I am perplexed. There isn’t one iota of confusion in my mind concerning the ideological identity of the newly elected House pseudo-Republicans. Furthermore I am sorely disappointed that NO ONE attempts to identify these people by their chosen ideology, LIBERTARIANISM. I fully expected the normal bumbling obfuscation from Corporate American Media (CAM), but what is surprising to me is that the progressive/liberal Democratic side of the political spectrum is also guilty of the same stupid political obfuscation. How do Democrats think that they can secure the support of the American public when they fail to identify the actual enemy of the average American citizen to the American people? I would humbly submit that less than 12% of the American voting population actually knows anything of substance about the Libertarian ideology. To this end, I will describe the message that the American people need to hear below.
As a preamble to further discussion below, I would like to pause to note some generalities about the Libertarian movement in America. There are two major groups of Libertarians, those who consider themselves to be principled Libertarians and those who consider themselves to be more pragmatic in reference to implementation of Libertarian ideology in American society. The principled Libertarians I have given the shorthand name of “PureLibs” for Purist Libertarians. The pragmatic Libertarians I have tagged as “PragLibs”. It also is noted that the Libertarian Party has fielded a presidential candidate for every election since 1972 with very limited success. In 2008, Bob Barr received 0.4% of the popular vote. With this very limited overview of Libertarians in America, I will move on to the reasons that I am writing my concerns.
It is imperative that those of us who participate in the progressive/liberal Blogging community STOP calling these newly seated pseudo-Republicans (House or Senate) Tea Partiers, extremists, or far-right Republicans. The proper politically ideological name for these people is LIBERTARIANS. When Ronald Reagan entered the presidential race in 1981, in addition to his southern strategy he recruited hundreds of PragLibs into the Republican Party. Reagan took advantage of a highly volatile internal Libertarian Party debate (which proved sharply divisive for the national Libertarian Party) to recruit the disaffected PragLibs. A split in the ideological viewpoint between the PureLibs and the PragLibs simply was this. The PragLibs believed that government should be as small as possible, but they recognized that some specific functions were necessary, such as an Army, Navy, Air force, police, Fire department, etc and some limited social services. On the other hand the PureLibs maintained a fanatical belief in the principle of NO GOVERNMENT AT ALL PERIOD. From the PureLib perspective all required services, local and national would be STRICTLY VOLUNTARY! Therefore for the PureLibs all government departments, such as Department of Education, Department of Commerce, Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon and all military branches, etc must be immediately unfunded and disbanded. Thus until recently, the PureLibs were mainly political jokes and forgotten outsiders until the Tea Party Express rolled into town. Desperate to field candidates for the 2010 Congressional elections the Tea Party express welcomed anyone who physically appeared “physically credible” to the voters.
The Tea Party solicitation gave the PureLibs the opportunity to get into the political fray under the Republican banner. They accepted the challenge and ran in various House races around the country with an extraordinary amount of success, allowing the Republicans to take control of the House of Representatives. The PureLibs are unquestionably fanatically dedicated to dismantling the entire federal government, which if successful would quickly make the United States into an insignificant colony for any interested nation with global reach. Unfortunately there is a “Neville Chamberlain” type attitude among most Americans that “these guys cannot be taken seriously, after all the Republicans have had Libertarians in their party since Reagan’s time”. However as I indicated above, these were the PragLibs who are definitely NOT THE SAME as their fanatic Principled PureLib brothers.
MoveOn.org and other progressive organizations on the web and around the country are starting to recoil from the draconian funding cuts currently being proposed by the House PureLibs, who have targeted organizations that have existed as honored American institutions for decades. Currently the House PureLibs have zeroed in on NPR and PBS to be removed from all governmental funding. This follows a recent House bill to kill all funding for the United Nations. Even in the midst of a flurry of these PureLib sponsored House Bills; this despicable pernicious legislative activity continues to evade any form of widespread public attention.
The Libertarians are smart enough to cater to a few select pet interests of certain loud mouth Democrats in Congress, thereby neutralizing the opposition from publicizing the impending more draconian PureLib spending cuts. Other Democrats, too lazy to mount an alarm against the PureLib onslaught, pacify their consciences with the self-delusional conjecture that any crazy PureLib bills created in the House will be stopped in the Senate or sub sequentially vetoed by the White House, so why worry.
As I mentioned above PureLibs are very clever people and they are also very quick learners. Their battle plan is to use this current period to become efficient in the respective Congressional processes before the 2012 elections. It is their expectation that the Republicans will win back control of the Senate and possibly even the White House. However, they believe that the odds favor them to at least win back the Senate, while expanding their majority in the House.
If the Progressive/Liberal Democratic segment of the political population fails to make all voting Americans fully aware of EXACTLY WHAT LIBERTARIAN/Republicans stand for ideologically, the PureLibs in Congress will make America into less than a third world country.
Finally, Ben Bernake during his most recent appearance before a House committee has warned that many of the draconian cuts being put forth by the House will endanger the progress of the fragile economic recovery. However, as I mentioned above, the PureLibs are fanatic in their pursuit to dismantle the American government. Therefore Bernake’s warning most likely fell on very deaf ears. The current crop of House Libertarians represents a serious threat to all of the standard government institutions that millions of Americans depend on for their daily survival. Medicare and Social Security are two that top the list and are currently in the cross hairs of the Congressional Libertarians. We need to shine the spotlight on these Libertarians and publicize exactly what their ideologies mean for the average American citizen. America can no longer afford ignorance on this subject at this critical point in our country’s history. Talk it up! Talk it up!!