Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Heather Digby Parton — The GOP’s Scientology strategy: How Charles Murray’s perverse anti-government agenda has won over the American right

The man most famous for the deeply racist "The Bell Curve" has found a solution to Big Government: Sue it to death. 
It’s important to note here that the right’s loathing of the federal government is actually quite narrowly focused on certain areas of interest. They are fully behind the neoconservatives’ imperial project — flag waving and martial strutting are fundamental to American conservatism. (Small government is a very imprecise term; they have no problem with a big military and police apparatus. In fact, those bureaucracies have a blank check.) But within that narrow anti-government focus of low taxes is their extreme hostility to government regulations....
Murray has a new book coming out that is poised to take the conservative and libertarian world by storm. It’s called “By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission,” and in it Murray proclaims, “the government cannot enforce its mountain of laws and regulations without voluntary compliance.” His book proposes to create “a private-sector counterweight that pulls back the curtain and exposes the Wizard’s weakness.” The private sector counterweight, in this case, will be a billionaire-funded institution that will bankroll thousands of lawsuits against the government, which Murray fatuously names “The Madison Institute.”
If conservatives follow the Scientology strategy to the letter, they will file lawsuits against individual federal employees as well, making their lives miserable and putting them into personal financial jeopardy....
Of course, if a Republican becomes president, the whole idea becomes moot. The billionaires would withdraw to their counting rooms to add up their profits while the GOP executive makes their job unnecessary. The fact that they are contemplating this assault through the legal system is an admission that they don’t really believe they’ll have the political power to do this any time soon.

5 comments:

Tom Hickey said...

The point she makes is that these people are not actually anti-government as such. They are for a huge national security apparatus, including both military and domestic security to protect and advance US business interests. They are for low taxes, deregulation, and privatization because TINA.

NeilW said...

At which point you instigate the 'floodgates' policy - similar to the one we have here in the UK.

The principle here is that you don't really get to sue the state for anything except very serious misdemeanours. The proof required to get malfeasance proceedings off the ground is very high.

The courts actively protect the public system because they conclude you have another remedy available if you don't like it - the ballot box.

It's sort of interesting watching the US go through the same learning curve that the UK has already gone through.

Matt Franko said...

Tom you are making my point they are textbook right-libertarians...

She is saying it is "conservatives" it is not "conservatives" it is libertarians...

If she is writing for Salon then she is a left-libertarian and doesnt want to play up the libertarian angle... because she is one herself...

She seeks to pin it on 'conservatives' which is missing the mark... it is libertarians...

Same thing going on in China:

http://www.cato.org/blog/left-right-china

Why would one expect any difference over there?

A said...

"right-wing libertarian" is a nonsense, garbage label.

Libertarianism is and always was a left-wing movement opposed to hierarchy, the ruling class, the existing capitalist system etc.

The right-wing nonsense that goes by the name of 'libertarianism' in the US is not libertarianism at all. These people do not believe in freedom, they believe in power and control by a ruling wealthy elite, who they consider to be inherently, naturally superior. They are opposed to democracy because it gets in the way of the 'natural order' of absolute rule by wealthy elites and subordination of the inferior classes. It's a fascistic belief system which has its roots in aristocratic and feudal concepts, and it has nothing to do with libertarianism.

Tom Hickey said...

Libertarians in the US, e.g, Ron Paul, have been out front in opposing the expansion of foreign entanglements, the expansion of the military, the militarization of domestic security, the surveillance state, and the military-industrial complex. Let's give credit where credit is due.

I will admit that there are many faux "Libertarians" among the politicians but both philosophically and politically American Libertarianism has been against large militaries and government provided security beyond the bare minimum.

The Americans that favor a large military, US hegemony, domestic control, etc, are conservatives, neoconservatives, and neoliberals.

Libertarians are quite different from conservatives and neoconservatives and most of them are classical liberals rather than neoliberals. There is a real spilt in the GOP over this, and the candidates for office have to juggle the differences. There is no just splitting the middle. There is no middle there.