Utopians All the Way Down

U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman recently ruled that illegal immigrants can exercise their Second Amendment rights and legally own guns in the U.S. It doesn’t take much to see the fault in the decision. There is no scenario where arming a flood of military-aged third-world males plays out well. Regardless, this has not stopped Libertarians from signaling their status as Second Amendment absolutists.

This absolutist dedication to rights is a prime example of the naiveté that plagues the Libertarian movement. They are functionally no different from Communists. That may seem absurd, but one must consider that both Communists and Libertarians are utopian idealists whose ideology cannot properly account for human nature.

Both see humans as rational beings who will act in their own best interests given the proper incentive structure. The fundamental flaw in this is that there is no universal rational; in the abstract, perhaps, but for humans, it is subjective.

The vast majority of people do not make logical, objective decisions; rather, they post hoc rationalize their desires. The rational faculty is simply a tool of justification. You will find this on display with a trip to any Walmart: masses of morbidly obese individuals filling their carts with coke and Oreos, slowly killing themselves. They are surrounded by healthy options that any rational actor should prioritize. In theory, one should expect that health and nutrition would be primary, yet in reality, it takes a backseat to momentary mouth pleasure.

I have no doubt that many Libertarians mean well; they truly believe that their ideology will result in the best of all possible worlds. This naive utopianism leaves them open to exploitation by more nefarious actors, as Jonathan Bowden points out in his speech on Marxism and the Frankfurt School.

“In all Marxist groups you get the rather weak, pacifistic, loving, humanistic people. The vicar’s daughter who believes human nature isn’t . . . right. If only we could be nicer to each other, if only we could spread more love. You get these people always in ultra-Left and Communist groups, and next to them on the podium, next to them in the auditorium, [are] your utterly nihilistic, ruthless, virtually criminal types who want to use the structure of power when they get it to crush those underneath them, don’t give a damn about ideology, and are actually amongst the most misanthropic people you could ever meet. And you have these extremes of the innocent lovey and the sort of sadistic amoralist in the same group.” - Jonahan Bowden

For every well-meaning Libertarian on stage next to them is a cartoonishly greedy mega corporation waiting to exploit a lack of regulations and kneecap every mom-and-pop shop in the country.

Libertarianism is an ideology that deals with the world as it "ought" to be and not as it is. If there is one thing the right must learn, it is that we must deal with political reality. Power will be used by our enemies whether we like it or not. To throw our hands up in some moralistic plea for liberty is foolish.

I have a lot of love for Libertarians; they are mostly good people with good instincts, but it's time for them to grow up.

-TJS