Well, who doesn’t love freedom? I know I do, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out what the hell it is despite constant attempts by some very serious folks to define it for me. I mean, call me a pragmatist, but if I can’t touch it, see it, taste it (you get the point), I’m gonna have a hard time taking you seriously. This is especially true if you’re trying to get me to do something, like a protest or go on that dreadful Jelly Belly factory tour in Fairfield. For Christ’s sake, yeah, someone made a jellybean “painting” of Ronald Reagan. It ain’t any more special than seeing it on the Internet. In fact, it’s better that way because you don’t have to deal with hundreds of over-sugared children reenacting the worst scenes from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Which brings me to our latest Not Really News guide.
There seems to be a great debate as to what a real Libertarian is. From my studies back at Kansas State, at least those that I can remember, there are all kinds of Libertarians. But the particular American, right-wing anarchist variety generally seems to dominate, if for no other reason that they’ve adopted the tactics, and persistence, of the religious Right in this country. They often, but not always for various reasons, like to call themselves Anarcho-Capitalists or ‘Anacaps’ for short. I figure they like the term Anacap because it sounds more gangster-like, at least to their ears.
There are hundreds of treatises on this topic of the different kinds of Libertarians. Here’s one of them: https://www.thoughtco.com/what-kind-of-libertarian-are-you-721655. There are many more. I’m not going to cover them here because I’m going to teach you how to be the American version and frankly these Libertarian sects make my head hurt just thinking about all their nuttery.
Step 1. Be American.
OK. We’re talking about the American form of Libertarianism. You don’t have the patience for the other kinds of Libertarians, especially those Anarcho-Communist types. Face it, you think they’re just Democrats anyway. I mean, Ayn Rand was American, or something close to American at one time, so practice the form that is native to this country. Well, not to say you believe in countries or Constitutions. You weren’t there to vote on the Bill of Rights, right! A null and void contract, mister!
Step 2. Don’t be that kind of ‘Statist‘ American.
Be the kind of American that believes taxation is theft, and that mob voting is a ceremonial act by cronies and elites to create the facade of choice. Remember, you’re not paranoid if everyone is really out to get you. (see #12)
Now, if it wasn’t clear in the last step, you shouldn’t be just your average 4th of July freedom loving American. You know them to be statist assholes. In fact, you tell them that all the time as a real Libertarian. Republicans? Democrats? The waffling Independents? You have no use for them and their dogma. You’re a free-thinker; a real man, and rarely a woman, who lives in your own sovereign state.
Step 3: Take Fundamentalist Christianity, and every time you see the word Jesus, substitute either the words “free markets” or simply “liberty.”
This one’s easy because you already have the building blocks around you. Everyone knows that our modern form of reactionary Christian Fundamentalism is as American as a Trump or White Supremacist Party. They know how to party with their own kind and they’ve spent over a hundred years perfecting their pitch that anyone who doesn’t convert is in danger of dying in the fiery pits of hell.
This is where you come in.
Think of it like some fucking cheapskate and somewhat unethical home builder. In order to avoid the permitting process, simply tear the fucking house down to the frame, and then rebuild it as you like. Remove all the bits from Christian Fundamentalism, tearing it down until you get to that narcissistic kernel that powers it, and then rebuild it as I said, replacing Jesus and God or whatever with freedom and liberty. You too can have your personal relationship with your own Liberty. Nice, eh?
Step 3.1: You can also be a Fundamentalist Christian, which is your free right.
Oh yeah, sorry about this. You can still be Fundamentalist Christian and a Libertarian, but don’t be surprised if the more pure and “god-free” varieties don’t want to talk with you. And to be honest, any good Libertarian doesn’t want to talk to anyone else, even other Libertarians unless they absolutely have to. Like when you’re forced to defend your often usual and unorthodox positions. (Or arguing with a Statist about who will pay for the Fire Department or the roads.)
Step 4: Call anyone who criticizes your staunch and strident positions a communist.
This one is self-explanatory. Clearly, anyone who attacks your Liberty über alles assertions is a communist who both wants to steal your money via taxes and seize your guns so they can take them to build their socialist empire. And then, of course, use your stolen guns and money to kill you and your family. It’s really that simple, you know?
However, it’s important to cut these moochers off at the pass as soon as you sense their attacks. It doesn’t take much. Just say something like, “you’re a communist” and if you’re feeling generous, simply call them a socialist.
Step 4.1: Try to avoid attacking fascism, unless a communist accuses you of being a fascist.
Let’s face it, you like the fascists better. I mean, you’re not a fan but you’d certainly take them over any kinds of socialism. Am I right or what?
Anyhow, we know you love Chile’s General Augusto Pinochet. How he handled those rascally socialist insurgents and brought about a golden age of, well, fascism in Chile. But don’t talk about, no matter how tempting it is, taking your communist enemies on a one-way “helicopter ride” into the Pacific Ocean. However if an argument does get a little heated, or you find yourself in any number of logical fallacies, simply mention General Pinochet’s name and then change the subject to the NFL.
