Another election, another round of libertarians' dumping on the right to vote. I used to just find this inane and self-defeating, but now I think it's bad citizenship and affirmatively harmful. 1/n
-
Show this thread
-
Libertarians will respond that there's a lot more to good citizenship than voting, and that they are highly involved in public affairs. But the fact that they're knowledgeable and engaged makes their non-voting worse. 2/n
1 reply 4 retweets 32 likesShow this thread -
Their failure to go to the polls isn't because of apathy or laziness as with the typical non-voter; it's a studied repudiation of the legitimacy of the system. Many libertarians explicitly see their non-voting as part of a larger strategy of delegitimizing the state. 3/n
4 replies 2 retweets 42 likesShow this thread -
But there's no such thing as delegitimizing government in general; there's only delegitimizing particular, actually existing governments. Here, libertarians are seeking to undermine the government of their own country. 4/n
6 replies 3 retweets 40 likesShow this thread -
The non-voting is generally seen as quixotic, but the wider effort to trash all governments (incl. their own) as both haplessly incompetent and criminal enterprises has had a corrosive effect -- see declining trust in institutions. 5/n
8 replies 1 retweet 21 likesShow this thread -
Libertarians fantasize that this declining trust sets the stage for Libertopia, when in fact it creates an opening for authoritarian demagogues. 6/n
3 replies 3 retweets 45 likesShow this thread -
The rise of Trump was only possible because of a gathering crisis of legitimacy for liberal democratic institutions here and in Europe -- and here are libertarians actively trying to stoke that crisis. That's deeply irresponsible and deserves full-throated condemnation. 7/n
3 replies 1 retweet 26 likesShow this thread
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.