Thomas Woods on Left Libertarianism

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

A tip ‘o the hate to Ex-Army Libertarian Nationalist.
 
Revised at 3:07 p.m.

Unlike Thomas Woods, I would say that most people seeking to pass themselves off as libertarians these days are nothing of the sort. I call many of them glibertarians, but many of the sort Woods is calling “thick libertarians” are, if anything, racial socialists in thinly veiled libertarian drag. I noticed a similar development during the 1980s, whereby Marxists here and abroad, most notably West German Frankfurt School guru Jürgen Habermas, would try to pass themselves off as Kantians.

Actually, this problem goes back much further, to the 1930s. The philosophy now called “libertarianism” used to be called “liberalism.” Then FDR and his comrades deliberately co-opted the term “liberalism” for their own version of socialism, in order to fool the public, and impose the diametrically opposite system on America. And, by God, it worked! The term “libertarianism” was coined, in order to get around the Left's deception. Now, you have socialists and communists following the same m.o., in co-opting the term “libertarianism,” in order to impose totalitarian racial socialism.

Marxism is a plague, analogous to pests on farmland, that one must constantly fight. To stop fighting, is to surrender. What happens if a farmer stops spraying his crops? Well, that’s what happened to America, once people stopped fighting socialists and communists on a daily basis. The Left took over, and destroyed everything.
 

Thick and Thin Libertarianism, and Duck Dynasty
By Tom Woods

I am in haste, as I always am these days because of the time I’m spending creating course material for the Ron Paul homeschool curriculum, but a quick note about Duck Dynasty. My wife really likes the show. I myself haven’t been able to get into it. I just find it boring. I realize I’m in the minority.

Having said that, I thought the whole matter of Phil Robertson brought up an interesting issue for libertarians. Some libertarians say the traditional libertarian principle of nonaggression is insufficient. That is merely “thin” libertarianism, they say. We also need to have left-liberal views on religion, sexual morality, feminism, etc., because reactionary beliefs among the public are also threats to liberty. This is “thick” libertarianism.

As a “thin” libertarian myself (or what in the past was simply called a libertarian), I reject the claims of the thickists. I see no good reason to expand the list of requirements people must meet in order to be admitted to our little group. If they support nonaggression, they are libertarians.

But if the thickists are concerned that certain cultural attitudes might be dangerous to liberty, why do I never hear them express concern that the hysteria of the cultural Left might be prejudicial to liberty? Why is it only the traditional moral ideas of the bourgeoisie that are supposed to be so threatening? Could this be yet another double standard?

Everyone in American society now knows there are certain things they must never say, lest they be banished from polite society by the opinion police. The opinion police do not believe competing views have a right to exist. Yes, yes, in theory they do. But in practice they seek out and destroy anyone who does not accept fashionable opinion on a range of questions. Couple this with thought-control organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which conflates “hate” with unconventional views — having condemned such purveyors of violence and hate as Judge Napolitano and Ron Paul (note to the brain-dead: that is sarcasm) — and which actually collaborates with law enforcement, and isn’t the result far more dangerous to liberty than the fact that lots of people dissent from the new orthodoxy on sex?

Yet I haven’t come across a thickist who seems concerned about this. Maybe I haven’t been looking hard enough. I doubt it.