{"id":578,"date":"2010-11-02T18:10:14","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T22:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=578"},"modified":"2010-12-19T17:05:52","modified_gmt":"2010-12-19T21:05:52","slug":"extremism-in-the-defense-of-liberty-is-no-vice-moderation-in-the-pursuit-of-justice-is-no-virtue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=578","title":{"rendered":"“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I thought I shared Mike Cernovich’s disdain<\/a> for Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity, but after reading the takedown of the Rally by one Mark Ames<\/a> that Mike approvingly linked to in his latest post<\/a> I realize the grounds for our disdain are quite different.<\/p>\n

I guess I’d bought into the common wisdom<\/a> that Stewart is in fact a devoutly moderate Democrat and that his Rally was indeed timed a few days before The Election in hopes of influencing said Election and thereby making the world a “saner” (i.e., more moderately Democratic) place. In short, my gripe with the Rally was that I assumed Stewart was serious, <\/em>albeit in a way he supposed befitted his historic role as Court Jester. In the past I’d admired Stewart precisely because of his role as Court Jester (which, unadulterated, indeed serves an important public purpose), and so long as he stayed true to that role was willing to overlook the fact that he probably had genuinely-held political opinions with which I disagreed. My objection to the Rally was the injection of seriousness into Stewart’s funny business.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ames likewise appears to object to the meshing of the comical with the serious, but unlike me his gripe is with the comical end of that abomination. To him, politics — and specifically, the use of the State to achieve “Liberal” ends — is really serious and important business. Unlike the kings of old, what Ames would have the State do to the People is according to Ames so exalted it’s above mockery.<\/p>\n

The problem is that Ames’ politics are very, very stupid. Just look at this crap:<\/p>\n

What does the Left stand for? Let me suggest a few things in people\u2019s own personal interests in these decaying times that the Left should stand for: first, people need money. Then if they have money, they need Life. Then they might be interested in \u201cideals\u201d set out in the contract that this country is founded on. Ever read the preamble to the Constitution? There\u2019s nothing about private property there and self-interest. Nothing at all about that. It\u2019s a contract whose purpose is clearly spelled out, and it\u2019s a purpose that\u2019s the very opposite of the purpose driving Stewart\u2019s rally, or the purpose driving the libertarian ideology so dominant over the past few generations. This country, by contract, was founded in order to strive for a \u201cmore Perfect Union\u201d\u2014that\u2019s \u201cunion,\u201d as in the pairing of the words \u201cperfect\u201d and \u201cunion\u201d\u2014not sovereign, not states, not local, not selfish, but \u201cunion.\u201d And that other purpose at the end of the Constitution\u2019s contractual obligations: promote the \u201cGeneral Welfare.\u201d That means \u201cwelfare.\u201d Not \u201ceveryone for himself\u201d but \u201cGeneral Welfare.\u201d That\u2019s what it is to be American: to strive to form the most perfect union with each other, and to promote everyone\u2019s general betterment. That\u2019s it. The definition of an American patriot is anyone promoting the General Welfare of every single American, and anyone helping to form the most perfect Union\u2014that\u2019s \u201cunion\u201d, repeat, \u201cUnion\u201d you dumb fucks. Now, our problem is that there are a lot of people in this country who have dedicated their entire lives to subverting the stated purpose of this country. We must be prepared to identify those who disrupt and sabotage our national purpose of creating this \u201cmore perfect union\u201d identifying those who sabotage our national goal of \u201cpromoting the General Welfare\u201d\u2014and calling them by their name: traitors. You who strive to form this Perfect Union and promote General Welfare\u2014You are Patriots.<\/p>\n

3. Anytime anyone says anything libertarian, spit on them. Libertarians are by definition enemies of the state: they are against promoting American citizens\u2019 general welfare and against policies that create a perfect union. Like Communists before them, they are actively subverting the Constitution and the American Dream, and replacing it with a Kleptocratic Nightmare.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First, I never signed Ames’ so-called “contract,” and neither did anyone else alive today<\/a>. Second, Ames is clearly the Communist he purports to despise. Third, consistent and coherent libertarians, like Karl Hess<\/a>, who penned the words in the title of this post, are <\/em>the Left<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thought I shared Mike Cernovich’s disdain for Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity, but after reading the takedown of the Rally by one Mark Ames that Mike approvingly linked to in his latest post I realize the grounds for our disdain are quite different. I guess I’d bought into the common wisdom that Stewart […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=578"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":617,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions\/617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}