Sunday, October 26, 2008

Mike Huben's Totalitarian, Horrifying Vision

If I had a nickel for every time a statist, right-winger, or milquetoast liberal linked me to Mike Huben's torturously boring Critiques of Libertarianism, I would be even more wealthy than the plutocrats Huben shills for.

Libertarians, according to Huben, are wrong. On literally everything. In his warped mind, there isn't a single issue on which libertarians are right, or even partially right. A quick perusal through his site makes that pretty clear. Huben is a hysterical and uncritical cheerleader for every police-state measure in the book: the war on drugs, gun control, corporate welfare, legislation of morality, socialized medicine, the abolition of free trade, and so on.

Eventually, one has to stop looking at his site and ask, "Ok, so you believe libertarians are 100% completely wrong on absolutely everything. What would your ideal society look like, then?"

Criticizing stuff is easy; solutions tend to be the tricky part (especially for third-rate thinkers like Huben). Unsurprisingly, he does not put forth many positive views of his own for other people to criticize. That doesn't mean we can't look at his views and ask: what would a Mike Huben society look like?

A Mike Huben society would be a brutal dictatorship, pure and simple. It would be run strictly from the top down (by Huben himself, of course). Civil liberties would not exist. Free speech would not exist. Liberty would not exist. You would wake up in the morning, get in a bread line, and try not to make eye contact with the trigger-happy guards spying from the watch towers. Every tiny moment of your life would be watched, regulated, and micromanaged at gun point. You would be asked for "your papers" at the appropriate check points. "Back talk" would get you a one-way ticket to the nearest Huben-approved gulag or concentration camp. Hitler and Stalin? Pikers. Amateurs. Too libertarian for Huben.

Does that really sound like an appealing society to live in? It sure doesn't to me. But then again, I'm not a big fan of totalitarianism.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, another libertarian whose strange psychic powers enable him to perceive that I am his exact opposite! No, no, it must be extasensory perception: nobody could possibly be stupid enough to actually think that because opponents disagree, they must be opposite in every way with such sweeping certainty.

Once that special insight has been achieved with his market super powers, it's easy to apply the libertarian super reasoning powers. Since libertarianism is on the side of all good, I'm obviously on the side of all evil: so just list off the evils! No thinking or evidence required!

If cork actually wanted some facts about my thinking, he could have read the About This Site page at my web site, where I discuss my position briefly. But I'm sure he won't let facts interfere with a good rant.

Mike Huben

Cork said...

Ah. You mean you don't appreciate the careless, simplistic, hyperbolic manner in which I've "explained" your views and created motives to go along with them?

Ben Arzate said...

He's really got a chip on his shoulder doesn't he?

Adrian said...

Mike Huben is just another FDR liberal clone like his draft slave father in WW2, and who never rebelled against the military-industrial complex as a hippie in the '60s; instead he joined the Air Force, but probably never saw combat in Vietnam.

He is also a substitute high school teacher who favors mandatory education and the draft, which he admitted it in e-mails a few years back. But since he is only a substitute teacher, he must be of such low teaching ability that he could never attract students voluntarily at a college or private school; thus he wants mandatory education to guarantee himself a job, at teenagers' and taxpayers' expense. He doesn't understand that the draft is sexist, and that mandatory education is ageist. So much for "compassionate" liberals...

Twenty years ago, my high school was full of teachers like him. But beware, Generation X and Millennials are tired of being oppressed by WW2 and Baby Boom people, and we will eventually have the political power to cut off your entitlements too.

From a libertarian college graduate who doesn't want to censor, draft, tax, educate, or disarm anyone else against their will, because they are individuals with rights equal to my own.