Genuine Lyin'
Socialist Weasel

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

Ein Volk! Fascists for Free Speech
22 May 2010

For years, I've characterized most Libertarians as being nothing more than fascists wearing a fresh coat of paint. All they've done is take the language of the fascists in the early years of the last century and dressed it up in a new, pseudo-populist cant.

Imagine if that most hideous example of fascism, the Nazis, used the language of Libertarians today. Suppose Joseph Goebbels was on your television, and he was saying, “You can call it public accommodation, and it is, but it's a private business. And if a private business wants to say, "We don't want any Jews or Negroids," it ought to be their right. Are we going to say to the inferior races' association they have to take pure Aryan people, or the homosexual league they have to take normal people? We should have freedom of association in Germany.”

Sounds hideous, doesn't it? In fact, it's very similar to the bilge the Nazi propaganda machine pumped out during the 20s and 30s. They were very concerned about rights and life quality issues for German citizens. For anyone else, well, not so much. But Hitler and Goebbels and the rest of them spoke constantly of being for the freedom and good life of the German people. Marching forward into a brave new world, and never mind what was being ground beneath their jack boots.

When Rand Paul went on the Rachel Maddow show and said that he supported the Civil Rights Act except for the provision that said businesses could not discriminate, it's very unlikely that he did so in the same spirit of Hitler and Goebbels. The man isn't a Nazi.

He probably isn't even a racist. I suspect that like most libertarians, he's bought into the notion that business is a kind of uber-America, and that the rights, real or imagined, of businesses supercede those of people. In other words, he's probably just a custardhead who runs around believing that major corporations like BP have nothing but the best interests of the people at heart, and that the government putting pressure on them to pay for wrecking the Gulf of Mexico is “unamerican.”
Oh, wait. Paul did say that. OK. Definitely. The man is a custardhead.

John Stossel, long time Libertarian and nowadays Faux News commentator (and thus dropping any pretense of being a journalist) weighed in on Paul's side:

STOSSEL: “Totally. I'm in total agreement with Rand Paul. You can call it public accommodation, and it is, but it's a private business. And if a private business wants to say, 'We don't want any blond anchorwomen or mustached guys,' it ought to be their right. Are we going to say to the black students' association they have to take white people, or the gay softball association they have to take straight people? We should have freedom of association in America.”

Since when do the rights of business owners supercede those of customers? The customers DO have rights, right?

That's the part Libertarians always gloss over. Stossel rhapsodized about how market forces would destroy any business that turned away a sizable chunk of the population but the fact is that many businesses do, and do so quite morally and legitimately. A store that specializes in women's clothing cannot refuse to accept a male customer, but it's obvious that their business model effectively writes off half the population going out the gate. There really is no “market force” that demands that businesses take all comers.

When the issue of civil rights came up in the 50s, despite substantial public support in most of the country, business did not lead the way to integration. Quite the opposite, in fact. Does “Woolworth's” ring a bell?

And indeed, a large business with bigots running the show is perfectly willing to compete without financial support from people they don't like. Denny's Restaurants, which has about 1,500 restaurants coast to coast, systematically discriminated against black people. They did so for decades, without boasting of it since they were, after all, breaking the law. Finally a class-action suit was brought against them, and they lost, and were ordered to pay $54 million in damages.

So when Stossel tries to claim that “market forces” protect groups of the citizenry against discrimination, he's utterly full of shit.

How would Stossel feel if a large restaurant chain refused to serve him or anyone who looked like him? Sure, he could go and eat at a rival chain that didn't discriminate against him, but wouldn't he still feel diminished as a person?

How would he feel, watching all those Denny's ads featuring happy people chowing down on Denny's food, knowing that through no fault or lack of his own, he could never eat at one of those places?

America does not have a good history of safeguarding the rights of minorities. Black American soldiers were not allowed to fight alongside white American soldiers against the evils of Nazism, and Americans of Japanese descent weren't allowed to fight—or even walk the streets as free people—in that same war. Historical revisionists like to make the specious claim that America fought to save the Jews in world war two, but don't like to mention that parks and restaurants stateside sometimes had signs reading “No Jews Allowed”.

