5.  SPRING CLEANING
    by by Manuel Miles, aka Kapt Kanada 
    Special to TLE      http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/>     Issue 223

Despite the fact that the city in which I live is under a carpet of snow,
technically it is springtime in the northern hemisphere. This is the time
of year when one prepares for summer by cleaning the house and the garage,
doing the lawn work (or shovelling snow here in Alberta), et cetera. But
you already knew all that. What you may not have realised is this: the
Libertarian movement needs to do some cleaning up of its own, or it will
choke on its own debris.

Like any other living organism, a political movement must shed old skin and
cast off waste byproducts in order to grow and thrive. Libertarianism is no
exception. In spite of the recent blundering stupidity of the US imperial
state (and other states), we have not made the kind of progress one might
have expected. There is a reason for this: we are carting around a lot of
excess baggage and trash. People need to know clearly what we stand for,
and what we stand against before we can make a coherent, cogent
presentation to the citizens of the world.

To this end, we need to rid ourselves of any and all associations with
anarchists, xenophobes, nationalists, warmongers and various other statist
fifth columnists, even though some are our personal friends. I'm sorry, but
it's time to expose, denounce and run them off. Never shy (or sensitive),
I'll start:

Anarchists. I sparked a mild controversy last year when I pointed out that
right-wing anarchy is no more a "solution" to statism than is its
evil twin, left-wing anarchy. Both embrace the Almighty State for their own
ends (the lefties to force socialism on us, the righties to force their
racial purity schemes); both only talk against the State; both will
actively work against Libertarianism. ("Libertarians' minimal
government will inevitably grow into the Super State, so we must stop them
before they can re-institute it!" As if a) a Libertarian minarchy
would not be a massive improvement, and b) Libertarians were not presently
fighting to bring down the Imperial State, and c) any collective activity
is inherently evil, and d) anarchists had any concept of historical
processes anyway.)

Xenophobes and nationalists. Otherwise known as racists, although they now
deny being anything so unfashionable. The plain fact is that Liberty is the
birthright of all people and that true Libertarians are not the least
concerned with the ethnicity of any other Libertarians (or anybody else,
for that matter). The current phenomenon of them thar dang furriners
a-floodin inta the good ole yew ess of ay and eatin up all the welfare is,
as any student of history knows, a direct result of imperialism. It always
happens that those who have been dispossessed by an empire in their
homelands are
drawn to the imperial homeland in search of the economic opportunities
which it has siphoned from the colonies.

The delightful irony of this is that them thar Mexican furriners who incur
most of this racist wrath are "invading" the Mexican states of
Alta California, Texas, Nuevo Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada which
the US empire confiscated in the unprovoked wars of aggression against the
(then newborn) country of Mexico. Even funnier is listening to these
sophisticates attempting to pronounce the names of the places in which they
live; being gringos, they are unable to do so, of course.

The nationalists see the non-white Mexican hordes as being a threat to
their insipid, even oxymoronic "American culture". That famous
American haute cuisine, the literary wealth of the comic book, the
brilliant melodic compositions of rap, hip-hop and heavy metal are all,
apparently, precariously tottering on the edge of The Chasm Of Oblivion. I
am at a loss to see how that could be a loss.

Of course, the only way to protect Thuh Amurrican Whey of Lyfe from this
menace is to bring the US Army home to patrol the (southern) border! It
goes without saying that a massive Customs and Immigration bureaucracy must
be maintained, if not expanded, in this noble endeavour, too. And a
standing army in peacetime is somehow a good idea, too? How
"anti-state" is all this?!

The plain truth is that Libertarians oppose any and all restrictions on the
free movement of peaceful people across any State's supposed
"borders". Besides, people don't go where there aren't jobs, and
employment-seeking migration is a key element of a truly free market. The
myth of "illegals on welfare" is constantly dredged up by the
racists within our ranks despite the fact that all Libertarians advocate
the dismantling of all forms of State welfare. This is either unknown to
the xenophobes or else they suffer from selective CRS syndrome. Either way,
they're just plain bigots.

Warmongers. The only warfare which Libertarians endorse is strict
self-defence. There is no such thing as a "pro-war libertarian".
It doesn't exist. Period. This will be on the exam, students, so I hope you
took notes.

The fact that there are various anti-Libertarian elements posturing and
claiming to be "libertarian" is not cause to fear confronting
them; on the contrary, it makes it imperative that we do so. We cannot hope
to convince others of a philosophy that appears to encompass its own foes,
or that is too timid to evict philosophical squatters.

We need to set our own house in order before we can have an open house for
our neighbours. Only then can we be successful in promoting...

...Peace and Liberty.

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