this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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[–] trafficnab@lemmy.ca 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The best description for the modern "libertarian" I've heard is that they're just conservatives who smoke weed

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The best description for the modern “libertarian” I’ve heard is that they’re just ~~conservatives~~ fascists who smoke weed

Now I agree.

[–] trafficnab@lemmy.ca 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I don't think they're fascist, just selfish in most cases. They take the "me" in "Don't tread on me" too literally, and only care about their own rights and their own needs, fuck everyone else's.

Their Venn diagram of "Things the government should provide/allow people to do" and "Things I personally need/want to do" is just a circle, and they won't lift a finger to try to shape the government to work well for anyone else.

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

One of the vilest messiahs of US "libertarianism," Murray Rothbard, associated with Holocaust deniers and argued for the pig to be allowed to torture suspects (not people convicted of anything - suspects).

If your roots are fascist, you are fascist. US "libertarianism" is about as fascist as Heinrich Himmler.

[–] trafficnab@lemmy.ca 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Probably 99% of self described libertarians don't know anything about that, or actual libertarian rhetoric in general, they just want to smoke weed and not pay taxes for stuff that doesn't personally benefit them and they think that's what libertarianism is

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Now that lemmy is overflowing with liberals - people who get their ideas of what political concepts actually mean from CNN and "Law & Order" reruns - I am constantly having to deal with people who don't know where the ideologies they cling to come from. or even means in reality.

So I guess these (supposed) "libertarians" isn't alone in that regard.

[–] DMBFFF@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

FWIW,

rw:Murray Rothbard

Rothbard was one of the foremost proponents of the pseudo-psychology known as praxeology. Rothbard viewed property rights as paramount to freedom and so went even beyond von Mises, who was a minarchist, in advocating anarcho-capitalism. He was also known as a big critic of fractional reserve banking and the Federal Reserve. Because of his philosophy, he held many views that would be seen as progressive as well as ones that were misguided. For example, he voiced support for the civil rights movement,[note 1] but also defended the practice of child labor, "racialist science,"[2] and that "cops must be unleashed, and allowed to administer instant punishment."[3] Also, despite his initial vocal support for revolutionary black power politics, he later worked with Lew Rockwell, founder and then president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, to run a campaign strategy to exploit racism in order to build a libertarian/paleoconservative coalition (dubbed Paleolibertarianism),[4] and praised the notorious work by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve.[5] He was known as the first anarcho-capitalist.

rw:Benito Mussolini

Benito later followed his mother into school-teaching and became politically active as a democratic socialist. He was a very prominent member of the Italian Socialist Party in the years prior to World War I.[18] He edited several socialist papers and also wrote a satirical novel, The Cardinal's Mistress, which was poorly written and mostly served as a vehicle for numerous anti-clerical rants.[19][20]

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Soooo... US “libertarianism” is about as fascist as Heinrich Himmler.

[–] DMBFFF@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Apparently Rothbard wasn't as bad as Himmler, but he was bad enough.

You no more have to be a disciple of Rothbard, Rand, or Hoppe to be a libertarian, anymore than you have to be a tankie to be leftist, however tankies might say otherwise.

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Apparently Rothbard wasn’t as bad as Himmler,

Of course not - the likes of Rothbard or Rand will never be caught dead close to the mass-graves their ideological grifting helped to dig.

anymore than you have to be a tankie to be leftist

I make a hard distinction between leftists and political racketeers masquerading as leftists right until they get the power they crave. I place everything spawned by the Bolsheviks in the latter category.

There is nothing unique or new about this distinction.

[–] DMBFFF@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Rand wrote about the Nazis and fascists.

She didn't like them.

So are you saying that your brand of leftism was spawned before the Bolsheviks—i.e. over 100 years ago?

What do you think about Karl Marx, a 19th century political philosopher, IIUC?

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

She didn’t like them.

She sure liked their methods.

So are you saying that your brand of leftism was spawned before

The French didn't invent left or right - they just invented a useful shorthand to distinguish between the two.

[–] DMBFFF@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The most successful socialists on the planet used fascistic methods.

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] DMBFFF@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hoxha, probably Tito and Castro, arguably Pol Pot, Guzman, arguably the PFLP.

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Perpetrating mass-murder against the working class doesn't conform to any worthwile description of the term "socialism" - so that disqualifies everyone on your list except Tito and Castro. And I'd describe them purely as nationalists.

[–] DMBFFF@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

They might say things like "triage," "greater good," and "ends justify the means";

or as the Vietnam vet joke goes: "You don't know, man! You weren't there!"

Kerensky failed.

Lenin died.

Trotsky lived in a client state of the Capitalist US Empire.

Stalin got things done, and Brezhnev, for whatever his faults, continued it.

https://youtu.be/QuN6GfUix7c?t=409 (cued, for about a minute)

(and the thing supposedly in Camaroon apparantly didn't happen)

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They might say things like “triage,” “greater good,” and “ends justify the means”;

It's almost like they will say anything to justify the status quo - perfectly in line with all those seeking to enforce it.

Stalin got things done,

Only if you believe "got things done" includes almost handing the Soviet Union over to the nazis through his criminal mismanagement of the Red Army and/or forcing a murderously hamfisted, top-down industrialization program on the working class that the actual soviet councils would have achieved in a far, far more efficient manner without massive amounts of bloodshed and famine if the Bolsheviks hadn't hijacked them and turned them into glorified rubberstamping bureucracies in their bloody counter-revolution back in the early 20s.

You should be careful of "Great Man" fallacies. They are usually perfectly ahistorical. Whatever the Soviet Union achieved, it didn't achieve them because of Joseph Stalin - it achieved them in spite of him.

[–] DMBFFF@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Well said. 😁🙂

[–] DMBFFF@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Not all libertarians smoke weed.