Radical Right

I started this off a few days ago writing about the Old Right which was mostly libertarian. The Old Right came about from around 1920 to 1950 and was mostly an opposition movement fighting against American intervention in Europe, then opposition to the growing statism which culminated in the New Deal. Albert Jay Nock was probably considered the father of the Old Right, although at first Nock was considered on the Left, before the Left embraced the State and war as the progressive routes to equality and social justice, and as a reaction to the Depression which was erroneously blamed on a non-existent free market.

I said in the first post that we need radicals for freedom. The current political fashion is to dull differences and pretend that we're not that far off in our political beliefs, and that compromise and unity can create the world the technocrats intended. The far Left understands the differences between their agenda and the agenda of proponents for limited government and a free market, but the liberals on the Left are pushing for compromise now that statism has shown the serious flaws of which many of us have warned. The far Left honestly wants to destroy capitalism and redistribute the wealth in an American-style statist system.  The liberals cannot let go of their worldview built on the platform of the Democrat Party, but they realize that the libertarian Right has been correct about many economic matters. So, now, revisionists are busy at work blaming the extremes for upsetting the modern liberal vision of technocratic, genteel, polite management from smart, progressive and compassionate leaders. 

Liberals and moderates are still convinced that the technocrats can do it right if the extremes don't pressure their representatives into battles and stand-offs. This is basically what the Old Right fought against to start with when the Left and many who before fought against State power then capitulated after WWI when the vision of Great Accomplishments in social engineering and central planning got their attention. They knew that Hitler and Stalin were extremists and did it all wrong, but they embraced the idea of central control and social engineering done with American style intelligence and compassion.

The fascist ideas were especially pushed behind the scenes by Big Business, because industry captains knew the value of protection from competition. It was the intellectuals, though, who made fascism respectable by giving it another name and claiming grand societal benefits. Almost everyone who realized the benefits of using State power for influence, prestige and protection jumped on board, and, of course, they all had virtuous reasons for doing so.

Many of the liberals going forward were successful upper middle class whites who sincerely saw social engineering and central planning as a way to attain social justice and help those blocked from opportunity. What the liberals didn't realize is it was statism that blocked opportunity, and that statism had been creeping forward since the beginning of America. However, the political class succeeded in framing capitalism as the culprit for inequality and injustice. During the early American years of capital formation, there were many problems in the market, and most of these problems were worsened by government intervention, yet a "free" market received the blame. This path led to the idea of a mixed economy and everyone accepted it as the normal progression of a civilized society -- Europe told them so.

It has only been the Old Right, the libertarians, and limited government conservatives today who've consistently pushed for a limited government and a truly free market. It's been libertarians fighting against overseas interventions, the Fed, monster creations like Fannie and Freddie, regulations which cripple small and medium size businesses while protecting the corporate behemoths like GE and GM.

We don't need luke-warm compromisers and another round of libertarian capitulation, as the liberals want in order to cover up the damage -- no, we need radicals for limited government and a free market. We need to make whatever changes are necessary to destroy statism once and for all, because all that's left is power protection, and efforts to maintain State power are savaging this country's economy and spirit.

Liberals have to return to their roots in classical liberalism and realize they've been mistaken. Many liberals claim we've come too far with statist practices to turn back time, so we have to make small, incremental changes and tweak the system through smart compromises. Even if this is a sincere position, it's impossible, because it's been tried over and over, and all that happens is that the State grows in power, the private sector becomes weaker, and the un-connected lose more freedom.

Whether the libertarian Right loses or not, there should be an opposition, and it should not waver on principles.

More later