Totalitarians in Libertarian clothing, and how Conservatives became their "Fellow Travellers"

(This was published a year ago but still speaks well.)

It would appear to me that either Libertarians are deliberately framing issues to obscure reality or have not actually thought their obsession through.

Now my understanding of a Straussian is that they have thought it through and decided that it is good to be the King, as long as it is just them as king and a few cronies to keep them in power, and the rest of the World can just KMA. But they also realize the rest of the World considers such people to be pure evil, and even their fellow travelers would prefer each of them be king.

So in order to avoid sharing a cell with Saddam, they invent elaborate propaganda structures, while looking intently how to stab others in the back, and avoiding others doing the same to them. This is pretty much how Saddam operated, as well as the Bush Administration, and all the other more obedient Saddams in all the Tajikistans about the World.

That the Bush Administration has not yet demonstrated all the excesses that Saddam & Sons exercised on their private property they called Iraq, is limited only by their perception of being held accountable for their actions. And therein lies the rub that actual Libertarians have not thought through.

Now it is my understanding that a Libertarian believes in absolute freedom of personal action and property rights, and that the only legitimate activity of Government is to protect such happy folk from losing those things. Now such thoughts are fine if you happen to be Saddam, but the rest of the Iraqis did not find such free exercise of property rights so enjoyable. No matter how much less dramatic you make it, universal freedom and universal property rights cannot coexist. Just the definition owning anything means that someone else cannot mess with your stuff beyond the limits of your freely given permission.

The actual reality is that any action done in concert by two or more people, or the divvying up of the assets of the World are matters of power and those who exercise it. The only real issue is what controls those who are acted upon have on the actors. While it is an old saw that absolute power corrupts absolutely, the less pointed out corollary is that ALL power corrupts to the limits of its accountability to other powers.

Libertarians are quick to point this out of Government De Jure, but totally obsficate the fact that any exercise of power is Government De Facto and is even less immune to such corruption because of its stealth quality. This is how the Republicans hoodwinked the nation by saying they wanted "to get the Government off our backs" when what they really wanted was to fire all the cops. The prisons are full of people with the same complaint, but without the massive funding required to exercise their "Free" Speech.

Now actual Liberals, unlike Straussian straw liberals, believe in the maximum freedom for every individual to decide as much as possible about their own life. They even believe in "private" property and what personal power it gives to have your own stuff to help structure your life. The issue is one of accountability and who is going to stop any person from abusing the power to exploit, injure, or otherwise limit other people from exercising their own freedom.

Now there are many issues that honorable people can differ on, as to who guards the guards, and how much accountability and what kind is appropriate, but there should be agreement that stealing millions of dollars, or horribly killing thousands or millions, should get a lot more accountability than your average street criminal (though he should be stopped as well). That such power is excercised as the choice of serious injury / forking over your wallet, or paying the power bill / living without heat cannot be considered a free will choice, nor so if the facts are hidden/twisted to cause you to make a choice you would not make had you known them.

There was a time when people of Straussian attitude feigned being Liberals, and called themselves Communists, today they are almost all Conservatives, finding their power base in Bigotry, Theocracy, and Corporate Megalomania (often referred to as Fascism or Kleptocracy). All are Totalitarian at their black heart, and all need to be recognized as the pure evil that they are. In the United States all such folk with any power are Republican, and why the World is at greater danger than anytime in the past, with nine months to decide its fate.