Sweet Jesus, I hate libertarians. They brag on their principles (when they mean, actually, their dogma), but at root they are the worst kind of misanthropes.
They are social darwinists of the worst sort. In capitalism, hucksterism is the basis by which the survival of the fittest is decided, so libertarians then term that culturally-determined criterion "nature", then feel a special glee in pointing out that the poor are "nature's" refuse.
Inferior is sorted from superior, poor from rich; and anything which would counter this "natural" process is anti-darwinist (and therefore anti-science). Hence liberals and socialists seek to meddle with "nature's" processes, which is a moral crime of great magnitude.
High Priestess of this belief was the novelist Ayn Rand. Philosophically (no, Rand doesn't qualify), some put the blame on Nietzsche but actually the person most responsible for codifying social darwinism as a philosophy was Herbert Spencer. Charles Darwin himself is utterly blameless for those who've bastardised his theories. And for what it's worth, I think it's very appropriate that Anton LaVey chose Rand to plagiarise for his Satanic Bible.
Politically, social darwinism was for a good period the reigning ideology of the Anglosphere; it was called laissez-faire. Modern libertarians, the only current political party shameless enough to openly advocate hard social darwinism, are descended (in America) from the Republican Party pre-Theodore Roosevelt and from (in Britain) the Liberal Party of the Victorian Era. Of course, history and reform killed these entities stone dead; the antidotes coming in the form of Progressivism in America and the Labour Party in Britain. Thus by definition, libertarians are atavistic and reactionary: they seek to restore something history (or, if I were trying to be cute, nature) thought deserving of extinction.
But libertarianism does have utility; it is a vessel for sociopathy and perverse ego-reinforcement. There is no more ridiculous phrase to a libertarian than "the brotherhood of men". Humans are individuals (hence Rand's fiction's emphases) born to do battle with other humans, via capitalism, to see who'll prevail. Great psychological dividends come with financial success; rich people are just better than poor. And the very poor? Well, self-evidently, they don't deserve to breathe. What a waste of resources! "Nature" should take its course.
Think I'm building a strawman? Think again. I knew when Katrina hit that the racism inherent in the Republican party would be put in clear view. But everyone knew that, even Republicans. What I also knew was that libertarians would take an especial delight in the stress -- and, yes, even the deaths -- suffered by the underclass on NOLA. The only question was, which libertarian would be tacky enough to say it outright?
I was thinking of Benjamin Jowett's words, regarding the libertarians of his time and place:
I have always felt a certain horror of political economists since I heard one of them say that the famine in Ireland would not kill more than a million people, and that would scarcely be enough to do much good.
Now read this shit, originally posted at (surprise, surprise) Jane Galt's site:
But in EITHER case, you have to consider that these people were essentially surplus. In other words, the least-functional 20% of the population of New Orleans has been eliminated. That obviously INCREASES the overall functionality of the New Orleans population.
I’m not blind to the fact that the people who chose to stay behind are suffering, and that’s not good, ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL. But all things aren’t equal. Consider: normally, disasters like this have ALWAYS served to help weed out the less competent. In these days of Mommy Government, these people are saved to drag down the rest of us. This hurts EVERYONE in the long run.
But of course you can NEVER get people to see things this way. It’s all Boo hoo hoo look at that baby that Geraldo is holding, let’s get the Government to Save That Baby.
This is concentrated, Nazi-evil. As such, I don't feel in the least bad being nasty about it. I hope the person who wrote this is robbed, anally-raped, set on fire, urinated on, and castrated by a homeless NOLA resident. And I'd pay to see it. You want social darwinism, motherfuckers? It won't be the kind you think is "natural", but it'll be darwinism of a sort; people who remove themselves from their duties to humanity can be culled in other ways, too.
That's it, force libertarians to live up to their beloved "principles"! How's this for darwinism, you miserable fucks: libertarians should be forced to cash-out their property, stuff the cash into their pockets, and marched through (insert ghetto's name here: I pick Orange Mound because I'm from Memphis) wearing placards of some of the things they've said and written about poor people's inferiority. For those that make it, congratulations, you've prevailed. You're superior.
*Bonus: this is a sick, sad joke to normal people, but sensible and inoffensive to libertarians, who stick to their precious principles, after all.
posted by RETARDO MONTALBAN @ 3:15 AM
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