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Freedom is a major universal concept, and I think that everybody would agree on this matter. But libertarianism goes beyond the basic principles that define freedom. It has as a major point of concern to guarantee individual freedom, and to engage in a strife against all political ideologies whose main dogmas relies on restricting civil liberties, like socialism and communism. Socialism and communism are venomous ideologies, that emphasize the priority and precedence of the state over the individual. This fact perfectly explains why all communist states – without exceptions – were inclined and eventually resorted to totalitarianism. If the state is a supreme ruler, then the state has precedence over everything, and whenever an individual, or group of individuals, dares to think differently, diverging from the mandatory state dogmas, then the state has the “right” to exterminate them. This goes way beyond abuse of power. Marxist ideologies do condone and approve brutality towards individuals that share a belief, or system of beliefs, that the state considers subversive, with the clear objective to suppress them. They call this abhorrent cruelty “maintenance of the order”.
The correct way for happiness and a livable, satisfactory existence, is exactly the opposite. The individual should have precedence over the state. A government should be a complement in the life of the individual – in order to protect him, and help him in any kind of difficulties –, and not an authoritarian stone figure, with an inflexible hornbook guide, that dictates each and every aspect concerning his existence. We must understand that freedom is not a mere component of life: it’s a primary and fundamental component for happiness.
I stress the importance of libertarianism as an ideology because, living in Brazil, a country that recently overthrew its socialist regime, there’s still certain circles in society – mainly militants – that stresses, overemphasizes and sympathizes greatly with socialist ideologies.
Don’t get me wrong: it was never a physically brutal or oppressive state. The main party that was in power practiced Fabian socialism, a more “moderate” form of socialism. They put in practice an economic policy that saturated the private sector with an overwhelming deal of expensive taxes, that, in a long term, resulted in a major economic recession, the worst that my country has ever seen. As a result, the unemployment rates have been higher than ever. All of these events have occurred because the socialist government put in practice a very unilateral, hard, corrosive and brutal tributary dictatorship. Now, it will take a long time for the country to recover. Fabian socialism has accommodated politicians with extremely high salaries, and they are fighting hard to maintain the status quo that subsidizes their exceedingly high costs of living. They basically live very well with the financial resources they take – in the form of taxes – from the productive portion of the population.
Since I’ve never been involved with politics, nor ever sympathized with socialism – even less with socialist militants, and the totalitarian thoughts they spread, along with the usual state idolatry –, my affinities are completely sidelined with economic liberalism, and the suppression of the higher unrealistic salaries, as well as the privileges, enjoyed by the political elite, that are completely incompatible with our poor and miserable current situation.
But unfortunately, the aftermath of socialist policies will continue, and it will take a long time for them to be completely suppressed and eradicated, if there is, of course, the possibility of a total suppression, which I hardly believe.
Brazil has endured, in the past, a frivolous, aggressive, tempestuous and authoritarian military regime, that lasted two and half decades, beginning in 1964. The military coup was, in great part, a measure orchestrated by the United States. Ironically, it was a good thing, since it was made as a contingence plan to prevent Brazil from becoming a communist state. If the coup hadn’t happened, Brazil could have been a country as poor and miserable as Cuba (but now, suffering the aftermath of sordid and corrosive socialist policies, we’re not that far from it).
In this same period, I think from the mid-sixties to the beginning of the seventies, the US government has provided logistical support for a lot of other South American countries, with the same precise objective: to consolidate authoritarian military regimes, to prevent them from becoming communist states (Chile under Augusto Pinochet being one convenient example). This fear was prompted by the overthrown of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista – himself backed by the US –, and the implementation of a communist regime in the small Caribbean island-nation, by virtue of a coup d’état led by Fidel Castro.
My childhood coincided with the end of the military regime, and Brazil’s transition to democracy. I was seven years old, when the Brazilian population voted and chose its first democratically elected president, for the first time in more than three decades.
The first elected president, Fernando Collor de Mello, was legally deposed after two years in office, in a process called impeachment – the same process by which the first female president, Dilma Rousseff, was deposed in the past year, duo to the government mismanagement that resulted in the political and economic recession of the country – for his ostensibly malevolent, toxic and lethal involvement with corruption.
The overwhelming fanaticism of the socialists in my country has taught me a lot about the rottenness of politics. Good and decent human beings will always stay away from this festival of absurdities. For this specific motive, as well as a lot of other reasons, I overemphasize the importance of freedom as a major altruistic goal, a basic need that we all should enjoy. I really don’t want to be a slave of the state, although – in a certain way, given the current deteriorating political and economic situation of the establishment in my country –, I already am, along with my entire fellow countryman. Financial slaves, to define more clearly, since we have to work, in a vaporized economy, to basically sustain and support the torrid expenses of the government.
