Communist Libertine Trigger Warning

The Cultural Marxist, libertine, communist wing of the libertarian movement is up in arms over the talk given by Jeff Deist last week at Mises University hosted by the Mises Institute and broadcast simultaneously to the Corax 2017 Conference in Malta – with Hans Hoppe in attendance.  I have written previously about this talk here; the talk outlines the only path available for libertarians who choose not to contribute to the path chosen by cultural Marxists.

Needless to say, the Antonio Gramsci Libertarians are up in arms.  I have already offered two reasons why, in the opening paragraph.  Do you see these?  I will give a hint: Mises Institute; Hans Hoppe.

What else from Deist’s talk has the left-libertines apoplectic?

The title “For a New Libertarian” is I hope an obvious play on the title of Murray Rothbard’s famous book For a New Liberty.

Hint: Murray Rothbard.

…if [Rothbard] could see where the “public policy” branch of libertarianism has become.

The “public policy” branch being the beltway, mainstream, libertarians.

…Rothbard’s conception of liberty has held up quite well over nearly half a century.

Deist mentions Rothbard again.

Humans are sovereign over their mind and body, meaning you own yourself. From this flows the necessary corollary of property rights…

Left-libertarians are OK with property rights, except when it gets in the way of their “left”; in other words, property rights are OK as long as the property owner is not discriminating.

And these ideas of self-ownership, property rights, and non-aggression ought to apply to everyone, even when a group bands together and call themselves “government.”

Not possible, because if this was true they would have to take the “beltway” out of their beltway libertarianism.  And then where would that leave them?

So we have this fantastic, airtight Rothbardian theory of liberty.

He mentions Rothbard again.

But all of this is just warmup – now it’s time for the bombshells.  This next one is loaded; I will just add emphasis where appropriate, as I believe the trigger words otherwise speak for themselves:

…libertarians have a bad tendency to fall into utopianism, into portraying liberty as something new age and evolved. In this sense they can sound a lot like progressives: liberty will work when human finally shed their stubborn old ideas about family and tribe, become purely rational freethinkers (always the opposite), reject the mythology of religion and faith, and give up their outdated ethnic or nationalist or cultural alliances for the new hyper-individualist creed. We need people to drop their old-fashioned sexual hangups and bourgeois values, except for materialism.

Just to summarize: they sound like progressives; family; tribe; religion; faith; ethnic; nationalist; cultural; old-fashioned sexual hangups; bourgeois values.

In other words, many libertarians require a new man for their world to work; it is communist thinking.  Antonio Gramsci carved out the space first; the Frankfurt School brought this to fruition in the west.  Libertarians such as these are both late to the communist party and willing to destroy the world if they cannot win.

The next bombshell, again emphasis added:

…while libertarians enthusiastically embrace markets, they have for decades made the disastrous mistake of appearing hostile to family, to religion, to tradition, to culture, and to civic or social institution — in other words, hostile to civil society itself.

Again, to summarize: family, religion, tradition, culture, civic or social institutions – bad!  For the dense I the audience I offer…well, on second thought I will cite Deist (and many on the Marxist side remain dense even after reading this):

Which is bizarre if we think about it. Civil society provides the very mechanisms we need to organize society without the state.

Because communism is the only political theory that suggests that there need be no hierarchy; society will function without any governance.

Our connection with ancestors, and our concern for progeny…

You get the idea, I think.

We want strong families, we want elite families, we want wealthy families that are not afraid of government. We want large extended families that people can turn to in time of trouble.

Families, times four.

Religion forms another important line of defense against the state. In fact the whole history of man cannot be understood without understanding the role of religion. Even today healthy percentages of people in the West believe in God, regardless of their actual religious observance. And believing in a deity by itself challenges the state’s omniscience and status. Again, religion stands as a potential rival for the individual’s allegiance…

Several “religions,” God, deity.  You get the idea.

…it is reasonable to believe that a more libertarian society would be less libertine and more culturally conservative…

Undoubtedly true, which demonstrates the point that left-libertarians do not actually want a libertarian society – a libertarian society will mean an end to their nonsensical social theories.

The last big bombshell:

My final point is about the stubborn tendency of libertarians to advocate some of sort of universal political arrangement.

Because the only way to achieve such ends is to advocate for global government – and, I assure you, it will not be a government that respects your life or your property.

“Oh,” they cry, “murder is murder everywhere.”  True enough; but for those who have graduated beyond simpleton talking points, it is in the gray areas of libertarian theory applied where culture is to come forward.

Further, what if one community voluntarily chooses to pool all assets and income – must libertarians stop this?  What if a community voluntarily chooses various forms of marriage?  Well, we know this is OK under the NAP.  But to those on the left, all forms of social organization are OK except for the ones positively mentioned by Deist in this talk – the ones that have formed mankind since the beginning of recorded history.

Political decentralization, secession, subsidiarity, and nullification are all mechanisms that move us closer to our political goal of self-determination.

These are all code words for “slavery advocate.”  Really.  I’m not kidding.

In closing, I’ll mention an email exchange I had recently with the blogger Bionic Mosquito. If you’re not reading Bionic Mosquito, you should be!

I don’t think this is the part that bothered them….

Conclusion

In other words, blood and soil and God and nation still matter to people.

This is code for Nazi fascist.

Really, I am not kidding.  Ask Steve Horowitz Horwitz.