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Communication
by A.X. Perez
perez180ehs@hotmail.com

Attribute to The Libertarian Enterprise

If you are old enough you can remember some extremely racist WWII propaganda cartoons. While the cartoons aimed at the Germans were bad, those aimed at the Japanese approach mean spiritedness. However, most kids in the post WWII "got it" that the cartoons were aimed at an enemy during war, the result is that while the cartoons may have reinforced preexisting bigotry, they did not create bigotry. As the US became more closely tied economically to Japan after WWII the truly vicious cartoons went off the air, especially after Sony bought the studios that owned the rights to them.

We no longer communicate to people that anti Japanese and anti Chinese (especially Han and Manchu) bigotry are acceptable, no longer reinforce these images. Similarly, racist images of Black people, the Dineh and other tribes, Mexicans and other Latin Americans are no longer pushed in the media. We communicate that racism is no longer acceptable (except against members of ethnic groups that have a high percentage of Muslim fundamentalists that become terrorists).

Instead we try to communicate that inclusion and tolerance are necessary virtues, especially the government sponsored politically correct kind. We have communicated to us and our kids that the government should deal with the swine flu (which may or may not be as deadly as people think) and that the government is responsible for getting H1N1 vaccine out to people who need it. We have communicated to us that the government is responsible for dealing with how health care is paid for, even if it is by putting it in the "private hands" or existing Medicare, related programs, and insurance companies that also own parts of the government. We have communicated to us that government is responsible for determining fair prices, be it for gasoline, cola, candy bars or tobacco.

We get it in the news media, in kiddy stories, in television, shows in movies, in the pronouncements of celebrities. We get the message that the government is the main instrument to deal with problems from right wing calls on banning porn to left wing calls for "health care reform." We get it at all levels of cognition recognized by educational psychologists.

Perhaps it is time to increase communicating libertarian ideals. We need children's books communicating our ideals in every Barnes and Nobles' and every Mom and Pop bookstore (both of them) left in America (and Britain and Germany and..). we need more TV shows, more books, more newscasters communicating our ideals. We need more teachers unafraid of the spiritual contamination working in public schools (and private schools for that matter) spreading our message.

Last week I apologized for using a sophomoric rhetorical trick in an article. However we need to make sure that our ideas are communicated at every level of mentation from infant to adult, including the sophomoric. It does us no good for us to condemn statism if we surrender to statists the power to instruct the minds of people, to inform their consciousness. We can't let them take over the minds of kids, we can't let them have a free shot at converting adults.

It won't be easy, our Esteemed Publisher has told us enough of his troubles with establishment publishing houses to make it clear that it won't be easy. That said, our comments on the ignorance, folly, madness and flat out evil of our opponents will be meaningless if we can offer no alternative.

Right now our opponents are able to shape political discourse into, "which tyrant do you wish to submit to to be saved from the others?" We must communicate that the real alternative is "who the frak said anything about submitting to tyrants?"

Or else we will continue the current cycle of trading Democrats for Republicans, Conservatives for Labour, fascists for socialists, left and right, then back again every few years instead of creating truly free societies.

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