Well, setting aside all the pressure the militants and fanatics intensely disperse throughout the media, they will never be able to subvert my ideologies, or my set of beliefs. I am a libertarian. I emphasize and overemphasize the individual’s right to be, not the state. I am a libertarian. And always will be.
Wagner
The correct way for happiness and a livable, satisfactory existence, is exactly the opposite. The individual should have precedence over the state. A government should be a complement in the life of the individual – in order to protect him, and help him in any kind of difficulties –, and not an authoritarian stone figure, with an inflexible hornbook guide, that dictates each and every aspect concerning his existence. We must understand that freedom is not a mere component of life: it’s a primary and fundamental component for happiness.
I stress the importance of libertarianism as an ideology because, living in Brazil, a country that recently overthrew its socialist regime, there’s still certain circles in society – mainly militants – that stresses, overemphasizes and sympathizes greatly with socialist ideologies.
Don’t get me wrong: it was never a physically brutal or oppressive state. The main party that was in power practiced Fabian socialism, a more “moderate” form of socialism. They put in practice an economic policy that saturated the private sector with an overwhelming deal of expensive taxes, that, in a long term, resulted in a major economic recession, the worst that my country has ever seen. As a result, the unemployment rates have been higher than ever. All of these events have occurred because the socialist government put in practice a very unilateral, hard, corrosive and brutal tributary dictatorship. Now, it will take a long time for the country to recover. Fabian socialism has accommodated politicians with extremely high salaries, and they are fighting hard to maintain the status quo that subsidizes their exceedingly high costs of living. They basically live very well with the financial resources they take – in the form of taxes – from the productive portion of the population.
Since I’ve never been involved with politics, nor ever sympathized with socialism – even less with socialist militants, and the totalitarian thoughts they spread, along with the usual state idolatry –, my affinities are completely sidelined with economic liberalism, and the suppression of the higher unrealistic salaries, as well as the privileges, enjoyed by the political elite, that are completely incompatible with our poor and miserable current situation.
But unfortunately, the aftermath of socialist policies will continue, and it will take a long time for them to be completely suppressed and eradicated, if there is, of course, the possibility of a total suppression, which I hardly believe.
Brazil has endured, in the past, a frivolous, aggressive, tempestuous and authoritarian military regime, that lasted two and half decades, beginning in 1964. The military coup was, in great part, a measure orchestrated by the United States. Ironically, it was a good thing, since it was made as a contingence plan to prevent Brazil from becoming a communist state. If the coup hadn’t happened, Brazil could have been a country as poor and miserable as Cuba (but now, suffering the aftermath of sordid and corrosive socialist policies, we’re not that far from it).
In this same period, I think from the mid-sixties to the beginning of the seventies, the US government has provided logistical support for a lot of other South American countries, with the same precise objective: to consolidate authoritarian military regimes, to prevent them from becoming communist states (Chile under Augusto Pinochet being one convenient example). This fear was prompted by the overthrown of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista – himself backed by the US –, and the implementation of a communist regime in the small Caribbean island-nation, by virtue of a coup d’état led by Fidel Castro.
My childhood coincided with the end of the military regime, and Brazil’s transition to democracy. I was seven years old, when the Brazilian population voted and chose its first democratically elected president, for the first time in more than three decades.
The first elected president, Fernando Collor de Mello, was legally deposed after two years in office, in a process called impeachment – the same process by which the first female president, Dilma Rousseff, was deposed in the past year, duo to the government mismanagement that resulted in the political and economic recession of the country – for his ostensibly malevolent, toxic and lethal involvement with corruption.
The overwhelming fanaticism of the socialists in my country has taught me a lot about the rottenness of politics. Good and decent human beings will always stay away from this festival of absurdities. For this specific motive, as well as a lot of other reasons, I overemphasize the importance of freedom as a major altruistic goal, a basic need that we all should enjoy. I really don’t want to be a slave of the state, although – in a certain way, given the current deteriorating political and economic situation of the establishment in my country –, I already am, along with my entire fellow countryman. Financial slaves, to define more clearly, since we have to work, in a vaporized economy, to basically sustain and support the torrid expenses of the government.
Well, setting aside all the pressure the militants and fanatics intensely disperse throughout the media, they will never be able to subvert my ideologies, or my set of beliefs. I am a libertarian. I emphasize and overemphasize the individual’s right to be, not the state. I am a libertarian. And always will be.
Wagner
