Holy Libertarianism, Batman!
by Jamie Kelly
I've always wondered what it must be like to be a wealthy, raging conservative.
Seems to me the cognitive dissonance would set your teeth to rattling, walking out of a church with The Sermon on the Mount still ringing in your ears, and then hopping into your Mercedes for a GPS-navigated tour around the lake, before sticking a steak-and-prawn lunch on your AMEX gold card.
Personally, that'd make my head torch up like a DuraFlame log, and then explode into a rainbow of fun colors—mainly reds and pinks and the off-white of skull chunks.
Speaking of DuraFlame, I've always wondered what it must be like to be a flaming liberal.
Seems to me the cognitive dissonance would cook your brain like a microwaved slug, preaching to the whole planet about the plight of the poor and oppressed, while looking down your nose at Wal-Mart shoppers, Israeli foreign policy, bowling alleys, the war in Afghanistan, and cheap domestic beer.
Personally, that'd make my head flame up like a roman candle, and then explode into a rainbow of fun colors. Mainly reds and pinks and the off-white of skull chunks.
I repeat. Yes, I do. I repeat. I repeat because I love.
Holy underwear, is it ever a great time to be a libertarian. Libertarians get all the good stuff with none of the skull fires—the Mercedes with GPS, the Wal-Marts, a good fun war or two, the cheap domestic beer, the fine wine, and all of it without any of the guilt or cognitive dissonance. Plus, if they had their way entirely, they might just enjoy a big fat bong hit before a South Park marathon.
We libertarians are a misunderstood lot, especially in a collectivist little grease spot like The People's Republic of Missoula, also known as The Union of Soviet Socialist Missoulians (Back in the USSM! You don't know how lucky you are, boy! Back in the USS, back in the USS, back in the USSM!). We love the "liberal" culture (the nightlife, the free-spiritedness, the nonconformity, the art, the music!) but get sick of the neo-Commies ("D'uh, capitalism sucks! My baby boomer parents and MTV totally told me so! D'uh! Give me an iPod and a steamed frappuccino.") We believe private property ain't just a good idea, it's a human right; but we recoil in horror when conservatives start noticing the pattern of the drapes as they peek into our bedrooms—although, most of us have nothing to fear, save for someone stealing a good idea or two.
Yep, we're feeling real good, we libertarians, despite the low-brain-weight Supreme Court goon squad, and that black hole we call the federal deficit. Seems there is all sorts of hope for libertarians these days, and its source is about as unlikely as a squirrel shoot at a PETA convention ... I'm talking about Hollywood.
Thankfully, for those of us sick of Hillary Rodham Clinton and her gaping shrill-hole spewing all that "It takes a village to raise a child to become a blowhard sycophant" garbage straight from Bill Moyers's foreword to Das Kapital, lately there has been a string of movies and television shows embracing the libertarian view of life.
Thank Fred, and (as you might have learned) Fred is my pet name for God.
According to a Washington Post story I just read, Batman Begins is quite the rage with libertarian-minded dudes and dudettes. Apparently, its protagonist is a businessperson, who Hollywood normally portrays in the same light as they would a Hitler sympathizer who kicks kittens and hands out cigarettes and wax-coated meth pills at the orphanage.
Batman Begins, which I have not seen yet, follows other libertarian-minded shows which I have seen, and loved: The Incredibles, Million Dollar Baby, Team America: World Police, and the aforementioned South Park.
Libertarianism, in case you didn't know, is the radical notion that our bodies and our minds belong not to our neighbor or our government or Fred, but to ourselves, and so do their fruits: the lives we build with our hands and heads. In other words, get your grubby laws off my body and my wallet, leech boy.
Just like jazz and baseball, all the shows above celebrate individuality, and deliver a roundhouse kick to conformist agents that deny them—especially that tangled mess of fishing line known as our government. Considering the steamy pools of festering landfill juice that Hollywood normally produces, in which life is portrayed as one big grimy death-fest of cynicism and loathing, I'm quite pleased.
I'm going to go buy a balloon.
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