MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘liberals’

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Liberals Believe In Nothing And Remember Even Less

Posted by M. C. on March 31, 2025

What is said between the lines here is there is little difference liberals and so-called conservatives on war.

And planetary interventionism, empire building, spending, social programs, the Constitution, individual rights, privacy…

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/liberals-believe-in-nothing-and-remember

Caitlin Johnstone

The other day I shared a short post about a video that was going around showing a father in Gaza tearfully cradling the head of his son who was decapitated in an Israeli airstrike, and some guy responded with the comment “Good thing you helped get TRUMP ELECTED!!”

And I must admit I was actually, truly shocked. I mean, what exactly did this fellow think was happening under Biden that whole time?

I saw a post on Twitter where a leftist responded to a liberal who was acting like ICE just suddenly transformed into a modern gestapo under Trump, saying, “Liberals believe in nothing and remember even less.”

And it’s just so true. They don’t believe in anything. They don’t stand for anything. It’s just a team sport for these people. Politics for the mainstream liberal is not about advancing values or building a better world, it’s about their team winning solely for the sake of winning. And because they have no real values or causes beyond winning for its own sake, what their team does when it’s in office doesn’t matter to them.

A Democrat president can be as tyrannical and murderous as he wants and liberals will just brunch away in cheerful obliviousness, content with their knowledge that their team is holding the trophy.

You see this in the way our friend believes that I “helped get Trump elected” by criticizing the people who were perpetrating an active genocide. He just automatically took it as a given that it was my responsibility to stay silent on Gaza because the person in charge was a Democrat and his veep was running for president. The fact that it was a genocide which needed to be ferociously opposed never entered into the equation for him. All he cared about was winning.

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Questions That Only Libertarians Are Asking

Posted by M. C. on October 26, 2024

by Laurence M. Vance

It is only libertarians who are asking these questions and getting to the real issues. It is only libertarians because libertarianism is based on the timeless principles of individual liberty, economic freedom, private property, and a government limited to the protection of these things. Libertarians don’t just hold to these principles when it is expedient or popular to do so. This is what sets them apart from the proponents of every other political philosophy.

Questions That Only Libertarians Are Asking

Although on the surface, Democrats, liberals, socialists, and progressives seem to be ideological opposites of Republicans, conservatives, nationalists, and constitutionalists, and although both groups are often contrasted with moderates, populists, centrists, and independents, in reality, every one of these groups has something in common: their opposition to libertarianism.

Libertarianism

Libertarianism is the philosophy that says people should be free from individual, societal, or government interference to live their lives any way they desire, pursue their own happiness, accumulate wealth, assess their own risks, make their own choices, participate in any economic activity for their profit, engage in commerce with anyone who is willing to reciprocate, and spend the fruits of their labor as they see fit — as long as their actions are peaceful, their associations are voluntary, their interactions are consensual, and they don’t violate the personal or property rights of others.

Libertarians maintain that as long as people don’t infringe upon the liberty of others by committing, or threatening to commit, acts of fraud, theft, aggression, or violence against their person or property, the government should leave them alone and not interfere with their pursuit of happiness, commerce, personal decisions, economic enterprises, or what they do with their body or on their property.

Libertarians thus believe that —

Individuals, not society or the government, should be the ones to decide what risks they are willing to take and hat behaviors they want to practice.

Everyone should be free to pursue happiness in his own way — even if his choices are deemed by others to be harmful, unhealthy, unsafe, immoral, unwise, stupid, destructive, or irresponsible.

Every crime needs a tangible and identifiable victim who has suffered measurable harm to his person or measurable damages to his property.

Markets should be completely free of government regulation, licensing, restriction, and interference.

No industry or individual should ever receive government grants, subsidies, loans, or bailouts.

The functions of government should be limited to prosecuting and exacting restitution from those individuals who initiate violence against, commit fraud against, or violate the property rights of others.

Contrary to Democrats, liberals, socialists, progressives, Republicans, conservatives, nationalists, constitutionalists, moderates, populists, centrists, and independents — who all may claim to believe some of these things — libertarians believe these things consistently and without exception.

The issues

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“Capitalism Has Failed”

Posted by M. C. on March 27, 2024

by Jeff Thomas

Whenever I’m confronted with this now oft-stated comment, my first question to the person offering it is, “Have you ever lived in a capitalist country?” That is, “Have you ever lived in a country in which, during your lifetime, a free-market system dominated?”

