Libertarian Glossary

Or : a way to cut thru the doublespeak…
See also the Freedom Party of Ontario’s humourous look at the words which shape politics and the propaganda glossary.

affirmative action : A popular newspeak expression designating institutionalized positive racism in favour of minorities.
anarchism : General term designating all political systems which do not include a formal authority. Liked by people who cherish a fictional state of nature. Tyranny of the strongest.
anarcho-capitalism : A political system where anarchism and capitalism coexist. Belief in anarcho-capitalism requires belief that rights (including property rights) are an emergent property of societies. Synonyms : jumbo shrimp, military intelligence.
anarcho-syndicalism : The worst of both worlds.

bellyfeel : From 1984. Means “Full emotional understanding. Blind, enthusiastic acceptance of a concept”. See “state of grace” and “state of nature”.
benevolent despot : George Lucas has said this would be the ideal form of government. He is more right than he probably realizes. See reality.

capitalism : Economical system based on free trade instead of coercion or central planning. Based on natural rights. Synonymous of “free market”. For the opposite, see communism.
centrism : Political system of the “middle ground”. Consequence of the cult of compromise.
communism : Political system based on the elimination of property rights and organization of labour. A form of economical state of grace. Tyranny of the few and the exploiters.
conservatism : Political system where social freedom is repressed. The extreme form of conservatism is called fascism.
constitution : Document which details the basic political system of a country. The most popular constitution is the US Constitution, which has been eroded by democracy.
constitutionalism : Political system based on a national constitution. Sometimes shares characteristics of fascism, due to its nationalist foundation.
crimethink : Newspeak word which contains all heretical and unauthorized concepts. In real newspeak, the contents of the web site you are reading, in fact its mere title, cannot be translated (if only for lack of word to designate its heresies) and would simply be represented by the word : “crimethink”.

death by democracy : Designates the series of measures which were brought about by democratic processes and which kill people today. The most brutal of these measures are : the war against drugs, warfare, pharmaceutical regulations, gun control, socialized medecine, police brutality.
democracy : Political system where laws are changed at the whims of the majority, or representants of the majority (representative democracy). A popular loaded word. Represented by the expression “fifty million frenchmen can’t be wrong” (sadly, its proponents are the first to demonstrate the absurdity of believing people). Democratic process : one driven by a majority, by popular vote, etc.
direct democracy : System by which the majority can finally oppress the minority without interference.
Dictator Syndrome : Principle named by Harry Browne, which is that people support government programs because they expect that they will be able to dictate what is going to be done with it, or that the government will do it the way they want it to (of course, this reflects a sad ignorance of private choice theory, and usually leads to programs being implemented in the worst way possible).
doublespeak : A simultaneous belief in two contradictory ideas. Example : baseless murder by a common criminal is evil, institutionalized murder by the FDA’s baseless delays is good.

eco-fascist : Falsely called “environmentalist”, ideology which uses outdated ecological theories to promote hatred against free enterprise and property rights, and collectivist ownership of all natural resources.
erosion of freedom : Long-term process by which politicians take away the freedom of the people in a piecemeal manner. This has the distinct advantage of not raising any alarms, and pushing the debate line in the direction of authoritarianism.

fascism : System of government where the government (usually dictatorial) controls ideological opposition thru censorship and imposes socio-economical controls, with an emphasis on social controls.
freedom (political) : A popular loaded word, which nowadays is aligned with the state of grace. Technically, means a state of self-ownership : synonymous with libertarianism.

government : An armed gang which extorts more and more money, gives you more and more problems, and gives back useless, and even destructive, “services” in return. Also : mafia.
gun control : The best way governments of all stripes have found to disarm the people, making police states much easier to implement. Euphemism for “victim disarmament”. A leading cause of death by democracy.

interest group : Group of individuals which take advantage of the government’s power (and, sometimes, dependence on public image) by using public or private pressure in order to obtain laws or regulations in their favour. The chief characteristic of mixed economies.

