Diversity, Death, and 'Reason'

~~ all sorts of ways, they will be expansion of public school stricken from the approved list. budgets, and in favor of all sent every Modal in the country The result, then, of vouchers or attempts to cut and restrict them, into orbit, twanging with shock tax credits will be, in the name of and within those budgets to and hatred. So far, Reason expanding parental choice, to slash away at federal and state magazine, rousing itself from its destroy the current private school budgets, and to try todecentralize umpteenth treatise on local system and to bring it under total and localize as much as possible. garbage disposal, has devoted governmental control. Parents Is that enough to do? an editorial plus an article by a who want to send their kids to Rick Henderson to fulminating really private schools, schools Diversity, against Rockwell on this issue. which may be Politically Incorrect What’s the matter, guys? Can’t in many ways, will then have to Death, and stand some dissent? [Consider, pay tuition to a third set of incidentally, the double standard genuinely private schools, after Reason indulged in by the ACLU. That paying taxes to support two sets by M.N.R. outfit, which would demand “due of schools, the public and the Has anyone noticed how process” for Genghis Khan, leaps Officially Approved Private. the Modals, despite their blather to judgment and takes out ads I had only to hear this ar- about cultural and sexual demanding L.A. Police Chief gument to be converted. It’s not diversity, can’t stand difference Gates’ instant dismissal!] that I had never thought of the of opinion, especially from The newly Postrelized problem of approved private libertarians? They go bananas, Reason, by the way, has polarized schools before, it’s just that I had they flip out. Oh, they don’t mind itself into a truly lovely position: not given it sufficient weight. One abstrusedifferences in libertarian neocon and pro-war on foreign argument that paleoconser- theory; they can and do chew the policy, and Left-nihilo-Modal on vatives make about libertarians cud endlessly,for example, about everything else. Reason’s new is that we tend to become so whether utilitarianism or natural position is epitomized by assistant enamored of our “abstract” though rights is the proper groundwork editor Jacob Sullum, who was correct theory that we tend to for libertarian doctrine. I mean ardently in favor of the mass underweigh concrete political or differences about social and murder of the Gulf War, and cultural problems, and here is a cultural values, about funda- equally ardently in favor of the lovely example. Once we focus mental strategy, about the petty revived cryonics movement, on thequestion, it should beclear racketeering endemic to the along with its systemic practice of that, in ourpresent rotten political movement. “assisted” suicide. The cryonics and cultural climate, there is no We have already pointed movement, in fact, strikes me as way that the State would allow out gleefully in these pages how the Ultimate Modality. It is parents to choose genuinely pri- Sarah Barton’s revealing pin- remarkable that here we have vate schools in a tax credit sys- pricks have driven all the Modals, to a man aggressive tem. So the problem with tax pomposo Left-nihilos, especially atheists who scorn Christians as credits is not the Subsidy Ques- those in power positions in the credulous “mystics,” paying some tion, but granting the state any movement, totally bananas. characters to freeze their heads- right to rule over our choices. But there is more, far more. in the libertarian-oriented Alcor So do we have any Take Lew Rockwell,for example, group, indeed, to freeze them transitional demands left in who has a treasured capacity to “pre-mortem”-in the trusting faith education, short of abolishing the get under the skin of the Modals. that these guys will keep those public school system? Sure we Hardly had they begun to recover heads properly frozen for do. In addition to abolishing from his Anti-Environmentalist centuries, that there will be no compulsory schooling (i.e.school Manifesto, when Lew’s dissent power outage or failure to pay truant laws), wecan battle against from the fashionable ACLU-AI electric bills, and that, some every school bond issue, every Sharpton line on the videotaping centuries in the future the god

May 1991 9 Science will enable their heads to liberty.” New libertarian doctrine: not serve the next time war comes. be thawed out and attached to a murder as the inevitable price of But let the bugles blow afew sharp glorious new live body. And Iiberty ? blasts, and the second squad will further, that a bunch of unpaid One thing can be said for be howling for blood instanter, scientists of the future will, gratis the new Sullum-Reason line: it and in a little while all save a and altruistically, do the requisite is nothing if not consistent. In corporal’s guard of the first squad thawing and repairing and the name of “rights,” it favors will be howling too. resurrecting. “assisted” death, across the As for the rest of the people, Here are the Ultimate board, from head-freezing to Dr. they are for war all the time, Modals: militant atheists, com- Kevorkian’s suicide machine, to whether for good reasons or for puter programmers, science several hundred thousand bad. They delight in it as a cat fiction fanatics, guys who took inhabitants of Iraq. Except that delights in catnip, or a dry seriously those grand old 1950s the Iraqisweren’tgiventhechoice congressman in radiator alcohol. science fiction movies about the to pay some bunco artists to get There is no easier way to get their diabolic preserved Head setting their headsfrozen;ohwell,lguess confidence and their votes than to out to conquer the world-except they just didn’t have the money. start honing ,the sword and talking that they were a lot more fun than The cryonics movement darkly of Huns at the gate. In the this grisly gang. Take Jacob comes down to a grotesque whole history of the United States Sullum’s admiring article about parody of Christianity. As Jeff I can’t find a. single example of a this group featured in Reason’s Tucker writes: “In effect, cryonics politician who ever lost anything April 1991 issue: “The group promises the following: I am the by advocating going to war. But is overwhelmingly male ...The Resurrectionand the Life. He who on the other side I can show you atmosphere is earnestly believes in me, and pays almost countless examples of intellectual. There seem to be a $1 20,000, will have everlasting politicians who were ruined by lot of computer specialists,space life.” talking incautiously of peace. enthusiasts, science fiction To pick up on the ex- Go back, for instance,to the fans, and libertarians of various hortation of Sarah Barton: Go, War of 1812. If there ever was a stripes. One woman is selling go, do it, Modals, don’t wait, Get senseless bloodletting on this parodies of those little Jesus-in-a Frozen Now! earth, it was that one. England fish emblems ...She says they had a magnificentwar machine in went over big at the Objectivist Peace full operation. The United States meeting last week. The [meeting] on Earth had next to nothing. is sort of a cross between a ‘Star by H.L. Mencken Moreover, the reasons Trek’ convention and an Ayn The uplifters who try so advanced for going to war were of Rand discussion group.” Need I violently to downpull war are very the flimsiest. Some of them were say more?! earnest folk, and some of their downright imaginary, and most of The next month’s Reason, arguments are so powerful that the rest were obliterated by a neat Sullum is back, with chilling no answer to them has ever been English backdown before the war consistency, in support of still discovered. But meanwhile war actually began. But by this time broader forms of “assisted” :ontinues to be popular. Who, the plain people were aflame with suicide. Sullum refuses to balk at ndeed, is really against it-that military libido, and.there was no applying this “right” (of suicide) to s, honestly to God against it, as containing them. Poor little Jimmy children, the mentally retarded ?very one is against smallpox Madison, trying to hold back, was and the senile. “Come, my dear, and work? Probably not five greeted with angry roars, and in a wouldn’t you like to go bye-bye in 3ercent of the human race. little whille, like any other Lotus Land?” But Sullum does ’erhaps another five percent may enlightened politician, he allowed not shrink at such an extension of )e induced, under pressure, to himself to be converted, and rights. “Mistakes,” he declares, ;ign petitionsagainst it, and even )lunged the country into the “even fatal ones, are a price of o swear solemnly that they will :arnage with pious hosannas.

I 10 May 1991