The far-left often calls Libertarians a ‘gateway drug to the alt-right’, and from their perspective, it actually makes some sense.
The left sees society as a bunch of different identity groups in a kind of power-caste system, with white men at the top and other groups at various levels below them, all vying for power and trying to oppress each other. Freedom and liberty, in this view, are the causes of oppression, and thus to have any modicum of fairness, freedom must be eliminated. By oppressing everyone, the left hopes to press the groups on the bottom up, and the groups at the top down, such that everyone is on the same level, in a fair and orderly society. The left views themselves as an ‘intellectual and moral elite’ that can pull itself out of the identity group structure, and control everything to hold it all together.
The alt-right views the world the same way the left does – as a hierarchy of identity groups that try to oppress one another. Unlike the left, however, they don’t want white men to be oppressed. Rather, they look for other solutions. Some want to keep white people on top, others want to separate races entirely, and others probably look for other solutions. All are reacting to a belief in the same identity groups the left believes in.
Libertarians fit into this, according to the left, because our country was founded by white men, who created a system of government, and a societal structure, designed from the ground up to help white men oppress other groups. What do libertarians want? We want to go back to the very system those white men created – taking the concept of ‘freedom and liberty for all’ and actually applying it to everyone. If you view freedom and liberty as the means white men use to oppress other groups, libertarians become kind of an alt-right-light, different from the true alt-right really only in that we are too naïve to see how racist we are. And from their perspective, that makes perfect sense. It is the assumptions their perspective is based on that is wrong – their logic is sound.
The left is wrong because they believe that inequality is a sign of oppression, and by extension they believe that freedom and liberty, which cause inequality, are oppressive. As a libertarian, one would view this assumption as absurd, but it is important to note that the left really does, by and large, believe this. Identity politics is based purely on this belief, and the only people on the left who do not believe it are the handful of leftists who reject identity politics. And who are the leftists that reject identity politics? Most of them are libertarians who put social issues ahead of economic issues, and vote democrat only because gay marriage is more important to them than are free markets.
The worst of the people in the alt-right are the neo-Nazis, who view white people as being some kind of an intellectual and moral elite, who should be pulled out of the identity group structure, to control everything, and create what they consider a fair and orderly society. Nobody else would consider that a ‘fair and orderly society’, but Neo-Nazis would.
Neo-Nazis are not the only group that wants an intellectual elite pulled out of the identity group structure to act as an oppressive force that controls everything to create what they consider a fair and orderly society. There are many other groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood, that want to do the same thing, under the belief that they are an intellectual and moral elite. All of these different groups differ only in what they think a ‘fair and orderly society’ should look like, and in who they think the ‘intellectual and moral elite’ are.
The only difference between Neo-Nazis, and the vast majority of people on the left, are 1) what they think a ‘fair and orderly society’ looks like, and 2) who they think should be in charge of it.
As libertarians, we don’t believe in an intellectual or moral elite. We believe that people are individuals, who should all be treated equally under the law, without regard to identity groups. We are in fact the exact opposite of all groups that believe in identity politics, including the alt-right. Libertarians do not want anyone to have power over others, and in fact, we view the very concept of some group having power as the most basic form of evil in the world.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN INTELLECTUAL OR MORAL ELITE. We are, rather, all individuals, who deserve to be allowed to live our lives however we wish, as long as we do not prevent others from doing the same. The evil people are the ones who want to control others, and in that regard, everyone who believes in identity politics looks the same.