Just free Americans exercising their freedom of association, folks. Nothing to see here, move along.

Libertarians bow down and worship business, and consider Americans to be subservient to business. If you pay close attention to their language, the rights and privileges they claim on behalf of the people are geared toward making a profit, and being free of things that business doesn't like.

Mention labor unions to a Libertarian, and nine times out of ten the mere mention of such will throw him into a rage, and he will declaim against lazy, socialist workers and their greedy bosses (as opposed to the greedy bosses in the company) and how they are interfering with the rights of people to run businesses as they see fit. Unions are bad, bad, bad, because they are groups of people working together in a common interest and using the power of numbers to get things done that individuals could not do.

Sort of like those other entities that do the exact same thing. You know. Large businesses.

What's the name of that political philosophy that really, really, really hates labor unions because they see them as interfering with the right of big companies to conduct their business as they see fit? Oh, yeah.

Fascism.

There are small “L” libertarians around who really do believe in civil rights. They're skeptical of government power, but most of them understand that it is a common cause by the people to protect themselves from even bigger threats to their freedoms: churches, aristocracies, and corporations. They understand what Thomas Jefferson meant when he called government a 'necessary evil'.

The fastest way to discover if the person is a libertarian or a fascist is to simply ask them about labor unions.

Libertarians like to talk about individual rights, but the fact of the matter is that all rights depend from the people. Says so right in the constitution. The people—and nobody else—grant to themselves the rights enumerated in the Constitution, plus any that the constitution doesn't
mention but the people think of later.

So rights really ARE group entities, and when you strip entire populations of rights, then you are stripping everyone of those same rights, because now those rights have become negotiable, and anyone with more money can put your rights on their balance sheet, consider whether they like you or not, and decide where you may eat, where you may shop, what schools (if any) your children may attend, what neighborhoods you may live in, and even whether you get to live.

Don't expect business to save you. Business doesn't do moral judgments.

Then there's that absurd conceit that “having” to serve blacks, or women, or Jews, somehow infringes on the rights of the “business owner”.

In the case of a major corporation, the idea of a plucky little “business owner” fighting gawd's fight against the ravening hordes of lesser people is absurd on the face of it. Most major corporations have executive officers and a board of directors, the founder is long dead, and in theory, at least, the stockholders are the “business owner”.

Small businesses have individual owners, but by opening their doors to the public, they have waived the rights associated with private clubs. If they want to do business with the public, they do so at the sufferance of the public, and they do so with ALL the public. If they hate Jews, they can join a private club that excludes Jews. If they REALLY don't want to associate with Jews, then they can go out of business: the public isn't there to let them exclude discrete groups that are a part of that public.

They don't have the right to be bigots in how they conduct business. The rights of people to have free and equal access to all public goods and services supercede the petty and vindictive viciousness of little people who think selling something gives them dominion over other people.

It doesn't.

Rand Paul's political career appears dead in the water. He might have survived the Maddow interview if he had backtracked and admitted that he was wrong. Instead, he pulled a favorite among right wingers, and tried to blame Maddow for asking about his views on the Civil Rights Act. And then he stiffed “Meet the Press” and announced he wouldn't be talking to the press any more.

Apparently, he feels his right to run for office supercedes the public's right to examine his views and, through reporters, demand an accounting of them.

It's a very Libertarian stance.

And it's why I don't like Libertarians.

---

Zepp was born in Ottawa, Ontario, and spent his formative years living in various parts of Canada from Halifax to Victoria, and then the UK, South Africa, and Australia before moving to the United States, where he has lived for 40 years. Aside from writing, his interests include hiking, raising dogs and cats, and making computers jump through hoops. His wife of 25 years edits his copy, and bravely attempts to make him sound coherent. Zepp lives on Mount Shasta.