Libertarianism = Fascism

I am a huge fan of Michael Lind (Up From Conservatism), and he nails these goddamned libertarians who are poisoning the political dialog as nothing more than fascists. They despise democracy, and therefore as far as I am concerned they are anti-American traitors.

Sorry, but that is what they are. They are pure, unadulterated EVIL:

The history of democratic nation-states since the 19th century proves that Macaulay, and von Mises, and Hayek, as well as lesser lights like Patri Friedman, have been right to argue that democracy is incompatible with libertarianism. Every modern, advanced democracy, including the United States, devotes between a third and half of its GDP to government, in both direct spending on public services like defense and transfer payments. Given the power to vote, most populations will not only vote for some system of government-backed social insurance, but also for all sorts of interventions in individual behavior that libertarians object to, from laws banning nudity in public to laws mandating that people support their children, do not torture or neglect their pets and water their lawns during droughts according to scheduled rationing.

Unfortunately for libertarians who, like Hayek, prefer libertarian dictatorships to welfare-state democracies, even modern authoritarians reject the small-government creed. The most successful authoritarian capitalist regimes, such as today’s China and South Korea and Taiwan before their recent transitions to democracy, have been highly interventionist in economics, promoting economic growth by means of state-controlled banking, state-owned enterprises, government promotion of cartels, suppression of wages and consumption, tariffs and nontariff barriers to imports, toleration of intellectual piracy, massive infrastructure projects to help industry, and subsidies to manufacturers in the form of artificially cheap raw materials, energy and land.

The dread of democracy by libertarians and classical liberals is justified. Libertarianism really is incompatible with democracy. Most libertarians have made it clear which of the two they prefer. The only question that remains to be settled is why anyone should pay attention to libertarians.

Because fascistic assholes like the Koch brothers have bought public opinion when they never should have gotten a foothold here. Crackpots like Milton Friedman were awarded Nobel prizes when they should have been laughed out of every campus in every university in the country.

Now our country is on the ropes because of these fascists. Unfortunately, the neolibs have also polluted the Democratic Party.