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Friday, December 01, 2017

TGIF: Liberty, Democracy, and the Right

I am mystified by the claim that the long-standing libertarian critique of democracy furnishes aid and comfort to conservatives who display a taste for populist authoritarianism. Let me say at the outset that the libertarian critique has nothing to offer those who would impose legal or social disabilities on racial, ethnic, religious, and other minorities. If white supremacists see something helpful here, they are mere opportunists who would find something helpful to their cause in anything they looked at.

Read TGIF at The Libertarian Institute.

TGIF (The Goal Is Freedom) appears on Fridays. Sheldon Richman, author of America's Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited, keeps the blog Free Association and is executive editor of The Libertarian Institute. He is also a senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. Become a Free Association patron today!

3 comments:

August said...

This is simply an anti-white sentiment. Whites (and the Jews too, but they look white to other minorities) are those into libertarian ideas.

I seriously doubt libertarianism will ever be implemented into law by the people anyway. They just don't listen, and in areas they may listen, they get shut out. The one issue that tracks the best with alt-right is actually anti-war.

But, of course, we all get called racist, and nobody can stop the empire. Much like democracy couldn't stop the 2008 bailouts in the middle of an election where you'd expect one of the candidates to try and do what the polls said the people wanted.

Sheldon Richman said...

You're saying Jews aren't white? That's pretty funny.

August said...

The Jews are a highly diverse people. The Ashkenazim may even be a minority within Judiasm- I don't know, I haven't looked at world Jewish demographics lately.

So, when diversity comes up, libertarians will always lose, because our diversity isn't good enough. And, no matter how much we try to teach, folks are going to vote for the people who pander to them, so if libertarian ideals are ever implemented, they will likely be imposed. Perhaps by some enlightened authoritarian, perhaps a side effect of technology (like bitcoin), but it ain't happening via a vote.