Libertarianism - Free from ... What?

This Memorial Day weekend the Libertarian Party will be holding their Presidential Primary/ Convention. They will, in one weekend, narrow down 18 candidates to 1.

Why it took the Republicants so long to narrow it down to an unelectable blow hard is beyond me. And personally I am scared of the candidate that just received the 1238^th needed delegate to win the nomination.

I shall not go into anything about the Democratic race as it is still undecided (officially) thought the corporate controlled media has settled on Clinton.

But I digress.

The Libertarians hold to the line that “less is better.” Less government is better for the people. Lower taxes are better for the people. Basically, government can do no right and privatization will solve all our problems.

And I wonder how much of that wacky weed that they want to decriminalize have they been smoking.

And for how long?

One only need to look at the austerity measures that the Eurozone is imposing upon Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain and one would know that privatization is a disaster waiting to happen. Look at all the poverty that austerity has created.

One only need to look at the Roaring Twenties, the Reagan Years, the Clinton policies on deregulation, and the reign (of errors) of George W Bush and we can see how no rules or regulations leads to chaos and bigger problems than the rules and regulations supposedly create.

And privatization of public goods has brought nothing good to the public. Higher costs are better for the public? Fewer hospitals and clinics are good for the public? Privatized schools are better for the public? Less choice has always led to higher costs.

The basic Libertarian economic philosophy, if fully implemented, would put this country back into the Gilded Age, if not worse.

Furthermore, we as a society evolved to where we are because we cooperated and worked together. Survival of the fittest sounds nice in theory. But it never happened in reality. One only needs to look at the ancient and primitive societies and realize that they had rules regarding the care of the poor, infirm,and elderly. And they needed to cooperate in order to survive against the elements.

Now Libertarians and socialists will agree on some things – gay rights, decriminalization of drugs, and many other social issues. We will also agree – somewhats- on foreign policy issues. Both Libertarians and socialists opposed the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other misguided US adventures into foreign countries.

But on economic issues and the responsibility of society towards the individual – we disagree on many things. Single payer health insurance is better than everyone for themselves and the attitude that some compassionate individual will help out a sick person in need of health care. I can look at all the mason jars being filled up with loose change at restaurants and stores around where I live that are waiting for some rich person to say “I'll pay for the cancer treatments that this kid needs.” Some of these people are still waiting and for some it is far too late.

Libertarianism as an ideology sounds nice in fiction. It's where Ayn Rand wrote her philosophy out. And it makes a nice story. In the fiction section of any librarary.

However Rosa Luxembourg said it best when she said we had two choices – socialism or barbarism.

Socialism is everyone working together for a common good.

Barbarism is every person for themselves.

Under that rule, everyone loses.