If you doubt the focus of libertarian think tanks is not just to continue to stymie Covid action, but to…
If you doubt the focus of libertarian think tanks is not just to continue to stymie Covid action, but to ensure public health action will be obstructed for future pandemics as well, you only have to read their mission statements. Brownstone, here. The red underlines? /1 https://t.co/YuDHtgQ4g0
Brownstone’s “vision is of a society that places the highest value on the voluntary interaction of individuals and groups while minimizing the use of violence and force including that which is exercised by public or private authorities.” Now read the red underlined sentences. /2 https://t.co/NQn58YleWC
In what way is that second underlined passage consistent with a ‘highest value on…voluntary interaction’? How it is it believable that this set of beliefs would care about institutions being ‘shattered’? And to go one step further. /3 https://t.co/dXuZPB3gtc
These think tanks are institutions. Collective institutions. The freedom libertarians rally behind is nothing but a war cry to do the exact thing they oppose - to mobilise people into large groups of coordinated political action. This has been going on for decades. /4
When the historical home of arbitration of belief, universities, were focused on due diligence, the libertarians set up their own institutions to counter them. That’s what a think tank is. Don’t believe for one second they actually believe any of the freedom guff. /5
It’s a rallying cry only to set up their own counter-institutions. A rival social grouping. All societies are 100% social, nothing else. Libertarians may claim they’re only doing all of this to bring the whole oppressive institutional structure down, from the inside. /6
And yet once there, they clearly relish the power. Trump is running again. There’s no shortage of libertarian ‘liberals’ here and elsewhere gouging each other’s eyes out to get pre-selection for parliament. The whole thing is a con. They’re just one more team. /7
In the team sports of high school societies. The ‘freedom of the individual’ team, with all the same social behaviours of the groups they say they vehemently oppose.
I’m sick of all of the teams, not just the libertarians. Leave governance to institutions. /end