Most people seem initially confused by this question,

In recognizing the traditional definition of fascism, there can be no doubt that fascism is the driving force behind the economies of North America and Europe.

“Capitalism Has Failed”

Today, more than at any time previously, Westerners are justifying a move toward collectivist thinking with the phrase, “Capitalism has failed.”

In response to this, conservative thinkers offer a knee-jerk reaction that collectivism has also had a dismal record of performance. Neither group tends to gain any ground with the other group, but over time, the West is moving inexorably in the collectivist direction.

As I see it, liberals are putting forward what appears on the surface to be a legitimate criticism, and conservatives are countering it with the apology that, yes, capitalism is failing, but collectivism is worse.

Unfortunately, what we’re seeing here is not classical logic, as Aristotle would have endorsed, but emotionalism that ignores the principles of logic.

If we’re to follow the rules of logical discussion, we begin with the statement that capitalism has failed and, instead of treating it as a given, we examine whether the statement is correct. Only if it proves correct can we build further suppositions upon it.

Whenever I’m confronted with this now oft-stated comment, my first question to the person offering it is, “Have you ever lived in a capitalist country?” That is, “Have you ever lived in a country in which, during your lifetime, a free-market system dominated?”

Most people seem initially confused by this question, as they’re residents of either a European country or a North American country and operate under the assumption that the system in which they live is a capitalist one.

So, let’s examine that assumption.

A capitalist, or “free market,” system is one in which the prices of goods and services are determined by consumers and the open market, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority.

Today, none of the major (larger) countries in what was once referred to as the “free world” bear any resemblance to this definition. Each of these countries is rife with laws, regulations, and a plethora of regulatory bodies whose very purpose is to restrict the freedom of voluntary commerce. Every year, more laws are passed to restrict free enterprise even more.

Equally as bad is the fact that, in these same countries, large corporations have become so powerful that, by contributing equally to the campaigns of each major political party, they’re able to demand rewards following the elections, that not only guarantee them funds from the public coffers, but protect them against any possible prosecution as a result of this form of bribery.

There’s a word for this form of governance, and it’s fascism.

Many people today, if asked to describe fascism, would refer to Mussolini, black boots, and tyranny. They would state with confidence that they, themselves, do not live under fascism. But, in fact, fascism is, by definition, a state in which joint rule by business and state exists. (Mussolini himself stated that fascism would better be called corporatism, for this reason.)

In recognizing the traditional definition of fascism, there can be no doubt that fascism is the driving force behind the economies of North America and Europe.

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“When Will They Learn?”

Posted by M. C. on March 11, 2024

by Jeff Thomas

Dependency upon government is a disease. Once it has been caught, it becomes chronic and does not reverse itself in a population until the system collapses under its own weight.

Again, this will not be the liberal view when the time comes. Instead, they will conclude, as they do now, that freedom is a small price to pay for safety.

“When Will They Learn?”

For many years, frustrated colleagues of mine who are either conservative or libertarian have posed the rhetorical question, “When will those liberals learn?” Surely, at some point (they reason), liberals will recognise that bailouts, entitlements, and a “planned” society simply do not work. It’s not even a question of whether liberalism is a laudable concept. The problem is that it just… doesn’t… work.

Of course, my colleagues are correct in their appraisal of the liberal concept. Unfortunately, they are gravely mistaken in their belief that there comes a point at which the liberal “bubble” pops and suddenly all liberals wake up and smell the coffee.

Truth be told, as long as governments can benefit from maintaining a strong liberal consciousness in their citizenry, and as long as they can count on the media to maintain that consciousness, it will always be possible to convince liberal thinkers that, whatever negative events have taken place in a given country, they are the fault of the “enemy”—the non-liberal contingent.

But, surely, when there is clear-cut evidence that liberal policies have failed, liberals must accept that liberalism is an economic and social dead end. No, I’m afraid not. Let’s look at how just three examples are likely to play out—not as we’d like to see them play out, but how they will play out in reality.

When the bailouts end, the economy will collapse. Liberals will then grasp that bailouts do not work. Not so, I’m afraid. Although endless QE is as implausible as perpetual motion, when it is finally halted, the economy will inevitably crash, and crash badly—made worse by QE. Will liberals then realise the failure of QE? No, they will only argue that the only problem was that it was halted—that, had it continued, it would eventually have saved the day.

