We Are All Socialists Now

Prenazi Germans faced a lovely choice between Communists and Nazis. The communists were left socialists and the nazis were national socialists. It is exactly analogous to the current choices for the United States presidency:

democrats = left socialists
neocons = national socialists

In the end, whether the socialists nationalize the economy via environmental laws, "monopoly" busting, mandatory social insurance, and labor regulations or via restrictions on lawsuits (attacks of property rights), anti-terrorism licenses, morality laws, sub-market interest rates, and aggressive theocratic wars makes little difference to the wealth and freedom of Americans. It also makes little difference whether these programs are paid for by taxation, tariffs, or inflation. These socialists' programs result in distortions of the economy and more money flushed down the toilet of government bureaucracy. Furthermore, both parties want to reinstate the draft to maintain the debilitating American empire.

When I was a progressive, I viewed libertarians as selfish and unsympathetic to the plight of the poor and religious fundametalists as primitivistic, scientifically-illiterate, self righteous, authoritarian nut cases. (OK, so I was wrong about libertarians, and I have even met some reasonable fundamentalists.)

I have always feared the Christian Right forming a militant, messianic theocracy. (And, sure enough, it did happen with George W.) Studying the ethics of property and contract, libertarianism opened my eyes to the reality that those socialistic redistributionary schemes were both unethical theft and dangerous ways of empowering a centralized government, which is now the biggest threat to our freedom, security, and prosperity.