Now that he doesn’t have to function as a full-time apologist for the Bush Administration, Rush Limbaugh has returned to what he built his career on: bashing so-called “liberals.”  This was evident during his recent appearance on the new Jay Leno Show, on which he went right after Barack Obama and surprisingly garnered a fair amount of applause.

At one point, Limbaugh mentioned the failure of Social Security and Medicare, given that the two institutions are effectively bankrupt.  Leno countered by saying that Limbaugh’s assessment only considers “profit” as the barometer of success, whereas the programs actually exist to “help” people and have not failed in the least when this is factored in.

What Leno doesn’t understand and Limbaugh didn’t point out, is that we’re not talking about a simple inability to turn a profit.  We’re not talking about entities that just break even or operate a bit in the red while struggling to stay afloat.  We’re talking about utter and massive insolvency.

Medicare is already paying out more than it takes in and Social Security soon will be.  For this reason, it’s no surprise that Ponzi schemes tend to be illegal, unless of course the schemes are government-run.  When the government decides to operate a Ponzi scheme, it plays for keeps, as the “customers” are recruited at gunpoint, and those who refuse to “invest” get thrown in a cage or worse.  And that’s what we have in America’s prized Social Security and Medicare systems — a completely unsustainable pair of programs that take (i.e. extort) money and then dole it back out to the lapping masses.  A Ponzi scheme.

Mr. Leno seems to believe it’s okay to adopt completely failed business models that have the potential to wreck entire economies, so long as one can nebulously claim the failure is somehow “helping” people.  Isn’t there a better way, Jay?  Maybe one that doesn’t require violence?

I’ve received some comments recently on both YouTube and Yahoo! concerning my characterization of patriots and nationalists.  Some people have gone as far as accusing me of confusing or conflating the two, despite my generally cautious employment of both terms.  I have also been called stupid, irrational, utopian, liberal, commie, fascist, neo-con, delusional and various combinations of those terms.  This usually occurs when I call someone a nationalist, and he objects, saying, “No, I’m not a nationalist.  I’m a patriot!”  I think the issue warrants a brief bit of exploration.

As with any analysis of words, let’s start by turning to our friend the dictionary.  Merriam-Webster defines patriotism as:

“…love for or devotion to one’s country….”

Random House 2009 defines it as:

“…devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national loyalty.”

As for nationalism, Merriam-Webster says:

“…loyalty and devotion to a nation  ; especially : a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups….”

In turn, Random House offers the following:

“1. national spirit or aspirations. ; 2. devotion and loyalty to one’s own nation; patriotism. ; 3.  excessive patriotism; chauvinism. ; 4. the desire for national advancement or independence. ; 5. the policy or doctrine of asserting the interests of one’s own nation, viewed as separate from the interests of other nations or the common interests of all nations.”

So it’s clear that there is a significant degree of overlap between the two.

In gathering my thoughts on all of this, I quickly scanned the blogosphere for other articles on this subject and came across several.  The majority view, at least according to what I looked at, seems to be that patriotism is love of country coupled with tolerance and a recognition of shortcomings, whereas nationalism is love of country regardless of what the country does.  Of course, a 2001 article by Joseph Sobran seems to state the opposite, even though I don’t believe he intended to.  He asserts, “Patriotism is like family love. You love your family just for being your family, not for being ‘the greatest family on earth….’“  Then he goes on to say, “While patriotism is a form of affection, nationalism, it has often been said, is grounded in resentment and rivalry; it’s often defined by its enemies and traitors, real or supposed. It is militant by nature, and its typical style is belligerent. Patriotism, by contrast, is peaceful until forced to fight.”

So maybe Sobran doesn’t oppose the majority view, but his “family love” metaphor is a bit confusing.  I would say that loving one’s country for the sheer hell of it is more nationalistic than patriotic.  It would make more sense to me to love a nation on the basis of its great attributes, as opposed to loving it on the comparatively shallow basis of being born on a patch of dirt within the imaginary lines we call national borders.

