I never stopped being libertarian. I just started asking why freeloaders get tax-funded thugs to protect their stolen land, and agreed that workers have freedom of association.
Anakin might be one of the better popular examples of how someone being failed from everyone around them, have their choices restricted and their will supressed, and that can lead their fall into fascist ideals.
He is born into slavery. He is rescued from slavery because he is told he is special. His mother is not special and so she is left behind and ultimately dies due to that. He lives with justified guilt and anger as a result.
The man that rescued him from slavery dies, leaving his reluctant protégé as his only real connection as a pseudo-big brother and mentor. He feels yet more loss and greif for this.
That mentor constantly places major expectations on him, telling him he is special and chosen, but also constantly criticizing his impulsivity and controlling him. He feels constrained.
He has a close association with power, but is always denied it himself even when he has contributed more than others. He feels betrayed and unappreciated.
He belongs to an order of people that tell him that all of these emotions and internal conflicts are wrong and dangerous. He feels dirty and hopeless.
He is told romantic love is off limits. He dalies in rule breaking, mainly in regard to that last rule. He loves a girl and she falls for him as well. The world doesn’t implode. He starts to question the world view that was pushed on him since childhood.
A charismatic leader starts to give him attention, appreciation, and trust. He offers him power. He tells him that his feelings are not wrong, but strength. He tells him that he need not repress himself. He can seek that power, gain love, and ensure that he never loses anyone again. He questions everything for the first time and looks up to the man giving him this flattery and ideas of grandeur.
Then those in his order, specifically the one that most directly denied him the approval he sought and earned, tell him that this charasmatic man is evil, that his ideas that made him feel good about himself are wrong, and they attack this man. He is forced to make a choice between a highly moralistic, often hypocritical, and restrictive ideal, and the first taste of appreciation and power he has ever felt in his life. And on the spot, it is no wonder he chooses the latter.
It is obviously dramatized and he takes a real hard swing real fast with the immediate genocide of his entire order, including children, but… other than that, it is pretty realistic.
If Anakin had felt more accomplished and appreciated, less controlled, and free to love and live a happy peaceful life with his wife and kids, he would have been far less susceptible to the silver tongued fascist and probably wouldn’t have made such a turn.
I am not sure how to fix this in the real world at any real scale, but to make sure everyone feels more appreciated, secure, and free. I’m certainly not justifying fascism or fascists’ fall, btw. I’m just being realistic and seeking solutions to address it. I do think it becomes easier to fall for fascist messaging when the society, economy, and community are not healthy and supportive of all in it. But on a more micro-scale, I think all you can do is make fascism the less appealing choice for the individual. Make those at risk or on the brink feel loved and appreciated, even if you are very concerned by the beliefs they have started to take on and share. Make your boys and men feel loved and tie that feedback to simply being good people. Yes, I am saying to be less judgemental and give people a cookie for doing the bare minimum. It only costs you a metaphorical cookie and it may just buy you one less fascist.
I’ve always felt sexual repression is an important part of fascist playbooks but couldn’t explain why. This writeup is great for that.
Also, in Jedi: Survivor, after Order 66, Cal Kestis abandons the Jedi ideals and takes on a girlfriend. It’s pretty satisfying.
Lategame spoilers
There’s also a lategame struggle against the Dark Side. It becomes your L3+R3 super mode, and Cal openly admits he wants his friends to hold him back from using it too much. Could be a bit of a statement on using violence and anger in extreme scenarios, more than just “100% nonconfrontational pacifism all the time”.
Make those at risk or on the brink feel loved and appreciated, even if you are very concerned by the beliefs they have started to take on and share. Make your boys and men feel loved and tie that feedback to simply being good people. Yes, I am saying to be less judgemental and give people a cookie for doing the bare minimum.
YMMV, but this was one of the things that turned me around.
