Archive for the 'Conservatism' Category

Permission to correct the mistakes of government: denied.

Saturday, September 6th, 2008

McCain said:

My friends, if you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you’re disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them.

Just don’t join it’s ranks from within the Republican party:

Today at the Republican National Convention, as the Ron Paul Delegates were taking a picture in front of the model White House inside the Convention Center, they were surrounded by Secret Service which proceeded to search the bags of all the delegates. They took any and everything related to Ron Paul including signs, buttons, videos, slim jims, cards, even books.

They were followed, surveilled, and harassed. Indeed, even if you make it into the ranks of government, they may still try to hold you back:

Earlier Tuesday, Paul said he was told he could go to the Republican convention floor, but only under very restricted conditions.

The Republican National Committee told Paul he would have to pick up his pass at the gate and couldn’t have any guests.

“Republican congressmen should have a pass to the floor, but they said, ‘Your pass will be at the gate, and we’ll pick it up when you leave, and you can’t take anybody with you,’ ” he said on CNN’s “American Morning.”

And since they’re treating even peaceful protest and civil disobedience as terrorism, they’re leaving us with very few options. Whether we see our role in fixing problems as within, without, or against government, the response is clear: submit or suffer. Make this a better country, but a better country according to our definition, not yours. And don’t make any sudden moves while you’re working on those flaws!

Posted in Activism, Blogospherics, Conservatism, Conspiracy, Current Events, LL.org, Police State, Security | Comments Off

Quote of the Day

Tuesday, May 29th, 2007

This time it’s from Eric Husman:

The Left may not favor the police state, but they are for a police state. The Right is just the opposite: While they claim to be against a powerful, central government, they keep building the powerful, central government.

Of course, he’s entirely correct about the establishment Left and the Right. And keep in mind that the generality or specificity of their authoritarianism changes in direct proportion to who’s in power - in other words, the Right was all up in arms about militant law enforcement in the not too distant past. The establishment is defined by its pettiness, superficiality, lack of reflection, and most of all its sheer hypocrisy.

Posted in Blogospherics, Conservatism, Police State, Politics, leftism | Comments Off

What is a left libertarian?

Friday, April 13th, 2007

Since the Patrick Henry Supper Club meeting, I’ve been thinking about a lot of the questions I’ve received on what left libertarianism is. I can’t answer for anybody but myself, but I figure this is as good a place as any to try.

First, I should address the term “left”, since many find it grating and statist. My use of the term rests on its original usage since the French revolutionary era, stemming from the seating arrangements of the French legislature. Those who supported the ancien régime - the status quo, the establishment, the ruling class - sat on the right side of the assembly. Those who opposed the old guard (for whatever reason) seated themselves on the Left. Of course, opposing the establishment is not an endeavor unique to the Left, strictly speaking; nevertheless, it has been the Left that throughout history has consistently worked against authority. The Left has not always been libertarian, but the farther left one goes, the freer one gets, until you end up on the so-called “infantile Left” that was far too anarchic for somebody like Lenin. The central theme of leftism, at its heart, has been resistance to the status quo. That is the sense in which I’m a leftist (and the sense in which somebody like Stalin or Clinton could hardly qualify when compared to other thinkers and activists on the Left).

My leftist principles would not be alien to other libertarians. Abolishing aggression and fraud is still the ultimate means to libertarian ends. Where I find I differ with more mainstream libertarians is on my speculative vision of what those ends look like if the principles or liberty are consistently followed to their natural conclusion. Yes, it is a cultural issue, but not just that - left libertarians extend the analysis of the State consistently to uncover those aspects of the economy, society, and environment which are affected by the pernicious influence of the State in some way. A world without institutionalized violence, they believe, will necessarily free humanity to organize in a variety of ways that will change the face of the planet.

Posted in Anarchism, Capitalism, Conservatism, Cooperativism, Corporatism, Culture, Decentralization, Economics, History, Intellectual Property, LL.org, Labor Issues, Libertarianism, Managerialism, Mutualism, Police State, Politics, Poverty, Revisionism, Society, leftism | Comments Off