The Libertarian Problem and How to Fix It
In a forum, in response to a message I wrote regarding immigration (see below) and in a forum in which I've been on a crusade to show people that government is the root of our problems, not some bogey man like immigration, Kathryn Graham (well-known Libertarian author) said the following:
Superbly said, Aaron. But we won't change these attitudes so easily. It's a kind of brainwashing, and our friends on this list have heard from the cradle that illegal immigrants are the cause of all their ills, just as the Germans of the 1930s had heard for years that Jews were the reason it took a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread. When the hardships are real - and they are right now - the nicest human beings can be driven to do the ugliest things to a group or class of people. It isn't really racism - our friends on this list don't hate Mexicans in Mexico, any more than some of our more ignorant Southerners in America hate blacks in Africa, or the German people would have hated Jews in Israel if Israel had existed then.
Oddly enough, the REAL root cause of the problem is the one they've been touting all along, even though they haven't figured it out yet. America has lost its moral compass, and with it, the ability to educate its children. Since we live in a world where we must work so many hours just to survive and feed a family, the most basic education - that of parents teaching the simple concepts of right and wrong to their children - has fallen by the wayside.
Socialism is so dangerous because it sounds so much like kindness when it is really the utmost in cruelty. It is easy to hate an underclass, particularly when said underclass really does commit crimes, and hard to remember that we ourselves created that very underclass through our "kindest" acts. You are so very right when you say that gangs are
formed for the purpose of survival. The very social programs that we have created to "help" the unfortunate are an ugly trap that destroys human dignity and prevents the very people we meant to "help" from maintaining their dignity and learning the skills all men need to survive honorably in this country. When you can make $200 per week working in a convenience store, $350 per week on welfare, and $2000 per week selling drugs, the result is inevitable.
The only answer is education. And government education is only perpetuating the problem. You can maintain power over a population easily when you give them something real to hate, and the most damnable problem in America is that our leaders know this, and have quite deliberately done so. When illegal immigration wasn't enough, they gave us drugs. When drugs weren't enough, they gave us terror. Give Americans something to hate, and a flag to wave, and they will make Hitler look like the biggest pussy that ever walked.
Libertarians have failed consistently for many, many years in their most important job. To persuade, we must teach. And we have not done this. Aside from the friendships we have found here, the greatest value to us politically in a list like this is that it helps to show us what we have failed to teach, and what we must do to succeed.
We are called the party of principle because we teach the non-aggression principle, which is the most fundamental morality of all. We teach it admirably to other Libertarians (who already understand it), but we aren't teaching it to other Americans. That must change. For the non-Libertarians here, who probably hate pacifism (and rightly so, in the context in which they learned it), I am refering to the *initiation* of force, not the response to it. A typical Libertarian is a soft-spoken and gentle individual who carries a monster .45 and will become hell on wheels in a heartbeat if attacked -but never harm a hair on a single head otherwise. That's who I am, and who Aaron is. The problem here is that it is sometimes difficult to recognize who is really attacking you.
To remain human, and preserve decency, we must learn that initiating force against another human being is the worst crime of all, and force can take many forms. Forcing other humans to adopt a dependent attitude is the root cause of the problems we all see in illegal immigration. Immigration cannot be stopped, and the only way to solve the problems it has caused for us is to teach our newcomers here to live free and to stand proudly on their own feet, as we as individuals do. Then other cultures enrich our own instead of destroying it.
Kate
-----
Got comments? Email me, punk!
Superbly said, Aaron. But we won't change these attitudes so easily. It's a kind of brainwashing, and our friends on this list have heard from the cradle that illegal immigrants are the cause of all their ills, just as the Germans of the 1930s had heard for years that Jews were the reason it took a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread. When the hardships are real - and they are right now - the nicest human beings can be driven to do the ugliest things to a group or class of people. It isn't really racism - our friends on this list don't hate Mexicans in Mexico, any more than some of our more ignorant Southerners in America hate blacks in Africa, or the German people would have hated Jews in Israel if Israel had existed then.
Oddly enough, the REAL root cause of the problem is the one they've been touting all along, even though they haven't figured it out yet. America has lost its moral compass, and with it, the ability to educate its children. Since we live in a world where we must work so many hours just to survive and feed a family, the most basic education - that of parents teaching the simple concepts of right and wrong to their children - has fallen by the wayside.
Socialism is so dangerous because it sounds so much like kindness when it is really the utmost in cruelty. It is easy to hate an underclass, particularly when said underclass really does commit crimes, and hard to remember that we ourselves created that very underclass through our "kindest" acts. You are so very right when you say that gangs are
formed for the purpose of survival. The very social programs that we have created to "help" the unfortunate are an ugly trap that destroys human dignity and prevents the very people we meant to "help" from maintaining their dignity and learning the skills all men need to survive honorably in this country. When you can make $200 per week working in a convenience store, $350 per week on welfare, and $2000 per week selling drugs, the result is inevitable.
The only answer is education. And government education is only perpetuating the problem. You can maintain power over a population easily when you give them something real to hate, and the most damnable problem in America is that our leaders know this, and have quite deliberately done so. When illegal immigration wasn't enough, they gave us drugs. When drugs weren't enough, they gave us terror. Give Americans something to hate, and a flag to wave, and they will make Hitler look like the biggest pussy that ever walked.
Libertarians have failed consistently for many, many years in their most important job. To persuade, we must teach. And we have not done this. Aside from the friendships we have found here, the greatest value to us politically in a list like this is that it helps to show us what we have failed to teach, and what we must do to succeed.
We are called the party of principle because we teach the non-aggression principle, which is the most fundamental morality of all. We teach it admirably to other Libertarians (who already understand it), but we aren't teaching it to other Americans. That must change. For the non-Libertarians here, who probably hate pacifism (and rightly so, in the context in which they learned it), I am refering to the *initiation* of force, not the response to it. A typical Libertarian is a soft-spoken and gentle individual who carries a monster .45 and will become hell on wheels in a heartbeat if attacked -but never harm a hair on a single head otherwise. That's who I am, and who Aaron is. The problem here is that it is sometimes difficult to recognize who is really attacking you.
To remain human, and preserve decency, we must learn that initiating force against another human being is the worst crime of all, and force can take many forms. Forcing other humans to adopt a dependent attitude is the root cause of the problems we all see in illegal immigration. Immigration cannot be stopped, and the only way to solve the problems it has caused for us is to teach our newcomers here to live free and to stand proudly on their own feet, as we as individuals do. Then other cultures enrich our own instead of destroying it.
Kate
-----
Got comments? Email me, punk!
posted by Aaron Turpen @ 8:54 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home