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L. Neil Smith's THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 220, April 21, 2003 DECADE
What Republicans Deserve
Exclusive to TLE Sometimes I think Republicans deserve every tax they whine about, every gun law they resent, and every edict that keeps them from praying in public schools. They also deserve all the political correctness they hate, all the environmental regulations that destroy the value of their property, and every social engineering scheme specifically designed by socialist Democrats to phase conservatism out of existence. Why am I being so harsh? Why am I saying the Republicans deserve to be harassed by my greatest enemy — the state? Because for too long they've watched Lady Liberty get raped and beaten, sitting on the sidelines and cheering on the brutality, salivating at the sight of America's one truly singular value — freedom — being turned into a pile of violated, mutilated raw meat. I'm sorry. Call me vengeful. But those arrogant Republicans cheered the savage ravaging of Lady Liberty in the name of the drug war, which to this day keeps a million peaceful, innocent and potentially productive Americans behind iron bars to be anally raped by convicted child molesters and carjackers who will get out of those cages earlier than their drug "offender" victims because of something called "mandatory minimums" that Republicans essentially invented. Call me spiteful. But those arrogant Republicans enthusiastically cheered the predation on Lady Liberty in the name of family values in all their attempts to tell us what we could read, what we could watch, what we could write, and — how dare they? — who we could make love to. Call me juvenile. But those arrogant Republicans welcomed the rape of Lady Liberty in the name of fighting communism when they supported Richard Nixon, who continued the enslavement of a generation of young men in the most depraved enterprise ever conceived by minds belonging to those with the audacity to call themselves human: the killing of other soldiers who didn't want to kill or be killed. Call me whatever you want. But those arrogant Republicans welcomed unmentionable acts against Lady Liberty in the petty name of getting elected. They always said that they couldn't go as far as they wanted — presumably, in the direction of smaller government — because otherwise Democrats would completely take over and make things worse. Many freedom-loving friends of mine have voted Republican with this in mind, only to get in return for their loyalty a barrage of farm subsidies, tariffs, economic regulations, tax increases, firearms restrictions, and other attacks on the free market and human decency. This has brought those of us with any brain-cells to speak of to the conclusion that Republicans have never truly wanted to combat Democrats in the battlefield of collectivist policies; they've only wanted to outperform them in a friendly race. And now, in the name of the War on Terrorism, the Republican Party — who once pretended to believe in the Constitution and limited government — are the ones predominantly responsible for America's creeping descent into the depths of totalitarian hell. And in the name of — I don't even know anymore — the Republicans are standing by a president who is blowing to smithereens uncounted innocent people in a poor country, made even poorer by the actions of his father. And both belligerents never even tried to present half-credible justifications for this barbaric brutality. There are of course no viable alternatives. There are Democrats, who I never liked much before, but who these days sometimes sound relatively reasonable. Which is another terrible thing the GOP has done: they've made Democrats look good by comparison! In all truth I don't want any Americans to feel the burden of draconian gun laws, confiscatory taxation, bureaucratic regulations, and socialist political correctness. And if I were in 1930s Germany, I wouldn't want anyone to feel the burden of Hitler's police state tactics, either. But those that cheer on the worst aspects of their government — yesterday's Nazis, today's Republicans — have little to complain about. (Those conservatives who now say this is an unjust comparison better never make it themselves, like I've heard them do so when they weren't the ones in power.) The next time some Bush-loving Republican complains about some electricity regulation or some energy tax or otherwise tries to rub elbows with you with talk about laissez faire economics or the absurdity of New York's new smoking law, remember you don't have to cave in. You don't have to be his friend on ideological grounds that are in reality made of quicksand. You don't have to talk nice to him as you did in the 1990s — as I did in the 1990s — back when Republicans and authentic freedom-lovers had William Clinton as a common enemy and talk radio wasn't 24-hour fascist propaganda. Perhaps we genuinely agreed on the reasons for hating Clinton; I thought we did. Now I tend to think most Republicans were simply envious of Clinton's effortless command of power. They were jealous it wasn't them bombing Serbia and massacring innocents at Mount Carmel. So perhaps when the next lockstep Republican offers his elbow to rub with yours, you should just give him your cold shoulder instead. That's the least they deserve. I'll no longer think Republicans deserve any of the much more terrible things I mentioned earlier as soon as they stop doing what they've been doing so passionately these last nineteen months: celebrating the outright annihilation of the America dream for the sake of advancing Bush's imperial ambitions. That might mean they have to stop being Republicans. In my opinion that would be no big loss. At any rate, Republicans who grow a central nervous system and stop cheering on the death of America will regain a respect I had for them before, when I thought we were in 50% agreement on things. They still wouldn't at all be libertarians, but at least they would be close enough on the food chain to communicate with.
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