What would the Founding Fathers have thought about our libertarian crazies?

[unhappycamper]

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/05/what_would_the_founding_fathers_have_thought_about_our_libertarian_crazies/



When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another…

What would the Founding Fathers have thought about our libertarian crazies?
Andrew Leonard
Saturday, Jul 5, 2014 02:00 PM EST

Say whatever nasty things you want about those slave-owning white men that got the US-of-A up and running, but there is little question that the Declaration of Independence offers a compelling rationale for the selfishness of secession. Which raises a question: If the Founding Fathers were posting on Facebook and tweeting on Twitter in 2014, how would they assess the current discontents and escapist fantasies of contemporary techno-libertarianism? The timing seems right for an investigation. The rhetoric of liberty — so essential to the creation of the United States, so beloved by both Tea Party radicals and Silicon Valley startup entrepreneurs — is a Fourth of July weekend staple.

Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams… these men made a winning case for why the colonies should sever their ties to King George III. But what would they think of software engineer (and Milton Friedman grandson) Patri Friedman’s dream to create his own “startup country” afloat in international waters — a libertarian paradise that would “show what a society run by Silicon Valley would look like.” Would they approve of venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan’s advocacy for virtual secession, his plan to “build an opt-in society, run by technology, outside the U.S.?” You can hardly go a day in Silicon Valley without hearing from a CEO restless to dissolve the political bonds that constrain his disruptive business plan. What could possibly be more American?

In pursuit of clarity on the American Dream, I reread the Declaration of Independence, for the first time in many years. And then I reread John Perry Barlow’s 18-year-old libertarian statement of founding principles for the Internet era, ” A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.” And then, finally, there could be no avoiding the manifesto penned by Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley’s most prominent (and richest) despiser of all things governmental.

I confess, my working thesis when I started out was that the Founding Fathers wouldn’t be too thrilled with the selfishness of Silicon Valley. But my faith has been shaken. Yesterday’s King George has been replaced by today’s Congress, and the list of grievances is long in both cases. A great dissatisfaction with the status quo, coupled with the belief that we can do better with less onerous supervision, is as American as apple pie. Ben Franklin might cast a sour eye on how much Facebook paid for Whatsapp, but I’m not so sure he wouldn’t recognize a kindred spirit in freedom fighters of the new economy. All these guys want is independence. What could be more patriotic?

[Demeter]

1. I think the Founders would have said:

Here's your hat, what's your hurry...Bon voyage and good riddance!

[Warpy]

2. Uneducated bumpkins is my guess

The founders were all products of the enlightenment instead of the great awakenings. They thought little of religious fervor and greatly about humanism.

Only the backwoods rustics and the urban rabble thought in terms libertarians would be comfortable with. It's why they limited suffrage to the wealthy, assuming the wealthy would be educated and therefore more enlightened.

They didn't foresee the unbridled greed that would drive the wealthy to reinstituting aristocracy at the top and serfdom at the bottom--Marx hadn't written Capital yet. They also didn't foresee an effort to dumb down the population so that this could take place.