A Land of Phony Libertarians
There are, maybe, about a dozen true libertarians in this country. I count Ted Kaczynski as one of them because when he was busted, he was living in some shack without any indoor plumbing or electricity, a true libertarian abode that didn't rely on the electrical grid, water or gas lines. And it wasn't located at the end of a cul-de-sac, off the government-paved roads.
But there are large number of people in this country who call themselves libertarians, only they're living in nice homes with plenty of electricity, gas and water. People who also live in gated communities but curse the federal government and its freedom-crushing ways as they traipse out to check the federally-delivered mail with growing disgust. Most of these people are rich, or at least, very upper middle-class. They're people who, if you listen to them, just arrived fully formed on the planet the other day. They did not grow up in the community they live in, or attend any of its schools and certainly did not go to a public university. They created their own businesses without a single loan, and paved their own roads and infrastructure hookups. In fact, they've run their business single-handedly, thank you very much, with no help from the federal, local or state governments. Purely by fiat, sheer willpower, did they create the wealth they enjoy.
It seems that in the past few years, since 2009 at least, the number of people claiming to be libertarian has skyrocketed. If not outright self-identification, people claim they have "libertarian leanings," a phrase that covers up for "political opportunism." Well, that and "selfish prick." You see, the grandfather founds a business, the father expands it and the son squanders it. But nowadays, the sons are claiming they did the first two on their own and the evil government is hellbent on doing the third via horrible things like affordable health care. Suddenly, these people call themselves libertarian and want nothing to do with the federal government because the federal government's never done anything for them. Suddenly these people are up in arms about things like health care, and get Jesus and start claiming contraception offered to employees is anathema and an assault on their religious freedoms. In other words, they've been free to pursue their wealth-building all they've wanted, but at the prospect of actually needing to give more back to society? Dictatorship! Socialism! Evil! Fie!
Libertarians don't have a social program and they don't care about it. Their philosophy can be summed up in two words what took Ayn Rand 10 million to write: fuck you. And hey, you're more than welcome to say that. You can hoard your money all you want, you can avoid taxes all you want because that's what the rich do. But please, don't call it "freedom," because it's got little to do with that. The phony libertarians in the this country are tying to hide their contempt for others (especially their own employees) under the rubric of "freedom." This is a lie. And not only a lie, but a damned one at that. Our system is structured to allow those who play fast and loose with the rules to strike gold. Now that the wind has shifted a bit, you suddenly find all sorts of people calling themselves libertarians and clutching their bibles lamenting their lost freedoms. Worse, these phony libertarians are living in the freest society in history, yet act like they're being forced to march to the death camps. They're acting like their wealth is being taken away from them by the horrible federal government. Then after saying that, they easily head to a nice restaurant for dinner in their beautiful cars.
No one is going to argue about value of hard work, not even the myth that hard work will always get you ahead in the world. The phony libertarians think they're the only hard workers in this country, and as I mentioned above, that they've built their wealth on their own. Either that, or they possess a very poor understanding of what libertarianism is. And like I said, it's more political opportunism that anything else. It's like the folks who claim they want small government: utter bullshit. What they really mean is, "I want to use my money to impose what I like on everyone else, acquire more money and not have federal authority get in my way. And I sure as hell don't want to use it for healthcare!" If that's your position, fine. That's direct, and it's honest. Just stop calling yourself a libertarian because that's a lie, and you're trying to cover up your selfishness as some kind of refined political philosophy. That's actually more irritating than anything else.