Comments on “Why I Left the Libertarian Party”

I recently penned the article “Why I left the Libertarian Party”.
I sent some of my friends and people I grew up with a link to the piece.  Below are comments from one of them in black and my rebuttal comments in blue.

I have to say I was disappointed and surprised by the comments.  I had no idea of the gap between my philosophy and that persons.  I also have to say that I cannot wrap my mind around some of these arguments as to me it is black and white that government who only provides protection from force and fraud as its only hat works.

Read the referenced piece above if you have not.  For more question and answer…see Liberal Questions

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This was a revealing article; deeply personal and a reflection of what
I feel is dangerous thinking.

Really? Wow.

The ideas expressed in your article
reflect the radical elements of today’s ordinary, law-abiding
Americans who yearn for stability in their lives. You yearn for a
return to an illusion of the past, that never existed in the first
place, where the Founding Fathers are all heroes, and Americans were
self-sufficient. You remain subject to and victim of the horrors of
WWI and WWII when Socialism and Marxism were branded as evil
ideologies.

I am surprised and amazed that:

1. There are radical elements of today’s ordinary, law-abiding Americans. I didn’t know such existed.

2. You don’t consider Socialism and Marxism evil. Can you tell me the reasoning behind you thinking it is not?

 Americans are subject to and victims of fear; fear of their culture being diluted and perhaps replaced by something alien.

I assume this is in response to my comment about open borders and unchecked immigration diluting our culture.  Americans have a unique culture, despite the sins of our past regarding our native population.  Certainly it is a shame on our ancestors over the last century.  That being said, you assume I “yearn for a return to an illusion of the past that never existed…”  This is evaluation of the worst kind…assuming you know what I yearn for.  In reality I yearn for something that has a potential of existing but never has and that is government doing only its proper functions of protecting individual right and the citizens from force and fraud.   I have stated elsewhere that if the government is “helping people” it not only is NOT protecting individual rights it is actively violating them.

All of this confusion results in unhappiness, thereby, making
Americans feel that their Constitutional rights to pursue happiness
has been violated. Americans are lost. They do not know that Jefferson
was a Humanist who called himself “an Epicurean”. The “Pursuit of
Happiness” was the foundation of Epicurean ideology. Jefferson was
wise enough to accept this philosophy and incorporate it into our
Constitution. But Americans do not know the larger context of those
words. They do not know that Epicurus avoided politics and thought it
was a waste of time.

The first thought I have is…So?

Jefferson was experimenting and the philosophy almost worked.

Almost worked? What did not work about it?

Just as Socialism and Marxism were experiments that failed, doesn’t mean that everything about those philosophies is wrong or evil.

What isn’t wrong or evil about It?

It’s the application that counts and who enforces (interprets) the application.

Please tell me how stealing the product of some to give to others is applied so it is not wrong or evil?

There is no one, clear, absolute application of any philosophy. They
are all subject to debate and rejection of parts. If Marxism and
Socialism have infiltrated the Democratic Party, it is because the
American public desires it and elects persons who support those
desires. You cannot say that Marxism and Socialism does not exist in
some of the platforms of the Republican Party, or even in your own
thinking.

You are absolutely correct.  I cannot say that and I did not. There are ALWAYS people who desire and covet the labor and product of others.  The Constitution was put there as a protection against this sort of thing.  Both Republicans and Dems have been actively violating the Constitution in this regard.  The Republicans are just not as far gone as the Dems.  Please tell me though, where in my thinking that Marxism and Socialism does exist?  You cannot make such a blanket statement.  If nothing else it undermines your argument.  It may be a reason some people have such a visceral reaction to your arguments.

As for fear, I believe Americans are gripped with fear, which
debilitates their thinking and decisions. Our Great Culture Clash with
Muslims is an excellent example where they and their Founding Father
are demonized.

Did you ever consider that their founders should be demonized?  There is no other religion (which is actually God centered political movement.) whose policy it is to put to the sword those that will not convert to their religion.

Another good example, right in our back yard, is our culture clash with Mexicans. Americans forget that half of America was under Spanish rule for a very long time. Is there something wrong with America becoming different? Perhaps a change is order…or perhaps that change will come by the virtue of mass immigration as it has with
other cultures on other continents.

 I think it is your thinking that is dangerous.  I have no animosity for Mexican who want to come over here and work.  If I lived in that 3^rd world country I would do the same.  The country was built on immigrants that wanted to come here to be part of OUR culture.  What you have over the past 30 years or so many immigrate to the US not just to work and go home, or play by the rules and become integrated into our way of life.  The Mexicans are leaving a failed system and importing that failed system here.  There is something wrong with this.  Though the US is not perfect, getting back to founding principles goes a long way toward bettering the lives of not just the people of the US but of the world. 

Yes, our way of life will change and will be different and there is no
way of stopping it. Certainly, no political party can stop it. Nor
should it be stopped.

Perhaps you are right that this cannot be stopped.  The dangerous thinking is that it shouldn’t be stopped; that the America I grew up in will no longer exist but will fall into some sort of dictatorship or will be broken up into various political factions and with that the death and misery it will bring to millions if not billions.  The bright light of freedom and prosperity that was made possible by the United States will cease to be.  When the United States falls there will be a dark age that will be worse than the original.  And those that advocate or fail to do nothing to stop it will, just before being killed or starved to death, scream…”I didn’t know…”  And I will say: “Why didn’t you?”

 The moral relativism you espouse is part of the problem. Communist/ Socialist governments killed 100 million people in the 20^th century.  I am sure all of these idealists had the same vision of utopia.  It is intentions that count not all of the bodies by the wayside is not just flawed thinking it is the most dangerous sort of thinking.

 How many people have died for the good intentions of others?  I have no doubt all of the Muslims are well intentioned in killing for their god.  I have no doubt Stalin was well intentioned in killing millions by starvation and worse.  And I have no doubt that the people that were violating the Constitution by taking lands that the native people had negotiated by treaty with the US government were well intentioned. 

I don’t want to live in the kind of world you seem to advocate, where the principals of individual rights and freedom to your own productive effort is dangerous thought and on the same moral plane as Socialism, Communism and Islamism all of which are philosophies of death and oppression.  That you think the freedom to act in your own best interest and expect that others do the same so long as they do not violate others rights is wrong and dangerous, is pretty abhorrent to me.

 In my experience freedom should be the default and is worth fighting for even if it is a losing battle.

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