Suddenly, I'm getting some of my leftist friends back, as they see me rail against the fascism now snaking its way through socialist America. They seem to think I have had an epiphany and become a liberal, once again. Maybe they are right, because I surely am no conservative, at least not in the mold now being blessed by the American media and government.
In fact, "conservative" is becoming a dirty word for me again, just as "liberal" has been for so long now.
Most of those who see themselves as being conservative don't seem to be paying very close attention, however, because they still line up behind Bush, noting that, "He's our President, after all," and, "...a Republican, don't forget." They are taking the easy way out and forgetting the motives that made them conservative in the first place.
The term "conservative" has been hijacked, much as the word "liberal" was hijacked so long ago by socialists-cum-communists. And by the same people that did the hijacking then. They have reinvented themselves once again. That's why some have coined the term "neoconservatives," so as to differentiate the new Republicans from themselves. They now tend to think of themselves as "paleoconservatives."
Used to be, liberal meant that you stood for individual rights, liberty and freedom. Conservatives stood for business as usual, low taxes and hypercapitalism. Used to be, Republicans were the liberals.
Many forget that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. Lincoln singlehandedly caused the South to be Democratic for nearly a hundred years, in kneejerk reaction to his apocalyptic war of aggression against the South. Republican became synonymous with Yankee industrialist.
As an outgrowth of the civil rights movement of the sixties, liberal interests became overrun by the control freaks that implemented the welfare state and entitlement mentality now rampant throughout America. They morphed into the anti-war movement of the Viet Nam era.
I was among the very earliest members of the Libertarian party back then, which was an attempt to rebirth individual rights and liberty. I recall how quickly it was taken over by the malcontents and Marxists of the antiwar movement, as was every independent movement. True Libertarians will dispute this and claim they are the only viable alternative, even today, but they continue to delude themselves. That was why I left, though I still considered myself Libertarian by philosophy, save only the open trade aspects, which clearly do not work (come on...just look at the results of NAFTA!).
Liberals today are synonymous with Democrats and virtually indistinguishable from Communists. Republicans are the new socialists. Indeed, the labels blur, because both parties are really the same and support fascism under Bush. Don't forget that Hitler was a socialist, by the way (Nazi...National Socialist).
Now you can see why I manage to enrage everybody. I didn't leave out very many in my name calling so far.
But, in fact, I left out the majority...the vast silent majority in America today, which still favors individual liberty and freedom. They are the ones I really stand up for now. Most of us literally no longer vote, either because we don't understand what the candidates stand for (and therefore won't support any of them) or because we do understand what the candidates stand for (and therefore won't support any of them).
We have no real label any more. There is a reason why those who have hijacked America today adopted the old labels, just as Indians wore buffalo skins so as to get close enough to the herd to bring down dinner.
Many of us become confused and think we really have someone out there representing us, due to the old labels. We don't, of course. Talk about taxation without representation!
We need a new label, one that conveys the correct mixture of idealism and support for personal liberty and freedom. One that borrows a little from every disparate group now bound up in this common cause, which includes so many Christians and freethinkers and academics and capitalists and students and professionals and union members and housewives and...so on.
For a while now, those of us who have been speaking out against the growing tyranny in America have referred to ourselves as "the movement," the generic label so often taken in the early stages of any revolutionary groundswell.
Many of us in "the movement" believe that we are exceedingly small in number. We are not. It is only that an exceedingly small number of us are wise to the interlopers. We need to awaken the others to the buffalo-skin-wearers amongst us.
In the spirit of continual recycling, we could adopt the sole remaining old label not yet recycled in this modern era: liberal. But, we need to twist it just a bit so as to differentiate ourselves from those most recently bearing that label.
"Neoliberal" would work just fine and, until someone comes up with something better, that is what I henceforth choose to call myself.
As a neolib, I advocate:
Supporting absolute freedom of speech, religion and choice in all things.
Breaking the backs of big government, big business, big unions, big media and control freak groups of every stripe.
Favoring minimal government intrusion into private affairs and local control of local government for those intrusions. If you don't like the way things are run in one place, there will always be some place in America to which you can turn, unlike today.
Complete revamping of the legal system, particularly the judiciary, and release of all political prisoners and those convicted of victimless "crimes."
Supporting personal privacy, most particularly the sanctity of the family.
Stopping - indeed, reversing - the tide of illegal immigration.
Opposing the welfare state and the handout mentality.
Eliminating favoritism of all sorts. Equal opportunity for all citizens, not equal outcome.
Seeking reduction of the federal government to the role outlined for it in the Constitution.
Replacing the Internal Revenue Service with a universal sales and use tax, collected at the local level.
Extraction of America from the affairs of all foreign states and the elimination of all foreign subsidies. Ejection of all foreign troops from America.
Opposing government manipulation of economics, including the stock market, banking and the money supply.
And that's just off the top of my head...let me think on this for a while and I could come up with a much more comprehensive agenda.
-ed