In any case, much of the rigamarole seems to revolve around people arbitrarily assigning what they consider positive traits to patriotism, while assigning what they consider negative traits to nationalism.  One blog I read, “The Mahablog: Making the World Safe for Liberalism,” asserts the following: “Righties are not patriots, but nationalists. And I’m arguing that one of the basic differences between a patriot and a nationalist is that patriots value responsibility.“  For a dissenting opinion, one need only peruse the forums of Free Republic, wherein there is no shortage of vitriolic rhetoric from self-styled conservatives against anyone they perceive as a liberal.

Given such confusing, often contradictory accounts of what comprises patriotism and nationalism, it’s no wonder that someone such as myself, who eschews both, has a hard time differentiating.  If someone takes my guitar off of a venue’s stage and tries to walk out the door with it, in all likelihood I will call that person a thief.  Upon being confronted, he might protest by saying, “No, I’m not a thief.  I’m a spontaneous borrower.”  That might very well be the case, but I have no way to know that.  All I know is that he tried to take my guitar without my permission.

Likewise, if someone insists that I must accept being enslaved by the ruling elite, by way of a system this person considers ideal for whatever reason, then I will probably call him a nationalist.  He might then object by saying, “I’m not a nationalist.  I’m a patriot.”  That might very well be the case, but I have no way to know that.  All I know is that he is trying to force his preferred system on me at gunpoint, implied or otherwise.

So in a sea of arbitrary delineation, here is my own arbitrary delineation.  All nationalists are patriots.  Some patriots are nationalists.  I draw the line between those who recognize and accede to my desire to secede on an individual level from their system whether they agree with my preference or not, and those who insist that I may not secede or vow to oppose my secession with violence.  The former are patriots; the latter are nationalists.

Today I would like to examine two phrases that I lovingly refer to as products of the “lingual gag reflex.”  These phrases correspond to a series of sounds which are intended to convey some point, allegedly in opposition to ideas challenging a political status quo.  In reality, however, even though the words are commonly uttered or typed with great conviction, it is quite difficult to attach them to anything coherent.  For all intents and purposes, these lines truly are a lingual gag reflex, spewed passionately in the face of anyone who strikes a particular nerve but failing to rest upon any substantial meaning.

What are these phrases?  I’ll tell you:

“[My country]: love it or leave it.  No one is making you live here.”

“[Oppressive Institution/Program/Policy X] is necessary for the greater good.”

Love It or Leave It!

The first phrase is commonly offered in debates between anarchists and statists.  Depending upon the sophistication of the parties involved, it often takes the form, “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”  Also common (specifically in reference to the U.S.) is the heartfelt claim that citizenship is voluntary, therefore government is voluntary.  Since it is voluntary, you consent to be governed by living here, and so on.  Frequently, links to information regarding renunciation of citizenship are provided for the anarchists’ benefit.

The statist who proceeds down this path of thought makes a number of errors, but I’m most concerned with one assumption.  That assumption is the anarchist’s consent to rule based on an arbitrary standard: existence.  Being born on a patch of dirt equals implicit consent (i.e. implicit acceptance of the social contract), therefore claims of oppression are invalid in the absence of any attempt to renounce citizenship or at least leave the country.  This assumption is ridiculous, of course, because any number of factors might be in play.

• The anarchist might lack the means to relocate himself.

• He might, as is increasingly the case in the slowly-militarizing United States, have problems with passports and other documentation.

• He might have a family that he cannot afford to relocate, or a family with members who have their own reasons for being unable to move.

• There are no anarchist commonwealths to which an anarchist might travel, so insisting that he “love” or “leave” the statist’s nation is tantamount to a non-argument, an absurd claim meant to end discussion rather than offer a rational defense for the forcing of a system upon the anarchist.  The anarchist might very well realize this and, by extention, realize there is no point in moving.  Wherever he goes, people will offer the same “love it or leave it” demand when he objects to being tyrannized by their government.  Even if one might be fully capable of renouncing his or her masters in some nebulous sense, doing so is likely to have no practical effect, as the renouncing individual will either still be subject to his former government due to land monopoly, or he will be subject to some other government upon leaving.

