Charles Johnson of LGF is an athiest. He is a proud athiest. He wrote something quite profound on Saturday, that makes me wonder just how “athiest” he actually is. What is ironic is the fact that it has taken a self-professed athiest, who is dis-heartened with the far right extremes to completely explain the problem with libertarians. They have no humanity.

“…One thing the nomination of Rand Paul has definitely achieved — it’s showing Americans just how far out of mainstream thought libertarians are. Libertarians like Rand Paul and his father Ron are absolutists, and any form of political absolutism is profoundly anti-human. hat’s why Rand Paul can say “accidents happen” about the BP disaster — because he has no empathy at all for the millions of people whose lives will be affected by it. It’s the same reason why he is an anti-abortion fanatic, despite his lip service to libertarianism — because he has no empathy for human beings. His ideology rules his world view, and human beings play a very small part in it….”

Have you read anything about the life of the patron saint of libertarianism, Ayn Rand? She was a vile, repulsive, almost evil woman who had basically no human decency and no scruples. She had no morality. She believed in a ruthless Darwinian theology of dog eat dog, survival of the fittest, and destroy anyone who got in your way. She once wrote:

“…What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.

Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means: self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.

Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: “No.” Altruism says: “Yes.”…”

The more I think about it, the more certain I am that libertarians have a very hard time practicing the teachings of Christ. A few weeks ago some idiot conservative did this blog mime saying that Christ was conservative. I guess who ever came up with that stupid idea has not actually read the teachings of Christ, which were revolutionarily liberal for the time. Then again, it helps to have a back ground in Roman history to know how revolutionary and how liberal Christ actually was.

Then again, if you are a Tea Party Patriot and rebelling against the tax man, perhaps you are rebelling against the teachings of Christ. Remember that “render unto Caesar…”? The question was about paying taxes, not paying them, and rebelling against the status quo. Christ said we pray for those who lead and opprss us. Then again, Christ took the tax man out to dinner, converted him, and turned him into a Desciple – Matthew.

I kept wondering what bothered me about the Tea Party “patriots” and libertarians. Now I know.

The Pink Flamingo is basically a cynic when it comes to people, human nature, and people doing the “right” thing. Human nature is a very dark, cruel and of-times vicious thing. So is business. Even more so for “big” business. What separates us from the animals and from the worst aspects of our nature is the goodness that comes only from the Grace of God. There is an inherent goodness in our Judeo-Christian belief that has never been duplicated in human history.