To Collectivists, Lenin And Mussolini Defined "Liberty"

by Will Grigg
Feb. 21, 2014

A character played by John Wayne once dismissed an irritating fellow as someone who was merely spitting out words in order to watch them splatter. In similar fashion, the leftist publication Salon continues to emit anti-libertarian screeds in the hope of attracting internet traffic. It isn’t interested in examining ideas.

Salon’s most recent effort focuses on a proposed measure in Kansas that would recognize the right of business owners not to accept patronage from homosexual couples. According to the author, "Since it is the state that is ultimately tasked to bring out the violent enforcers who effectuate the discriminating intents of public accommodations providers, the state literally cannot get out of the way."

Actually, anti-discrimination laws depend on threat and practice of state violence. This isn’t true of a business owner who merely declines the patronage of someone he finds objectionable.

Without naming Mussolini explicitly, the Salon contributor begins with the assumption found in the fascist dictator’s totalitarian formula: Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state. He does explicitly invoke Lenin’s statement that the basic political question is “who does what to whom.”

So according to Salon, “liberty” is a gift of the state, and libertarians are heretics because they reject Lenin’s doctrines.