Just think of the strangeness intrinsic to this position.  Jews in Nazi Germany consented to torture and death camps.  Palestinians in Gaza consent to terrorism at the hands of the Israeli military, and likewise Israelis consent to rocket attacks and terrorism by Islamic fanatics.  Any individual or group that has been oppressed, tortured or killed by any other individual or group sovereign in the region where the event(s) occurred is “consenting” to oppression, torture and murder simply by way of being there.  This is what “implied consent” entails.  As such, a determined aggressor can derive the “consent” of his victim from just about anything.

The Greater Good!

What is the “greater good?”  Does the phrase mean anything at all?  Since both terms require subjective value judgments, I don’t think it’s possible to arbitrarily classify anything as “good” and then dub it “greater” on some equally arbitrary standard.  A woman being gang-raped is clearly in the minority.  Is her plight for the “greater good?”  Certainly not, I hope.  There’s nothing “good”at all from her perspective, in all likelihood, and it is doubtful that she will be assuaged by the “good” from her assailants’ viewpoints.

“That’s not fair!” cries the statist.  “The woman is a minority in that situation, but the rapists are the minority in society.”

Notable objection, and that might be true, but it only serves to highlight the arbitrariness.  At what point is the line drawn?  At what point does so-called “legitimate” majoritarian rule become so-called “illegitimate” majoritarian rule?  One might say that society is the only majority that counts, but even then the majority is arbitrarily limited based on imaginary lines in the dirt.  If the will of a majority makes “right,” then it is arbitrary to claim that any given majority is exempt from this.  A woman being in the minority compared to the rapists is no different than a tax-resisting individual being in the minority compared to the armed mercenaries at his door (and those who support and enable those mercenaries).  Furthermore, a woman who “consents” to rapists in fear of her life might be accurately likened to an individual who “consents” to taxation in fear of his life, well-being and/or possessions.

Saying that someone consents to a proposition or action under the threat or actuality of violence does one of two things.  It either renders the term “consent” meaningless, as something like consensual sex becomes such simply by one party threatening harm upon the other, or the term “consent” needs to be understood as a synonym for “surrender” or “submission.”  In fact, if “surrender” or “submission” more accurately reflects what statists mean when they claim someone “consents” to a government by existing under it, then I think it would serve for clearer discussion if they would use those terms instead.

So we’re left with the “greater good” being a reflection of one arbitrary majority’s will and the means by which they seek to sate that will, usually by compelling the minority opposition to submit or surrender under the threat or use of violence.

The problem here is that, even if the arbitrariness of defining a so-called legitimate majority is overlooked, there is no sensible way by which a government can possibly hope to accurately do the will of that majority.  Governments cannot properly allocate resources, as Ludwig von Mises demonstrated nearly a century ago.  How then can these same entities be expected to read minds and create rules accordingly?  Interestingly enough, free markets and free association between agents serve as very good solutions to this problem.

So when these arguments come up:

“[My country]: love it or leave it.  No one is making you live here.”

“[Oppressive Institution/Program/Policy X] is necessary for the greater good.”

…I think it’s fair to kindly inform the wielder that he/she is not making any sense.

This is the transcript of my video response to a Christian on the subject of gay marriage.

—–

Hi, Apologetics. In my two years here, I have not made many video responses to lovely young ladies. Maybe it’s a demographic thing, given my usual subject matter. Maybe it’s because I look strange. I don’t know. Anyway, it’s rather shameful and a bit ironic that I will be responding to you, of all people and on this rare occasion, on the subject of gay marriage. This also sucks from my perspective, because, your ideas notwithstanding, you’re kind of cute. Fortunately, you seem to be a good decade or more behind me on the age curve, so I suppose I can berate you with a clear conscience, though I will make every effort to do so politely. I can’t promise to be nice, but I will be civil.