And the Jedi Order tried to deny him training, which would’ve been best because once he received that training, he was a walking weapon with or without guidance. But the reality is… hypothetically, you’d think that much “midichlorians” would still have awakened with some sense to the Force. And if either Sith or Jedi can sense a “new player” in its web, then he was doomed either way. I guess he fulfilled his plot set by his author so he won something there.
TLDR: Liberalism creates fascists.
“Reading is boring, thoughtful reflection is lame, and finding solutions to serious problems is hard. I much prefer passing around unactionable blame.”
Thanks for your contribution to the conversation.
Face-eating leopard victim:
Kinda looks like Elon Musk in a few more years, though if he stops the ozempic, he’ll probably go in a more Imortem Joe direction.
Not a chance he’d help his son, or any of his kids, defeat Putin in a one on one battle
I thought it was a jokedit.
it’s legit
nitter/elonmusk/status/2116990933103509723Ajunta Pall is shaking from his grave
That’s… wow. Not even trying to hide it anymore, I see.
“Sending his heart out to his fans”, indeed.
I just realized his name can be rearranged to “Smol Enuk” which might or might not be Afrikaans for “little person without balls”
What about “Nu Smekol” which I don’t think means anything in any language but it sounds kinda like smeagol
wooooowwwww
Libertarians are the fat, unwashed, losers that thought browsing image boards and staning Ron Paul made them a rebel and free thinker.
They’re extremely hypocritical, mentally deficient, and most likely suffer from mild to severe Oppositional Defiant Disorder.
They’re just cons who don’t wanna go to church.
I’m a libertarian - or at least was - and can confirm that at least one of those things is true!
I went normie > libertarian > liberal > socialist > anarchist. I’ve been on a journey. In a sense my viewpoint now is a synthesis of my initial instincts and what I learned since. Thesis: libertarian, antithesis: socialist, synthesis: anarchist.
Same. The branching point was libertarian, or discovering that they just meant they wanted to replace government with corporations.
Libertarian police
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.
This feels like a short story based on the world of snowcrash
This aged well
I came close to getting sucked into libertarianism back in college. I had a roommate who was college libertarian, and he had a whole friend group that were pretty libertarian. And he was working for the Kinky Friedman campaign so our apartment was filled with Kinky for Texas governor signs. Who didn’t love Kinky Friedman? Especially with the other options.
But the more and more we talked with each other the more and more I started thinking hey this is kind of fucking crazy. One of them was convinced that we should get rid of the US Military and replace them with Mercenaries. Mercenaries. Cuz that’s always a great concept. That always works well for a country. Slightly unrelated but another one of them said that the Postal Service, the band which I think has had to change it’s name, was better than Michael Jackson’s music. So clearly they were all out of their minds. And I pulled away.
I think most of them grew out of it too thankfully.
Imma be real this “LiBeRtArIaNs” bullshit is new, misguided, and region specific, and even within that region is debatable.
Small “L” (goddamn sans serif fonts) “libertarian” is literally just the diametric opposition if “authoritarian.” That’s it.
“Big L” “Libertarian” for some reason has come to mean The American Libertarian Party™ specifically. “They’ve been taken over by the right” maybe, sure, but they can’t have the entire concept of libertarianism no more than the US Democrat party is the entire embodiment of democracy, they’re named after those concepts but those concepts still exist without the bounds of the US party and the whims of said US parties’ current leaders. Even if the Libertarian Party™ happened to perfectly align with your views on what “liberatarian” (as in the antithesis of authoritarian) means at any point in the future, they still don’t have ownership of the concept simply because they’re named that.
In reality, “libertarian” describes any number of people and ideologies as long as they’re anti-authoritarian, including anarchism, and just like anarchism you can find many examples of people who claim it but do not understand it in the slightest, or seek to pervert it to their will intentionally.
Don’t let authoritarians poison you against a word for a concept in an attempt to sway you to their side.
