Politicians count on sanguine followers believing that their champion will affect a particular change.
Typically, this is predicated on a divide between the left and the right, where the left advocates on behalf of social programs and the right advocates on behalf of commerce and fiscal restraint. It’s akin to a wife, in the winter, advocating for turning the heat up regardless of the expenditure, and the husband, concerned about the bill, advocating for a blanket and woolly slippers – a cheap alternative mindful of the upcoming heating bill.
This divide no longer exists. It’s a legend from a bygone era.
The last Republican president to sign off on a balanced budget was Dwight Eisenhower. All of the preachments concerning fiscal restraint have been reduced to worthless rhetoric.
For all the anti-war campaigning of the left, Democrats have imposed sanctions in Iraq that have killed more civilians than the war in Iraq in 2003, and Barack Obama had a neoconservative policy so aggressive, some accuse him of complicity in genocide against the Zaydi Muslims in Yemen.
Things are hardly improved elsewhere in terms of a stark contrast between the left and the right.
In Canada, the recent Conservative government under Stephen Harper increased the size of government, and the current Liberal government has approved export permits to sell weapons to war criminals.
In the U.K., Conservative Theresa May promised to increase spending on their National Health Service and education while she all but ignored austerity; the previous government, the traditionally center-left Labour Party, carried out the same neoconservative foreign policy one expects from the right.
A left vs right divide is something that was applicable to this 31-year-old’s grandparent’s generation, it was stories and talking points they handed down to my parents’ generation, but now it’s nothing more than a myth. In the 21st century, one side represents militarism and overspending while the other represents militarism and overspending.
The left/right divide has fallen. Democrats let it fall by protesting mansplaining instead of the destruction of women’s rights in Libya at the hands of Obama and Hillary Clinton. Republicans let it fall by praising politicians who overspend – assuring them election victory after election victory.
The right lost the right to its namesake when, falsely so-called, right-wing politicians won resounding majorities protesting green-energy subsidies while ignoring the several magnitudes-higher corporate welfare for fossil fuels. The left was lost when they preached environmentalism only to give waterdrops to green energy tech and oceans to fossil fuels.
Libertarianism isn’t a reaction to the left/right divide but rather it’s merely the recognition that it no longer exists. It’s a rejection of militarism at a time when militarism threatens our national security and it’s a rejection of overspending at a time when our debt load threatens to cripple the national budget. Neither side promotes peace and neither side shows a modicum of fiscal restraint.
Libertarian isn’t a middle ground between left and right, nor is it transcending left and right. It’s the search for meaning in the light of an ideological vacuum that has stagnated political discourse despite ever-changing political realities. If we don’t have a state that looks out for our own interests then we need to begin doing that ourselves. The political vacuum bent on furthering the whims of political donors has failed to provide for our future or fundamental human rights, so we must do this ourselves; and thus the noblest preachment is libertarianism.
Brandon Kirby
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[…] Freedom Philosophy: The Death of The Left/Right DivideBeing LibertarianLibertarianism isn't a reaction to the left/right divide but rather it's merely the recognition that it no longer exists. It's a rejection of militarism at a time when militarism threatens our national security and it's a rejection of overspending at a … […]
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