Via Atrios…   Digby has a good post up about Hippie Randism and Libertarian Lefties that goes into something I’ve wanted to discuss more.   A libertarian isn’t a Randiod and either one of these could occasionally seem to resemble either a conservative or liberal.   Or to put it another way, and speaking of Whole Food’s hippy climate change denying champion of absolute corporate deregulation and union busting, just because someone looks and acts like a granola organic liberal progressive New Age self-actualization holistic health guru that doesn’t mean they aren’t a right wing asshole when it comes to the prerogatives of massive corporate money.   Here, Digby quotes the Times profile…

In the early eighties, Mackey told a reporter, “The union is like having herpes. It doesn’t kill you, but it’s unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover.” (That quote, to Mackey’s dismay, won’t go away, either.) His disdain for contemporary unionism is ideological, as well as self-serving. Like many who have come before, he says that it was only when he started a business—when he had to meet payroll and deal with government red tape—that his political and economic views, fed on readings of Friedman, Rand, and the Austrians, veered to the right. But there is also a psychological dimension. It derives in large part from a tendency, common among smart people, to presume that everyone in the world either does or should think as he does—to take for granted that people can (or want to) strike his patented balance of enlightenment and self-interest. It sometimes sounds as if he believed that, if every company had him at the helm, there would be no need for unions or health-care reform, and that therefore every company should have someone like him, and that therefore there should be no unions or health-care reform. In other words, because he runs a business a certain way, others will, can, and should, and so the safeguards that have evolved over the generations to protect against human venality—against, say, greedy, bullying bosses—are no longer necessary. The logic is as sound as the presumption is preposterous.

Digby goes on to say…

He’s a libertarian who identifies culturally with the left. He’s into New Age religion and self-actualization and believes in holistic health practices, clean food etc. But he’s not a left libertarian. These things get confusing, but it’s important to make the distinction.

Basically, this guy is a standard issue right libertarian which means that he is a free market fundamentalist, hates unions, hates government and extols the virtues of the John Galts like himself, although he believes in a sort of corporate paternalism that requires him to look after the parasites (workers) in some rudimentary fashion. He is also a believer in civil liberties and drug legalization. (I assume that since he’s a Paul supporter, he’s also critical of the Fed.) There are quite a few of these folks out there who seem like your liberal next door, more than you might realize. Hollywood, for instance, is full of them. I worked for a few. Many of them even think they’re liberals and will vote for Democrats on social issues. But when it comes to taxing the wealthy and regulating business they might as well be Dick Cheney.

There is, of course, an actual left libertarianism and it is best articulated by Noam Chomsky, not some wealthy twit like Mackey…

It gets confusing, and I suppose it will only get more so as the republican party degenerates further and further into theocracy and outright populist-nationalist lunacy.   Others have noted how the 2010 edition of the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference is going to be sponsored in part by the John Birch Society…they of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Was A Communist fame.   If this is what the republican party wants to become then don’t be surprised to see people fleeing from it into a lot of factions and libertarianism is a very popular label to wear in some circles.   But that’s really all it is in most of them.   Just a convenient label the wearer hopes means I’m Really Not A Right Wing Asshole…Honest…

There are Lefty Libertarians.   They think government shouldn’t regulate business and shouldn’t regulate morality.   There are Right Wing Libertarians.   They think government shouldn’t regulate business and states should regulate morality but not the federal government since it had the unmitigated gall to desegregate the schools.   And then there are the Randoids.   Rand herself and her intellectual spawn Leonard Peikoff absolutely loathed the libertarians.     There are mixes and matches (call them mashups if you will…) of all three and then some.   There are almost certainly for example, John Birch Libertarians and John Birch Randoids.   Probably some of these shop at Whole Foods and look outwardly like hippies.

I like to think of it as that little corner of the Twilight Zone where which way is up depends on which ideology you’ve bought into.   The problem with all of these is they have very little interest in how things actually work, and why things can and do fail.   It’s all about the ideology.   So in one very real sense there isn’t much to practical difference between any of them.   But don’t try to tell a Lutheran that they’re more or less like an Episcopalian just with different vestments.

It’s going to be a fun decade, with the republicans leading the way to a political landscape where parties begin are more and more like religious movements, then conversations about how to…you know…actually govern…

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”

He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”

He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”

Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.

-Emo Philips, The Best God Joke Ever