The general political spectrum on which most people operate is narrow, and the majority of people lean favorably toward one of two diametric ideological wings. For students, the choice is even more distinctive, a result of all this political activism we hear so much about. Generally, you side with either the College Democrats or the College Republicans, yet it’s like choosing your next meal between two competing brands of rat poison.
The two political parties fill me with an unending amount of amusement. But I guess I’m a cynic. I find both sides boring, and I find the petulant political whining tiresome. I consider myself a libertarian, thus I remain safely away from the fray.
There are libertarians on the right and libertarians on the left. The basic principle of libertarianism is personal choice. It is fiercely anti-authoritarian. Libertarians don’t believe that legislators have our best interests at heart – perhaps because legislators are too busy attaching earmarks to unrelated bills between bouts of buggering the underage Congressional pages.
According to Facebook.com – the most reliable research tool! – there are 219 students who consider themselves libertarians; in comparison, there are more than 500 students who consider themselves conservative, and more than 500 students who consider themselves liberal. There are 140 students who consider themselves very conservative; a disproportionate number of whom are girls keen on attending parties dressed in what appear to be doilies, if their Facebook photos are an accurate indication of their mores. However, there are more than 500 students who consider themselves very liberal. Needless to say, there are a lot of hippies on this campus. That pungent aroma isn’t patchouli, it’s malformed political ideals.
I became attracted to libertarianism early in college, probably by the time I was a sophomore. Unlike many of my ilk, who salivated over Ayn Rand, I pointed myself in a less structured direction, far from the Randian Objectivism outlined in her poorly written books. (Objectivism is obsessed with the notion of what is “moral.” Philanthropy, for example, is terribly immoral to Objectivists.) Over the years, my beliefs fermented like a rotten grapefruit left under a furnace. I certainly don’t agree with every aspect of libertarianism, and very few people do, but I believe that humans control their destinies, their bodies, their minds, and their lives, and they should continue to do so with as little governmental coercion as possible. Popular figures including Trey Parker, Dave Barry, P.J. O’Rourke and Penn and Teller, among others, call themselves libertarians. John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, is a libertarian, which surely helped stoke the anti-Whole Foods fire within Eugene’s activist community.
Libertarians also embrace whimsical characters like Robert Anton Wilson. Before his untimely death on January 11, 2007, Wilson worked as an author, a humorist and a philosopher. He was also the former editor of the Playboy Forum before writing his series of humorous, conspiracy-infused books, “The Illuminatas Trilogy.” He also started the Dope and Guns political party, intended to bridge the divide between gun owners and marijuana smokers. The thinking is that if these two groups combined their efforts, they would become a powerful political force. The basic tenets of the Dope and Gun Party are outlined on the party’s Web site:
“Get those pointy-headed Washington bureaucrats off our backs and off our fronts too! Guns for everybody who wants them; no guns for those who don’t want them. Drugs for everybody who wants them; no drugs for those who don’t want them. Freedom of choice, free love, free speech, free Internet and free beer. California secession – Keep the anti-gun and anti-dope fanatics on the Eastern side of the Rockies. Lotsa wild parties every night by gun-toting dopers. Animal protection. Support your right to keep and arm bears.”
Wilson didn’t even mention his most pressing concern: equal rights for ostriches. The Dope and Guns party is hyperbolic by design, even facetious. Still, it is no more hyperbolic than some of the nonsense you hear from people who consider themselves to be in the mainstream. And that is the point. Bill Bennett, our former drug Czar, once called into Larry King to say that beheading drug dealers was “morally plausible … Legally, it’s difficult. But somebody selling drugs to a kid? Morally, I don’t have any problem with that at all.” Some may question Wilson’s sanity, though Bennett is clearly insane.
The Dope and Gun Party also sounds like a lot more fun than the Libertarian Party. In fact, I feel like petitioning the Libertarian Party to change its name post haste. It doesn’t have much to lose, when you think about it.
Libertarianism seems like a perfect fit for college students. But maybe it isn’t – maybe it is too anti-authoritarian, too contrarian. It is striking that there is no libertarian student group on this campus. There must be more than 219 people on this campus who would like to come together to share their love of guns, drugs and free markets. I don’t own any guns, and my drug use is pretty minimal, but you could consider me a charter member of this club.
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A palatable substitute for two-party poison
Daily Emerald
January 28, 2007
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