Reading Time – 6 minutes

Most people don’t remember this (or weren’t alive when this happened), but back when I was growing up in the 1980s and much of the 1990s, the anti-freedom crowd was the right-wingers.

The right was constantly trying to cancel or ban almost everything I loved as a kid and teenager. It was insane.

They tried to ban my favorite game, Dungeons and Dragons, numerous times because they said it was satanic. This was so bad that in the second edition of Dungeons and Dragons, they removed from their books all nudity and references to demons, devils, or angels. It was fucking stupid and the second edition of D&D is widely regarded as one of the worst versions ever made.

They tried to ban violent video games, especially in the early 1990s. Games like Doom drive these people crazy.

They tried to ban kid’s cartoons, from Speed Racer in the 1970s to Ninja Turtles in the 80s to Beavis and Butt-Head in the early 90s. Most of the right-wingers who tried to ban these shows openly admitted they had never watched the show.

They tried to ban movies. Go do some reading on what the right wing did when the Martin Scorsese movie The Last Temptation of Christ was released in theaters. These right-wing maniacs protested and shut down entire movie theaters. I watched furious, red-faced right-wingers scream their heads off on TV for six months about this movie (which wasn’t even that good). It was hilarious.

They constantly harassed and fined radio personalities for saying words on the radio they didn’t like. Howard Stern (before he went insane) fought the FEC for many years. It was embarrassing that my tax dollars went to police words spoken on the fucking radio.

They arrested, yes actually arrested comedians and musicians. People like Lenny Bruce and 2 Live Crue were arrested for the crime of saying words. Yes… they were arrested for saying words in the United States of America.

The right-wingers did all of this.

Today the right is often positioned as the good guys and the left as the bad guys.

No. The only reason people incorrectly think that is that the left is in charge right now so they’re the ones with the power, making the poor little right-wingers look like victims.

But I remember what the right did when it came to freedom of speech and free expression back when they were in charge.

And I will never forget.

Now we have today, where the left is in charge. I don’t need to tell you all of the insane, authoritarian shit the left has been doing for about seven or eight years now because you’ve already seen so much of it. Permanently banning people on social media for stating facts. Arresting people who weren’t wearing masks or social distancing. Firing people from their jobs because they said there are only two genders. And on, and on, and on.

So now, I know for a fact that both the left and the right hate freedom.

This is not my opinion. This is a fact. I’ve seen it for decades with my own eyes. And you have too.

Oh sure, they both say they want freedom. The right in particular throws that word around a lot, but many on the left do as well.

But they’re both lying and again, that’s not my opinion, it’s fact. They both hate freedom, and whenever they’re in charge, they use the power of protest, government, news media, and/or social media to enforce their authoritarianism.

The problem is that in this collapsing era in which we live, most modern-day Westerners have forgotten what “freedom” means.

It means anyone in your society can do literally whatever they want provided they don’t directly violate someone else’s person or property. You can’t punch someone in the face, steal their wallet, or vandalize their car because those are direct violations.

But outside of that, freedom means people can do literally whatever they want, even if it insults or enrages other people, including you. And I mean literally.

I’ll give you two examples, one for the left and one for the right. Prepare to be enraged if you lack emotional control.

If you’re a left-winger, that means someone can open a restaurant and only hire white people, and the government can’t do anything to stop it. This person could even post a big sign in his window saying something like “We only serve straight white people here. Non-whites and gays are NOT allowed!” And again, the government couldn’t do a thing to stop it. People inside could even use the N-word all day long and even put it on their website, and the government couldn’t stop them and social media wouldn’t ban them.

Oh, I’m not done. Also, this restaurant owner wouldn’t pay any income tax or corporate tax of any kind. All the money he made from his racist restaurant he would keep, or put back into his business.

Yeah man, that’s what freedom means. You may not like it and I wouldn’t want it either (my son is black), but that doesn’t matter. Starting a restaurant like that doesn’t directly violate anyone’s person or property. If you’re gay or not white you can go to a thousand other restaurants in town instead. (And frankly, in the modern era, the free market would put that racist restaurant out of business eventually because almost no one would want to go there, including the vast majority of straight whites. I certainly would never give that guy any of my money.)

But see, because you’re a left-winger, you hate that, because you’re a quasi-authoritarian and you hate freedom. Freedom is awesome, but it’s a little messy sometimes. If you don’t like it, go move to North Korea.

Now for you right-wingers. Freedom means that someone could have a TV show on mainstream TV called “Jesus Was Gay and Loved Satan.” Every week it would feature a flaming gay version of Jesus who wore sexy leather outfits while he gallivanted around with his multiple male gay lovers and goofy satanic demons. And there would be nothing you could do to take it off the air; the government wouldn’t do it, and social media wouldn’t ban it.

Just like the left-winger furious at that restaurant, you’d have to accept that TV show would be there on mainstream TV and there would be nothing you could do about it, other than not watch it (and again, for the record, I would not watch it either).

Again, I wouldn’t like that any more than you, but that doesn’t matter. I’m for freedom, so I would frown for a minute and then accept it, move on, and be thankful I lived in a free country with a government and culture that didn’t try to run my life.

But see, because you’re a right-winger, you don’t want freedom because you’re a quasi-authoritarian just like the left-wingers you hate. You want only “allowed” things to be stated in public discourse. You want people to engage in their personal lives only the way YOU approve.

That’s not freedom. You can say the word “freedom” all you like at political rallies and listen to all the country western songs about “freedom” you want, but freedom isn’t what you truly want. And you know it.

The only people in society who want freedom are the real libertarians like me. I say “real” libertarians because these days, most people who self-identify as libertarians are actually right-wing big-government Donald Trump supporters who hate freedom.

The reason I support freedom, unlike the left and right, is because:

1. I want to do whatever I wish with my life (outside of directly violating person or property, which I have no desire to do anyway).
2. I want my kids to live in a society that allows them to be free also, particularly as adults.
3. I don’t want my tax dollars going to enforce things like specific sounds people make with their mouths or who they choose to hire in their small businesses. I only want my tax dollars going to a very small number of things like defending the borders from invading armies or catching murderers. Nothing else.
4. I don’t want to live in a country with thousands upon thousands of laws passed by left-wingers and right-wingers, because we know from historical fact and precedent that such countries always get less free every year because they add more laws every year (like the United States, Canada, the UK, etc).

It’s sad that I’m in such a tiny minority of the world, but I’ve been a minarchist libertarian for over 25 years so I’m accustomed to it. That’s why, many decades ago, I stopped wasting my time doing things like voting, and instead focused on lifestyle models that allowed me to live a more free life (Unchained CEO, Five Flags, Alpha Male 2.0). Indeed, the models I teach create a libertarian life, rather than trying to live in a libertarian country.

Living in a country like this will never happen, mostly because 99% of humanity are either left-wingers or right-wingers who hate freedom.

But the good news is that you can live a life as if you live in a free country. I certainly do. I experience more day-to-day freedom than almost anyone else I know, at any age or income level, including billionaires.

You can live a life like this too. You just need to fully understand what freedom actually means, both the good and the bad, and know that the irritating parts of freedom you don’t like are more than worth the benefits and amazing life freedom can give you.

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