Thursday, March 19, 2009

Hayek and the lessons regarding statist-socialist intolerance.

As government grows larger, so does it capacity for crushing dissent and freedom.

by StFerdIII



One of the most important lessons from Hayek's writing and from his colossus work 'The Road to Serfdom' is the following observation which is so obviously apparent in age of the Prophet Obamed, the European Communal Union and the re-rise of autocratic petroleum based fascism:

'Perhaps the most alarming fact is that contempt for intellectual liberty is not a thing which arises only once the totalitarian system is established but one which can be found everywhere among intellectuals who have embraced a collectivist faith and who are acclaimed as intellectual leaders....'

In other words communal philosophies crush individual thought and freedom.

Hayek notes an obvious and important point. Public persona's embracing a collectivist fascsim or a socialist mantra is nothing new. We can witness the public madness in acclaiming distorted philosophies forwarded by so-called intellectuals in for example the populist support during the 19th century of such anti-reality liars and egotists as Saint Simon, Rousseau, or Marx. As with Romanticism or Marxism there never was much utility or rationality behind these communal ideas. We can extend such a truism to the the current fads of irrationality including Globaloney warming; the Prophet Obamed-cult.

The intellectual support for fascism ând socialism is well documented. Paul Johnson and others have written books outlining the various charlatans and narrow minded sophisticates who supported the rise of Russian Fascism a.k.a. Communism; or who waxed eloquent over the so-called achievements of Hitlerism, Mussonlism, or even Castroism. Today the communal apologists extend their distorted irrationality to excuse away 1400 years of Koranic jihad; Muslim and Arab state failures; or Arab anti-semiticism which kills hundreds of Jews each year.

Other variants of communal madness include Globaloney warming and climate change fanatics who do not possess a shred of scientific evidence to support anthropomorphic climate impact. Along with internationalists and the one world crowd, these communal followers and believers possess an ardent belief in government – the larger, the more intolerant and the more international the better. Dreams of some form of socialised communal utopia always arise in the most naive and distorted of humans. Any society which has tried it – from pagan North American Indians to any of the many modern forms of collective slavery in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America – ends up in the creation of a totalitarian state replete with mountains of dead innocents and the destruction of the moral-juridical human.

Intellectual intolerance is a cultural expression of state intolerance. Once the state propagandizes its own intolerant ideals, the intellectual naturally follows. Most so-called intellectuals are employed or deployed by government groups. As such they have a vested interest in expanding the role of government and especially supporting a system of belief in which they and their friends accrue more power and fame. This self-interested motivation ensures that over time, the policy actions and the rhetoric of the intellectual-governmental bloc increases in frequency and hysteria. The more fear, the more power they can exert over the population.

Hayek stated it well, 'The tragedy of collectivist thought is that, while it starts out to make reason supreme, it ends by destroying reason because it misconceives the process on which the growth of reason depends....'

The state does not abide reasoned discourse. The entities within state power have little self-interest to promote philosophies which are contra statism. They have every interest to accrue more power and more control – usually under the rubric of wonderfully sounding and benignly labeled names which usually include references to the poor, the old, children or now of course, mother earth.

The doctrines of the Nazis and Communists for example, included such dogma. Communal abstractions can only be pushed onto society through state-force and lies. Hence the Orwellian usage of word choice to minimize the perception of violence and coercion. The Nazis had state funded programs for new-borns; mothers; free day care; home delivery of baby products; national diet plans; eco-friendly technologies; alternative energy subsidies; old age supports; and free health care – to mention just a few. The Communists of course competed with the same list of acceptable and pleasant sounding programs of governmental 'compassion'. History is replete with examples of similar plans for communal utopia – usually designed as part of a project of universal conquest. Yet there is little that is logical, efficacious or loving behind any of it. Such ideals are by definition against the individual and against rational dissent. They are covers for fascistic intolerance and social engineering.

We see the same un-inspired trend today. Propelled by a government created crisis – in which governments distorted the market for land and the values of housing for over 60 years and who did not enforce practical and transparent regulation – we now have various cults assuming the mantle left behind by the numerous forms of 20th century fascism. Great men – so named – such as the Prophet Obamed or Vlad Putin will reconstruct their societies and perhaps even the world in order to create harmony, love and justice. Or so their followers profess. Eco-fascists bound and caper over the media landscape with their latest non-scientific lie posing as a fact, hoping that a Gaia cult can proceed to take over all matters of production and consumption and confirm upon an elite the power to eradicate individuality, impose universal submission and remove any market of any type including that of scientific inquiry.

So yet again history repeats itself - at least in part. Little minds have always embraced the communal. Since the 19th century the populist mass has been against the individual and for the security of the collective. Only a few stood, and only a few today stand, against this socialistic tide. And it is those few which created and are trying to extend the modern world. A world which in all matters from water to air, to life itself is so much improved that a Roman citizen from the world of Cicero, if resurrected and released into modern day America, would declare what he viewed as a miracle. And so it truly is.

One of Hayek's main lessons is that many humans - perhaps a majority - have a deep seated almost innate urge to construct a communal system and annihilate the individual. The age old struggle between some type of true fascistic orientation and the individual will never end.