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IPFS

A CANCER ON THE LIBERTY MOVEMENT

Written by Subject: Philosophy of Liberty

But there is disease in the liberty movement, and if no one else will call it out, I guess I'll have to. So be it.

Old poisons are flooding back into the broader liberty movement, being sold with new packaging. And they're leading 'anti-state' people right back into the swamps of political obsession and plain old hate. The more you suck it up, the more you'll slide right back into the stinking pits of politics and mingle your life with all the venom and degeneracy it produces.

Welcome back to the Matrix, Mr. Libertarian.

The Obsession

I just checked a popular liberty website, and of the 50 stories linked, 14 had titles like these:

"Israel's Friday Bloodbath"

"Ethnic Cleansing and Zionist Supremacy in Israel"

"Israelis Are Today's Nazis"

This is simply obsession. Articles like these are the seeds from which poisoned fruit grows. Don't believe me? Then maybe you won't want to read some of the comments this post will generate.

Israel is a state, and we hold all states as morally inferior, do we not? So, why the obsession with just this one? Where are the breathless horror stories from Belarus? Where are the brave investigations of Turkmenistan? Where's the in-depth analysis of Uzbekistan, or Burma, or the Congo. Why do none of those places matter?

The answer becomes obvious soon enough: Those places don't generate the right kinds of passions. And if you keep reading these obsessive stories, you'll absorb their slogans and take their rationalizations into your mind.

Do you really want to go back there?

But, But, But…

Almost any angle you take to justify the Israel obsession leads right back to politics and drags your mind right back to statism, anger, hate, and the endorsement of violence.

Here are the usual angles – the new labels for the old poisons:

We're only talking about Zionism.

That is to say, "We're not against all politics, only certain kinds." That's some kind of a position for an anti-statist to take. Isn't political force by itself contrary to the nonaggression principle? Why then should this one be the focus of all our attention? Aren't they all refuse? Why the obsession with only one among hundreds?

But these people cannot let go of Israel; it stands as the central target for their nasty blows, like "Israelis are today's Nazis."

In the end, "only about Zionism" serves little purpose but to deflect charges of anti-Semitism. And seeing that the title mentioned above puts millions of Israelis into one bag and slaps a "Nazi" label on it, those charges seems quite fitting.

And if the Israelis were actually like the Nazis, the Palestinians would all be dead by now. So the statement is also illogical.

They're not really Jews; they're Khazars.

A modern classic. Aside from the fact that this line has been fairly conclusively proven false, what difference would it make anyway? Why should anyone care? Shall we scrutinize the genetic history of the Hmong people too?

If people call themselves Jews, follow the traditions, and die for their beliefs from time to time, what else matters? Jews, after all, have lived amongst other peoples for 2,000 years. There is plenty of Russian, German, Polish, Spanish, and other types of 'blood' mixed in by now. Why should that even matter?

But it matters for this reason: If they're not really Jews, then they're not really entitled to their tiny slice of land.

So, here we are, back to deciding which group is or isn't entitled to political power over a piece of land. Welcome back to the same old endorsements of violence: "my favorite ruler monkeys versus your favorite ruler monkeys."

Same old poison, same old results.

There are Jews at the forefront of the (insert nasty name) movement.

Marxism was a big one to blame on the Jews for a long time, but media, banking, and others are now vying for the crown.

The truth is that there have been Jews at the forefront of almost every new movement, including the liberty movement. We had RandRothbard, and von Mises, didn't we?

There is of course a reason for this: Jews survived for many centuries by getting involved in new things before the regulators caught up with them and forced them out. Over time, the strategy stuck and Jews internalized it. At this point in world history, new things simply attract more Jews than most other ethnicities. So what?

"You're Just Pro-Israel!"

Us/them
Friend/foe
With us/against us
If you're not condemning them, you're supporting them

All of this, my friends, is binary thinking; all of it declines to the level of primate instincts. All of it is devolution.

Israel is a state and is therefore a geographic monopoly on the use of violence. And that's not good.

But so is the Palestinian Authority a kind of state, and it authorizes violence too. Is that somehow okay?

The Israelis did some nasty things under British rule.

The Palestinians (and fellow Arabs) murdered lots of Israelis after the UN vote in 1947.

Israel forces many decent people through road blocks and puts them behind walls.

Palestinians have a long history of blowing people up, and now stabbing them.

So, who's your favorite victim?

Which cause is the one to fight for?

Which side must be put down?

Which enemy do you want dead?

Does being in the area make someone guilty?

Does their religion make them guilty?

A Path Back to Barbarity, Back to Hate

That's all this stuff is, my friends: It's a path back into darkness. The stories that call you to walk it are poison.

And if you want to see the reality of life in the tiny piece of land these people are so obsessed over, take a good look at this.

Choose light, not darkness.

