LIBERTARIAN NONSENSE

A libertarian author, +Brandon Smith, wrote and posted an article in +Personal Liberty Digest, “We are entering an era of shattered illusions”. I found the article typical of the type of logic seen in this publication. In the article he is spewing libertarian nonsense; rattlesnakes ready to strike (the leaders) to defend themselves and ants (the followers) that can be stepped on. He claims to be fully aware of the fact that we are responding to innate traits yet through 99% of the article, he acts as if he is ignorant of the fact that we are an ordered society, a hierarchy, and have no choice but to live as such; however, the last sentence was different.

The author places individualism, the desire to live as independent individuals, as the dominant trait, but does so at the exclusion of all other innate traits. Of course, psychologists recognize the conflict between innate traits but still refer to the driving force or innate trends having to do with society as individualism, gregariousness, and hierarchy dominance, the desire to live together and the desire to have an ordered society when we do live, as we must.

After reading the article, of course filled with melodrama as is typical of articles in this publication, I do not know where, in the author’s mind, is the individual, that is the snake ready to strike, and what is the biggest unit of government he considers to be the ant colony, he thinks he and his followers should step on—the individual, the community, the nation, the United Nations. In his rhetoric he implies that he is the tough individual “do not tread on me” snake and abhors living as a colony of ants ready to be stepped on. He reveals the emptiness of his entire argument with one of the last sentences, “This means making one’s family, neighborhood and community as self-reliant and secure as possible.” All of a sudden, he is no longer a furious libertarian snake ready to strike but is concerned about others. He gives up his identity as an individual, the belief that makes him a libertarian, and is concerned about one’s city, one’s nations, and one’s world—doesn’t the concern for others make him a liberal?

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