Birth of the Liberalitarians?

posted by Global Patriot Worker @ 8:17 AM Permalink

One often wonders how the intellectual processes work and how strange conclusions can be reached. Needless to say, I've been thinking lately.

Is it my imagination or are we witnessing the birthing of an odd set of bedfellows? Are liberals and libertarians finding a good bit of common ground as of late? I hear the screaming voices bellowing in horror at the thought of the "government as your friend crowd" whooping it up with the "they didn't say anything about that in the Constitution" folks. But there is something happening ...albeit as I see it......which counts for nothing.

As I understand it, Libertarians do not want government to exercise anymore power than they are strictly mandated to use and it is best to let the true primal forces of freedom flourish, short of anarchy. Am I close?

Also, as I understand it Liberals focus closely on the corporate beast and its cold manipulations of the market in search of profit, most often to the detriment of average folks, the environment and other areas of the commons. Is that a fairly accurate summary?

Follow me here. I sense that both groups hate the unstoppable monster, its giant swinging arms of power and the ground it walks on. It matters only what they envision that monster to be.

Here is the rub: Has it not become abundantly clear that the revolving door between the Wall street corporate boardroom and the halls of the government needs hourly lubrication due to the intense RPM's? Is it not now obvious after the latest rape of the United States of America via the Wall Street bailouts -- without public disclosures mind you -- that government and business are one in the same? I don't know anyone who approved of those bailouts except those with a cynical interest in their own reelection or huge portfolio in Bank of America! The calls to our so-called representatives were nine to one against any bailouts. I ask one elementary question....did they listen? Apparently our opinions are too mundane, uninformed and simplistic to be considered in the equation of how our money gets spent. Oh wake from the grave ye fathers of this great nation, speak to these folks in their fitful sleep.

So apparently the enemy of the Libertarian has morphed with the enemy of the Liberal and we have, in essence, a common adversary! Are we, at least temporarily, Liberalitarians?

So I say let’s have a beer and party together. We need to make the nation safe again so that we may go to back to having fun the old-fashioned way....at each other's throats and enjoying every minute of it. How, say you, is this supposed to transpire? I can only tell you what I know and what I don't know. First and foremost, our Constitution is in trouble. As Liberalitarians we must insist that all enactments, such as The Military Commissions Act, P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Acts one and two and whatever other piece of garbage that tampers with the Bill of Rights be summarily dismissed and repealed as un-American. The "Unitary Executive" theory should be made the bane of American intellectual discussion in its inherent disdain for the principles of the founding of this country. We must insist on an honest banking system, free from the ravages of slash-and-burn economics and rooted in sound money, treasury-printed and silver-backed currency. In short, the Federal (actually private domestic and foreign consortium) Reserve (which it has none) must be held up as the money laundering, game playing, interest-rate manipulating, currency counterfeiting failure it is. That system simply has to go. And on the other side...wars based on false premises must end immediately in an organized way, apologies to the countries full of dead innocents and particles of depleted uranium must be made, the quest for empire must end and a policy of simple national defense must ensue. Also the infrastructure of a violent existence must be dismantled and the quest for the peaceful entrepreneurial spirit must be enhanced. We can never have peace and we can never be free with an economy based on the manufacture of devices used for subduing other human beings. ALL nations in possession of nuclear stockpiles should be at the table 24-7 until all abilities to manufacture these ultimate destructive weapons are under control and made illegal on an international level. Speaking from both perspectives, the idea of corporate personhood has gone too far and needs to be dumped or severely curtailed. Elections should be publicly funded with equal time for all to present ideas. Donations to campaigns should be limited to small amounts by American citizens only and campaign contributions by business interests (especially large corporations) implicitly illegal. Elections should be by hand counted paper ballots over the course of a weeklong counting cycle starting with a national two-day voting holiday. Fantasy maybe, but you get the point. This is just a start. If common sense points us, as Americans, in the right direction there is an awful lot of common cause to be made between the Liberals and the Libertarians.

Now let me digress.

After campaigning for small government, no nation building or interventionalism, conservative fiscal policies and keeping government off of your back, how did George W. Bush impress you? Do you feel a little bit betrayed?

Oh yeah... Obama voters.... after campaigning for an end to illegal wars, some sort of public health guarantees, accountability for past abuses of power, transparency in government, reigning in of the corporate dogs and no more cronyism (laughable on its face coming from a Chicago politician) how does the young Barak make you feel?

Do any of you get my point?....somebody?....anybody? A tinted glass office full of invisible monsters is urinating on our great American parade and calling it mild precipitation. We need to put up with each others foul body odors and make common cause against the true enemies of our freedom.....unbridled corporatism in a wicked marriage of convenience to unbridled government enabling.

So basking in the afterglow of another great Fighting Bob Fest progressive rally this past September I had a chance encounter. I was sipping the remnants of a waning keg of beer with friends as a similarly aged individual approached promoting his unique blend of solutions to what ails America. He was a dyed in the wool Libertarian type with a fistful of pamphlets about honest money, small government and the iron curtain of socialism now descending on America. Fortunately we both liked beer. We actually had a great time. I reminded him of the true tradition of the great progressive rallies of the past with open dialogue, free exchange of ideas, music and beer, etc. I assured him that he was welcome and Ed Garvey was not Satan reincarnate. I reflected back to another great Bob Fest when Libertarian Ed Thompson broke his ideas to a not so adoring yet respectful crowd at the grandstand lunch breakout and related that to my newfound friend. We talked about everything under the sun and I came to the conclusion that what drove this individual was what also drove me......a need to know just what in hell is actually going on! Who in God's name is actually pulling the strings in our governance? We both instinctively knew that it was not US!

So what famous Latin word forms the root of the words Liberal or Libertarian? Liberus....libertus....libus.....libelous (couldn't be that)...I don't know my Latin at all. But I do know the word liberty and I think it has something to do with freedom from tyranny....government and corporate tyranny. The two behemoths have belittled the people to such an extent that we don't even talk to each other anymore. That is the desired outcome as they see it and for that reason I am now, at least temporarily, a liberalitarian. I am willing to talk in earnest to my Libertarian friends and seek solutions to our dilemmas. For example, the powers that be know well the benefits of technological tyranny....the ability to use the ever increasing benefits of unfathomable technologies to defeat one's detractors. But that is a subject for an entirely different missive.

My goodness we sure have work to do. And if government and business can make fascist-like alliances I can damn sure make my own alliances too......to shed some light on the bastards and watch them scurry!

Labels: liberalitarians, liberals, libertarians, politics