Freedomain Radio

How many strawmen is it possible to have in one article?

In the last page of comments, someone says "would be good to see Monbiot take on the nefarious Stefan Molyneux".

Had to laugh at this bit mind.....

.........."Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject 'us'.".......... (as including himself)

Since I've known a few Guardian journalists over the years I can tell you the retainer alone that the Guardian will be quaffing his way will be within the top 3-4% of the populations earnings in the UK at £100K + per anum..

This is awesome!  Here I thought I was just "reading a website" but I was actually IN THE GRIP OF A SINISTER MOVEMENT!  That is WAY cooler!  I am going to work extra hard on my evil laugh.

• edpennington

  20 December 2011 03:58PM

  I have an ex friend who is in the grip of 'anarcho capitalism' and a sinister movement called 'free domain radio' which advocate a stateless society. The solution, apparently, is to get rid of all forms of government and coercion of the individual.

  She is in many respects enlightened and progressive, non homophobic, non racist, kind to animals, but her and her fellow 'anarcho-capitalists' are wedded to the idea that the ultimate evil is coercion of the individual.

  We need to remove, she claims, the "gun in the room".

  But there will always be a gun in the room.

I read that post as well, adn found it amusing for a different reason: the apparent disgust with the idea that coercion isn't desirable.

"The solution, apparently, is to get rid of all forms of government and coercion of the individual. She is in many respects enlightened and progressive [...] but [she is] wedded to the idea that the ultimate evil is the coercion of the individual"

She talks about it like the statement "I don't like coercion" is as crazy and obviuosly wrong as the statement "The earth is flat"

Kindness to animals=good!

Kindness to people=bad!

If propaganda wasn't so powerful, I'd be hard-pressed to understand how somebody can repeat the following non-truth and still know how to breathe:

Monbiot:

In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy.

What puzzles me is the urge these people have to attack libertarianism or anarchy. It's not like it's a force to reckon with in the "battle" of ideas. I was first in contact with libertarian leaning stuff in my late 20s, but I could find Che's bio in my public school library at 15

francisd:

What puzzles me is the urge these people have to attack libertarianism or anarchy. It's not like it's a force to reckon with in the "battle" of ideas. I was first in contact with libertarian leaning stuff in my late 20s, but I could find Che's bio in my public school library at 15

Yeah, I quite agree Francis.. I think it must be some unconscious anxiety that they are living under a tyranny and talk of libertarian and anarchist ideas just brings those unconscious thoughts to the surface perhaps.

xelent:

francisd:

What puzzles me is the urge these people have to attack libertarianism or anarchy. It's not like it's a force to reckon with in the "battle" of ideas. I was first in contact with libertarian leaning stuff in my late 20s, but I could find Che's bio in my public school library at 15

Yeah, I quite agree Francis.. I think it must be some unconscious anxiety that they are living under a tyranny and talk of libertarian and anarchist ideas just brings those unconscious thoughts to the surface perhaps.

Or maybe they just confuse economic realities of the state running out of cheese with libertarianism and, in vain, attack it so as to further extend the lifetime of their statist pipe dream. "If we can just kill this libertarian thing, the trillions of debt will go *POOF* !"

francisd:

What puzzles me is the urge these people have to attack libertarianism or anarchy. It's not like it's a force to reckon with in the "battle" of ideas. I was first in contact with libertarian leaning stuff in my late 20s, but I could find Che's bio in my public school library at 15

I think I understand what you mean, in that it's not accepted in the mainstream, so why spend so much time trashing it?

The reason for that is that these ideas are very dangerous to authoritarian hierarchies.  If everybody sat down for 10 minutes to think it through logically, support for government and bad parents would evaporate in 9 minutes and 59 seconds.  People generally don't think, however, and in order to keep them from thinking, they have to attach a lot of negative emotional imagery to ideas that might open up their minds and, later, their hearts.

JamesP:

 

I think I understand what you mean, in that it's not accepted in the mainstream, so why spend so much time trashing it?

Exactly what I meant.

This was a recent book going around the Guardian clique, since I know a few of them on my FB...

"Guardian journo 1, I'm just finishing off Tony Judt's Ill Fares The Land. I suspect you've already read it, but if you want a book which utterly demolishes the idea that 'privatisation & free market = efficiency and better services', it's well worth reading."

" Guardian journo 2, I am buying myself that for xmas, have a good one folks" (with 25 likes)

Whilst I have some sympathy for the author's health who wrote this book.. The ideas in this book are utter nonesense of course.. But it is general fodder for the journalistic class.

Having lived in the UK, I have seen that there are many such 'down with the 1%, down with the bankers' who tend to be found more in universities and tend to gravitate towards the Guardian. As for the article, I doubt that it is anything more than one tribe throwing fire at what it thinks is its enemy (let me elaborate): These anti-banksters see libertarians as a part of the 'other', the few who dont agree with their robin hood taxes and yet seem somewhat intelligeble and articulate and so portray it as a trick of the devil. Somewhat similar to how Hitler denounced Communism as an elaborate jewish conspiracy.

JamesP:

If propaganda wasn't so powerful, I'd be hard-pressed to understand how somebody can repeat the following non-truth and still know how to breathe:

Monbiot:

In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy.

This is a decent point - this is the sort of thing governments say and do. I'm not sure if Monbiot agrees with it or not, but as stated I think it's a good statement of the idiocy of government.

f.b.m:

Having lived in the UK, I have seen that there are many such 'down with the 1%, down with the bankers' who tend to be found more in universities and tend to gravitate towards the Guardian. As for the article, I doubt that it is anything more than one tribe throwing fire at what it thinks is its enemy (let me elaborate): These anti-banksters see libertarians as a part of the 'other', the few who dont agree with their robin hood taxes and yet seem somewhat intelligeble and articulate and so portray it as a trick of the devil. Somewhat similar to how Hitler denounced Communism as an elaborate jewish conspiracy.

Yeh I agree the Guardian is the locus of most leftism in the UK today, which in kind of strange given its a massive company that sells news and catchment groups but then, compared with the Daily Mail for example, it's a godsend. 

I reckon that most Guardian style leftists (the majority of leftists) grumble with but submit to the current system, except when it has a major collapse, at which point they look for a short term solution such as taxing the super rich. There isn't much genuine knowledge of left or right anarchism, and the cliches of 'free market = bad' and 'socialism = good' are trotted out without understanding.  Obviously this is a generalisation, but from swimming in the Guardian currents for quite some time I feel its a fair one.