left – right : Gradient which places communism at the extreme left and fascism at the extreme right, with centrism in the middle. The fight between the right and the left is “simply a tussle between two groups of mass-men, one large and poor, the other small and rich … The object of the tussle [is] the material gains accruing from control of the State’s machinery. […] as long as the State makes the seizure of wealth a matter of legalized privilege, so long will the squabble for that privilege go on” (Albert Jay Nock). Outdated political spectrum which does not represent all possible systems. See Nolan Chart.
liberalism : Political system where economical freedom is repressed. The extreme form of liberalism is called communism. The old usage of “liberal” meant “libertarian”, but this meaning has fallen into disuse in North America.
libertarian : That which pertains to libertarianism.
libertarianism : Political system where laws are bounded by natural rights. Tyranny of reality. The optimal system of government. The economical state of a libertarian system is called capitalism.

mass murder : A favourite totalitarist and democratic pass-time, much like baseball. Stalin, Mao and Hitler were star players at this game, but our current world leaders are good too.
minarchism : General term designating all political systems with small governments. See libertarianism, constitutionalism.
mixed economy : The prime characteristic of the economy in socialist systems. Based on interest groups.

nazism (nazi) : Based on the German shorthand for National Socialism (Nazionalsozialistiche). A form of fascism which puts a heavy emphasis on racism and nationalism.
newspeak, loading of the language : Linguistic sleight-of-hand that politicians and other speakers use in order to mislead their audience. Example of newspeak : “pro-life”. Example of loading : the positive use of the word “democracy”.
Nolan Chart : Two-dimensional political chart with the axis of economical and social freedom. Places libertarianism upwards, liberalism left, conservatism right, and totalitarism downwards. A more complete model than the standard left-right false dichotomy. To evaluate yourself on a Nolan Chart : http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html. Here is a derivate test : http://www.politopia.com/. To read a more extensive explanation of the Nolan Chart, and a very interesting three-dimensional variant : http://www.friesian.com/quiz.htm

politician : Person who can claim that A is B one day and that A is C the next without making it look like he lost his integrity.
politics : The art of proposing to solve problems with evil and absurd solutions, getting everyone to agree and vote for you, then use another absurd solution instead.
Ponzi scheme : Scheme where a scammer gets money on false promises, then repays the first victims with the money of new victims. Eventually the money runs out, and the scam collapses. See “social security”.

racism (positive, negative) : The belief that one should be considered as part of a race instead of as an individual, and the actions that result from this belief. See affirmative action. Positive racism : to consider some races superior to others. Negative racism : to consider some races inferior to others.
reality : The sum of all existants. Metaphysically self-evident. That which objective processes aim to understand and integrate. Reality is inherently “benevolent” in the sense that it is favorable to the establishment of man’s life (or more precisely, man’s life has adapted to the rest of reality).
rights (natural) : Philosophical principles which govern the pattern of laws in an optimal society. Part of the branch of politics. Called natural because they are based on nature (reality), as opposed to the imaginary equalities of the state of grace.

socialism : General term designating all political systems with big governments. See liberal, conservative, centrist.
social security : A form of legal Ponzi scheme or lottery. A disguised tax coupled with a possible social program later. See “Ponzi scheme”.
state of grace : Subjective, imaginary form of equality espoused by authoritarians, disconnected from any basis in reality, which generates the most emotional frenzy amongst authoritarists. Expressed in many public programs, like affirmative action.
state of nature : Primitive state of anarchy idealized by said anarchists, and which generates the most emotional franzy amongst themselves. Some believe that rights would magically become an emergent property of the state of nature, some believe that life was somehow better in this state (despite the 40-year lifespan, criminality, despotism…). For an example of this delusion, see Rousseau’s “Discourse on the Inequalities of Men”.
super-consumer complex : The delusion that one is most apt to determine the value of various products, at the expense of everyone else’s needs and evaluations. People affected by this complex, in effect, lose the capacity to differentiate between their own evaluations and objective properties. Most often observed amongst Linux users, but is widespread.
syndrome of the victim : Groups that are former victims of slave systems (for example, jews, women, blacks, etc) tend to use governments by portraying themselves, and acting, as victims. Usually engenders a persecution complex and affirmative action. This syndrome is one of the motivators of the state of grace.

thinking : To formulate mentally, to decide by reasoning.

wage slave : Term used to justify tax slavery. Somehow choosing to be productive is evil, but being a slave to a bureaucracy is A-OK.
war on drugs, war on poverty, war on… : Wars fought by governments against their honest citizens. So far the government has lost all the wars it has waged, but yet has gained a lot of power from it, mainly because people never learn.