3 Comments in Response to

Comment by PureTrust
Entered on:
The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. This is the reason why governments grow. This is why they enslave their people - people using government to enslave other people.

The hidden government is that of the bankers and other money owners.

In their beginnings, many governments are legitimate. Why? Because it is people, working together to improve their lives in some ways. It is only after the government is successful for the people, and the people become lax regarding watching their government, that they become slaves to the sharks within.

The general ignorance about how life really works, is the reason why the sharks can take control of the people. "My people perish for lack of knowledge."

If the people in America understood how much power they had over the United States Government, and the governments of the States, and how to use that power, any strength that the North American governments had over their people would disappear.

In the U.S., the power lies in simple direct usage of the things spoken about in the Preamble to the Constitution, the 9th Amendment which expresses similar directly, and the 6th and 7th Amendments. The danger that destroys the strength of people using the things of these basic governmental writings is that the people use the writings, themselves, rather than the things that the writings express.

The people of U.S. America, Canada, the nations of the U.K., Australia, India, Bangladesh, and other common law nations, have the ability to directly step out from under their governments, individually and personally, if they only knew it and used it.

Comment by Ernest Hancock
Entered on:

https://www.freedomsphoenix.com/About-Us.htm Freedom's Phoenix's policy has been to encourage participation on any issue and to stay out of the way. But Paul Rosenberg has pointed out a mind trap that we should avoid. We at FreedomsPhoenix have a policy of allowing sincere participants to have their say and allow more free speech to counter irresponsible speech. Opinions are widely tolerated as long as they are not argumentum ad hominem attacks that devolve into a useless exchange that doesn't address the core issues raised. "The Third Rail Israel" Israel's relationship with the U.S. is interesting and illustrative in many ways, but Paul's point is very important and should not be ignored or belittled. I see the trend of posts allowed here on FreedomsPhoenix, and they come and go in waves. Issues involving the MiddleEast often are linked to criticisms of Israel's policies and the relationship that Israel's government has with the USGovernment (USG). I've often heard that those you are not allowed to criticize are destined to rule you (or some such variant) but I think the point that Mr. Rosenberg is making is that we are allowing ourselves to be diverted from a productive and enlightened path by simply paying too much attention to the darkness when the lighting of a candle is far more... enlightening. When we allow ourselves to get into the mind set that Nation States should behave one way or another we often don't realize that we are advocating for 'statism that we approve of'. The most articulate argument against Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld's tyranny missed many opportunities to challenge the government offices that would later allow for the continued abuses that their replacements were all too eager to expand on. The focus on any single government's actions often gives the impression that governments not engaged in similar behavior is somehow more legitimate. They may indeed intend to rule their livestock more 'humanely' but they do intend to rule them and harvest them when needed. To counter many of the 'negative vibes' in the news, and on the pages of FreedomsPhoenix, you'll notice a great deal of inspiring news about new technologies and old values, but I'm encouraging our regular Columnists and Reporters to focus on the inevitable nature of all governments with the use of specific examples, but to focus on any one government's evils misses the overall understanding of where the real problem is… our support of "Good Government".

Comment by Justin DeLano
Entered on:

While I do agree with some aspects of the argument, specifically that all states are illegitimate, but I think your personal bias shows through pretty clearly. I think the fallacy of neglected aspect is the biggest problem with your argument. To come at the argument that both sides are equal in their size, financial power and military strength are equal is laughable at best. I think the main reason why people in the liberty community are upset about the Israel situation is because the US gives them money to do what they do, US foreign policy is basically Israel devoted. And the US government lackeys are all boot licking Israel devotees. To pretend that the history of the conflict is equal and that the Israelis didn't take every advantage possible during every skirmish to gobble up more land, and that they aren't the dominant figure in an unequal fight, is just poor taste and shows either willful ignorance or blatant brainwashing. Besides the Israeli citizenry, the US is a close 2nd place for their government brainwashing them. And many US Jews typically fall into the willfully ignorant tribalistic defense of their team. "Oh, but they shoot rockets into Israel all the time!" Maybe, but they rarely hit anything, yet when Israel drops white phosphorus on civilians, most people wont even acknowledge that it has happened, much less be outraged at it. Oh, and please tell me how many Palestinians are aggressively moving into predominant Jewish neighborhoods to infiltrate and get the other residents evicted. That's right, none. Because they aren't allowed. Because they are second class citizens at best. If you want to be taken seriously, you should try to be more objective. One of the biggest tenets of liberty is taking responsibility for the things you own. Like good cops who don't stop bad cops, good Jews who don't speak up and blindly defend the actions of the IDF and the extreme elements of the Israeli government, the failure to be consistent in the face of blatant contradictions, means you are full of it. So, if you can't separate the fallacious arguments from the good, and you want to propagate more fallacies, you delegitimize your own voice in this community. You've certainly lost any respect I had for you.


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