No liberal will hazard a guess as to what amount of QE or length of time would have created salvation; however, the blame for the crash will be placed squarely at the feet of the greedy One Percent, whom the liberals will say “engineered the end of QE in order to impoverish and enslave the middle class.” Liberals will be more committed than ever to government spending as a solution.

When cities such as Bradford in the UK or Detroit in the US reach fiscal collapse, liberals will realise that ever-increasing entitlements are simply not sustainable, that such tax-based benefit programmes drive out thriving industries, leaving the poor behind, in a dying metropolis. Again, this will not happen. Instead of learning the obvious lesson, liberals will redouble their belief in collectivism. They will reason that the government had successfully protected inner city workers through benefit programmes. However, big business, wanting to create slaves of workers, sent jobs overseas, to countries where enslavement by the rich is still possible.

By doing so, they removed tax dollars from the system, causing the impoverishment of inner-city dwellers, destroying their lives. Rather than abandon social programmes as ineffective, liberals will set about creating massive relocation programmes, such as moving the disenfranchised inner-city people to areas where there is sufficient local business for taxation to continue supporting those on public assistance. In so doing, those areas that were previously economically viable will also be bled to the point of fiscal failure, spreading the disease. However, the liberal conclusion will remain the same: “The problem is the greedy rich.”

When the government has fully morphed into a dictatorial police state, liberals will realise that governmental overreach has destroyed their liberty.

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It’s Not Just Liberals Who Are Clamoring for Tax Increases

Posted by M. C. on February 9, 2024

No individual or organization that claims to believe in the Constitution, fiscal conservatism, free markets, or limited government should be taken seriously when calling for tax increases instead of drastic spending cuts. Only real cuts will solve the problem: not bogus plans to balance the budget in 10 years or limiting spending increases to some measure.

by Laurence M. Vance

It’s Not Just Liberals Who Are Clamoring for Tax Increases

President Biden’s proposed fiscal year 2024 budget called for an increase in the top marginal tax rate from 37 to 39.6 percent and a 25 percent minimum tax on Americans with wealth exceeding $100 million.No individual or organization that claims to believe in the Constitution, fiscal conservatism, free markets, or limited government should be taken seriously when calling for tax increases instead of drastic spending cuts.
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But it’s not just liberals who are clamoring for tax increases.

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a right-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C., “dedicated to tackling our nation’s greatest challenges by producing work that promotes our institute’s core values: free people, free markets, and limited government.”

Too bad that the AEI thinks that increasing taxes on Americans is in line with its core values.

Exhibit A

Alan D. Viard is a senior fellow emeritus at AEI, “where he studies federal tax and budget policy.” In his recent testimony before the House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax Policy, Viard advocated that the United States institute a European-style value-added tax (VAT) because “the United States faces a large long-term fiscal imbalance that will burden future generations and that threatens long-term economic growth.” Said Viard:

The United States should follow the lead of 170 other countries and territories by adding a VAT to the federal tax system. The VAT is economically similar, but administratively preferable, to a retail sales tax. The VAT is far less regressive than entitlement benefit cuts, although it cannot match the progressivity of high-income tax increases. The VAT also avoids most of the economic distortions induced by high-income tax increases, although it is not as economically efficient as entitlement benefit cuts. Because it occupies a middle ground between those two alternatives, it offers a plausible basis for bipartisan compromise, particularly once the limitations of the alternative options are understood.

I have critiqued Viard and the VAT here.

Exhibit B

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Five Things Liberals Say To Avoid Taking A Real Position On Gaza

Posted by M. C. on February 2, 2024

Caitlin Johnstone

The “two-state solution” is functionally just a psychological box that liberals mentally tick off so they can pretend they have a real position on Israel-Palestine. Israeli leaders publicly spit on the notion of a Palestinian state with its own military and national sovereignty, and there is no political wherewithal to make such a thing happen. It’s nothing more than a conceptual construct which lets liberals feel nice about their personal politics without actually taking a stand against the western-backed tyrannical power structure that is the state of Israel.

And the conservative position is much simpler. Print money and keep on bombing.

More importantly-Licking Netanyahu’s boots keeps that AIPAC money rolling in.

https://substack.com/inbox/post/141298532

Here are five noises western liberals often make to avoid having to take a real position on Gaza:

1. “It’s heartbreaking!”

2. “It’s complicated!”

3. “BUT TRUMP!”

4. “I really hope there can be peace there someday!”

5. “I support a two-state solution!”

Let’s talk about these a bit.

“It’s heartbreaking!”

Liberals love talking about how “sad” and “heartbreaking” what’s happening in Gaza is like it’s some kind of natural disaster, some tragically tragic tragedy that their government has been passively witnessing instead of actively facilitating. It lets them express their progressive humanitarian feelings without actually taking a meaningful political position against what’s being done in their name with their tax dollars and with their tacit consent.

In reality the genocide in Gaza is not sad or heartbreaking or tragic; those are words you use for diseases and accidents. When someone is murdered with malicious intent, we don’t heave a heavy sigh and shed a tear and move on — we prosecute their murderer. It isn’t raining bombs in Gaza because that’s just the unfortunate weather there today, those bombs are being dropped by Israel with genocidal intent with the full backing of the United States and its allies. This is a crime which requires outrage and punishment, not empty crocodile tears.

“It’s complicated!”

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Liberals Institutionalizing Poor Behavior Is Dragging America Down

Posted by M. C. on December 16, 2023

Americans are being conditioned to accept substandard and even criminal behavior as the new norm, Robert Bridge writes.

On the tranquil campus of Yale University, almost 80 percent of all grades given to undergraduates last academic year were A’s or A minuses, a trend that is also happening at Harvard. Let’s face it, these kids are smart, but they’re not that smart.

Robert Bridge

Liberals Institutionalizing Poor Behavior Is Dragging America Down

From teenagers engaged in violence without punishment, to university students receiving undeserved marks, Americans are being conditioned to accept substandard and even criminal behavior as the new norm.

This week, discount carrier Southwest Airlines was heralded by “customers of size” (i.e. obese passengers) after it was reported they could receive additional seats to accommodate their extra-wide bodies.

At first glance, the new conditions seem perfectly reasonable as they provide the ‘special need’ fliers the ability to “purchase the necessary number of seats prior to travel to ensure the additional seat(s) is available.” In other words, if a plus-size traveler feels the need to buy an extra seat – or even an entire aisle – to feel comfortable, then who cares, right? However, Southwest’s new policy goes further than that. It awards the overweight passenger with a gratuitous seat(s) to accommodate their bursting waistlines.

“You may contact us for a refund of the cost of additional seating after travel,” according to Southwest, citing its Customer of Size and Extra Seat Policy. “If it’s determined that a second (or third) seat is needed, you’ll be accommodated with a complimentary additional seat.”

For those who may be tempted to defend the rights of these extra-large fliers, you may wish to read the fine print first. As Fox Business reported, the Southwest flight team could be forced to shift other passengers around for the “unplanned accommodation.”

Imagine that you are comfortably seated in the coveted aisle seat, your luggage is stowed away overhead, when you are suddenly informed by the stewardess that you must relinquish your paid place to a person who has made a lifestyle choice to be overweight (only a tiny fraction of individuals suffer from obesity due to an untreatable medical condition). How will such a demand fly with the majority of paying customers? The question is not an idle one. According to the CDC, 42.4% of U.S. adults are currently obese. That’s a substantial increase from the 30.5% measured in 2000.

Meanwhile, it could be argued that a great many travelers also have ‘special needs’ that require accommodation, like small screaming toddlers and extra luggage. No airline gives away free seats to families with young offspring, nor do they provide allowances for passengers who exceed the weight limit on their bags. Therefore, it seems fair and logical that overweight passengers should also be required to pay a penalty – or at the very least, not be rewarded – for bringing excess weight into the aircraft. That’s because ‘free’ seats for the obese entail hidden costs (higher fuel costs, for example, which is why airlines charge customers for excess weight on their luggage) that will ultimately be paid in the form of higher tickets prices. Whatever the case may be, it will be interesting to see how many more in-flight brawls are instigated by this new in-flight ‘service.’

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Where “Liberal” and “Conservative” Really Come From

Posted by M. C. on September 3, 2022

By L. Reichard White

“Liberals” keep folks alive, “Conservatives” keep lazy moochers — including more dangerous Wiindigo, Kunlangeta, psychopaths and permanent leaders — from weakening the group by depleting its resources.

Where ‘Liberal’ and ‘Conservative’ Really Come From

If liberals are all heart and no brain and conservatives are all brain and no heart, how would you describe libertarians?

How about, “Clearly libertarians are the perfect balance between the two.”

Here’s why that’s a pretty accurate assessment – – –

Long before history was enabled by writing, like us, our pre-historic small-group ancestors lived primarily by their brains, not their brawn.

Unlike other animals, they — like us — were born pretty much, as Rousseau and others put it, tabula rasa. That is, as “blank slates” with relatively few built-in instincts, drives, and other in-born behaviors.

For example, while hoofed animals can walk within a few minutes of birth and run soon after, it takes us approximately three months to learn to merely crawl.

The advantage to this lack of hard-wired behavior is that it gives us humans an unprecedented flexibility, allowing us to live everywhere from the icy Arctic to the steaming jungles of Ecuador to the burning sands of the Kalihari. And, in the space station, even in “outer” space. Even, perhaps, on Mars, etc.

However, because of our innate “blank slates,” like us, nearly all our ancestors’ key knowledge, skills and behaviors had to be acquired by experience, or, preferably, by learning from someone else, thus avoiding the many dangers of learning by experience.

The fact that we don’t genetically inherit most of our key knowledge, skills, information, and behaviors means that each one of us becomes a depository of different, often unique, information, skills, knowledge — and particularly, experience. And these exist only in our individual brains. This dispersion of unique knowledge and experience means the essential human data-base — and operating system — is spread out among all the individuals around us.

But our ancestors had a problem we don’t have: They were indeed pre-historic — that is, they existed before writing was available to write his-story down in black and white. So, like the book-people in Fahrenheit 451, our ancestors were each-others’ only reference-library and internet.

Madrigal knows which herbs help heal wounds — and how to find and use them. Gaud can always find that hidden water-hole during the semi-annual desert crossing. The loss of either could be catastrophic to everyone. Ditto the loss of other group members and their special knowledge and information.

Mother Nature wasn’t oblivious to this problem and so gave us an appropriate and nearly unique set of behaviors which prod us to keep each other alive. By convention, folks call these behaviors “altruism.”

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Liberals’ Love Affair with Leviathan

Posted by M. C. on February 21, 2022

Perhaps nothing symbolizes the new liberal creed more vividly than the New York City Council’s recent unanimous vote to remove the statute of Thomas Jefferson from New York City Hall, where it had resided for more than a century. In 1799, Jefferson warned fellow Americans: “Let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.” It is regrettable that many liberals now have as much hostility to constitutional restraints on presidents and federal agencies as they had to that statue of Jefferson.

Liberals’ Love Affair with Leviathan

by James Bovard

The election of Joe Biden as president magically transformed all federal agencies, ensuring that their iron fists no longer posed any peril to the American people. Or at least that seems to be what many Biden supporters, liberals, and Democrats now believe.

I stumbled upon that new catechism on a cold morning last November. I ambled online after breakfast and saw that “Deep State” was a Twitter trending topic. I tossed out my two cents: “Don’t forget how NYTimes & many liberals heaped praise on the Deep State in 2019 for its role in the first Trump impeachment.” I attached a link to my 2019 USA Today article headlined, “As the deep state attacks Trump to rave media reviews, don’t forget its dark side.” New York Times editorial writer Michelle Cottle had hailed the Deep State as “a collection of patriotic public servants,” and Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson captured the Beltway’s verdict: “God bless the Deep State!”

The mob rules on social media

Alas, I quickly learned that I was a hopeless reactionary. Apparently, since President Trump condemned the Deep State, that proves that it doesn’t exist. And since a Democrat now occupies the White House, any mention of the Deep State is apparently a grave offense. Twitter user DoinTimeOnEarth responded to my tweet: “Why don’t you shut up & do some good instead of spreading lies?”

Twitter is a fount of wisdom because so many of its users are omniscient. Someone with the Twitter name “What?” howled: “USATODAY has gone crazy…. And no, I am not going to read a bunch of jackass nonsense before re-tweeting with this comment.” My story had 23 links to news stories, analyses, and government reports on the Deep State scandals, including Bush-era torture, National Security Agency abuses, drone killings of innocent foreigners, and other abuses of power and secrecy. The piece included links to three New York Times articles confirming the Deep State’s role in spurring the first impeachment of President Trump.

Twitter user herself “Nom of the Plume” huffed: “Liberals don’t believe in the ‘deep state.’ It goes against our radical values of being sane and educated.” I replied: “So being a smug ‘educated’ liberal means believing federal agencies don’t pervasively violate the law & Constitution? When did gullibility become a badge of political sophistication?” My response failed to placate my critics. Nom of the plume commented: “No I won’t try to have a rational conversation with irrational people…. You are extremists and terrorists.” The fact that the Justice Department Inspector General concluded that FBI agents deceived the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to justify illegally surveilling the 2016 Trump presidential campaign had apparently been expunged from all historical memory — at least among progressives.

