A mere ten years back, if I told Americans and Canadians that I held libertarian views, many responded — recognizing that I was not a native English speaker — that “libertarian” was not a word. They thought I wanted to say “liberal.”
Today, “Don’t tread on me” flags, Ron Paul posters, and other advertisements for libertarian ideas grace houses and yards, even in remote places of the USA. Libertarianism is no longer an obscure concept. And a huge credit for making libertarianism mainstream goes to Ron Paul.
I am a big fan of Ron. He is, in my view, one of the finest human beings alive, despite the fact that I could never understand how, as a congressman, he could interact on a daily basis with sociopathic politicians and their sepoys. How could he not feel repulsion and frustration, operating in such an environment?
Politics by its very nature establishes a mindset of expediency and political activism, which are always in direct conflict with deeper understanding of principles.
Ron fought for a paradigm shift in the way the US government works. He voted against new laws. He wanted the US military for defense only, wanted removal of American forces from hundreds of bases around the world, and saw no reason why the US should be involved in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. Quite rightly he saw no reason for the US to be still in Japan, Korea, and Europe, even if the bases there were maintained by invitation. He asked why the US should be supporting the dictatorial regime in Saudi Arabia. He wanted a significant reduction in welfare payments. He wanted to audit and end the Federal Reserve. He wanted an end to the War on Drugs. He wanted the US to be out of the UN and NATO. He fought vehemently against NSA surveillance, and for the right to bear arms. He wanted government to be out of the medical business.
In short, he wanted the government to govern — to provide law and order, and defense — and to get out of virtually everything else. He wanted the US to follow its Constitution.
What Ron said was well-reasoned and extremely well-conveyed in his speeches, with passion and a breath of fresh air for those who had grown tired of the political process. Most libertarian organizations promoted him, and Ron got a massive reception at many university campuses around the US. He set records of sorts for money raised in his canvassing for the US Presidential elections of 2012. Earlier seen, by some, as convocations of old white men, libertarian meetings started getting more people of other races, more young people, and an increased number of women. I cannot remember how many times I have been told by people that they saw the reason and value of liberty after listening to Ron.
Many libertarians saw this as the start of a snowballing of the libertarian movement. After a few beers, the dreamy ones, those with a passion for spreading their message, could imagine an exponential increase in libertarian views. In their opinion, it was only a matter of time before the whole world would accept liberty. “Truth and reason win in the end,” they would say.
Alas, this was not the sign that the movement was gaining speed, but a sign of its sickness. Ron, having chosen a wrong means to spread his message — politics — had implanted a virus among his audience. Ron’s charisma glorified the political process. Unfortunately, politics by its very nature establishes a mindset of expediency and political activism, which are always in direct conflict with deeper understanding of principles.
The golden ring of politics corrupts everyone, slowly and subtly, without their recognizing it, corrupting their souls, ossifying their principles into facades that fall apart at the slightest pressure.
The virus of politicized libertarianism eventually mutated. In libertarian circles, it became very important to increase the number of one’s adherents. Many libertarian organizations got very well-funded. Students were flying around the world, attending conferences, one after another. Free-market organizations were being set up everywhere, all well-financed.
Many of the politicized libertarians ran to the lap of the government, determined to join the fight against the real or imagined enemy. In one strike they had forgotten that war is the health of the state.
Given the financial encouragement, all sorts of people, even if they were not principally libertarian, joined. My guess is that some who in the course of time would have become principled libertarians accepted and repeated libertarian mantras, as beliefs taken on faith, without fully understanding the reasoning behind them. This had to lead to ossification of the mental process.
There was an emphasis on getting more women into the movement. Some, who were market savvy, realized that it was going to be far easier to get attention in a women-deficit environment. It was ignored that the sexual objectification of women was demeaning to them and a huge step back for the libertarian philosophy. There was also an emphasis on ideological inclusiveness. Boundaries should be made a bit fuzzy, to allow a bit of compromise, to make libertarianism more inviting, less radical. One well-known anarchist, in an attempt to be inclusive, started calling the core values of libertarianism “brutalism.” Soon there were left-libertarians, thick-libertarians, thin-libertarians, bleeding-heart-libertarians, etc.
Last year, I went to a speech by a bleeding-heart-libertarian in Delhi and could not hold myself back from asking in what way the things he advocated were any different from radical socialism.
When two small terrorist incidents happened in Ottawa, many of the politicized libertarians ran to the lap of the government, determined to join the fight against the real or imagined enemy. In one strike they had forgotten that war is the health of the state. They suddenly had no problem imposing restrictions on certain people who lived and dressed differently. Uninterested in collateral damage, they had no problems blowing the Middle East out of existence. They had forgotten that the state is a much worse enemy. Islam and all its flaws would have been better controlled in a stateless environment. They lost their sense of balance — better the enemy they knew than the one they didn’t — for they were not moored in principles.
Libertarians of East European heritage — unconsciously driven by indoctrinated hatred for Russia, not by philosophy — wanted the US to embargo Russia. Coming full circle, this mutant movement even opposed Ron Paul, for he opposes US involvement in foreign lands. Meanwhile, drug-peddlers and prostitutes were seen as embodying libertarianism. Many young people were encouraged to look for issues with the police. Going over the speed limit, driving under influence, or jumping red lights were not only condoned but seen as expressions of liberty.
Libertarianism does not try to prevent people from selling their bodies or consuming drugs, but it is a logical fallacy to assume that this means that libertarianism encourages these activities. Even in an anarchist world, to stay civilized, there would still be rules against driving under the influence or jumping red lights.
Politics is a virus that implants in the brain the top-down approach to social change. A real change can only happen from the bottom up.
The meaning of libertarianism was being removed from its principles. Once you lose your moorings, you lose direction. It is an error to think that libertarianism means no rules or system, something that a superficial understanding of the philosophy might make one think.
Politics is a virus that implants in the brain the top-down approach to social change. A real change can only happen from the bottom up. The thinking of the politically minded is not based on principles but on political organization. It is doomed to fail. Did Ron not see this?
Principles are principles and hence unchangeable. Any philosophy must be radically based on principles, if it is not to lose its moorings. Do I foresee a world where there will be no dishonesty or violence? No. But that does not mean I should become more inclusive, to bring in more people by starting to practise partial honesty or partial violence. Just because the state might never cease to exist does not mean that I accept its legitimacy to make my values more inclusive.
Radicalism gives meaning and passion to carry on when the seas are frothy and uncertain. There is something, indeed a lot, behind the Christian concept of the remnant. The remnant stay on their course even in a turbulent world.
Without radicalism, without a solid grasp of principles, the superstructure has nothing to hold itself in place and must fall apart eventually.
But hasn’t the libertarian movement grown by leaps and bounds? Alas, this is a myth of those who hold irrational, romantic opinions, living secluded lives among others with similar ideas. In reality it is statism that is in the ascendant, not only in the West but even more in the non-Western countries.
Despite the fact that Ron made a huge contribution in making “libertarianism” known to the mainstream, by being in politics — which might at surface look like a small issue — he made a major compromise with his principles. He politicized libertarianism. This seemingly simple compromise will end as his legacy and possibly as a permanent confusion of the concept of libertarianism, not unlike the way in which the meaning of “liberal” mutated in North America.
You cannot make someone a libertarian. It cannot be a result of groupthink or politics. The change can only happen through self-reflection, meditation, contemplation, reason, and a passion for the truth. A libertarian society can emerge only as the end result of character-building, mostly through working on the self, from the bottom up.
