I'm trying to figure this out:
A photo went viral this last week on Facebook showing Ron Paul posing with White nationalist Don Black who is a former KKK Grand Wizard, member of the American Nazi Party and founder of Stormfront.org, which has been identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and others:
http://www.facebook.com/...
So, how does America's most famous libertarian become a fellow travel of authoritarian figures like Don Black?
I mean -- libertarian means "liberty," right?
And that's the direct opposite of authoritarianism.
'Cuz ... cuz ... AYN RAND!!!1
Looking at this photo, I started thinking about the paradox of libertarianism. Why do libertarian goals lead to authoritarian outcomes? Why does libertarianism as a philosophy draw followers both from the economic elite and the far-right political fringes whose goal is not to make people more free?
Seems kind of strange, doesn't it?
And that always brings me around to a quote from Simon Wiesenthal that I read in Robert Kaplan's great book Balkan Ghosts:
Simon Wiesenthal told me that any political party in a democratic country ... that uses the word 'freedom' in its name is either Nazi or Communist.
Libertarians who, in a democracy, seek to limit the power of government are seeking to break up a central freedom of the people -- the freedom to rule themselves. In a democracy, libertarianism isn't about freedom. It's about denying people the right to government themselves. It's an anti-democratic principle.
Everyone understands the sentiment, "Get government out of my life!"
But in a democracy, the people are the government -- or are supposed to be, depending on how much friction is being created by corruption.
The anti-democratic principles of libertarianism ultimately make people like Ron Paul ideal fellow travelers for the Klan and the American Nazi Party. And society's wider embrace of figures like Ayn Rand have perversely made us vulnerable to accepting authoritarianism in our own government.