tdh@frog.UUCP (06/16/85)
The following concerns an article "Libertarianism: The
Perversion of Liberty", the first segment of which was
published in the May 10 issue of *The Intellectual
Activist*.
The distortion involved is primarily that of painting the
whole movement with the colors of but a part of it, and
secondarily that of impugning the motives of those who are
dealing with others holding different philosophies.
Rothbard, to whose writing I was exposed before ever joining
up with the LP, is given greatest (and undeserved)
prominence, and is remarked upon as being "widely regarded
as the intellectual father of the Libertarian movement [!]",
and "known as Libertarianism's leading theorist." Quotes
from the misnamed Radical Caucus were in an abundance far
exceeding their membership and influence within the LP (but
not their noise). What has always been stressed in the
meetings that I have attended has been: find some common
ground with those you are trying to convince and use it as a
base for further argument. What Schwartz twisted that into
was a lack of respect for ideas (even if true in individual
cases).
I decided to cull out all of the smears in Schwartz's
article. I hope I got most of them (all are direct quotes;
there is no evidence that the qualifier "some", for example,
was implied or overlooked, although there were a few
unquoted but qualified statements). They are actually
funny, considering that I know some Objectivists within
the LP.:
1) Libertarians are not pro-liberty, but simply
anti-state.
2) ... the Libertarian, whose premise is simply
that *any* activity of the state is inherently
tainted, regardless of its nature and purpose.
3) The freeze movement ... is embraced by
Libertarians ...
4) The goals of achieving liberty and destroying
the state are incompatible -- yet Libertarians
choose the latter. ... [A] properly functioning
government ... is of no concern to Libertarians --
*all* states are the enemy.
5) To Libertarians, whatever harms the state is
categorically good; whatever helps the state is
categorically bad -- regardless of the effect on
human liberty.
6) Any legitimate proponent of liberty realizes that
a show of force by the state should be morally
evaluated according to whether it is being used for
aggression or self-defense. But not the
Libertarian.
7) Because neither the pursuit of freedom nor the
exercise of reason is important to the Libertarian.
What he cares about is the extermination of
government and the inculcation of anti-state
hostility.
8) Although anyone with the most rudimentary
understanding of liberty realizes the life-and-death
difference between a U.S. government and a Soviet
government, the Libertarian -- focusing only on
denouncing all states -- does not. To him, if
America is at war, even if it is fighting a Nazi
Germany or a Soviet Russia, it is always just "two
sets of thieves and aggressors."
9) But the reason behind a particular view -- i.e. the
philosophical framework -- is insignificant to
Libertarians. They see only isolated, unconnected
stands on concrete issues. They want to be able to
uphold a position without having to understand its
root. They don't want to have to know what thinking
lies behind it or where that thinking leads. They
do not acknowledge the role of a basic philosophy in
shaping those concrete positions. They want to
concern themselves only with the here-and-now --
with whether ... the state is being denounced or
not. *Why* it is being denounced, by whom, with
what intellectual implications, with what long-range
consequences for the moment after next -- are
considerations too philosophical for Libertarians to
entertain. The fact that each of these liberal
crusades represents a *system* of thought is of no
account to Libertarians. They want to grab onto a
tiny fragment of that system, wrench it out of its
intellectual context, assess it in a vacuum, and
then praise it -- while ignoring the entire statist
structure that gives rise to it and without which it
would not exist.
10) Let someone invent a better way to execrate the
state and Libertarians will beat a path to his door,
irrespective of his underlying philosophy.
11) After all, the values of a liberated proletariat or
of a purified Aryan race cannot really be
achieved -- the Libertarian would argue -- except
through uncoerced action.
12) Only when some tyrant misguidedly believes that
["the basic moral tenets of dictatorship"] can be
implemented by force do Libertarians begin to tsk.
13) By dispensing with ethical fundamentals, not only
are Libertarians unable to justify liberty, but they
cannot even *define* it. ... but what is force?
14) They cannot utter a sentence about force, or about
liberty, until they construct an appropriate
foundation -- a foundation the necessity of which
Libertarians adamantly reject.
15) Libertarians want to transform the present system
not by force of argument, but by plain force. And
they broadcast this openly.
16) The goal of Libertarians is to topple the state by
force. They see no way to oust the power elite
except through armed struggle. To them, the state
rules not because its activities are sanctioned by
the prevailing ideas of the culture, but because it
has guns ... Even the election campaigns
Libertarians engage in are not intended to educate
the public about the meaning of liberty. Rather,
they are merely holding actions, designed to pave
the way for violent revolution and to sneak some
Libertarians into the seats of power before the
fighting starts.
17) The Libertarian wants to incite the masses and
organize them for pitched battle against the power
elite who have kept them enslaved for so long. He
sees a vast wellspring of dormant revolutionaries...
18) But the mind is the one realm Libertarians
categorically abandon.
19) They hold an opposite view [from intellectuality and
the inculcation of an "*ideology* of liberty",
respectively] of both the nature of this conflict
[against statism] and the nature of the goal they
hope victory will achieve. They interpret the
conflict as purely material, to be won by the
physically stronger army. And they regard the
objective of liberty to mean the destruction of the
American state...
20) ... to Libertarians, any anti-state uprising means
that freedom is being advanced...
21) America is far more contemptible than even the
Soviet Union, according to the Libertarian
definition of liberty.
22) Libertarians thus see America as their mortal foe.
23) To the Libertarian, liberty is attained when the
state is destroyed.
24) ...the Soviet threat is a myth to Libertarians.
They consider Russia to be an exemplary,
peace-loving country.
25) Libertarians are openly laudatory of the New Left...
26) ...the present-day Libertarian is a fervent
emotionalist. He wants to act on whatever feelings
he happens to experience, no matter how capricious
and irrational. He wants no constraints whatsoever
on his behavior.
27) The Libertarian interprets liberty to mean the
license to do whatever he feels like doing. His
seeming disapproval of coercion means nothing since
he has no way of even *defining* force, and finds
its use undesirable solely because it is an obstacle
in the path of people's whims. He can only come up
with a pseudo-definition: force is that which
interferes with someone's desires.
28) Should there be laws against libel and slander? No,
say Libertarians...
29) It is not mere indifference, but overt antagonism,
that Libertarians display toward the subject of
morality...
30) The only assertion a true Libertarian would make is
that whatever one happens to prefer -- production or
privation, long-range planning or
range-of-the-moment consumption, knowledge or
ignorance, health or sickness, cleanliness or filth,
electricity or candles -- liberty is the ideal
condition for its achievement.