Conservatives Need to Stop Supporting Immoral Government Policies

Op-Ed by Scott Lazarowitz

A few years ago, Hans-Hermann Hoppe wrote about the intellectual incoherence of conservatism, but he was only touching the surface, as far as I’m concerned. Now, I’m conservative in the social and cultural area, but I do have a sense of consistency when it comes to morality and recognizing the immorality and evil of government. Most conservatives do not seem to have that consistency, it seems to me.

Conservatives are constantly railing against the “left,” the irrationality and nonsense on college campuses, and some government programs. And usually when Democrats like Obama are in charge, conservatives criticize the government. But when Republicans like Donald Trump or George W. Bush are in charge, conservatives love government.

Oh, the conservatives on talk radio are so excited about Karen Handel winning her election to Congress from Georgia. Well, the truth is that nothing she does or says will change anything in any significant way. That is because she supports the system of central planning and government confiscation of private wealth, just like most conservatives.

For example, Wikipedia notes that Handel supported Tom Price’s bill to replicate ObamaCare with some nips and tucks, and she supports the “American Health Care Act,” i.e. RepubliCare. She does not support free markets in health care. She doesn’t recognize that central planning in medical care is what has doomed medical care in America, including Medicare and Medicaid.

Conservatives have to stop it with their continued limp-wristedness when it comes to saying they support “free markets,” private property rights and free association, but then promote taxation (involuntary transactions, which are immoral, equal to a robber ordering you to fork over your money), and centrally-planned governmental intrusions into people’s private lives.

As long as we continue to have a system that relies on involuntary payments or confiscations of private wealth or income of the workers and producers of society, we will continue to have bureaucrats and their minions and corporate cronies living high off the hog at the expense of the people’s labor, all based on theft and plunder.

So get rid of the theft, restore private property rights, and you will no longer be complaining about all the abuses of ObamaCare, RepubliCare, government grants for medical “research,” IRS targeting Christians and conservatives, FBI targeting anti-war protesters, the parasite warmongers, CIA funding of ISIS, NSA spying on innocents, you name it, it will ALL be gone when the government’s power to steal, rob, loot, burglarize and embezzle the people’s wealth and income is removed.

Only allow government “work” or programs to be voluntarily funded by the people. Programs, including in the “security” area, that are lacking voluntary funding will be eliminated.

Only a fool would voluntarily pay his hard-earned money to fund the FBI keeping dossiers on innocent people or the FBI infiltrating mosques to motivate young Muslims to commit jihad. And only a fool would voluntarily pay for the TSA molesting you or cancer-scanning you at the gate, or pay for ATF agents gun-running to Mexican drug lords, or pay to fund ANY form of health care central planning that only creates chaos, no?

I thought theft was immoral, conservatives. Why do conservatives continue to rationalize and support theft? They also rationalize murder. And, no, by and large they are not “pro-life,” and they support the targeting and murder of innocent human beings. I don’t know how many times the notion of “war” is brought up to rationalize the intentional bombing and murder of innocents, such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Tokyo and Dresden during World War II, or Vietnam or Iraq. “Well, the little Japanese child who was murdered in Hiroshima is in part responsible for his rulers bombing Pearl Harbor — and in order to save the life of a U.S. soldier, it is acceptable to murder a little child who never harmed anyone.” You know, rationalizations such as that disgusting bunch of stuff.

And now we have the Nudnik-in-Chief who wants to make it more acceptable to murder more innocents with the drone strikes that he has been immorally authorizing since January 20th, according to Activist Post. And, according to AFP, U.S. government-led air strikes are killing more civilians per month than they were previously. Retired Army JAG Major Todd Pierce discusses Douglas Valentine’s new book The CIA as Organized Crime. I don’t know how much longer those who claim to believe in “moral values” can continue to support a military/security system that’s based on central planning and involuntary tax-thefts. It’s disgusting.

And they love their new attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and his vicious wars on immigration and drugs. The conservatives love Soviet-like central planning when it comes to the immigration issue. (They’ll deny that, of course.) For instance, they love “e-Verify.” Businessmen have to get the gubmint’s permission to employ a worker. And workers have to get the bureaucrat’s permission to get employment.

So, really, in America the U.S. government is the ultimate owner of the businesses, not the businessmen. Sadly, there is this collectivistic obsession with government borders. Nationalists want the government to control the lives of the people — all the people, foreigners and citizens alike, it seems to me. (They’ll deny that, of course.)

But in a system of private property and free-market capitalism, whoever actually started or built a business with his own capital and investment, or with the voluntary investment of others, is the actual owner of that business, not the government. And workers from anywhere may find work with willing and consenting employers, without the permission of central-planning bureaucrats. Sadly, conservatives tend to be with the central-planning socialists on this immigration issue. (Talk about cognitive dissonance!)

And attorney general Sessions may very well be stepping up enforcement of federal drug laws even in states in which the voters approved legalizing marijuana. And I thought that conservatives supported “states’ rights.” I guess not, when it comes to marijuana or other drugs.

Now, if you prefer the communist way of thinking, then the government owns your life including your body. You must get the government’s permission on what you may or may not put into your body. In communism, the government owns the means of production. Not just industry, capital and property, but the “means of production” also includes the people, and that includes their bodies with which to perform the labor that the government also owns.

However, if you own your own body, then you are the ultimate decider on what you will put into your own body. But you must then accept the consequences of your own decisions and actions. That’s another thing with conservatives, they don’t believe in personal responsibility. They believe that people must get the government’s permission on what chemicals they may or may not ingest.

And Sessions says that pot is “dangerous.” But so is alcohol. How many people are dying on the roads and highways because of drunk drivers? How many people are slowly killing themselves with alcohol-related liver disease and cancer and dementia? (“No, no, I gotta have my booze! Don’t touch mah booooze!!” they cry.) So the gubmint ended Prohibition in 1933, but they then transferred that prohibition (and its subsequent black market and the underground’s associated criminal gangsters) from alcohol over to “drugs.” And how’s that working out? (Psst. Not good.)

There is a moral case for drug freedom, as Laurence Vance pointed out.

And regular cigarettes are also dangerous. They result in many deaths. And junk food, and too much sugar or salt in the diet, and so on. So, I thought that conservatives were against the “nanny state.” But when it comes to “drugs,” they love the nanny state. The police state, that is.

And then there’s the death penalty, “well we have to balance possibly prosecuting and State-killing an innocent person with a possible murderer killing more innocent people.” Like, “two wrongs make a right” or something. (And the conservatives make fun of the left’s irrationality!) As Paul Craig Roberts pointed out this week, Republicans are just as much for persecuting and prosecuting innocents as Democrats.

Scott Lazarowitz is a libertarian writer and commentator. Please visit his blog.

Image Credit: Anthony Freda Art