Oh, but they seemed like such NICE guys
Via Instapundit, Damon Root, associate editor of Reason, has a piece up that argues that libertarianism is more important now than ever.
Rhetorical point I know — but that’s like saying that Love is more important some times than others. Principles are always equally important. That’s what makes them principles. There’s never a good time to stick libertarianism in a shoebox and kick it under the bed. In fact, if the current political nightmare has taught us anything, it’s that we need to be equally vigilant when the GOP is in control. Ya know. Guard against being pimped vs. guard against being criminalized.
That said, the article is a keeper, if for no other reason than Root’s summary of how “progressive” politicians have historically used high minded-sounding power grabs to screw people.
Here’s a taste:
[A]s economist Tim Leonard points out, progressives believed in a “powerful, centralized state, conceiving of government as the best means for promoting the social good,” a belief that directly contributed to the widespread progressive support for eugenics, racial collectivism, and various coercive “reforms.” Progressive darling Theodore Roosevelt, for instance, held notoriously racist and imperialist views, including the notion of “race suicide,” which held that the white race faced the risk of being out bred by its “little brown brothers.” He also believed that the 15th Amendment should never have been ratified since the black race, in his words, was “two hundred thousand years behind” the white.
In opposition to all that stood libertarians like Moorfield Storey, the great lawyer and activist who helped found both the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Anti-Imperialist League. A proponent of the gold standard and laissez-faire economics, Storey argued and won the NAACP’s first victory before the Supreme Court, a 1917 decision that relied on a defense of property rights to squash a residential segregation law.
I’d sure like to see some of today’s so-called “progressives” sober up a bit and admit their history.
And then tell me how they’re going to protect these wonderful government programs they want to push on us from devolving into corrupt political debacles like the Farm Bill.
Good luck with supporting that position, guys.
Tags: corruption, liberal, progressive