Let Bush Rule (His Fans)
There is something very bothersome about the level of aggregation of presidential opinion polls. If two thirds of people polled like Bush, he is said to be riding high. If two-thirds do not, he is said to be in big trouble. Not that any of this is worked out scientifically. We just have some sense that if 2 of 3 people don't like the president, he and his party are suffering and will pay a big price. To be sure, not to like Bush these days is perfectly fashionable. But what if the polls were reversed? What if these were the days after 9-11, when Bush enjoyed a 90 percent approval rating, and I told a pollster that I couldn't stand him? Well, that would put me on the fringe, a person on the margin, someone to dismiss, and maybe expose me as a lunatic or even a threat to society. I would certainly be on a list of some sort.
Under the market system, what happens to people when they hold opinions different from the rest? They aren't denounced as the fringe, as marginal, or dangerous. They are sought out, celebrated, courted, and adored. If you want to own an Eddie Cantor cookie jar, there is a merchant somewhere who loves you. If you think house shoes ought to be puffy, pink, and shaped like pigs, there is some retailer who stands ready to obey your every command. This is one reason that people tend to revel in their idiosyncrasies when it comes to commerce—"I will not eat meat"; "I will only eat meat"—but hide their oddities when it comes to politics and pretend to believe everything that the government tells them to believe.
Comments (12)
David K.Meller
Unfortunately, the fact that government is a restrictive and coercive monopoly of FORCE AND FRAUD over a specific geographical area, inevitably precludes the existence of levels of choice, diversity, and innovation that a civilized social order based upon the sanctity of private property, the division of labor, and the fulfillment of contract would enjoy as routine. Tragically, we grew up with the first and have little or no personal experiences with the second, except in small, localized interstices between the rudeness,clumsiness, and unwieldiness of State power and its attendent bureaucracy.
In a truly free market, there might be a few eccentrics who would indeed volunteer to have Bush as their "Fuhrer", and others would follow McCain, Al Gore, Pat Buchanan, and maybe even Kim Jong Il, Fidel Castro or Osama bin Laden (Hey, the right to follow-the-leader includes, or presupposes the right to be crazy, at your own risk, time, and expense, but you should recognize that already, shouldn't you?), but most people would have much better things to do. Bush (and the people who surround him) know this on some level, and that is the reason why they gravitate to the area of society outside the market-Government-to impose themselves upon the rest of us.
Unfortunately, because government IS a monopoly, with no other "service" to offer but force and fraud, levels of choice and innovation which become routine in the market order are altogether IMPOSSIBLE in a political one. Everywhere the government touches: public opinion, education, race (or sex) relations, personal and property protection, in the natural environment and it's preservation, in one's housing, (to a great extent),and one's energy use, etc. the rule is ONE SIZE FITS ALL!!
Faced with the above reality, Politics, especially democrazy, becomes at best, a squalid and futile attempt to try to get enough people on your "side" to avoid being subordinated to the other 'side'. Enterprise and energy that would otherwise naturally go into discovery of new and better ways to offer more and better choices to more people, instead are absorbed into a futile, hopeless and filthy attempt to foist the likes of Al Gore OR George W., Bill Clinton OR Bob Dole, Franklin Roosevelt OR Herbert Hoover...on EVERYBODY!
YEEECH!!Hold your nose!
The sooner we can make more people aware that they can run their own lives and manage their own affairs much better than so-called leaders; that there is a MUCH better way for people to do things, it is called the free market, and, perhaps most importantly, we are NOT trying to take anything away from anybody, we are trying to enable them to improve their lives, and the lives of the people who matter most to them, it is possible that the sooner that we all can transcend this squalid, filthy, and utterly subhuman system, the sooner we will get to the point where Bush, and his so-called rivals, will each have his own fan club. Loyalty to 'fearless leader' would involve the followers--and no one else!!
We still might have the problem of these fan clubs fighting childishly over whose "fearless leader" is "better", but I think that these conflicts, in a post-statist world, could be confined to their own playpens. Who knows, maybe gambling entrepreneurs might make a little money organizing betting pools on the possible outcomes, like with sports today.
I look forward to the day! How about you?
PEACE AND FREEDOM!!
David K. Meller
Published: May 11, 2006 11:33 AM
faultolerant
Great Article Lew.
With tripe like this you'll keep the libertarian movement as nothing more than a screeching bunch of nutjobs relegated to the sidelines of life. It's a pity that you can't do any better. Oh well.
