In Which I Finally Get Something About Libertarians after 14 Years
Warning: if anyone comments on this post and tries to construe me as or accuse me of explicitly or implicitly advocating violence towards anyone or in any way supporting those who do, I will not hesitate to block that person from making further comments on my blog.
I became a libertarian in the mid-90s. 1996, to be exact. Prior to that, I'd considered myself "a Democrat", then "a moderate with fanatical support for civil liberties". For the next five years, I always wondered just why other libertarians, particularly older ones, were so ridiculously prone to siding with Team Red and so particularly hostile towards Team Blue. It was obvious to me that Republicans didn't actually care about small government, individual rights, free markets, etc. - so why did so many libertarians act as if saber-rattling theocrats were a better choice?
Then Bill Clinton finally made it all clear to me.
[The Oklahoma City bombers] took to the ultimate extreme an idea advocated in the months and years before the bombing by an increasingly vocal minority: the belief that the greatest threat to American freedom is our government, and that public servants do not protect our freedoms, but abuse them. On that April 19, the second anniversary of the assault of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, deeply alienated and disconnected Americans decided murder was a blow for liberty.
...Criticism is part of the lifeblood of democracy. No one is right all the time. But we should remember that there is a big difference between criticizing a policy or a politician and demonizing the government that guarantees our freedoms and the public servants who enforce our laws.
Oh.
It's not as if I actually forgot that Clinton's administration spent much of the rest of 1995 smearing as would-be terrorists anyone who said the words "small government" or dared to suggest that any elected and unelected officials should be considered anything but treasured public servants.
It's not that I forgot that this was the guy whose Justice Department essentially wrote the rough draft of PATRIOT years before 9/11, or this was the guy who built up Saddam Hussein as a nuclear bogeyman while avidly maintaining the sanctions on Iraq (and the US military presence in Saudi Arabia) that Osama bin Laden and Al Queda cited as their primary grievances against the US. Despite Bush-era hagiography, it remains that this was the guy who diverted domestic political attention by randomly bombing aspirin factories and making a half-assed attempt to kill bin Laden, very possibly increasing his political capital as an anti-American figure. This is the guy who dropped bombs on Iraq (and for a while Serbia) so often, they stopped mentioning it on the nightly news - during the "peacetime" many of us found ourselves nostalgic for this decade.
I didn't forget that Bill Clinton was the guy who hired Janet Reno, an aggressive Drug Warrior, who famously opted to turn a routine arrest into a siege in Waco - and then a bloodbath.
But it all had just never clicked.
I'd forgotten how glad I was that he was out of power after eight years, and how amused I was that, of the two sides trying to steal the 2000 election, his anointed successor Gore lost. I'd forgotten how, in thinking I was equally hostile towards both sides, I felt a bit of sympathy towards Bush when the same people who'd praised Clinton for "balancing" the budget with FICA income deplored his attempt to do the same thing. How I simply wasn't as dubious of the road to invading Iraq as I would have been with Clinton in charge, 9/11 or no.
Or how I'd felt a bit hopeful when Obama took office, for that matter.
I now completely understood the mistake; I only wish it hadn't taken my making it as well, in spades.
Now, some people might not understand why anyone might "demonize" public officials, even if we construe that word to mean...well, anything at all besides "criticism of those in my political team". I'm not sure how to explain to people who see Google or stupid political demonstrators as acute threats to the republic that the officials and agencies of governments from local to national level are far more comprehensively dangerous to people, particularly if you don't happen to be a middle-class or better-off white American. As evidence, I can only point to Waco, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Gitmo, Bagram, and many other places, not the least of which the brutal US prison system that trained some of the famous (direct) perpetrators at Abu Ghraib.
I will say that there's a short and bitter lesson for libertarians who became anti-statist during the terms of Clinton or Bush, and those who have or will make such a turn during the Obama presidency. One day, that guy you've watched wield and abuse power will lose that power, and someone from his opposition will take that power. On that day, the new boss will look far better than ey has any right to, and you'll risk forgetting something:
The enemy of my enemy is just an asshole with enemies.