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Man-i's avatar

Your first mistake is supporting progressivism. Progressivism is a disease. Progressivism is a inherently authoritarian fascist ideology . It’s anti-human.

Human flourishing ingenuity innovation invention can only thrive under conditions of liberty. A regulatory state or administrative state is an anathema to human flourishing

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Erika's avatar

I'm a conservative leaning libertarian and I couldn't disagree more. We need people pointing out where we need to improve. And sometimes, it helps to have them force us into the future. The Civil rights movement is a great example. Were minds changing? Probably. But how much longer would it have taken for black people to get the treatment that should be guaranteed to all men without the activism of the 60s? Now, it's also clear that unchecked progressivism can be just as dangerous as unchecked conservatism. We could complement each other, if we could get our heads out of our asses and stop hating each other.

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Man-i's avatar

Clearly you’re not a conservative leaning libertarian at all. A libertarian ask himself the question: when is force and violence justified? And the answer is almost never.

The so-called federal US civil rights law might’ve been appropriate and that it outlawed discrimination in the public sphere. And to the extent that we have a public sphere discrimination has to be illegal.

But the problem with the civil rights act is that it cross the line to try to regulate private behavior.

If I as a person who identifies as Jewish is excluded from a country club or restaurant because the people who run a private institution have some fetishistic hatred of Jews and want to exclude me, in a free society that’s perfectly OK

So what you said above is preposterous. One cannot be a libertarian and then arbitrarily say that sometimes people have to be forced into behaving properly. You reveal your authoritarian streak. And that’s exactly my point:

The entire progressive movement is an inherently fascist authoritarian ideology that has failed everywhere it has been implemented

See Thomas Sowells vision of the anointed

Or this

https://www.amazon.com/Progressivism-Primer-Idea-Destroying-America/dp/0974925381

Or this

https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Socialism-Thomas-DiLorenzo/dp/1621575896

https://mises.org/library/egalitarianism-and-elites

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Erika's avatar

First, you dont get to tell me what my ideology is. You don't know me based on one comment, which you misinterpreted. I didn't mean "force" as in guns and tanks. I meant a smack in the head, as in marching in the streets. Or, are libertarians opposed to protest? And, way to miss my point entirely. I have a live and let live, government is almost alwayd bad attitude. I'm acknowledging that my ideology misses things, sometimes. This is precisely why we need people saying, "umm...excuse me, this is injustice and we need to fix it now." We can't live and let live, When you have a society that has treated an entire group of people in opposition to libertarian beliefs. You should reinforce laws and remove laws, so that it never happens again. I'm not an anarchist. Also, my point was that I recognize, that my innate perspective may miss some things and it can be useful to have people who bring other things to the table. But, I see you think you're always right.

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Small fish big world's avatar

Read Thomas Sowell, an amazingly brilliant black man that most people have never heard of because he is on the "wrong side" for his demographic.

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Erika's avatar

I've read Sowell. I agree with almost everything he says. So, essentially, Im just reinforcing my world view. I don't need to read his work...progressives do! What I (and you) should read is Derrick Bell or Kimberle Crenshaw. We should push ourselves to view the world from a different perspective. You don't have to agree with everything they say to gain something from their work.

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Man-i's avatar

Sowell and rothbard!

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Man-i's avatar

Im not always right. In fact I know very little about most things. But there's a whole group out there who have anointed themselves arbiters of morality, behaviour and ethics and these people want to force others to behave in certain ways and they think if they just jigger the laws the "right" way the society can be steered towards a better future. THis kind of thinking leads to misery always and everywhere. And it creeps into the thinking of even the most well intentioned libertarian minded person. HUman beings will only flourish under conditions of freedom. Liberty doesnt mean the freedom to abuse others rights as Im sure you know. But any application of political or government laws meant to alter or guide human behavior will always and everywhere fail and make the problems worse. Government is force and violence by definition. Government is not the same as governance. There will always be rules. But a majority voting to expropriate a minority is never moral. A small group of self appointed elites deigning to know the best rules to live by and imposing them on everyone else is the very definition of tyranny. Thats why I think Murray Rothbard was right and anarcho-capitalism is the paradigm we might strive to follow

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Erika's avatar

I don't disagree with most of what you say. My point is that progressivism is not a "disease", nor is it inherently authoritarian anymore than conservativism is inherently authoritarian. Every ideology has something they can bring to the table. The simple minded tend to take both ideologies to the extremes (see the woke left and much of the religious right), but they're not inherently extreme. If you haven't read Jonathan Haidts book, The Righteous Mind, it would probably explain this topic better than I can. And it's a fascinating read. Also, I'm more of a Mises girl.

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