Step 5: Accuse all institutions of learning to be indoctrination centers for the Statists
This goes without saying. All forms of modern liberal education are really just indoctrination centers which teach our young and impressionable minds how to “group-think.” Oh, you know their rhetoric. They tell you in parent-teacher conferences that they want to foster independence and critical thinking, but you, like your Christian Fundamentalist architects, know they’re just trying to convert them to vote Democrat or whatever political faction is the enemy of liberty at the time.
Step 6: Send your kids to public schools, but when attending the Holiday Show, be sure the scowl at all the other Statist parents.
Homeschooling is hard, and we know, your kids barely listen to you as it is now. So Home Schooling your kids is out. You could send them to a Christian School, but you generally don’t like that kind of group-think either. So just admit it, your kids are going to a public school, but you don’t like it.
Just remember it’s OK to glare with contempt at any of the other parents who send their kids there. They’re not ‘awake’ like you are and you can show your true Libertarianism by expressing your discontent at any school function.
Step 7: Friedrich Hayek and Ayn Rand are really the only two authors people should read.
If you have more hippie inclinations, Lysander Spooner will suffice.
We know you’re OK with Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift. We get it. But we also get that the only books that matter are the Road to Serfdom, Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. You postponed Hayek until you attended the statist college. That’s fine. But it was the thin and lazily drawn characters in Atlas Shrugged that first hooked your 16-year-old mind to the truth. Sure you started out with the Rock band Rush, but you soon made your way into the ridiculous narratives of Shrugged. But this is the world in your head. This is the perfect world you want to see and you’re making your 8-year-old read it now.
Step 8: Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are a must
Yeah, you can’t buy groceries at groceries stores, but that’s why you can and have a garden! If you want to avoid illegal and non-consenting fiat money like US Dollars, you’re going to have work with Bitcoin. You can’t really do anything with it yet, but you did manage to find that one Bitcoin ATM machine four towns away.
But this is not about cash flow, as you know. This is about visions of liberation and revolution. The establishment elites heap contempt and scorn on it because they feel threatened by Blockchains and liberty and shit. Bitcoin is the first practical solution to a longstanding problem in computer science called the Byzantine Generals Problem. To quote from the original paper defining the BGP: “[Imagine] a group of generals of the Byzantine army camped with their troops around an enemy city. Communicating only by messenger, the generals must agree upon a common battle plan. However, one or more of them may be traitors who will try to confuse the others. The problem is to find an algorithm to ensure that the loyal generals will reach an agreement.”
[note: no one is paying attention to you when you talk like this]
Step 9: Resign yourself to never having sex again; that might include having sex with yourself.
Being a Libertarian means women won’t want to have sex with you. And that’s OK because you can just have sex with other Libertarian men. In fact, some of your Libertarian-leaning Congressmen have already discovered these delights with interns and other lonely lawmakers.
Step 10: When Statists ask you about who will build the roads, tell them the free market will build them with volunteers.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you. Oh, how those statist love to wrap themselves in Statist Roads. They just rub their crony hands together with just the thought of stealing your tax money for their pet “infrastructure projects.” But you know it’s just plain theft to take your hard-earned money and use it for what they speciously call “the common good.”
But you know better.
These are just Keynesian schemes to keep the masses occupied with busy work, building roads to nowhere that serve no purpose. If a road needs to be built, it will be built by people who need the road and not under the cohesion of the State, with seized (stolen) money from its “Producers” like you.
Step 11: Claim to be above both “the Left or the Right”.
This is handy when people identify your logical fallacies. Note: this is a common “communist” ploy to bait you into contradiction. I mean, you’re a liberal when it comes to things like same-sex marriage, and let’s face it, given #9 above, you’re ready to embrace it. And you love guns. A lot. Just tell them that they don’t know what a real Liberal is. Of course, that Liberal is you.
Step 12: Lots of guns. Get ’em.
Remember when that M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank comes at your home because you’re a tax protester, your modified AR-15 will do well against it. Just keep shooting at it with your .22 caliber rounds until it gives up and goes away.
Step 13. Collect Social Security when appropriate, but be sure everybody knows you think it’s a scam.
Needs no comment.
Step 14: Collect Medicaid when appropriate, but be sure everybody knows it’s a scam.
Needs no comment, except if you get cornered by a Progressive on this matter, you can say something like “the jury’s still out on this for me” and then change the subject to the NFL.
Step 15. Bury yourself when you die.
And here’s the test of a real Libertarian. If you can pass it, you’re the “real deal.” Make sure when you die, that you are fully prepared to bury yourself. Obviously, this takes a lot of planning and forethought. But you can do it! Why? Because you’re a Libertarian now, silly. Nothing says the magical and invisible hand of the market than being able to bury yourself without the meddling influence of the government.
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