I understand your point, but it’s a losing battle. Words change as people use them. Language evolves. A lot of modern vocabulary is bastardized from its origin. It’s not authoritarians necessarily poisoning language, even though it can be.
Socialism “was” a poisoned term, that I think has slowly returned to it’s meaning.
Example: Nice
If that’s the case than literally now literally always means “figuratively.”
And sometimes, it does, when used incorrectly or sarcastically, but that doesn’t mean that the literal definition of “literally” is no more.
Literally, yes
That would mean the concept of “literality” no longer exists, but you just used it, (I’m taking your words literally, to mean that you believe “literal” now means “figurative” in perpetuity) so it must still exist. I also just used it, so even if you meant “literally” figuratively, the literal definition still exists, because I just used it.
You see why we can’t just say “oh welp words change” now? They do but also if nothing has meaning just stop speaking languages at this point because they’re, well, meaningless.
Hell I’ll give you another popular example, you ever watched South Park? You remember the biker episode? They argue the same thing you do here, that words change meaning, but about a different word (and with a better case for it, no less). You wanna defend the evolved use of that word publicly here right now?
My god, I was being facetious in that last comment. I was merely highlighting that your frustration was not going to change the course of people’s use of language.
I’m not arguing that definitions are meaningless.
Chill.
I was fortunate enough to have a classmate foist his copy of The Fountainhead on me when I was 17. Only got as far as the “rape is fine, actually” part, but hated it so much I skipped the whole libertarian phase and went straight to socialism. Thank you, Dana, you have terrible taste.
I was on the path to being a far right ethno-fascist CHUD because of how I was treated at large by the local bit of society I grew up in. Thank god I went to college at all, it started me reading and understanding politics and how we got where we are today. I started shifting left pretty hard when Obama was elected, saw the Tea Party for what it was, and seeing the “field” of GOP candidates and hell even Democrat ones.
Kinda similar. Went from liberal, to socdem, to anarchist, to Marxist-Leninist. My growth since becoming an ML has been in getting a deeper understanding of scientific socialism, as well as getting organized and putting theory to practice.
You might find Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars(Red, Green, Blue) series of books interesting. In them he details a completely different economic system where corporations do not exist. It was fascinating and I would have been happy to read an entire book just about the economic and political ideas he expressed in the Mars books.
Interesting, I’ll have to add them to my to be read list! Thanks!
I feel like normie=liberal though
Not where I grew up it wasn’t.
Thought I was in the political memes comm. Shocked to learn this was posted in Progressive Politics…
But the progress depicted is from slavery to fascism
Still very possible.
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+black+slaves+who+became+slavers+themselves.-a0232741227
There’s obviously quite a few more historical examples under Anakin’s type of (presumably) non-racial chattel slavery.
it is a form of progress
Uh, at what age was he personally murdering innocent people? I think this change happened a LOT earlier.
If fascist is my finally form, please God just take me now…
Libertarians are as bad or worse than the stereotypical lazy naive communist. Almost certainly worst for what they enable.
Wait, you mean to tell me the “fuck you, got mine” ideology is worse than the “sharing is caring” ideology? Hot take.
They haven’t even got theirs, they just think they would if there were no laws.
When you press them they always suggest they’ll live in a commune like community but with perfect capitalism.
And what exactly is “perfect capitalism“ anyway?
Well u seeeee, right now its CRONY capitalism. REALcapitalism Is SO much better, and we get rid of government and corporations can’t make monopolies then! Then it will be great.
They actually want a king because they think democracy is stupid. As long as theyre the king, of course.
Housecats, 5 year olds. Libertarians are similar.
The “stereotypical lazy naive communist” isn’t really a thing, outside of stereotypes. Communists tend to be some of the most involved and aware members of the working class.
No disagreement here.
Perhaps “stereotypical strawman communist” is better?
My point is they don’t exist as imagined.
Ah, gotcha. Agreed then!
Average Manosphere pipeline
Lol this is just silly.
Pseudo-socialist non-voters:
