THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE Number 351, January 22, 2006 "Down With Tolerance!" Why Do They Hate America?
Exclusive to TLE The following is a post by Dervish from the Claire Files forum about why the Prussian-Americans hate and fear individuals in general and, particularly, the Ethnic-Americans (the people of the 18th century enlightenment, as it has evolved)and my reply. By the way, those "P" and "E" labels are mine, not his. "I don't get why there are so many people who hate and fear individuals as dangerous, murderous folk, but think that the individuals that make up the state are trustworthy. I've asked such people why in the past, and they have never answered that one. A few have admitted that it sounds strange, and say they don't fully trust them, but are back into giving the state ultimate power over the individual (and some say that outright). Hi, Dervish! If you don't mind a bit of pontificating: I think that the short answer is early-childhood conditioning. My long answer is that those people are religious believers, just like those of any other religion. Look at the functions of churches and government schools. Both exhibit the 3 earmarks of religion:
Libertarians, on the other hand (or tentacle, if you will...) offer:
By a combination of indoctrination into the cult of the state (the worship of the state organization in general and politicians in particular as the Gods, with reverence for bureaucrats as the clergy) along with heavy conditioning to be unable to think logically or critically about the state and other forbidden subjects, the state is able to "breed" a new culture (since the mid-nineteenth century) of Prussian-Americans using the Prussian model of forced religious schoolingfalsely advertised as education. In this way the state can make many people (it looks like about half the population is fully indoctrinated now, with much of the other half "getting there") look at realityand see only the overlay of doctrine from the state religious schools. The state has three primary methods of control of its property, the common people:
The false dangers may be natural, such as global warming/cooling or acid rain. The false dangers are also classes of people, the scapegoats, on whom are blamed all the troubles of the world. In Germany, in the nineteen-thirties and 'forties it was the Jews who were to blame for all that was bad and much that was not. Now, in America, we all get to be the Jews. The United States (a government, not a country, like America is) has gone the Nazis one better, in that they have combined the classical "blame the Jews" strategy with a school/mass-media induced and generalized "fear of all known phenomena", which, of course, includes all other common people. L. N. Smith summed it up as "you are incompetent and your neighbors are all criminally insane!". What most folks do not seem to see in this propaganda is the utterly mad level of racism involved. What we find here is a religious doctrine that postulates at least three distinct human "races". The highest is the politician, who is actually a god, as he is the State Incarnate. The middle level is the government official or employee, who takes direction from the gods and is racially superior to the commonerssort of the classical light-skinned, or European, human. The lowest race, the commonersare brutish, violent, filthy, unintelligent, only semi-human, childish and incapable of running their own lives on their own. The middle-race refer to them as "scumbags" or "dirtbags". The worst of the commoners are the vile Anarcho-capitalist libertarians and other forms of individualist, like minarchists. Yucky-Poo! Such icky, (insert here a whole raft of epithets) common people! They will murder you at the drop of a hat, you know. Why can't they just go back where they came from? We really ought to just get rid of themlike the vermin they are! And so . . .
Again. It will be interesting to see just how long it will take them to surpass the record of the twentieth century governmentsof over three-hundred million dead in their genocides and wars. So, Dervish,
They do, indeed, rule by Divine Right. He is unable to think about these subjects because he is forbidden to do so. His doctrine requires unquestioning belief in and obedience to the state. He would probably not accept the Montana Freemen in your hypothetical example as a new sacred state (at least for a few months...), because they would not take power by means of the present single-party faction-election system. But if one of them should rise through the party hierarchy and be nominated by one of the two factions; then, yes, I think that he would be worshipped as a god, just like George III is worshipped today. When someone like you, who can think and actually has an education, points out that the King is naked, the poor Prussian American may have a momentary laps into consciousness and a semblance of reason; but will quickly overcome the pain of disobedience to his conditioning by reverting to religious belief again. "Hail to the Commander in Chief!" It seems from your post above that you suffer from what I call the "solipsist fallacy". That is the error of thinking that other people think or feel like you do; or that they think at all. It is discussed in more depth in my article "The Solipsist Fallacy? Wazzat?" in The Libertarian Enterprise. I try to decide, early in a conversation, whether the Prussian-American I am talking to is able to think about new things or see old things in a new lightor not. If I get a glimmer of comprehension from the person I may go further into the subjects of philosophy, politics or economics, etc. If not, then I bow-out of the subject as gracefully as I can and either go on to something else or go away. That seems to limit the headaches and wasted time somewhat. It is sort of like trying to teach a pig to singwasting our time and annoying the pig. We need to see the difference between the Prussian-Pig and the confused Ethnic-American. I hope this helps!
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