Black Lives Matter Versus Libertarian Revolution
Since the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement, libertarians have had strong differences concerning how to engage with it. On one hand, libertarians would agree that many laws whose enforcement results in deaths of black people at the hands of government agents should be eliminated, such as those forbidding drug possession. On the other hand, many people who protest under the BLM banner engage in activities which are at odds with libertarian philosophy, such as blocking roads, disrupting businesses, and rioting.
As time marches on, as tends to happen in most activist organizations with street presence, the more radical elements within the BLM movement are gaining more attention. The sister of a man who was killed by police on August 13 urged protesters,
“Don’t bring that violence here. Burning down shit ain’t going to help nothing. Y’all burning down shit we need in our community. Take that shit to the suburbs. Burn that shit down.”
At the beginning of the riots in Milwaukee, a rioter could be heard yelling to police officers,
“We do not want justice or peace anymore. We done with that shit. We want blood. We want blood. We want the same shit y’all want. Eye for an eye. No more peace. Fuck all that. Ain’t no more peace. Ain’t no more peace. We done. We cannot co-habitate with white people, one of us have to go, black or white. All y’all have to go!”
And at a protest in Portland, Ore. on July 12, BLM leaders told protesters concerning police officers,
“Whatever you do, you pull your pistol out and fucking bust them… Trust me when you see me move, I’m moving in violence. We need action. I don’t give a fuck if you knock them over, whether you run up on them, whatever you do, you better fucking take action.”
The urgings of some misguided libertarians notwithstanding, these sentiments should make it clear that there is not an alliance to be made between BLM radicals and libertarians. Although there are segments of the libertarian community who understand that violent revolution is necessary to abolish the state, and both would physically remove government police officers from their communities, this impulse for libertarians is radically different from what is illustrated above. The libertarian revolution proceeds from the realization that a libertarian social order is superior to that of either a democratic or authoritarian state, and that such a state stands in the way and cannot be expelled from a territory or completely eliminated by peaceful means. Anti-police violence advocated by BLM leaders proceeds from the realization that police are an obstacle to degenerate and criminal behavior which they would like to see removed, and that this will not happen by peaceful means.
While the libertarian revolutionary seeks to end a system which violently victimizes the innocent, the BLM radical seeks to impose such a system upon white people. While the libertarian revolutionary seeks to protect individual rights and private property, the BLM radical seeks to take private property from its rightful owners in order to fund government programs and give reparations to people who were never personally wronged. While the libertarian revolutionary seeks to free minds and markets, the BLM radical seeks to perpetuate government indoctrination and communize resources. While the libertarian revolutionary seeks to replace government monopoly police which are coercively funded with private competing security forces which are voluntarily funded, the BLM radical seeks to abolish police with no clear alternative in mind. It should be clear to all but the most cucked and autistic libertarians that these two groups cannot work together toward a common goal because they are aimed at cross purposes.
That being said, it is possible that this could change. BLM radicals could think things over and come to the realization that the real enemy is not society, white people, racism, capitalism, patriarchy, privatization, or any other false target that various leaders within their movement have pursued thus far. They could figure out that burning down their own communities (or other communities) grants the police that they claim to oppose the appearance of legitimacy and necessity that they need to continue and escalate the activities for which they claim to oppose them. They could figure out that making this about black versus white rather than blue versus you creates a sense among white people that they should enter this conflict on the side of the state against the black community rather than on the side of the black community against the state. They could figure out that calling for huge government programs and expanded government control of the economy will require far more of the enforcement agents that they claim to oppose while further ruining their communities by creating perverse incentives. They could figure out that the root problem is aggression by government agents, and that the only solution to this problem is self-defense against government without deliberately targeting anyone else.
But unless and until that happens, BLM is an enemy of libertarianism which happens to be in conflict with another enemy of libertarianism, namely agents of the state. It is important to recognize that the enemy of one’s enemy is not necessarily one’s friend, or even an ally of convenience. Though the United States government is the most powerful and dangerous criminal organization in human history, its power could fall into worse hands and be used for worse purposes. Its abolition by people with the wrong ideas could create the need for a counter-revolution against them in order to establish a better social order rather than a worse one (or the complete lack of one). As for how libertarians should deal with BLM as it is now, when government agents and common criminals fight, it is generally best to pull for no one and hope for heavy casualties on both sides.
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