Leaving Libertarian

UPDATE: For those of you who are asking, here is the link to my book; The Great Divide Game.*

Yes, I used to be one.  I admit it freely and I admit that I still have some sympathy in that regard.  

When I was in high school I probably qualified as a liberal.  I was certainly qualified as an Omega.  I will say in my defense that neither of those things were entirely my fault. However, I believed whole heatedly in everything the TV was telling me about what was right and good and also was wrong and bad.

I bought into left wing equalist propaganda that was getting shoveled at us from every direction. And naturally viewed myself as one of the elect for holding the right opinions.  And yet I never quite fit in.  There was something wrong there and I knew it.  In my heart I didn’t believe in their view of the world.

There was the overlying theme that America was just plain evil, that I couldn’t buy into.

In my second semester of college I needed an easy A, to pad my GPA so I took a course in Science Fiction (*deeply embarrassed shudder*) .  And one of the books assigned was The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.  

I was familiar with the author.  My Dad had strongly encouraged me to read Heinlein juveniles.  A long dry well was suddenly wet and primed.  On my next trip home, I found my old dog eared copies of Have Space Suit Will Travel, Star Beast, Starman Jones and so on, then devoured them.  The gateway drug had done it’s job, I moved on to the hard stuff; Atlas Shrugged.

It was all so glorious!  I discovered that I was fundamentally right about the fact that I was right to love America but I could also be progressive about social issues. There was all sorts of reasons to want a less intrusive government but also to want to leave everyone else to do his/her/it’s thing in private.   I could just pick and choose what I wanted.  I could love guns and pick up girls at parties.  

Legalizing drugs sounded good too.  My only drugs have ever been alcohol and Cohibas but  to each his own.  Also, we had clearly lost the War on Drugs, it was time to admit it.  And in truth this is still the one part of Libertarianism I buy into.


Free Market economics had to be the right way because Ronald Reagan had adopted them and the country was roaring along economically in a way that it certainly didn’t when Carter was in office.  So that proved Milton Freeman was right, QED.  Yes, there were a few things… okay, a lot of things in Free to Choose that were heavy on theory and light on facts to back them up.  You were taking a lot on faith coupled with optimism but then again the religion of Marx was clearly a failure in every country that had tried it except for Sweden.

Something else that attracted me was the Libertarian views on sex.

“Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a person’s sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves. No matter what corruption they’re taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which they cannot perform for any motive but their own enjoyment – just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity! – an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exultation, only on the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces them to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and accept their real ego as their standard of value. They will always be attracted to the person who reflects their deepest vision of themselves, the person whose surrender permits them to experience – or to fake – a sense of self-esteem .. Love is our response to our highest values – and can be nothing else.” Ayn Rand

It’s reasonable to say that Rand is spectacularly wrong in every conceivable way here. I am betting that this was written when she was (with her cuck’s permission) banging Nathanial Branden and had convinced herself that this was reason he found her desirable rather than a simple and grubby Oedipus trigger. Libertarian ideas about sex are very much interlaced with their ideas of female equality. The drawback here is a simple one. Their ideas about sex only work if straight women in their twenties behave like gay men in their forties. 

But I liked the idea of consequence free sex, just like James Bond and Captain Kirk always managed to have, so I went with it.  I was a freshmen so it was theory rather than practice back then but still it was the principle of the thing, right?

The only thing I was never on board with was the militant atheism.  

At the time it didn’t bother me because of two things.  One; I was certain in my heart that there was a God who lived and loved me.  And two; I didn’t think about it all that much.  I figured that the atheism was just one more thing that I could take or leave in the all you can eat buffet of Libertarian philosophy.  

I was completely wrong.  Atheism is the bedrock of Libertarianism.  

The iron clad belief that there is only the self and that there is no one to stand in judgement over your life but the self that you created. This is the foundation for that entire school of thought.  Atheism is not an optional extra if you are  a true capital “L” Libertarian, it’s required.

Thus we hit the fundamental flaw; if there is only the self…then why have children?  

The future belongs to those who show up and Libertarians breed like progressives.  One child per couple leads to extinction in four generations.

And then there is the Libertarian mindset.

Okay it was obvious even when I was a college dipshit that hardcore Libertarianism was never going to get anywhere because the Libertarians themselves were far too fractious for that.  They are fundamentally incapable of organizing themselves in any number larger than five. 

Also their notions about the efficacy of a citizens militia versus a standing military were more romantic than practical.  Even before I joined the Marines I wasn’t buying into them.  For their ideas to work you have to have a lot of people that are willing to die for Libertarian ideals and those famously are not Libertarians.

Still I chugged along for decades not really questioning my beliefs.  And still saying I was one of the faithful.  I suppose I was over invested in a bad idea.

So what happened you ask?

I woke up.

It took me long enough.

The thing is I believe in results.  We’ve had free trade and open borders (effectively) since the mid 1990s and for twenty years we’ve been pouring wealth out this country like piss out of horse.  Free trade is clearly and obviously a failure.  If you still believe in it then you aren’t facing cold hard reality.  You are living Paul Ryan’s bubble and probably collecting a US government paycheck.  Our standard of living has gone down since it was adopted, (big exception; if you already rich.  Free trade works great for you.).  

Open Borders only work if you are completely separated from the the real world.  Paul Ryan will continue to believe in them because his world view crashes and burns if he doesn’t.  He and people like him immediately begin shaking their head, no, no, no, no, no, the moment you try and point out to them that even if Mexicans wanted to assimilate they can’t due to the vast ocean of bodies that has washed up on our shores.  I mean I’ve literally seen the man start shaking his head in rejection if even the concept is raised. 

And that was the final straw for me.  Libertarians are as reality denying as any hardcore Marxist.

The final straw was the 2016 election. I had been slipping out of their grasp for a while But watching how they recoiled from Donald Trump was my Zardoz moment.

The way their jowels wobbled in righteous indignation turned me against them for good.

Nationalism is now in diapers but we captured the party’s nomination for president, the first time out.  It took Libertarian’s forty years just to capture the Speaker of the House’s chair and by capture I mean Ryan was forced to accept it. 

The hippy right is now in it’s twilight.  Generation X believed in the Libertarian cause but the Zoomers simply can’t. They are from age six, soaked in the insane propaganda of the left.  Those that finally wake up and yell, “I’ve been lied to all my life,” are not looking for a new lie to believe in.  They are looking for the truth no matter how unpleasant it is. 

And they will find it in Nationalism.

*And yes, those of you who got a copy when it was still on Amazon it used to be called Dark Winter. Damned if I’m changing the title a third time.