left, right, property, & war

8/13/2019 Left, Right, Property, & War

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Left, Right, Property, & WarWill Porter 12/25/2013

In the United States and at least the majority of the Western world, the Left and Right

are commonly spoken of as if they constitute the entire scope of possible political positions.Any respectable person mustfavor either the Right or Left, be a Conservative or Liberal, and in

the U.S., be a Republican or Democrat. Libertarians, however, happily do not fit on such a scale.

Libertarians tend to take the best of both worlds, discarding the rest post-haste. From the Left,

we libertarians share the hatred for war and the waste and destruction it leaves in its wake. We

also share a slight similarity in favoring the free personal choices of individuals, whether it is for

recreational drug use, gambling, prostitution, or same-sex marriage. While there are still many

differences here, the sentiment is at least familiar.

With the Right, we share the emphasis and enthusiasm about private property rights,

reductions in state power, the right to own firearms, and the virtues of free exchange and the

market.Well at least nominally...Some of their rhetoric certainly soundssomewhat libertarian,

right?

These apparent similarities, however, do not go very far at all. Both the Left andthe

Right attach themselves to causes wholly un-libertarian, and while each side has traditional

standpoints, they seldom even stick to their ownproclaimed principles, creating mutant

abominations of Liberal-Conservative political philosophy (and I use the latter word mildly).

For example, as mentioned above, the Left tends to balk at war -- unlessthe war is

waged by a Liberal-Left Executive. The Liberal outcry about Bushs War quickly yielded to a

mere whisper the moment Barak Obama took the reins of power. And many on the Right pay

lip service to property rights and free trade -- until it comes time to pass socially conservative

legislation that arbitrarily seeks to extinguish free choice and ban non-violent behavior, such as

the use and trade of drugs, prostitution, and other numerous things commonly deemed

distasteful.

It would seem that any possible similarities between both the Left andRight and

libertarianism are a mere accident. It is abundantly clear that popular political candidates

determine their positions and policies purely on their expediency, not by any consideration of

principle whatever. Neither Left-Liberalism nor Right-Conservatism are really even ideologies,

these are merely labels used to justify coercion and ambitions for power, easily malleable to

any capricious cause.


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What of libertarianism? What makes us any different? Are we just nicer people, better

informed? Does our consistency come by accident, a coincidence? Well it should be asked here,

consistent to what,in what wayconsistent? Ah, but here is the key. Libertarianism is not about

a simpleton, ad-hoc devotion to something that we call liberty,nor a mere whim or opinion

that people should do whatever they want. This tradition is firmly rooted inprinciple-principles of political philosophy, of ethics. A single principle has vital significance, it is the

principle of private propertythat every man has the right to his legitimately-earned land and

possessions, and that no man has the right to rule or aggress against another. Countless

centuries of history can be summed up by the perpetual struggle of the masses against political

and religious tyrannies, each and every time seeking to attain some semblance of these kinds of

rights or freedoms over their possessions, bodies, and lives.

It is by thisprinciple that we gauge the legitimacy of other creeds and the ideas that

they advocate, and in light of this principle virtually every other creed can be shown to be utter

intellectual failures, inconsistent barbarism, and apology for violence and force.

The more radical Liberal-Left are typically not happy advocates of property rights, or the

concept of property altogether. However, the moderate Left willbegrudgingly accept things like

property and capitalism, but with just a touch of maddening inconsistency. The Liberal basically

says: I will respect property rights and free trade up until the moment I decide something else

is more important.

Take wealth redistribution schemes, inherent violators of property rights. Setting aside

the fact that 60+ years of social welfare programshave done almost nothing to alleviate the

scourge of poverty across the world -- creating highly-dependent under-classes -- and also here

ignoring the fact that despite this, they are still constantly advanced as the grand-solution,

these welfare programs constitute massive violations of nearly every persons rightto retain

what is legitimately his. That is, the fruits of his production and the gains that result from his

agreements and dealings with others. Once our principle has been applied, we can easily see

why the libertarian rejects such policies as inherently immoral and contemptible. The disastrous

results that typically follow welfare schemes arent to be ignored, but the root of the problem

becomes apparent when considering property rights, the main thrust of the libertarian case.

In order for a government to implement distributing wealth, they must first attain

wealth. The government doesnt at all have any money of its own, so it therefore must take it from youand me. Anybody advocating social welfare is really advocating mass thievery of millions of their

fellows. The Liberal claim that the rich dont deserve their money is highly dubious in light of the fact

that almost every single monolith-corporation receives mass streams of wealth from the very economic

regulations and restrictions the Liberals alsoadvocate for. If Liberal politicians really cared about

corporations and the mega-wealthy having too much money or power, they wouldnt constantly collude

with them and push for the kind of protectionist legislation that insulates large corporations from free


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competition.

