What % of the so-called alt-right were just plain ol' libertarians before?

Steve Kinney admin at pilobilus.net
Mon Nov 21 09:03:25 PST 2016


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On 11/21/2016 10:02 AM, Razer wrote:
> 
> 
> On 11/20/2016 09:49 PM, jim bell wrote:
>> Oh!  I see you are justifying robbing people based on the mere 
>> assertion that they can 'afford' it.
> 
> 
> No. I justify it on the fact that they're the criminals and taxes 
> appropriately applied are really a form of restitution. If they
> don't like it they can hire an army. They can afford it. After all
> that's how they robbed the rest of us in the first place.

Taxes are payment for services rendered.  In the United States, 500
billionaires presently own about 1/2 of the capital assets; to retain
control of those assets they need a legal system that defines their
rights of ownership and enforces them, civil Courts to arbitrate their
internal disputes and legitimize abuses of power against outsiders,
civil infrastructure built and maintained at public expense to support
the productivity of their capital assets, and a propaganda regimen to
persuade the rest of us that this is all for the best.  The sovereign
State is /their/ collectivist system, taxing the poor to subsidize the
rich with all of the above services.  Taxes even support cash payments
and no-interest loans to the very rich, where and as bailing out one
corporation benefits enough of the others to create a consensus to do
that - at public expense.

> Thing is taxes aren't appropriately applied. That 50% tax on the
> wealthy you speak of doesn't really exist after deductions and
> writedowns nd donations of high-heeled shoes to the Haiti relief
> fund. Right? Some wealthy people pay less taxes than that guy
> living in a box in a field. Actually most wealthy people pay almost
> nothing percentage-wise after all the bennies their plutocrat
> friends write into tax codes compared to their UNEARNED (as in they
> didn't actually work or produce anything useful to society)
> income.

I was wondering when someone would mention this.  Rich people pay a
very small fraction of the taxes they whine about and want to see
abolished; instead they pay accountants and attorneys to advise them
on how to avoid taxation.  Some few billionaires do pay enough taxes
that the numbers look impressive to illiterate peasants, for
propaganda purposes.  I recall there was a bit of a flap in the press
at the turn of the century when some ungrateful assholes publicized
the fact that Microsoft Inc. paid no corporate income tax; I believe
this was "fixed" by arranging for token payments thereafter.

> And then there's sales tax, which rips workers off way out of
> proportion to the wealthy.
> 
> It's not the tax. It's how it's collected, and certainly how it's 
> disbursed (almost all of it to the war machine owned or invested in
> by the wealthy.)

Currency inflation is also a tax on the poor for the benefit of the
rich.  The lower classes store much of their wealth in the form of
dollars that diminish in value, while the ruling class stores its
wealth in instruments denoting ownership of physical assets whose
value is not affected by currency inflation.  Inflation also depresses
wages, as the same "dollar amount" progressively buys less and less.
The U.S. minimum wage from 1968, adjusted for inflation, would be
$24.00/hr today.

Political activists are presently running a "Fight For Fifteen"
campaign in the U.S., asking for a de facto 40% pay cut relative to
1968's more or less "living" minimum wage.  How fucked up is that?

> I suppose you actually believe that bullshit about hard work and 
> determination leading to affluence too.

Affluence requires collectivism, in the form of social and economic
class loyalty; join the united front in support of employment and wage
discrimination or you are out in the cold.  Getting a "really good
job" is a pay to play proposition.

It is possible for independent entrepreneurs to "work around" class
barriers; wildcat free enterprise works, for the tiny minority whose
bright ideas and hard work do pay off.  But when capitalist
enterprises notice something chewing on the edge of their markets they
crush it, as a matter of routine business practice.  Counter examples
can be found, but you will need a magnifying glass and tweezers.
Libertarian and other alt-Right propaganda teaches us that Capitalism
and Free Enterprise are the same thing, but in the real world they are
natural enemies and when they collide, Capitalism always wins.

Work will make you free?  Sure it will.  The spreading red stain on
the U.S. political map happens to exactly match maps showing the
geographic distribution of poverty, which brings with it both
ignorance and anger - a fertile field for Fascist indoctrination.  The
less intelligent in that audience self-select KKK flavored messaging,
the more intelligent gravitate toward Libertarian bullshit.  Both
flavors of alt-Right propaganda assert that their audiences are
inherently superior to other people, that that if certain scapegoats
were neutralized that audience would "regain all they have lost, and
more."  Just by coincidence, the ruling class - our billionaires - are
never named as scapegoats, but instead are portrayed as fellow victims
of an imaginary conspiracy of the weak and inferior.

Changing out "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" for Ein Volk, Ein
Reich, Ayn Rand does not convert Fascism to Freedom, unless the
freedom in question is that of the very rich to do whatever they want,
restrained only by other factions within their same class, at everyone
else's expense.  In that case, a little rebranding to make Fascism
more palatable to a U.S. market might be all it takes to get 360+
million peasants "off the backs" of those 500 billionaires who own 1/2
the capital assets in the U.S.

By definition, organization and united action is political power.  If
you want the U.S. ruling class and its government off YOUR back, the
fact that your fellow peasants outnumber your aristocratic overlords
by more than a half million to one is the key to success:  Your rulers
have effectively unlimited financial assets and control of the State
on their side, you have - or  might be able to get - the power of
massive numbers of boots on the ground on your side.  Collectivism is
the key to power:  The very rich do it, cooperating to assure that
nothing threatens their established collective power.  Our rulers'
propaganda contractors have been busy for generations teaching the
rest of us that Collectivism is the Ultimate Evil; they are paid to
pump out this message because collectivism is the only thing that can
challenge the power of a well entrenched ruling class.

The cure for Libertarianism is Populism.  If you don't know what that
is, there are a few clues here, but be forewarned:  It requires
getting up off your ass and actually doing things, not just bitching
about how stupid those other people are.

http://pilobilus.net/Strategic_Nonviolent_Conflict.zip

:o)


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