Why You Can’t Trust Libertarians

In fairness to libertarians, they get most things around with regards to their critique of socialism and central planning. That’s not bad for an ideology, but, that’s the problem with libertarianism. It’s an ideology. Libertarians are ideologues and you can never rely on an ideologue. If the choice is between a child holding a puppy and their precious ideology, the boy and his puppy go to the death chamber.

The ideologue trades his self and therefore his sense of humanity for membership in the ideology. They will sacrifice everything for it, including themselves. They will even throw away their political careers for it. Enter Rand Paul who has picked now to throw in with the open borders fanatics.

Sen. Rand Paul on Wednesday waded deeper into an issue that has proved perilous to some of his GOP colleagues, throwing his political weight behind an establishment lobby effort to get Congress to reform the country’s immigration system this year.

Mr. Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican from Kentucky and possible 2016 presidential hopeful, participated in a telephone conference call to conservative and business leaders in favor of immigration reform in an effort brokered by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, The Washington Times has learned.

Politically, there is no sane reason for any pol to touch the land mine that is immigration, unless they are against it. Jumping to the aide of the execrable Grover Norquist and his campaign to flood the nation with peasants is suicidal. Yet, there’s Rand Paul, ideologically consistent right into the grave.

The business group, the Partnership for a New American Economy, immediately blasted an email Wednesday evening to supporters crowing that Mr. Paul had formally joined its pro-reform effort.

The timing of the call only heightened the potential stakes for Mr. Paul just one day after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was shockingly ousted from office in the Virginia Republican primary in favor of a little-known college professor.

Tea party activists who whipped up a get-out-the-vote effort for Mr. Cantor’s opponent said they were motivated by the incumbent’s advocacy for immigration reform, actions on Obamacare and vote to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

Mr. Cantor was the second high-profile Republican to suffer political damage by stepping forward on the immigration issue. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, another potential presidential contender, lost the support of his tea party base when he advocated a plan for immigration that some argued created a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

Mr. Paul, a longtime favorite of the tea party movement, has made it clear that he believes Congress needs the courage to enact immigration reform. But his latest effort pushed him further into the middle of a strident battle between establishment Republicans like Mr. Norquist who see immigration reform as essential to economic growth, and tea party activists who fear the current efforts in Congress will only lead to de facto amnesty for illegal immigrants.

In fairness to Paul, he is in the blob now which means he has lost touch with the English language. Outside the bubble everyone understands that “immigration reform” means amnesty and open borders. We’re not idiots. The same is true of the “path to citizenship” slogan. The phrase “temporary guest worker” means giant loophole for business to hire Hindus to take your job.

Inside the bubble, clones like Paul wrestle with the nuances of these terms as if they have real distinctions. He could also be suffering from Washingtonitis, where the otherwise sensible politicians begins to think the people trust and value his opinion. That’s when they stop representing their constituents to Washington and begin representing Washington to their constituents.

Another reminder that libertarians can never be trusted.

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DensityDuck
DensityDuck
10 years ago

Note that Rand Paul also thinks there shouldn’t be a minimum wage, labor unions, regulations requiring employee safety-and-health provisions, etcetera.

He might want to open the borders to a flood of peasants, but be also wants to make the people here be peasants too.

james wilson
james wilson
10 years ago

Apple, tree.

A libertarian is a person who gets a number of commonly misunderstood issues right and so we are unprepared to see him get a number of others astonishingly wrong. All great schools of thought suffer contradictions, but not dissonance.