The Delusion Of Recruiting Delusions

Wendy quotes Jim Peron, and I excerpt:

"If libertarians are serious about advancing liberty (which is an open question I think) they would discuss how to take advantage of this shift on the Left to recruit these people to liberty."

This is the central delusion of all those who I see lately even entertaining the idea of somehow aligning with the left. Look: no matter what else, those people will never, at root, relinquish a basic totalitarian grasp on the material bases of human life: the whole economic aspect of their leftism; the thing that makes them "of the left". If they seem attractive to "libertarians" because of their "civil liberties" mouthings, it's because they have no basic regard for ideas, and that's why they're happy to grant "freedom" to so-called "intellectual" spheres. But look; this is all infatuation: a reification of one aspect of character into the whole character, and I'm here to tell you that it's a drastic mistake at this or any point in American politics. Peron suggests that "libertarians ought to be spending more time talking to the Left and less time talking to the Right."

I ask, about what? I need to agree with them that U.S. foreign policy is as fucked-up as a football-bat and that there are enormous domestic implications? Not bloody likely. I don't need them to ratify my own judgment in the matter. What I might need from them would be, say, a basic common-sense endorsement of the principle of private property, and they're never going to do that. Do you understand? That's why they're on "the left", and until they're not, there is nothing serious to "talk" with them about.