For the purpose of this article I'll define the terms Conservative and Libertarian as follows:
Conservative - Somebody with an ingrained sense of skepticism towards government. A Constitutionalist, who understands the concepts of liberty and the principles that USA was founded upon. They believe government should be limited, but that it's also a necessary evil. I'm not referring to the more modern Neo-Cons or war-mongering, big military, christian fundamentalist, hillbilly idiots.
Libertarian - An Anarchist or Free Market Capitalist. Somebody who understands that government is inherently evil and that Democracy ultimately boils down to two wolves and sheep deciding whats for lunch! Libertarians believe the use of force is ALWAYS wrong. They realize that even the constitution, while good for a short time, still made exceptions for using force and that the ring of power (government) will always be captured by the malevolent.
They both know that too much government is bad!
This may be debatable, I understand, as it depends on your definitions. Libertarians have long understood that the system of Democracy is such that it will always result in massive Socialism. Conservatives know that big government is bad, however they may not completely understand the futility of their beloved constitution. The reason being is that the party which can promise the most free stuff to the most special interest groups, will become the most popular. The party or candidate that seeks to reign in this debauchery will be demonized as uncompassionate, out of touch, racist, etc. The more pro-socialist party can also use immigration to their advantage and rig the game in their favor by changing a countries demographic makeup. Immigrants statistically will vote for the left (i.e. big government, welfare). Immigrants vote for more immigration, so the party which even hints at slowing down immigration, is slowly killing itself. This isn't hard to understand, it's just numbers. Once a certain threshold of welfare, social programs and government loving hipsters has been reached, then it’s almost a certainty that anyone in opposition (i.e anyone not extremely liberal), will never again see their values recognized politically. This where the idea of two wolves and a sheep becomes very apparent. When the Wolves outnumber the Sheep, they may still act civilized, but the through the ritual known as voting, they will vote to eat the Sheep every time!
The argument I hear from small government Conservatives or the Alt-Right is that not ALL people believe in the values of liberty and so therefore we can’t have complete liberty or zero government. To have complete liberty you must have a population, that in general, believes in those values. If you don’t have enough people who value liberty, then the ones who do not will simply form a collective and impose their will on the Libertarians by force.
The Libertarians would maintain that it’s unfair and unprincipled to be non-discriminatory against their collective aggressors and that to treat them ALL as malevolent is wrong. Therefore, because the aggressors have no qualms about herding all Libertarians into enslavement to their collective values, the Libertarians are doomed.
What does this mean?
On the surface it seems like there needs to be a way to effectively impose the values of liberty on others. How do you MAKE people want liberty? Isn’t that the same thing as asking how do you make people moral? Well we could simply not let them into the country I suppose. Maybe have rigorous values testing on all potential immigrants and mandatory freedom tests on the general population every 5 years. What happens when a citizen fails, do we throw them in jail or expel them? To force liberty is to simultaneously deny it, is it not? I hope I don’t need to point out how silly it seems to force your ideas on anyone, especially the ideas of consent and the non-initiation of violence! Yet, we absolutely want people to favor liberty and I wish I could say that in general, most people do, but I seriously have my doubts about that nowadays.
Have we simply lost our way?
I would argue that while I believe most people are kind hearted and compassionate, it seems they’re also morally or principally bankrupt or at least extremely confused. The reason most people don’t give a damn about liberty, is because they don’t actually have a clue what it is. Why don’t they know what it is? Because they’ve never experienced it. They grew up living under a government that coddled them and they actually believe that taxation and government are virtuous, or at minimum, absolutely necessary. To most people the government is a magic cornucopia of free shit!
We've outsourced virtue to the state...
So the same small government that was supposedly necessary in the beginning is now the government that guarantees nobody needs, wants, likes or even knows liberty actually is. By claiming something which is inherently evil (i.e. government and coercive taxation) as something that is necessary, we’ve sown the seeds for our own total enslavement via “equality and fairness” by completely replacing morality with immorality. In other words, constitutions and governments cannot be substitutes for legitimate morality and the understanding of liberty, consent and private property. You can have a constituational republic, sure, but when those being governed by it forget why it was necessary in the first place, you’ll simply end up with a population who doesn’t recognize their own enslavement and continually wrestles to steer that power in their favor, which is what we’ve had for generations.
How do we ensure that everyone abides by these values and behaves morally? Do you invoke government (coercive taxation) on people for just a very minimal set of “necessary” items? Courts and military for example. If that’s the solution and you set up your constituational republic, then how do you ensure that it’s protected in perpetuity without resulting in the outcome I just described? By essentially guaranteeing liberty through a minimal government, aren’t you simultaneously robbing the people of their ability to think critically? Attempting to guarantee liberty through any system is creating a dependancy in the sense that it’s promoting intellecutual laziness and the denying of consquences in the same way that guaranteeing somebody an income will promote laziness and entitlement.
... and created a system where everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else, while under the illusion that it's virtuous!
So what happens when you take away someones free stuff? It seems like an evil trick to play in my opinion. You’ve essentially created useless, dependent idiots who can’t fend for themselves economically and now you’re going to cut them off? It’s like being thrown to the wolves!
Ending government is exactly the same. If we end government tomorrow, we’d essentially be killing people. Many people are so dependent, that they are not only useless economically speaking, but they are also absolutely morally reliant on government as well! To them, morality is not something that comes from within or perhaps from nature. Instead they believe that it comes from their God, the government and in it’s absence they would be behave like the most spoiled, ungrateful children. Many already do behave that way because they’re so conflicted living in this semi-free market, Western world.
Recognizing and breaking the cycle
I’ve come to the conclusion that although we can’t end the government tomorrow, just as we can’t cut off an addict overnight, we must still recognize that we’re still enabling the addiction to evil. We absolutely must get rid of government eventually! I believe Conservatives are wrong in principle and that to advocate for small government in perpetuity (while not also striving towards ending it permanently) is to be an enabler of immorality and dependency. In fact, Libertarians have reality on their side in the sense that what was once the smallest government has resulted in what is now the biggest, most powerful government EVER. I believe that Libertarians are also wrong though if they believe they can simply adhere to their principles and allow things like unrestricted immigration happen within the existing paradigm.
While the gun remains in the room, unfortunately we must continue to use it in our favor, else it will inevitably be used against us. We're caught in a sick game, but at least we recognize the nature of it. We need others to recognize it as well before we can end it.
In the end there needs to be a massive moral awakening. The values on which the USA was founded must be widely disseminated and constantly reminded. Once that happens on a global level and everyone ceases to recognize government authority, then nobody will want a government. When nobody wants a government, then governments will simply disappear. How do we achieve a mass moral awakening, while still being stuck in the existing paradigm? My hope is that through the Internet more people will learn philosophy, while at the same time decentralized technologies like Bitcoin will peacefully strip government of it’s reasons to exist. With more more free markets and less government interference, people will behave more ethically out of necessity! You can't hold a child in your arms, coddle it excessively, then put it down and expect it to walk perfectly. It will be very rough as people learn to become truly moral individuals.
