On the Decline of the Libertarian Blog

Others have beaten me to the CiF article on the decline of the libertarian blogs. My failure to comment earlier is largely due to real life getting in the way as it tends to have a habit of doing. Interestingly, the article quotes a couple of high profile folk – such as DK – and cites this as evidence of us dropping like flies. While Constantly Furious and more recently Mr Eugenides have left the fray, the Clown seems less sure of his departure and while less prolific, DK is still with us. Obnoxio did make a spirited defence in the comments at the CiF article, but was probably wasting his time as so few really seemed to understand the concept of liberty. The underlying problem with statists is that they cannot – or will not –  see the good in humanity. Their postion starts with the concept of force because people will not help others unless they are coerced by the state. The state is mother, the state is father. It is amusing in a bash-our-head-against-the-wall-until-it-bleeds kind of way to observe the Guardianista attacking their strawmen, but it palls eventually.

Libertarianism is not about the right wing, despite the Guardianista’s two-dimensional view of life and their subsequent assertion that everything revolves around the left/right axis. Nor is it about the left wing. Such concepts are pretty meaningless anyway. Libertarians are the antithesis of authoritarianism. I would have thought this a fairly simple concept, but, no, not for the Guardianista. No, for these hard of thinking statists, we are Tories who won’t admit it. The Tories are not libertarians, they are statists, just a different flavour of statist to the Labour party. That they are marginally less awful is a bonus, but it is nothing more than another bone with a few scraps of meat still attached.

And, naturally, there is the nonsense about Somalia – oh, very clever that, I’d never have thought of that one. It’s supposed to be some kind of killer put down and is trotted out by the hard of thinking to the point of being almost Godwinesque. Somalia is not a libertarian state, it is a lawless one and the underpinning foundation of libertarian ideology is the rule of law. Indeed, the majority of libertarians are not proposing a no-state solution, merely a reduced one that is itself constrained by the rule of law, preventing it from interfering in the lives of the citizens it is supposed to serve.

Taxes gets dragged up as well. We are all rich kids who want to pay less taxes. Well, yes, everyone should pay less taxes. That over half of our income is squandered on the state and its wild spending of other peoples’ money is a disgrace. That low earners are even paying tax is an outrage. And as for us being rich kids who made good, I would like some of that, please. My own circumstances are pretty dire at the moment and I am taking temporary minimum wage dead-end jobs to make ends meet while I try to rebuild my business. So, no, we are not all rich kids who want to pay less tax. But then, a caricature is easier to fight than the real thing, eh?

In his article, Steven Baxter makes some good points.

You could argue that they’ve always been over-represented anyway, and that if they can’t adjust to life under a Conservative government, or the subtleties of writing about a group you aren’t as directly opposed to as Labour, then they don’t deserve to hang around. Those libertarians who remain are going to have to learn what liberal-left bloggers did during the Labour years – it might be harder to be critical of a government that’s ideologically closer to you than your sworn enemies, but it’s important to do so, to remind them of who their potential voters are.

Certainly my tone has changed since May. Less outright fury and more nuanced disappointment. But I’m still banging on about civil liberties under the coalition as I was under Labour. Both are the enemy within. Both are the political class and the political class is the enemy. It was nice to see the ID cards go, but that was nowhere near enough. The whole rotten edifice of the database state and the ethos of snooping that lies behind it needs to be rolled back, stamped on and utterly destroyed. And, remember, these people are going ahead with the intrusive census. So, no I am not going to stop “because I am a Tory”. I am not and never have been a Tory. Voting for them once in a council election to remove the Labour incumbents doesn’t really count. But, then, we are dealing with facile cretins for whom “not in my tribe” is equal to “must be an evil Tory”.

Perhaps the rage may be lessened after the change of government, and perhaps the posts will become more nuanced and less aggressive – which might not be a tremendously bad thing, after all.

I think that this was already happening. As Obnoxio has said repeatedly (and I am repeating it here), there are only so many times you can say the same thing before you become sick of it. This is why sometimes when the same stuff is trotted out at a press release, it is too much effort to debunk it for the umpteenth time.

I have to say, though, that I tend to swear less these days. The coagulation is not quite as malicious and misanthropic as Labour. So, I don’t feel quite so angry. I will, however, keep raising those civil liberties concerns while the fire remains in my belly.