CURRENT EVENTS, HISTORY/CULTURE, POLITICS/ECONOMICS
Libertarians: Stop Courting the Left, It’s Ineffective and Embarrassing
By jeffmcnukes
“Beware that, when courting leftists, you yourself do not become a leftist… for when you gaze long into the white guilt. The white guilt gazes also into you.” — Friedrich Nietzsche (probably)
Many libertarians have been exhibiting a pattern of behavior that mirrors that of leftist beta males, and perhaps if they recognized this, they would stop. Much in the same way that male feminists seem to invariably ‘orbit’ their female counterparts (clinging to and constantly working to stay close to them–in the hopes that someday they might finally break through the friend-zone-barrier and be granted access to the elusive sanctuary of their lady parts) many libertarians (#NotAll) have been ‘orbiting’ their ideological counterparts on the political left; not in the pursuit of sexual gratification, but rather a gratification of an intellectual nature. I must confess to personally engaging in this pathetic behavior until recently, and just like the majority of male feminists, I can affirm its futility.
Until around mid-2016, I was very much that libertarian. The one who would regularly bother my leftist Facebook friends with shining examples of how libertarians really do care about the poor, and how capitalism really does help “black and brown people”, all in the hopes that, someday, I might actually break through the “nazi-sympathizer” barrier and finally score intellectually with a leftist. It didn’t matter whether they were alt-left, anarcho-communists, or simply center-left Obama-supporters, I was just so desperate to penetrate the mind of a leftist that I was willing to jump through ridiculous hoops to seek their approval. Thus, when I was on my arduous quest to court leftists to libertarianism, I was behaving like an ‘intellectual beta’. I soon discovered this behavior was demeaning and counterproductive.
However, such behavior is understandable. In the world of competing political ideologies, Leftism has long been the dominant ideology. For the majority of many of our lives, the left has dominated our culture; somehow managing to hold a monopoly on the moral high-ground while dictating to the rest of us what is and isn’t cool for the better part of four decades. Instinctively, many libertarians sensed that with the left’s proficiency in the area of “feels” and their own proficiency in the area of “reasoning”, that they could coalesce to form beautiful hybrid ideologies (other than the horrendously-deformed bastard child that is ‘left-libertarianism’…).
Unfortunately for libertarians, just like the hapless beta-male orbiters in our analogy, no amount of kowtowing or virtue-signaling was likely to ever get them any closer to the promised land that they sought. When libertarians go out of their way to court the left, by shouting from the rooftops that they hate “Nazis” too, or that libertarians are really “socially-liberal”, they’re not so much endearing themselves to the leftists as they are stroking their generally-overinflated egos, and affirming to both sides the position of power that the Left actually holds in this relationship. This is classic beta behavior, and it is simply ineffective and embarrassing. Show me a male feminist who gets laid by groveling, or a libertarian who changes the minds of leftists by pandering, and I’ll convince John McAfee to eat his own dick on national television (oh, he’ll do it).
With the analogy aside though, I would also like to point out that the left’s position atop the political ideology foodchain appears to be coming to an end, which makes the entire endeavor of pandering to them even more pointless. In the last five or so years, leftists have become so cringe-inducing, so morally-bankrupt, and so observably-uncool, that people (especially in the younger demographics) have been turning away from their politics in droves. If anything, we as libertarians should be trying to distance ourselves from the sinking ship full of grotesque whale carcasses that is the Left (e.g. Amy Schumer and Lena Dunham). If you happen to have leftist friends who you’d like to pull aboard the ‘libertarian lifeboat’, then reach out to them with 0 pandering or at least wait until the ship sinks. When Leftism inevitably implodes, it will be the leftists who will be running around trying to impress the new alphas of the political landscape. It is only then that one may effectively employ his leverage to implant the ‘seeds of liberty’ in these dreadful souls.
I concede that there are many different approaches one can take to try and inch our society towards less government intrusion and more autonomous ownership of self and property. Ancapistan isn’t going to appear overnight (unless Roger Ver pulls it off), and we don’t all have to do the same things in unison in order to advance the ideas of liberty. However, if we have a common goal, then I have a vested interest in your success and I think that our time and effort is better served attempting to–in a manner of speaking–“make liberty alpha again”, instead of pandering to people from competing ideologies who generally hate everything we stand for. When we become alpha enough (self-assured, cool, and confident), it will be the Left who will be coming to us for our approval, and not the other way around.
What makes me so confident about this?
Quite simply, because things are already moving in that direction (“it’s happening”). More and more frequently, I’ve been finding normies and even the rare moderate-leftist sharing Facebook posts from the likes of ‘Liberty Memes’ and ‘Being Libertarian’, and even more regularly than that, they’ve been posting stories about blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Meanwhile, phrases like “small government” and “cultural libertarian” have become popularized again among people who don’t identify themselves as “libertarians”. This is progress. The liberty movement has built these things (a robust meme culture, a decentralized technological revolution, and a popularized set of ideas), without really trying to market them to the masses outside of the movement, and people have naturally emerged from the corn fields to come and check out our ‘field of dreams’, with many of them being impressed with what we have to offer. Libertarianism is trending in the right direction now (pun intended), and I would argue that as long as we stay the course and remain unconcerned with marketing our message to the Left, our popularity will continue to rise–especially among Generation Z and younger Millennials (who absolutely loathe what the Left has become). The Left is dying a slow cultural death, so let their ship sink as opposed to propping it up by throwing them rope (or “building bridges” or whatever).
Those who still care what the Left has to say about our political philosophy are still living in early-2016 at best, and it is now the “current year” for fuck’s sake. Get over them. The moment we stop orbiting them and trying to win their favor, the tables will turn. It’s time to step up and stop being a beta-ideology now, and if you don’t believe me, just ask the alt-right how that’s been working out for them. They might take some time away from winning the current culture war to tell us.
Youtube video in which I talk about some of the same issues: https://youtu.be/92xz6aofbZI
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