Libertarianism and Islamofascism

Libertarianism -- not to be confused with genuine classical liberalism -- will be destroyed by Fascist Islamism one way or the other. Either the majority of voters in the West will see it for what it is and reject it or Islamists will use it for what it's worth, (using the camouflage of Multiculturalism) and then seek to conquer those societies once they are in a position of strength.

By the 1980s, most Americans understood that libertarianism (embodied in the social democratic humanist parties of the West) was a dead end. Australians 'got it' in the 1990s. The British are just now showing signs of getting it. Continental Europe shows few signs of getting it, at least not Old Europe. She will probably be crying out for America to save her at some point. Again.

Libertarians seem blithely unaware that, while the Islamists might rant against the infidel Jews and 'Crusaders' in the internet video preambles to their murders and massacres, they have nothing but utter contempt for the moral philosophy of libertarianism, which inclines strongly to atheism. The libertarians' naivete in this regard seems to be a product of their own generally hostile disposition towards Christianity and the State of Israel, if not towards Christians and Jews personally. This hostility has apparently blinded them to the fascist nature of Islamism.

The fascination of the Left for power figures of the Fascist right is a thing to behold. There is a strange revulsion-attraction to Nationalsozialism: International Socialism's bastard progeny. The news footage of Tony Benn perched on the edge of his chair like an adoring schoolboy in rapt attention on a visit to Saddam Hussein in his last months of power as the Americans planned his removal remains etched on my memory. (Baathism is a secular Arab manifestation of fascist ideology).

Expect no thanks from the Libertarians to the true defenders of freedom when they are saved from this new Islamofascist enemy.

Prohibition

Every thing which is moral evil, and is detrimental to the interests of society, is not, therefore, properly punishable by society (e. g., prodigality, indolence, gluttony, drunkenness).
...
It is not the business of society to keep a man from injuring himself, but from injuring others. As to his personal interests he is his own master.

- R. L. Dabney, Systematic Theology, Chapter 48, Religious Liberty and Church and State.

These quotes are part of Dabney's argument that force (exercised by the State) is no remedy to the crime of heresy. But the principle itself applies more broadly.

One of the clearest examples today of disregard for the principle of the proper role of the State is the prohibition of mind-altering substances or narcotics. This disastrous policy and the enforcement of it, is led by America (who after her experience of 1920-33 she should know better), but is practically universal around the world.

Thus has the State usurped the role of the family.

The object of the family as to children is to promote their whole welfare. The object of civil government is simply the protection of temporal rights against aggression, foreign or domestic.

- R. L. Dabney, ibid.

In usurping the role of the family, the State practically becomes the family, thereby visiting upon us a measure of the evils of Communism. The State-as-family has become increasingly evident in Mr Blair's New Labour Britain.

Immediately following the above quote, Dabney continues:

But this is just the view which all claimants for high powers in governments deny. Like Mr. Gladstone, they claim that the proper view of government is, that it is an association intended to take in hand all the interests and welfare of human beings, of every kind; everything in which man is interested, and in which combination can aid in success, is the proper end of human government. It is to Pan: The total human association. Now, the plain answers to this are three: the Bible says the contrary. Rom.13:4. It is utterly impracticable; for, by the necessary imperfection of human nature, an agency which is best adapted to one function must be worst adapted to others; and an association which should do every thing, would be sure to do all in the worst possible manner. But last, and chiefly; if this is true; then there cannot be any other association of human beings, except as it is a part and creature of the State. There is no Church. The State is the Church, and ecclesiastical persons and assemblies are but magistrates engaged in one part of their functions. There is no such thing as the family, an independent, original institution of divine appointment. The parent is but the delegate of the government, and when he applies the birch to the child, it is in fact, by State authority! All combinations, to trade, to do banking business, to teach, to preach, to navigate, to buy pictures, to nurse the sick, to mine, etc., etc., are parts and creatures of the State! Or if it be said that the State, though it has the right to do every thing, is not bound to do every thing, unless she finds it convenient and advantageous, then the ethical argument is relinquished; and the ground of expediency assumed ...

Again, the argument here is against Establishmentarianism. However, the parallels are clear. In assuming parental responsibility for all individuals, children and adults and getting into the business of trying to stop a man from injuring himself, the State has become the family.

Tragically, the outcome has been disastrous. Prohibition has caused an increase in the use and abuse of the very substances it has sought to eliminate (because addiction to substances made artifically expensive by prohibition creates an incentive to 'push' and deal). Prohibition has caused a significant increase in prostitution (to finance personal addiction to substances made artifically expensive by prohibition) and in recent times thereby fuelled the transmission of AIDS and other serious infectious diseases. Prohibition has caused a significant increase in acquisitive crime, much of it violent, which all responsible members of society are forced to finance, through their property insurance policies. Prohibition has indirectly fuelled military conflict in some of the poorest countries of the world (profits, artificially inflated by prohibition, from the illegal trade in narcotics have become probably the most convenient means to finance trade in illegal arms).

In short, the policy of narcotics prohibition has not only been a far greater failure than the earlier policy of alcohol prohibition in the United States, but, far from reducing the sum of human misery, it has greatly increased it.

The general availability of narcotics is a perhaps a dreadful thing. But the effects of their prohibition is far, far worse. America's prohibition experiment in the 1920s failed miserably. The world's late 20th century narcotics prohibition experiment has failed even more miserably and on an even more spectacular scale. To expect different effects from the same set of causes and initial conditions is known as madness.

The State makes a dreadful parent.

Dispassion

"Reason is the slow and tortuous method by which those who do not know the truth discover it. The heart has its own reason which reason does not know." - Blaise Pascal, Pensées (1670)

It was once considered a virtue to be dispassionate, particularly if one was, say, a scientist or an economist or a civil servant, or even, perhaps, a politician.

Today, people boast about how 'passionate' they are about some cause or other. Lots of people are 'passionate' about 'climate change.' Even the robotic Al Gore.

Pascal also wrote that "When the passions become masters, they are vices." - Pensées (1670)

He's still right about that.