It’s been a while since we roasted Libertarians on this site. In my defense, they’ve been pretty irrelevant since they abandoned their advocacy of essential liberties to fixate on smoking street drugs and hiring hookers.
You can’t blame them for pursuing new interests since the whole impetus for their movement was preventing big government tyranny, and the government is now a totalitarian police state.
But they’re still a dependable source of dark political humor. The latest gag is a Libertarian film festival playing deputy to the thought police.
My name is Jason Rink and I’ve been canceled – for producing a film about the importance of free speech and due process.
The 21 minute short documentary titled “The Most Canceled Man In America” is about a controversial internet streamer and political organizer. He is an American citizen who had a half-million dollars seized from his bank account by the Department of Justice. He was added to a federal no-fly list by the Department of Homeland Security. But to this day, he has never been charged with a crime.
This film was formally accepted to the Anthem Film Festival at Freedomfest on April 26, 2022. It was subsequently removed from the festival schedule on May 19, 2022.
My film was “canceled” by the organizers of the Anthem Film Festival and Freedomfest. I was told by the organizers that this decision was made specifically after hearing “from the highest levels at Reason, the Libertarian Party, the CATO Institute, National Review, FIRE, and MPI, people we respect.”
Respecting that rogues’ gallery of establishment gatekeepers wasn’t Freedomfest’s first mistake, but it was fatal.
Which brings us to the punchline:
Ironically, after the film was removed, I was still scheduled to speak at Anthem. The talk was entitled “Canceled: Fighting the Speech Police.”
“Fellating the Speech Police” would have been a more honest subtitle.
Since the director went public with his cancellation by a Libertarian film festival, Freedomfest’s social media account managers have gone on damage control.
Hilarity ensued.
Anyone with two firing neurons and a healthy sense of humor will get a chuckle from the hash of Libertarian platitudes and Death Cult ritual cant in Freedomfest’s attempt at self-exoneration. “Equality is an inherent aspect of freedom” reads like they lifted it from a teen girl running for class president.
In the end, what Freedomfest’s groveling to the Death Cult proves is that undefined freedom is not an absolute. And any attempts to hold it up as one end in comical disaster.
Even communism didn’t earn its place on the trash heap of history this richly.
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Libertarianism has only ever existed among selfish boomers, overly-cynical Gen Xers, and especially cowardly Ys. No one else believes in it. The ideology only exists because the comforts of the first world allowed the soft-headed thinking it requires to believe it space to exist. It has no future because, like the 20th century materialism that powers it, is already outdated and proven to be a failure.
There is a reason there is so much crossover with “Science Fiction” and its accompanying Fandom. They are both still waiting on a future that will never come.
Everyone who still claims to be a Libertarian behaves like a de facto Leftist. It would be nice if they’d summon the honesty to match word to deed.
Patrick Henry demanded liberty or death, but why choose?
I do not understand how people still cling to Libertarianism, 2016-2020 should have taught them that “the state” is just one aspect of the regime. Media (both cultural and news), education, corporations, NGOs, and government bureaucracy are all heads of the hydra and to think that cutting off one will solve our issues is folly.
Those were the people who responded to Big Tech censorship with “The First Amendment doesn’t apply to private companies.”
Let’s grant their premise. Any political philosophy with a baked-in loophole that big is the dodo of Current Year ideologies.
I understand 100% why he canceled his talk on “Fighting the Free Speech Police” and it was probably the right call. If a conference screws you over in one way they’re probably going to screw you over in others.
But still, it would have been funny to go ahead with that talk but change it to specifically attacking Freedom Fest, at their own conference.
“If a conference screws you over in one way they’re probably going to screw you over in others.”
Word to the wise.
If there were just a few more key phrases, we could play Death Cult buzzword bingo with this. I noticed they also employed passive voice and an adverb ending in -ly. Is “Equality” the free square in the middle?
As an aside, I will be much more conscious of how I use -ly adverbs in the future, even in normal conversation.
Good catch. The more esoteric Death Cult jargon an organization uses, the better the chance that they’re compromised.
Though in this case, the use of passive voice is more apt to be standard Libertarian moral cowardice.
Once again, Classical Theist is compact and quotable.
Plus, more news outlets, think tanks, and periodicals that can come off those RSS feeds and bookmark lists. Think of the free time this is getting us! All these amoral, honorless voices to ignore!
Most of those orgs that Freedomfest respects have subscriber bases with an average age of 70. This is one case where following the money works. They’re all threatened by a young upstart steering Zoomers away from their grift.
Once again, we’re shunning the Boomers. So be it.