Last night, Bill Maher had an excellent final New Rule ripping apart the fake libertarians that have infested libertarianism.
And finally, New Rule: Libertarians have to stop ruining libertarianism. Or at least do a better job of explaining the difference between today's libertarian, and just being a selfish prick.
Now, many years ago, on a television network far, far away, I expressed support for libertarianism because back then, it meant that I didn't want big government in my bedroom, or my medicine chest, and especially not in the second drawer of the nightstand on the left side of my bed. And I still believe that.
But somewhere along the way, libertarianism morphed into this creepy obsession with free-market capitalism based on an Ayn Rand novel called Atlas Shrugged — a book that's never been read all the way through by anyone with a girlfriend.
Paul Ryan once said Ayn Rand taught him "what my value systems are". I believe him, because her book has a strange appeal to people who are kind of smart, but not really. She wrote things like:
AYN RAND: Money is the barometer of a society's virtue.
And:
AYN RAND: The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.
Ooh, sounds like something a Batman villain says. Yeah, it's all stuff that seems very deep when you're 19 years old — not you (to 19-year-old guest Zack Kopplin) — about how government is a dirty trick played by the weak on the strong. And I can see how, if you're a privileged college kid, you read that and think, "Yeah, that's right, I don't need anything! So shut up, dad, and pay my tuition!"
And then one day you graduate, and pack up your things, and realize that your copy of Atlas Shrugged belongs in the same milk crate as your beer helmet and the t-shirt that looks like a tuxedo. And you move on.
Unless you're Paul Ryan or Rand Paul. Now I know conservatives are saying, "C'mon Bill, you're not really implying that the most influential minds in the Republican Party are intellectually stuck in their teen years." No, of course not, I don't know where I would get that idea.
(picture of Paul Ryan in backwards cap lifting weights)
(audience laughter)
Which is not to say that there aren't libertarian notions that I applaud, like reinstating the Fourth Amendment, and shutting down the American empire. But to everyone who keeps trying to shame me about abandoning my libertarian moorings, my message is this. I didn't go nuts; this movement did.
Like when you see a stop light. Your reaction should be, "Great, an easy way to ensure we don't all crash into each other."
Not, "How dare the government tell me when I can and cannot go! Seat belts? I refuse to live in a nanny state. I'm an individual, and I want to soar free as an eagle... right through the windshield."
"Same with meat inspectors. Who needs 'em? People can sniff their own meat! And if a few die, the word will get around town. Don't order the T-bone at the Ponderosa. And then the Ponderosa closes. Problem solved, thanks to the free market."
Today's libertarians don't believe the government should be regulating banks, or guns, or schools, or civil rights, or even helping out after natural disasters. And they're aggressively hostile to environmental protection. But, I like air. And water. I'm practically addicted.
Libertarians also hate Medicare and Social Security. And there are problems with those programs, but here's the thing. It beats stepping over lepers and watching human skeletons shit in the river, and I also like not seeing those things. I'm selfish that way!