Published: May 11, 2006 2:03 PM
Curt Howland
Fault, I have to ask: Why? What about addressing the fact that a government that can give you everything can also take away everything (and will) is objectionable to you?
Can you suggest a topic or point of logic to address that will do better?
Published: May 11, 2006 2:42 PM
Tom Woods
We're governed by a bunch of insane lunatics who are viewed THE WORLD OVER as a bunch of insane lunatics (seriously, in how many countries would you find a consensus in favor of our ruling class?), and LIBERTARIANS are a bunch of nutjobs?
Published: May 11, 2006 4:58 PM
Vanmind
I wish I could get a good nutjob...
Published: May 11, 2006 10:11 PM
Dan Webb
This is one of the lessons I often try to teach to my liberal/leftist friends who, for instance, favor the idea of voting Wal*Mart out of their town. I usually get just blank stares or a change of subject when I try to explain to them that in a civilized world, minority interests are not overruled by the majority.
Good article, Lew.
Published: May 12, 2006 1:52 AM
David K. Meller
I think that this little blog illustrates the age-old conflict of liberty vs. power in excellent microcosm here. You have five thoughtful, observant, and clearly libertarian replys to Mr. Rockwell's article, and one clearly totalitarian post by a "faultolerant" spewing fear, hatred and odium at us "libertarian nutjobs", making his case for the other side.
Faultolerant's post is an excellent dramatization of the underlying types of reason and morality present in the conflict described by "liberty vs. power" best described by the late libertarian genius Murray Rothbard!
Faultolerant--nutjob or no--I'll happily take Mr. Rockwell's kind of society over yours anytime. I suspect that I have a lot of company!
Faultolerant--emotions are NOT the tools of human cognition! There may indeed be shortcomings to the points of view expressed on this blog, but thoughtful and courteous disagreement will win more points for you (as a PERSON and a respondent) then babyish name calling!
Have a nice day.
Published: May 12, 2006 1:19 PM
TGGP
faultolerant's post might have been immature and insulting, but you can't say its "clearly totalitarian". For all I know he could be an anarcho-capitalist who just thought the article was a lousy piece of writing that does a poor job of advancing the cause of freedom. And while there was plenty of derision, it doesn't qualify as "fear, hatred and odium".
Published: May 13, 2006 2:21 PM
David K.Meller
Dear TGGP,
I stand corrected.
We libertarians should, if possible, stick together and offer each other encouragement to the public expression of our ideas, especially under a government (and a political class) as hostile to peace, civil liberties, the market order and rule by law as this one is now.
Even if one strongly disagrees, isn't it more helpful to offer something better?
Maybe this was a little paranoid on my part, but, while it is true that his post didn't attack freedom openly, I didn't observe any difference between the post's content, and the tone of others whose content did explicitly adopt positions hositile to liberty.
There wasn't anything expressed there to encourage independence from political leadership, and anybody calling us "screeching nutjobs" to thousands of readers on Mises.org/blog doesn't give authoritarians in our society too much to worry about, the way that our postings should.
PEACE AND FREEDOM!
David K. Meller
Published: May 14, 2006 12:07 PM
Republican C
"We libertarians should, if possible, stick together..." You are also sticking with Democrats. Enjoy the '08 Hillary presidency because you are the ones who will be blamed.
Published: February 22, 2007 2:04 AM
David White
Republican C,
As a political partisan, you are unable to confront the fact that as easy as it is to hate the Bush cabal for its fiscal excesses, its never-ending lies, and its crimes against humanity (for which Bush, Cheney, et al., should be impeached, removed from office, and imprisoned for life), what we libertarians object to is the state itself, regardless of who happens to be running it. For since taxation is theft, and since theft constitutes aggression and is therefore immoral, the state itself is immoral and should therefore be eradicated or, failing that, limited solely to the protection of life, liberty, and property.
I realize that you are incapable of grasping this or the simple fact that Republicans and Democrats are but two sides of the same (increasingly worthless) coin. But the truth is the truth and is not subject to majority rule. For as Thoreau right said, "Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already."
And thus do libertarians stick together.
Published: February 22, 2007 8:59 AM
PR
The irony is that Republican C's post perfectly demonstrates how little difference there is between the two parties. After the 2000 elections, similar sentiments were hurled by Democrats at people who voted for Ralph Nader. The entitlement mentality ("we own your loyalty, and how dare you express dissatisfaction with what we deign to give you") is alive and well on both sides of the isle.
Published: February 22, 2007 9:26 AM