So many so-called progressives, it turns out, are really just neocons with sandals

If decentralized power were a mere smokescreen for oppression, why have all the great tyrants, without fail, opposed it? Can nationalists of left and right — neocons with and without sandals – please answer this question?

Why did the corporations push for more centralized government? Why did corporations play such a key role in encouraging political centralization, when they would supposedly benefit from a weaker central government?

We have a very simplistic, comic-book notion of oppression and evil in this country. We see news reel footage of Hitler or Stalin, set to menacing music, and think that tyranny comes in a package labeled “evil and oppression.” What both sides, but especially the left, fail to realize is that evil typically arises from what is perceived to be a desire for something good: i.e., to “make the world safe for democracy” or to “declare war on poverty.” But as Mencken said, “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false face for the urge to rule it.”

You cannot impose your vision of a perfect society without taking absolute power and discrediting (or imprisoning or eliminating) those who disagree with that vision. This is why ideology (including, by the way, the kind of anarchic vision advocated by Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard [ouch!]), with its utopian delusions and absolutist prescriptions, is always a threat to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” A genuine and traditional conservatism is the antithesis and antidote to all ideology.

Why don’t corporations lobby me? Well, that’s because I can’t grant them special exceptions and competitive advantages via the force of government. The ONLY reason we have rampant corruption between business and the government is because we have allowed the government to assume powers which are then used to grant these special favors and competitive advantages to specific business/industry. If there were no federal income tax, federal regulations, federal bailouts, subsidies and other assumed authority by the federal government, there would be little need for lobbyist to seek those in DC. Each individual state “can” involve themselves in these if they would like, but instead, we have created a one stop lobby shop in DC which makes it very efficient and economical to lobby for competitive advantages via the force of the federal government.

The unfortunate part for real conservatism is that it gets a bad rap from phony conservatives pretending to be just that (i.e. Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich et al.). Very frustrating at times, the Republican party is what it is because of these Nixonian-Rockefeller elites that don’t really give a damn about the country, just about power and their own selfish interests. God forbid if you disagree with these types, because you will be on their “enemies list” and even if you won your primary election fairly, they’ll do what they can to undermine you in the general election.

Why do people think more laws will solve anything? Campaign reform? “The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state.” — Tacitus

Laws from a central authority breed corruption! There is a reason the powers of the federal government were few and defined. Here is our problem folks:

“The states can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore… never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Judge William Johnson, June 12, 1823

“The modern regulatory state has largely been created during Republican administrations.”
— The Cato Institute

Kindly cite a single federal anti-gun law the Republican Party seeks to repeal.

Labels: libertarianism, politics