives, even slight cuts to social welfare programs would cause millions of people to starve in the streets overnight. Progressives do not deal in economic reality, so it is impossible to be reasonable with them.
Conservatives, on the other hand, are the natural allies of libertarianism. Conservatives understand that there is a spending problem. Conservatives understand that the government threatens their way of life. Conservatives understand that no matter the humanitarian reasoning, more government welfare programs will never strengthen the welfare of individuals.
One needs to look no farther than the rhetoric of conservatism in contrast to the promises of Progressives: while conservatives talk about limited government, Progressives talk about government orchestrating an ideal society. After all, President Reagan even said “I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.” It should be fairly evident who is on the side of liberty.
The same way the Progressives have been able to hijack the word “liberalism” and apply it to their beliefs, the Progressives are attempting to infiltrate the libertarian movement. All attempts to create an ideology of “left-libertarianism” are intrinsically tied to the false ideas of government-instituted “rights” and government-mandated “egalitarianism.” Government force is the antithesis of libertarianism.
Anti-Western ideology is the antithesis of freedom. The only mechanism to stop the invasion of the parasitic Progressive ideology is to call the left for what it is really is: communism.
Ted Nugent is a corny guy, but he loves the Second Amendment. Piers Morgan is easily the most annoying personality on any major news network. But this exchange was absolutely priceless. The two argue over the right to keep and bear arms, and it becomes obvious that Pierce’s only response are the vague arguments he’s been making for weeks.
There’s an old expression that “those who forget history are bound to repeat it”. There is no arena where this is more true than with the issue of gun control, gun bans, and analyzing crime.
There has been hotly renewed debate recently about gun control, and whether a gun ban would have saved lives in the Connecticut tragedy. Considering the school where the shooting occurred actually banned guns, another gun ban probably would have failed completely.
Gun control is one of the most open-and-shut topics I’ve ever run across. All of the data supports a well-armed society. All of it. It doesn’t work, it doesn’t reduce crime, it doesn’t reduce violence, it doesn’t save lives — it just fails. It’s never worked in Europe, in the US, in Canada, in Asia, or anywhere else.
On December 14th, a young man with a very broken mind decided to kill his mother, several other adults, and dozens of little children. He did this by stealing his mother’s guns, shooting her, driving to a school, forcing his way in, and then shooting the innocent little ones until he decided to finally kill himself. He used his murdered mothers rifle and several handguns that were illegal for him to own or carry.
The Obama administration seems to be content to be wrong about almost everything. Gun control, environmental regulations, increasing taxes, increasing spending, increasing debt, violating federalism, etc. You name it, and they’re probably wrong about it. But now, even the Obama administration is hitting a point where anyone with any common sense can tell that something is bizarrely wrong.
There is no sleep for the weary. Every day now, a brand new broadside attack on liberty and property is occurring around the world. We’re struggling here at CI to even keep up with the news, much less fight each attack. But it’s important to stay constantly vigilant to never stop fighting every single attack, and make the tyrants at least sweat a little.
