Monday, May 03, 2010


To Reduce Them Under Absolute Despotism
...Go back and look over that list of things that you're expected to give your loyalty to and even sacrifice your life for. Over the centuries, they've learned to make it all sound wonderful and noble. However when you begin to see these institutions as nothing more than bunches of individuals, each with no more rights in the natural world than you have (and no extra, or bonus rights miraculously obtained by claiming to be something other than what they are, nothing more than a bunch of individuals), they start to look like tribes of cannibals or vampires, eagerly anticipating the tasty sacrifice of another deluded victim.

And when you suddenly notice that, of all these institutions—community, race, school, fraternity, military, corporation, union, party, government, nation, family, lodge, church—more than half are treasured by conservatives, their dirty little secret is exposed by the hot, bright light of the truth: your rights, provided they exist at all, come in a distant second to the needs and wants of these aggregations.

Conservatives—Republicans—are socialists.

True, they may desire to hold you down atop the stone altar and cut your still-beating heart out with an obsidian knife for a set of entirely different reasons—national security, Judaeo-Christian traditions, "common" decency—than the liberals or "progressives" or Democrats do, but to you, the important part is cutting your heart out with an obsidian knife, not whatever excuse they may offer for doing it.

This is why, no matter which political party happens to be in power, ordinary people—whose thinking and hard work maintain this civilization each and every day—never seem to get an even break with regard to their individual liberty or holding onto the fruits of their labor. It's why the late philosopher Robert LeFevre referred to Democrats and Republicans as "Socialist Party A" and "Socialist Party B". ...