Before I get into your video, I have just a quick comment about your user name. When I think of apologetics, gay-bashing is not the first thing that comes to mind, usually. Most people who call themselves apologists at least try to be evidential, philosophical and/or scientific, with varying degrees of success. Maybe you’re a self-appointed apologist for the anti-homosexual crowd. That’s entirely possible. I could just be reading something into your user name that isn’t there. It’s just that your arguments are so bad, that I’m actually looking forward to hearing you address something that I actually consider apologetic, like the various arguments for the existence of God, attempts to establish an ontology for God, evolution, cosmology, that sort of thing. You mention “evolution/creation” on your main channel page, so maybe things will get interesting eventually. I’ll check back on occasion, because I think that might be extremely entertaining.

Okay, your video. This shouldn’t take long.

You deal with two main points: design and requirements. For design, you claim that marriage was “designed for a man and a woman.” You never identify who did the designing. You never make an argument as to why it should be this way and this way only. You try to make an analogy with a scenario wherein a girl is allowed into the Boy Scouts because she prefers it over the Girl Scouts, and you claim that this would devalue the Boy Scouts, therefore homosexuals getting married will devalue marriage. That’s silly for a number of reasons.

1. Let’s change the analogy so it more accurately reflects the state of society. Let’s say a girl wants to join the Boy Scouts and is allowed to do so, because there are no Girl Scouts. She has nowhere to go except the Boy Scouts, and all she wants is access to the same activities that her male peers have. I think that changes the landscape significantly.

2. Value is subjective. There is no objective devaluing of marriage that will result from homosexuals getting married. It might devalue marriage in general to you, due your preexisting moral disposition toward homosexual, but I don’t share that preexisting moral disposition. A lot of people don’t. Even if we grant that homosexuals might devalue marriage in some sense, you don’t make any argument as to why that should preclude them from marriage. I suppose you just assume that it should. I can just as easily assume that it should not.

3. As noted by Sarahon06 in his response to you, the girl does not choose to be a girl. You would do well to keep that in mind.

Now for your second point, requirements for marriage. Basically, here you engage in what we call argumentum ad baculum, an appeal to force. You talk about legal requirements, man-made, institutionalized rules that are imposed. You mention driving requirements, loan requirements, and even the requirement that you must divorce a current spouse before marrying again. From this point, you refer back to your previous “design” argument – which you never defended, by the way – and claim that gays do not meet the requirements for marriage, because the requirement you have laid down is your design argument. So this point about requirements fails, because it is based on your previous point, which failed. It amounts to saying something is wrong because some people say it is wrong, and they will fuck up anyone who disagrees.

You then rattle off this list of shit about choices – people choose to get into relationships, people choose to get married, etc., etc. Then you say, regardless of whether people are born a certain way or develop in a certain way due to childhood environment, you don’t care because all of these things are ultimately choices, and attempts to circumvent this status quo amount to asking for “extra rights.”

Being born a certain way or growing up in a certain environment – if we assume either or both are pertinent to homosexuality for argument’s sake, as they very well might be, then no. These things are not choices. So what you’re saying, in effect, is that people should be legally, forcibly denied choice based on factors that they have little to no say in whatsoever. Does that not bother you? At the beginning of the video, you congratulated yourself for being called a right-wing bigot, so maybe it doesn’t.

Your “exit only” argument is ridiculous. Homosexuality is like stopping at the gas station and putting the nozzle in the exhaust pipe. That is so juvenile, and I think it shows your age. Or maybe it’s a sad statement about whomever put these ideas into your head in the first place. Heterosexuals engage in oral and anal sexual activity. You may not want to hear that, but it happens. I’m sorry. Is it your position that heterosexuals – even married heterosexuals – engaging in anything other than standard sexual intercourse are morally wrong?

I would say “God bless” in return, but I don’t believe in any gods, so I’ll settle for, “Have a nice day,” and I hope you do.

Yesterday (10/14/2008), President George W. Bush said to his audience: “These measures are not intended to take over the free market, but to preserve it.”  He was referring, of course, to the U.S. Government’s injecting of $250 billion into banks in exchange for partial ownership (a stock buy-up, in essence).  In true Bush fashion, his statement is both a lie and laced with a profound ignorance.

