When intelligent, fact-based policy positions degenerate into default cheering for any asshole who pisses off the government, no matter the details of their actions, that's when you are no longer a liberal progressive and are in fact a Libertarian. There's nothing left to do at that point but join the NRA, sign up to receive text message updates from Infowars, and call it "patriotism" every time some redneck piece of shit shoots a cop. It's the same logic, isn't it? That's what passes for assertive citizenship when it's replaced by paranoid, dickish petulance indifferent to facts and proportions.
Libertarians believe government is The Enemy, to be shrunk by tax cuts until it's small enough to be drowned in a bathtub. From this perspective, anyone who acts contrary to government is acting in favor of liberty - so it doesn't really matter what you stand for specifically or how you stand for it, as long as the folks elected to hold public office in this country (as opposed to you, who is too crazy to get elected dog catcher even in an election where you're the only voter) have a problem with it. As long as you're breaking laws and stirring shit, you're to be encouraged: Civil rights activists defying segregation thrown into the same category as gun-toting militia crazies who rob a bank.
But then a funny thing starts to happen: Civil rights activists are "wasting" time with intelligent arguments and peaceful disobedience rather than trying to terrorize others into adopting their point of view, so really they're not as laudable as the psychos waving around the guns and talking about the Tree of Liberty, are they? In fact, now that I think of it, they're probably just puppets of the status quo. More than puppets even - they are the status quo. Their lack of frenzied rage indicates that they are apologists for The System. So really, when you think about it, those people speaking intelligently and calmly about protecting the rights of all people and taking constructive steps to make it happen are themselves evil, tyrannical bastards trying to control us while the narcissistic whack-a-doodles who see themselves as being above both the Laws of Man and the Laws of Physics are the true heroes of Freedom.
Fuck the ACLU with its bunch of rich sellout lawyers trying to dissipate our passion into a bunch of paper orgies that drag out for years. No, the true heroes of liberty are people like that asshole kid who went around breaking the windows of every car on my street, because somewhere an injustice was being committed against America's youth, and that's somehow relevant. How dare you complain about your window being broken when there are children being railroaded by authoritarian juvenile courts in Shitsville, Alabama. The left and right of Libertarianism agree that government is the problem, and any attack on government is the solution.
Petulance is purity; malice is morality. Idly saying "America is fascist" with contempt dripping from your snarling, curled lip is a heroic expression of Cosmic Truth, while saying "I refuse to allow my country to become fascist" are the words of a privileged bourgeois counterrevolutionary Neoliberal so deluded as to think they live in a free country and can do anything other than stockpile weapons and canned goods and await The Revolution. Unthinking, spasmodic frog-leg-on-an-electrode hysteria is the mark of the clear-minded patriot. Calm demeanor and rational examination of facts are the Mark of the Beast. They Are Not One of Us! GEEEEEEIT 'EM! She's a witch! He's a heretic! They are Unclean! They are neoliberalplutocraticoligarchyselloutbetrayercorporatisttotalitarianauthoritarianfascist...
It's the guy who loses his shit who's the hero, not the guy who stands tall. MLK and Gandhi were sellouts and agents of the Establishment. It's the one who doesn't give a fuck what effect his actions have on other people who's courageous, not the lily-livered coward who strains to do right by others rather than satisfying his own idiotic impulses. As long as he's not in the Gubmint, a guy who treats laws as inconveniences to be dispensed with at his leisure is to be applauded, because clearly there's no correlation between tolerating people like that on a low level and empowering them above. Nope, no consequences. Just do whatever you want if there's some remote excuse that you're a victim, and it'll all just work out for the better somehow. No need to think, no need to open your eyes, no need to open your heart, just take your rage and let it guide your mouth and your actions with absolute disregard and total confidence in the unquestionable righteousness of Almighty You.
Welcome to your new home, Libertarians. Yeah, we liberals lived in it for a while, but the foul stench of Reason is already starting to dissipate. Can't wait to see the Rand Paul fundraiser diaries and the ones implying that the Tsarnaevs were "freedom fighters" based on America being a "fascist" country. And you know we will see them, don't you? That this part isn't snark? The logic of hate is predictable and inexorable, so don't doubt for one minute that you'll see pro-Tsarnaev diaries here at some point premised on hatred for the US government. Can't wait to see Alex Jones invited to be a Front Page guest blogger. But then given the Rec List, that would be kind of redundant, wouldn't it?