Libertarianism as a religious faith

Augusto Pinochet and the Conservative Threat to America by Jacob G. Hornberger

The link above is to an article on LewRockwell.com, a leading libertarian website. In it, Hornberger makes the case that conservatives are a much greater danger to American liberties than those on the left. He rehearses the period of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile as an analogy to contemporary American conservatives' attitudes toward civil liberties. This quote summarizes his point nicely: "Pinochet’s 'war on terrorism' entailed all the features of the Bush administration’s 'war on terrorism' – torture, murder, sex abuse, denial of civil liberties, indefinite detentions, 'renditions,' and disappearances of suspected terrorists."

Curiously, I have never known big government, and the abusive power that entails, to be a feature of American conservative political philosophy. Hornberger is not alone in this, I pick up similar thoughts from other libertarians famous and otherwise. I would sum up the defects of his argument in two points: (1) George W. Bush, whatever his virtues, is not a conservative; and (2) communism was, and remains, a real and potent enemy of freedom in the world.

Compassionate conservatism is nothing more than a warmed over version of Rockefeller "me, too" liberalism. Bush, Rove and Hughes pulled off their own version of "triangulation" to get the nomination for Bush and to elect and re-elect him. In this they were mightily assisted by the Democrats who managed to field a Southerner who couldn't carry the state he had represented in Congress and a Northeastern fringe liberal who couldn't carry anything in the South. To say that Bush's policies are conservative just because he manipulates that label for his own purposes is absurd.

Communism is treated by some of these libertarians as cavalierly as it is by the liberals. Somehow they seem to forget that countries that succumb to communism, whether it comes in via the ballot box or by armed struggle, experience a denial of human rights that dwarfs anything done by Bush or Pinochet. I have written elsewhere of my admiration for Pinochet, not because he is or was a conservative but because he was a very effective anti-communist. In Chile in the 70s, as in Spain in the 30s, the choice was not between conservative and liberal politicians devoted to democratic processes and human rights, but between internationalist communism and liberal authoritarianism. Neither sort of regime is one that I would find particularly attractive, but if those two represent the only choices, then I'll take the latter every time.

So what has all this to do with libertarianism as a religious faith? It seems to me that there is a tendency in libertarianism which chooses to pretend the world the rest of us know does not exist. This is a religious attitude, not serious politics. The world is a dangerous place and it cannot be made less so by saying you just want to be left alone.

I have frequently criticized the unconstitutional excesses of the US government under various administrations including this one. In particular I am offended by the claim that the executive can suspend habeas corpus. This was wrong when it was done by Lincoln and it is just as wrong when done by Bush. But, there are real terrorists who can best be combatted elsewhere by different rules than we use at home.

As for communism, I have never seen a libertarian argument that self-defense was not permitted against an oppressive government. Most libertarians seem to accept the justice of the cause of the colonies in the American Revolution. So, the question becomes how many people does the government have to murder before I can act? Ask the victims of Pol Pot in Cambodia if it would not have been prudent - ultimately less costly in blood and treasure - to keep the communists out of power in the first place?

Is communism still an issue? Look at my entry for December 19, 2004, on the new Havana-Caracas Axis.