In reality, there is no free market in the United States.  There is a quasi-private market, which is not even remotely the same thing.  No free market can run on state-monpolized fiat currency, protected from competition by armed threats and cages.  Actual free market proponents like the Austrians have been decrying U.S. economic policies for decades as antithetical to liberty, prosperity and common sense.  Now that the corporatist mini-regimes that have whored themselves out to government for as long as they’ve existed (and vise versa) are collapsing under their own weight, generations of steadily increasing state intervention in the economy have been strangely omitted from the bulk of public discourse.  Rather, recent events and the policies which led to this point are termed “market failures,” as opposed to the more accurate and redundant “government failures,” thereby opening the way for foolish tools like George W. Bush to claim that current activities which could not be more anti-free market are actually intended to “preserve” the free market, which just so happens to not even exist.

If Bush wanted to be more truthful, he could have replaced “free market” with “capitalism” or “corporatism,” yet he, like so many other politicians and their apologists, seems perfectly content in his fallacies and abject ignorance of economics.  Of course, government, like religion, is not in the business of discovering and propagating truth, but rather the business of selling a particular dogma and ensuring that the largest number of people possible believe in it, regardless of truth.

For more information on the current economic madness, I recommend “The Bailout Reader” at Mises.org.

Anyone of a libertarian mind-set has probably had a conversation similar to this:

You: Government sucks.

Bob: Yes, but it’s necessary. People are stupid and evil, and life without government would degenerate into a chaotic dictatorship of corporate mobs and gang warfare.

Another common variant is the more succinct:

Bob: Humanity can’t be trusted with that much freedom.

The obvious problem with this line of reasoning is a heaping dose of self-defeat. If people are, as a rule, stupid, evil and predisposed to chaos and gang-based war, then the most irrational action one might take in pursuit of minimizing these consequences is the deliberate formation of such a gang. After all, those who would serve in government are members of the same human race as the rest of us. It cannot be declared that government is necessary because people are evil, while simultaneously exempting the people in government from this inherent evil.

Of course, the inevitable response to this is the catch-all solution: democracy!  We keep the undesirables out of office by simply not voting them in.  Power to the people . . . right?

Oh, wait.  People.  Stupid, evil, chaos-loving, warmongering people — who will almost certainly elect stupid, evil, chaos-loving, warmongering politicians.  It seems that democracy does not solve or even manage the problem.

There are other forms of government to consider, however.  Some form of technocratic oligarchy is an option, an enlightened elite exerting control through any variety of means.  There’s also the possibility of dictatorship or monarchy.  Still, this presents the question of why one group or class of humans is fundamentally different from all others.  Further, even if these enlightened elites succeed in securing a given society in the name of reason and peace, there’s nothing to stop the stupid, evil majority from undoing any hypothetical progress in a relatively short period of time.  Because, remember, the military and police and entrenched bureaucrats are likely not from the elite class, and even if they are, they will be outnumbered to a staggering and possibly unmanageable degree.  Additionally, due to the aforementioned conditions, the likelihood of any given elite or group of elites successfully imposing their will upon a stupid, evil populace is quite small.  Oligarchies, dictatorships and monarchies do not solve or even manage the problem.

The irony here is that, as the implications of an inherently stupid and evil human race are considered, the level of authoritarianism required in order to compensate for and combat it is essentially limitless.  This leads, of course, to the very chaos and gang warfare that is so often cited as the reason we must have a government in the first place.

The American Right is in total disarray. Proponents of “conservatism” currently find themselves mindlessly repeating familiar old drivel while faced with the unrelenting reality of their failed (and increasingly incoherent) philosophy. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the ever-growing digital landscape of blogs, news sites and discussion boards.

Recently, a Yahoo! Answers user named “Nikki S” posted the following question:

Are today’s conservatives the same type of people the Founding Fathers fought to overthrow?

Some of the responses so far have been . . . telling.

bugeyes forever
No. Are you the same type of lib who owned slaves.

