-Caveat Lector- They http://www.lewrockwell.com/delemos/delemos11.html They Love Us: The Anti-Libertarian Press by Michael Gilson De Lemos Libertarians see a certain amount of crazy press. That goes with the territory if you seem new, are refining your message, and take on the dark side of social institutions. The system will alternately say your message is crazy, marginal, not new. You’ll be identified with those you oppose. You’ll be blamed for every ill. Your triumphs will be blandly ascribed to others. Other’s inanities will be ascribed on you. You’ll be a social Rorschach Blot test. Well-meaning people will latch on to a portion of your message, and on the rest unwittingly project provincial ignorance, foolishness, or fear. Things ho-hum for others, associated with you, are scandals. Aristotle had a technical term for this in his political theory. He called it: "That’s life in the big city." Still, Libertarians have noticed loony rhetoric and well-meaning mangled explanations reaching new levels – with strident attacks and smears by establishment and government-licensed media. Libertarians are being shot at, big time. The reason? While many newer Libertarians are unclear on what Libertarians have accomplished, the Establishment is very aware that Libertarians were key players in every major positive development in the last generation. From the collapse of the Soviet Union to the fact that it must now figure out how to control 200 TV stations and the internet (instead of 4 well-behaved networks and home presses), the Establishment views Libertarians as a headache at best – harbingers of an uncontrollable new era at worst. While a prominent Republican politico stated he felt Libertarians were the shock troops of a the second phase of the American Revolution, the question in his mind was not whether Libertarians would endure. It was whether either Libertarians would be a large third force in two generations – or the militant second party facing a last ditch union of the shattered major ones. Like Waiting for Godot, another admitted, uncertain policymakers are now "Waiting for the Libertarians." What can they make of Libertarian Governor Bush advisor like Dr. Randall Holcombe saying Libertarians have won the war of ideas? Libertarians must coolly realize growing attacks are a positive development, and refocus on their strengths and positive contributions. That is what it means to be a profound moral discipline – and international social-political movement not just against international war, but that silent and demeaning war of citizen against citizen built on the obsolete and dying institution of coercive, non-rights based government. And that is why we’re seeing, now in one week, near-identical attacks from Right and Left, with frantic associations of Libertarians with every ill created by the government and its pet "necessary" monopolies and rah-rah foundations – even as Libertarians are dismissed as minor irritants. The day is still to come when unless a Libertarian inspector is there, the public will know the alleged privatization, deregulation or rights-restoration is a fraud. Thus, in the last week, three amazing anti-Libertarian articles. We’ll see more. >From the populist-Right Liberty Lobby, Libertarians are not only blamed for the energy crisis in California, about whose phony privatization Libertarians actually sounded the alarm, but magnified as conspirators of titanic economic collapse that would make James Bond envious. >From the Left Village Voice, an attack that says the exact same thing, in denouncing Libertarian anarchists (yay!) who will Godzilla- like destructively control (huh?) one-third of the U.S land mass via the Interior Department. The local-communitarian Left suddenly loves distant bureaucracy when Libertarians annoyingly sympathize with Indian and local eco-claims to "government" lands Both identify Libertarians with coercive government-sweetheart crony-capitalists who, often, are actually Democratic Contributors. More: In a third article, officials unaware of their superior’s new line that Libertarians are now the powerful, sinister destroyers controlling the US economy, dismiss Libertarians as "inconsequential crackpots" …especially when their politicians defect. Libertarians have no shadowy agenda, merely one a decadent society has trouble grasping. Libertarians’ message is simple. Government is an auto-toxic institution, reinforcing the petty thievery people mutually inflict. In a world where various groups define their brand of government corruption and intolerance as all right, Libertarians are different. Libertarians will fight any corruption, undermine any intolerance, question any prejudice, support any voluntary option, protect property as the wall against oppression, and be the idealists of a new voluntary economy. Hence Leftists paradoxically denounce Libertarian anarchic limousine-liberals. Rightists paradoxically denounce supposed Libertarian support of behind-the-scenes Rightist moneybags. They’ve not lost their wits, but bearings. They’re the Hindu two loving, blind caretakers who, finding a baby elephant, feeling only trunk and tail, argued bitterly how big the snake will grow to be. February 3, 2000 Michael Gilson De Lemos, known as MG (articles at www.gilson.uni.cc), is Coordinator of the Libertarian International Organization. He believes with Jefferson that, along with Gibbon, Cicero and Tacitus should be read by all grade-schoolers. In Latin. Copyright 2001 LewRockwell.com -- I still believe in liberalism today as much as I ever did, but, oh, there was a happy time when I believed in liberals... --G. K. Chesterton <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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