DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

We have seen the future, and it sucks.

Sideline Men

22nd November 2021

ZMan really doesn’t like libertarians.

One of the great innovations in American politics introduced by libertarians is the ability to turn the sidelines into the moral high ground. In order to avoid taking on the Left, especially with regards to morality, libertarians became expert at finding a neutral position that worked like a cloaking device. Because the libertarian position offered no threat to the Left, the Left ignored it. This allowed libertarians to pretend to oppose radicalism while never threatening it.

This cloaking strategy took the form of them finding some “principled position” that was often so unrealistic that it did not bear considering. A good example is the homosexual marriage debate. Normal people understood that what the crazies were doing was attacking the very concept of the family. The exclusivity of family offends the core concepts of the open society. Reducing marriage to a handshake agreement open to anyone eliminates its exclusivity.

Instead of confronting the reality of this, libertarians took the position that the state should have no interest in marriage at all. In other words, the libertarian answer to the assault on the institution of marriage was to advocate the elimination of the legal concept of marriage entirely. This allowed them to subtly agree with the Left while claiming to stand on some abstract principle. The libertarian moral high ground was just a way to stand on the sidelines and do nothing.

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