Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Everyone hates me

If someone asked you what the vilest and most despicable ideology was, what would you answer? Fascism? Communism? NationalSocialism? Most people would choose one of these, but in reality and in actual action taken this isn’t so.

“By their action thou shall know them”

Say whatever you want, but all normal ideologies have the two things in common. Firstly they all put their trust in the state. They do so to different degrees and in different ways, but they all use, put their faith in and take advantage of the power that comes with government.

Secondly the spokespersons of each ideology make good use of their position. This can manifest itself in power-grabbing, high income or fame. Such individuals can also have underlying psychological reasons as the urge to control others, a desire to fulfill some power fantasy or, as is very common, have an inferiority complex.
No matter if we’re talking about conservatism, socialism or fascism these two traits exist. This means that all ‘normal’ ideologies will have a common enemy if a thought exist that threatens this core. And so what philosophy will all these ideologies regard as their adversary?

The answer; Libertarianism.

What I’ve just said is the first, and possible the main reason why everyone hates libertarianism. This because anyone who says the state is inherently evil and cannot be trusted is automatically against anyone and everyone that has political power and influence.

A libertarian believes that the government is usually at best a zero sum actor. In other words, for one class to benefit, another is going to be harmed, either through taxation, regulation, or other government imposition. Only individual actors can generally engage in a transaction where all actors mutually benefit without cost to another party (even though there is still potential for one party to cheat, lie, steal, etc.) As such, the government's power should be used sparingly and only in consideration of those that will ultimately suffer by the imposition of the government.

Such a philosophy leads to certain consequences; each one means less power to the elitists and more power to the individual. Gun-rights for example. A libertarian is a firm believer in people’s right to self-protection. Another example is real property rights. In combination this means that if a taxation agency comes by and claims you should give them your property or money you can dismiss them and if they insists and threatens you with jail, you have the right to defend yourself hence dead tax-collector.

In a libertarian society it will become impossible for the political class to build monuments and huge palaces, so is it then such a surprise that libertarians are hated by all within the power structure?

It isn’t fascism they blame when a daycare center closing down, it isn’t socialism they blame when markets crash. Everything from tax-aversion to starving people in Africa has been blamed on libertarianism. Only global warming gets blamed for more misfortunes.

There are additional reasons why everyone hates libertarians.

One thing I’ve often noticed is that people in general don’t like absolutes; people simply don’t respond well to others that can be construed as arrogant. The idea that I know what's best, I know what I want, and that I know what should be done will for many seem like a strange thought. Even worse it becomes when such strong-minded people trash and successfully argue against any reality people may believe in.

I’ve never seen or heard a true believer in libertarian ideas lose a philosophical or political debate - that will simply never happen. However, as a libertarian you will almost always ‘lose’ anyway because people aren’t rational, they think with their hearts, not with their heads. When people are starving, suffering, dying and in misery they and their supposed helpers don’t wanna hear rational thinking, logical conclusions and they certainly do not wanna hear about the solution. All they want is help, now. They want the pain, the hurt and the suffering to go away and often enough anything goes. If you step into such a situation or talk with such a person they will rather spit in your face than actually think about reality.

This is also why socialism has such a strong appeal to so many people. Socialism is built around feelings, about seeing misery and reacting with instinct from the heart. People are starving? They need us to gather food and send it to them. People are unemployed and out of money? Let’s get government to employ more and increase salaries.

But this is also why socialism always fails – socialists don’t look for the underlying problem and never tries to solve it with logical thinking. Isn’t it better to fix the actual problem and figure out why people are poor rather then send help every time someone cries wolf? Socialists don’t think so.

Another reason why socialism never has and never will be successful is that within this lack of rationality they always need to have a villain. It can be the rich, global warming, society, powerful countries or the male species. They are not always wrong about putting blame somewhere, but mostly they miss the target or only see what’s just in front of them, again reacting too much without thought.

This is another reason why so many hate libertarians. You see in a libertarian society you wouldn’t be able to put the blame on someone else. If you live in a civilization wherein you make all the decisions then the only one to blame is yourself.

Imagine that. No criminal would ever be able to get away with blaming society; no worker would be able to blame companies for not hiring him. It all comes back to you and your own decisions.

Many people cannot phantom that, they want to be able to throw blame around. And even worse, when you know that your own decisions will impact on future events; anxiety grows. What if you don’t make the right decision? What if that road is better than the other one? Surely someone else can be delegated my decisions so I don’t haft to?

I’ve been called everything imaginable throughout the years but about the same time as I realized what really goes on in the world I also understood why so many hated my political views.

People want to live in their make-believe world far, far away from reality. It’s a psychological defense-mechanism. Instead of facing the harsh reality and acknowledge how things really work and how deeply screwed we all get from the elitists, people regress, they hide behind the fact that things aren’t so bad, and that most politicians actually want to do good. People lie to themselves in order to not have to riot and go on murdering rampages. This is the reason why we will see an extreme increase in shootings the coming years. There’s so much built up anger out there and the more people realize that they have been lied to; the more they will snap and go berserk.

There is however a positive side, libertarians have an upswing right now and the worse the world economy gets the more one can hope that the public realize which ideology and what people that has been saying the truth all along. Until that happens, I guess I’ll continue to be hated by everyone.

Britain going down the drain

The UK inflation rate rose to 3.5% in January - the fastest annual pace for 14 months - from 2.9% the month before.

The official explanation is that consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation was driven up by VAT returning to 17.5% (from 15%) and higher petrol prices. Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation which includes housing costs rose up to 3.7% in January, up from 2.4%.

This is all a smokescreen of course. CPI numbers count the general prices based on a goods-basket of selected commodities, it’s not the same as inflation. Prices go up because of inflation and real inflation has been ticking away for quite some time now.

When I moved to Scotland a little more than a year ago I could buy a six-pack of beer for £4.5, now you’ll be lucky if you get away with £7. A suite I looked at back then cost £80, now the very same one cost £125. The same can be seen throughout and please remember this is only the start. The newly printed money is only now started to pour into the real economy.