On Twitter, “likes” are the highest form of logic, and re-tweets are irrefutable truth.     Some Twitter users refuted my articles by posting rows of laughing emojis. Others debunked my errors with meme photos such as a photo of a screw next to a baseball. Some of the names of Twitter respondents reeked of piety. “Covfefe_au_lait is FULLY VAXXED+BOOSTER” sneered that “anyone who uses the phrase [Deep State] sounds ridiculous.” Mike Burridge scoffed: “I see the Right has no supply chain disruptions for stupidity. Shelves fully stocked with ignorance.” Another user growled: “Did you brew your coffee with paint thinner this morning? This is the most absolutely ridiculous thing I’ve seen this week.”

Facts don’t matter on Twitter

But it wasn’t simply that I was ignorant. Instead, my comment on the Deep State was sufficient proof of my mental illness.

See the rest here

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Leftists Have It Wrong on Rights

Posted by M. C. on February 7, 2022

Not even the crafters of the Bill of Rights believed that. A careful reading of the First Amendment reveals that it doesn’t purport to give any rights to anyone. Instead, the wording states that Congress (and implicitly the rest of the federal government) is prohibited from infringing on people’s right of free speech. 

Thus when the government enacts a law or adopts a measure that infringes on freedom of speech, leftists are relegated to saying, “We understand that you have given us this important privilege but please be nice and don’t infringe on it.” Libertarians, on the other hand, say, “You have no legitimate authority to do that and so stop it immediately or else we will alter you or abolish you!”

by Jacob G. Hornberger

One of the central defects among leftists (that is, “liberals,” progressives, socialists, or interventionists) is their wrong-headed view of the nature of people’s rights. Their belief on this issue is one of the distinguishing characteristics between leftists and libertarians.

Leftists believe that people’s rights come from the government or from the Constitution. As such, they view rights not so much as rights but rather more as government-granted privileges.

Libertarians, on the other hand, believe that people’s rights are endowed in them by nature and God and, therefore, that people’s rights preexist government and the Constitution. We hold that the main purpose of government is to serve as our servant whose job is to protect the exercise of our natural, God-given rights. 

A good example of this leftist mindset was recently expressed in a fundraising letter I received from a leftist group called the Daily Kos. The letter stated that freedom of speech is “one of those rights granted to us in Bill of Rights.” It went on to refer to “our First Amendment rights.”

Not even the crafters of the Bill of Rights believed that. A careful reading of the First Amendment reveals that it doesn’t purport to give any rights to anyone. Instead, the wording states that Congress (and implicitly the rest of the federal government) is prohibited from infringing on people’s right of free speech. 

In other words, unlike American leftists today, our American ancestors didn’t believe that people’s rights come from the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or from the government. They believed in what the Declaration of Independence stated — that man’s rights come from nature and God and that it is the responsibility of government to protect, not destroy, the exercise of such rights.

We are not just talking about a semantical difference here. The difference between how leftists and libertarians view the nature of rights has profound consequences. 

Given that leftists believe that their rights come from the government, they necessarily put themselves in a position of pleading, or perhaps even begging, that government go easy on them — that is, that government officials give them more latitude in exercising their “rights.” 

Thus, leftists view freedom as living on a leash — they just want the government to let them have a longer leash. What happens when the government begins reining in the leash? Leftists have no principled argument to make against what the government is doing. Since people’s rights come from government, leftists believe, then government can legitimately rein in the leash whenever it wants. 

Not so with libertarians. Unlike leftists, we are not relegated to pleading with or begging the government to treat us nicely. That’s because for us our rights don’t come from government. They preexist government. Government officials are nothing more than our servants whose job is to protect our rights. If they fail or refuse to do so — or if they use their power to destroy or infringe our rights — we have the right to alter or even abolish government and restore its rightful responsibility — the responsibility to behave as our servants whose job is to protect the exercise of our preexisting natural, God-given rights.

Thus when the government enacts a law or adopts a measure that infringes on freedom of speech, leftists are relegated to saying, “We understand that you have given us this important privilege but please be nice and don’t infringe on it.” Libertarians, on the other hand, say, “You have no legitimate authority to do that and so stop it immediately or else we will alter you or abolish you!”

The leftist view of the nature of rights is one reason why you can never count on leftists to protect our rights and liberties. Anyone who wants a genuine defense of our rights and liberties needs to join up with us libertarians. 

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