by John Walker April 15th, 2011 Collaborators Respectfulness vs. Civility Fourmilab home page

These so-called “progressives” or “liberals” are not advocates of progress or liberty: they are enemies of them, and the sooner champions of liberty acknowledge what they are, the better our slim chances for defeating them will be. Libertarians and conservatives are inclined toward civil discourse and respect for the rule of law. They must come to terms with the fact that their enemies—not opponents—are implacable, bent on winning whatever the cost may be, willing to use any means whatsoever to prevail and, once triumphant, to deprive their opposition of the means to reverse or even impede the implementation of their agenda.

They are enemies. ...

Reclaim the language from the enemy. We should have a “swear jar” for every time we utter the words “liberal” or “progressive” except in scornful irony. May I suggest “statist”, “collectivist”, “socialist”, or “communist” as alternatives?

We believe in a multitude of voices speaking in a free arena, with the best argument winning. The enemy believes in an echo chamber where only their message is heard. This conveys upon them an asymmetric advantage, where we're inclined to let them speak in favour of shutting us up. Fine: we should not sacrifice our principles, but at the same time we must come to terms with the fact that they are the enemy, and must be defeated and dispersed in disarray, not accommodated, lest we forfeit everything in which we believe.

In identifying the enemy, it is crucial to distinguish the enemy: the collectivist/statist ruling class and its partisans in the media, academia, and rent-seeking crony capitalist industries and financial institutions, from the electorate who support enemy politicians. We should view those voters not as enemies, but allies we haven't yet recruited. Most voters pay little attention to politics and have little appreciation for the consequences, social and economic, of policy choices. This is not so much due to laziness, but rather rational ignorance: since a single vote has a negligible chance of influencing the outcome of an election, a rational voter will spend a negligible amount of time investigating the candidates and researching the consequences of the policies they advocate.

Our goal must be to defeat the enemy. In a democratic society, this means apprising those who vote the enemy into power of their true nature, breaking the hold of the enemy media on the populace, and reversing enemy infiltration of education. The enemy strategy depends upon an uninformed, unengaged, and passive electorate. We must turn this around by communicating, by all means possible, the true nature of the enemy and the cataclysmic near-term consequences of their triumph.