I have said this before, but I realize I have skipped some details. When I actually was a fresh faced lad, I was registered as Libertarian. This means that in 1976 when I voted for the first time, I cast my vote for Roger McBride, the Libertarian candidate, instead of for the eventual winner Jimmy Carter.I thought the Democratic Party was too soft on Nixon's worst offenses. If we had any Democratic senators today with the cojones of Frank Church, it would be a dream come true.
I went to a Libertarian meeting, and that one exposure soured me on the party. I had read some of the literature and I understood the first principle of libertarianism at the time, which was that government should protect the people from force and fraud. Hard core libertarians believe in police, prison guards and soldiers as valuable government employees and everyone else is just taking up space. I was upset about illegal wiretaps and the war on drugs. There were some people in the room who could get just as worked up by the idea of the government running the post office. I asked about environmental protections. I was nearly alone in the room in considering the loss or degradation of our common needs, like clean water and air, as force. I didn't go back.
Unfortunately, MacBride the non-idiot would never have a significant fraction of the influence of the idiot Ronald Reagan, lionized beyond all recognition. I will grant you that George W. Bush may be duller than Reagan and Reagan did not get us into two wars he did not know how to end, but because Bush's legacy is under such a cloud, I still rank Reagan as the worst president of my lifetime.
George W. Bush is the turd the Republicans flushed. Ronald Reagan is the turd they worship.
Avuncular, well practiced in front of the cameras, Reagan could deliver a line, I will give him that. One of his most revered witticisms is "These are the the nine scariest words in the English language: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
He repeated this many times at many campaign stops.
As a former Libertarian and past, present and future logician, I could figure out what this really meant.
Government is force and fraud.
Cops, firefighters, teachers, janitors, nurses, construction workers... all just a bunch of parasites that need to be eradicated.
This is the logical conclusion of what Saint Ronnie said, and the Republican Party at the local, state and federal level are following that statement without question today, in the executive, legislative and - possibly most frighteningly - judicial branches around the country.
The worst ideas of the ugly, cancer-ridden cult leader Ayn Rand have become the unquestioned marching orders of one of the two parties in the alleged greatest experiment in democracy.
Some people might view this as class warfare.
To them I say, "Fucking A."
Better class warfare than class genocide. We can't match their money, but as it stands right now, we have a hell of a lot more ballots than they do. We have to use them every chance we get. Until the conservative movement has a better idea than "Fuck you, I've got mine", they deserve the undying enmity of everyone who works for a living.
Here endeth the lesson.
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