Ukraine Redux: Why Classical Liberals Are Not Tories.

So the authoritarian, cult of leader conservatives are starting to figure I'm not one of them: http://t.co/H1OSnkGeGX
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) February 22, 2014

 

I’m a classical liberal/libertarian, that is: a laissez faire capitalist, (small, as in tiny, state) minarchist, social liberal who believes in free markets and drug legalisation, euthanasia, a woman’s right to abortion, (wait for it) open immigration; who believes, thus, in individualism over identity politics, because individualism is the opposite of rascism, of sexism, and of bigotry; who believes in freedom over statism, and who believes I should be able do whatever I like, left completely alone by the state, so long as I do no harm. In these views, as my previous post on the Ukraine usefully demonstrated, I’m as far removed from Tory conservatives, as I am from Left collectivists.
 

Against the clip I posted of a Ukrainian woman explaining that what the protestors wanted was freedom from dictatorship, and freedom from politicians only interested in their own ends, a state of affairs well explained by the accompanying video of unarmed protestors being ruthlessly murdered by Ukrainian government snipers, Tories came out to attack my view in comments, saying:

 

From Andrei:

 

In truth Ukraine is bankrupt and the IMF came up with a plan that would reduce Ukraine's sovereignty and Putin gave the Ukrainian Government a way out of having to be subservient to the IMF and western bankers and that is when these current troubles actually started. … Ukraine is on the brink, it may end up Balkanized the way Yugoslavia was in the 90s - it may end up being even more serious given the utter mediocrity of current Western leadership but let me tell you this some of the opposition "are not fighting for freedom" they are literally facists and these factions have zero interest in peaceful resolutions.

 

From Angry Tory:

 

Get a grip. They aren't protestors, they're communists. Communists don't believe in individual "rights" so certainly don't deserve any. … The fact is the country is choosing between self-determination, economic sovereignty, and yes lower taxes, individual rights, and a much less regulated, more flexible economic system under Putin --- or the open communism of the last communist mega-state, the European Union. … If you want to own a gun; drive a (petrol) car;, burn coal, oil, or gas; smoke, eat, drink, whatever you want; and live free from massive intrusive surveillance you are objectively more free in Russia than in NZ or especially the EU! … Here's a simple test: Ask yourself - who do Russel Norman, Jane Fonda & George Clooney support? then pick the other side.

 

While Andrei and Angry Tory try to sort out amongst themselves whether the protestors are fascists or communists, I’ll posture an alternative position they were largely neither: rather, like the woman in the clip, of whom not one of her words or ideas I disagree with, the protestors are a collection of disparate individuals who understand, like no one born and living in New Zealand can, what the true thug state, and dictatorship, is like. Albeit there will be elements amongst them that are unsavoury, especially thinking of that regions history of a null-headed nationalism and anti-semitism, that changes nothing in what the young Ukrainian said in the clip. Also, if this rabble were communists, why did they celebrate former President Viktor Yanukovych doing a runner today – oh yeah, the rabble won – by toppling Lenin statues all over the Ukraine?
 

 

To Angry Tory who asked me to look at which side Russel Norman was on, then choose sides from that, my rebuttal to him stands: he is thinking only in the straight lines of group-think, just as he (and I) would largely accuse the Left. As a matter of fact, though I believe Green economics would destroy us economically, while tragically growing the Big Brother state, as a social liberal I am yet closer to Norman than National and certainly Colin Craig on legalisation of cannabis, on euthanasia – two issues important to me – on abortion, etc. Classical liberals are ‘liberals’, very definitely not Tories.

So, my spleen vented, this is my slant on the situation in the Ukraine, which works toward my view most of the protestors simply want the same freedoms that I do; and that this issue, therefore, revolves around individual rights versus the authoritarian state.

 

Philosophy cannot be separated from economics. There can be no laissez faire capitalism, where individuals are not left alone by the state. So despite Andrei and Angry Tory’s opinion that Putin and Yanukovych are the path to free economies for Russians and Ukrainians, and the socialist EU is the enemy, as much as I hate the socialist monster of the EU, I have to call bullshit on that. Many of the mixed economies of the EU, as with US and New Zealand, are well down the socialist road to serfdom, but the gains made by the light shining out from the humanism of the Enlightenment as regards human rights and the sanctity of an individual life, are not all lost. A human life still has a value under the rule of law as operating in the West; not so in Russia, plus the clip of the snipers in my last post shows it most definitely is not so in the Ukraine. An individual’s life in those countries is cheap, and for those poor sods who are ‘different’, such as the homosexual community, or many ethnic minorities, as the reportage leading up to Sochi has shown us, life is at best miserable, at worst, lethal. And that comes from the top, from homophobe, KGB indoctrinated, medieval Putin.

 

Given this, the Russian and Ukrainian states are not capitalist, as in laissez faire. Indeed, they are so far down the road of the corrupt, crony state that their economies more closely resemble gangster and mafia stand over societies, with governments ruthlessly exercising their power to fleece populations. Whether you’re the richest of oligarchs, or a Pussy Rioter, if Putin wants you in one of his labour camps, then in a labour camp you’ll soon find yourself. Perhaps one of the Tories could explain to me where labour camps for political dissenters fit into a free society based on free markets? As far as I know there are no political labour camps in EU countries. In Russia, Putin has slaughtered thousands, if not more, in the name of his war on terror, many of them just happening to be ethnic minorities.  

 

Ukraine’s crony state is every bit as bad as Putin’s. Over the three years of his Daddy’s corrupt reign, Oleksandr Yankovych, son, trained as a dentist, availed himself of a massive change infortune:

 

 

While in 2010, the year before Viktor became president, Oleksandr was worth $7 million US dollars, by the end of 2013 he was worth $510 million: that’s an increase in wealth of 7,285% in three years. Please don’t take it personally, dentists, but ‘yeah right’. On one of the CNN clips I saw today, the protestors upon entering the presidential palace, hastily vacated by Viktor, were stunned at the opulence their taxes had paid for while they were living brutal and hard lives. I'm on their side.

 

To sum up, I don’t think the protestors who were murdered in the Euromaiden were all fascists, communists, or rabble. I reckon it’s far more likely they were me. Though quite apart from all that, the Tories seem to think the crime we all witnessed in that sniper clip was justified by the hope of self-determination and free markets under Putin, rather than falling into the perfumed clutch of the EU. I made a comment to the NBR thread on the events taking place in the Ukraine, and it’s all I need to say on that:

 

All that aside, a government that commands professional snipers to clinically murder unarmed protestors, on that alone, loses any mandate it has to rule, and those who made the command, with those who carried it out, should be tried and judged under the rule of law. I would even call, from the video clip, that particular action a war crime.

 

Evil means, and evil bastards such as Yanukovych, Putin, and those snipers, never justify ends, especially when those ends are societies as far removed from liassez faire markets and the free society, as communist ones are.

 

Finally, here's a question for you: where do you want to live, Russia or Ukraine, alternatively, France, Italy or Germany? Yeah right. You can't separate philosophy from economics.