The Liberals, contrary to their rhetoric, are notchampions of civil liberties and free personal

choice. They are just as Conservative as the Right, and they just as readily endorse open brutality

against those who refuse to let the State strip them of their freedom or property.

The Right, however, do tend to say that they respect and value the right to property.

Unlike many on the Left, they dont shy away from such a notion, but in reality they disregard it

just as hastily, if not faster, than even the most ardent proponent of mass wealth-

redistribution. Here I must touch upon the Rights devotion to the warfare-state, but I will not

neglect to discuss the inherent connections between war, and the centralized bureaucratic

control over domestic economy and society that emanates from it. In the end, we will see that

the Left and the Right endorse the very same paternalistic, statist-corporatist, anti-libertarian

results, if only by moderately different means.

Modern-day Rightists, Neo-Cons as opposed to the Old-Right isolationists, fully

support the imperial warfare-state. Their worldview is many times similar to 1940s superhero

comics, complete with righteous heroes and maniacal villains. With such a picture of the world,

it becomes easy to advocate mass military action against those deemed the bad guys. An Us-

vs.-Them mentality develops and becomes pervasive (If youre not with us, youre with the

terrorists), although this isnt necessarily unique to the Right.

Warfare, at least the vast majority of warfare waged by most of the world over the past

millennia, is by its very nature illegitimate and destructive to human life and prosperity. While

the use of defensive violence is justified under the libertarian ethic, war is almost neveractually

defensive. The phenomena of modern government-waged military conflicts consists of some

tiny group of politicians pointing to a land-mass or territory, usually an entire country, and

declaring that all people within that boundary are fair game to be slaughtered or imprisoned.

While things like the Geneva Conventions and other international rules of war attempt to

establish confines to legitimate warfare, the very nature of warwanton death and destruction

usually leads to such rules falling by the way-side. Combatant forces, especiallythose of the

United States, continually get away with massive violations of these codes and face virtually

zero repercussions.

But setting this aside and assuming that all war conventions are followed perfectly, and

also assuming that coercive conscription (the draft) isnt implemented still-- the notion that

just because some person belongs to a foreign military organization, he is fair game to be

bombed, shot, or imprisoned is a monstrous violation of the libertarian philosophy. Aggression

occurs on the scale of individuals, and onlyindividuals. Groups, armies, nations, countries,

governments, or anyaggregate whatsoever, do not themselves act outside or beyond the


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nationalized industry, but also the Right-Conservative goal of a highly regimented, orderly

society with strong Nationalist tendencies in the citizenry. Under the aegis of the modern

warfare-state, both the Left andthe Right are able to push their complementary agendas

forward toward realization. Both sides fall just a nudge short of outright Fascism.

As an aside, I will say that there certainly are many different and diverse views that

constitute the notions of Left and Right throughout the world.Here I have only touched

upon two primary aspects. And although they are generally agreed upon to somedegree or

another, it is of course true that not allself-proclaimed Leftists and Rightists fit this mold of welfare-

warfare advocates. With that said, the issues of welfare and warfare aretwo very prominent

areas of policy for high-influence politicians on both sides of the alleged spectrum.

Both ideas constitute massive threats to the freedom of mankind: civil and economic,

domestic and foreign. Since it is not people but ideasthat shape the world -- for better or worse

-- I have paid attention to only certain parts of the Liberal and Conservative canons.

When the libertarian property ethic is consistently applied, it becomes incredibly clear

that the differences between these alleged polar opposites are purely nominal, that is, in name

only. Both want very slightly different blueprints for humanity, and they want them to be

violently enforced. Both want to see dissenting opinion crushed under the jackboot of Statism.

Neither will allow the productive energies of private society to freely function, and therefore

neither wants anything even slightly reminiscent of true liberty, true human prosperity.

The Left-Right political paradigm, once seen from the libertarian viewpoint, implodes.

Neither position is in any way legitimate or justified, because neither position canbe justified.

They both agree on virtually every important point, with only minor stylistic differences here

and there. What truly matters is both sides relentless crusade to see their own master-plan

violently imposed on the human race. With the inter-related principles of property rights and

the non-aggression principle as our measuring rods, it becomes readily obvious that no politico-

ethical stance exceptthat of the libertarian can at all be broached with any seriousness. Any

other position is merely a veiled attempt to invent excuses for evil and for coercive domination

over the rest of our species.

The contemporary paradigm of political ideology can be tolerated no longer. It is high-

time that we see the two-faced notions of Right and Left for what they truly are: empty

shells of doctrines, making themselves exempt from the moral rules that both claim to uphold.

The only way to move forward is to abandon this corrupt dichotomy for a consistent position. A

position that rejects war, coercive control, hampering regulation, and one that tightly embraces

free-interaction, peace, prosperity, and above all, society.

left, right, property, & war

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