Zippy980
Just the opposite my friend. Liberals want to raise your taxes and put the Goverment in control of more aspects of your life. This is what the Revolution was fighting against.

joshsybs
Oh come on!
Are you forced to follow a religion of state and governed by your religious performance?
Read some history books.

joe b
Look into the tangible way these men conducted their lives post Constitution and one can easily see that they were Christian for the most part and used Christian language and prayer within the law making bodies of this country. They used public funds for religious purposes in varying ways. The left wing cannot hide this although they chose to ignore it.

Revisionist Historian
You mean the libs?
Haters of morality
Pseudo-Intellectuals
Slaves to sex, money, and racism
Lovers of Islam

southernmale42
The liberals would be. Our Founding Fathers were very RIGHT WINGED.
Besides, you can’t compare then and now, different time, different people, different circumstances.

shutupdummy
todays liberals are, they have no faith in our might as a nation, even the self proclaimed liberal gods like kerry and rockerfeller want nothing more than to damage our military by their actions and words……

The sampling above covers most of the common conservative responses when they are faced with the inevitable contradiction between their purported beliefs and how those beliefs manifest in practice. “Bugeyes forever” and “Revisionist Historian” expertly demonstrate the belligerence that is as popular as it is inevitable. “Zippy980” is in denial, clearly rejecting the obvious fact that the last 7+ years have seen a conservative administration inserting itself into citizens lives in ways never before witnessed on American soil. “Joshsybs” believes that our current lack of witch-burnings and an official state religion somehow justifies the faith-based orgy that is the U.S. Government.

“Joe b” cites the religious beliefs of long-dead men as a valid excuse for funding religion at the point of a gun today. “Southernmale42” proudly shows the world his sheer ignorance, since the Founding Fathers were extremely liberal in their time; so while one should not conflate classical liberalism with the socialistic statism that passes for it today, it’s quite a stretch to assert that Jefferson and company were “right-winged.”

Lastly, “shutupdummy” makes the disturbingly prevalent conservative error of labeling state-worship a virtue — which means he should actually love these liberals, but I suppose his sect worships only the state’s war machine, while those evil left-wing heretics have the audacity to pay homage to other gods, like welfare. Yeah, didn’t you know? Robbing the people to pay for A is so fundamentally different from robbing the people to pay for B….

This insanity is not limited to Yahoo!, of course. Rush Limbaugh, who has given perpetual head to George W. Bush since before the 2000 election, recently went ape-shit on atheism. He’s apparently jumping on Ben Stein’s Expelled bandwagon, which has fundies everywhere frothing at the mouth. Resultantly, Rush sees the same godless conspiracy in academia that Pat Robertson has been telling us about for years (and Ben Stein is now repeating). Guess what, Rush? Intelligent design isn’t science! Claiming that creationists are victims of unjust discrimination within the scientific community is tantamount to making the same claim about flat-earth proponents.

The coming election should prove interesting. Limbaugh and his ditto-heads have long derided the “liberalism” of crazy John McCain. Now that McCain looks to be the guy for the Republicrat Party, hilarity very well might ensue.

In related news, the current issue of WorldNetDaily’s Whistleblower magazine features an exposé titled “The Secret Life of Barack Obama.” This piece purportedly, “reveals [Obama] to be one of the most dangerous men ever to be considered for the presidency of the United States of America.” Granted, WND routinely lambastes left-wing politicians, but what strikes me as odd is that there is very little praise for John McCain to be found amidst all the criticism of Democrats. I think this speaks volumes about the conundrum 2008 has presented to the right wing, particularly religious fundamentalists.

The rhetoric is there as it always has been, but the results — bloated government, oppression and perpetual war — speak for themselves. For all their delusions and fakery, America’s confused conservatives might see a raving state socialist in the White House come 2009. I for one think they deserve it. It is regrettable, however, that these rulers who quibble over who holds the gun in a given four-year span flatly refuse to restrict their violence to their own. If that were the case, I could perhaps keep track of political silliness without having my amusement clouded by a dark foreboding.