The devotees of Austrian economist Bubba Jo Mises have come to define American libertarianism, and...what?
No, wait. That's not his name. Got that wrong.
It's "Ludvig Van" Mises, which of course makes me think of Alex Delarge's obsession from A Clockwork Orange. The depth of libertarian passion for Mises and his theories runs pretty much as deep, but it's...peculiar. I have no beef with Mises, but his acolytes seem to have become something rather peculiar.
Like, say, in the absolute and fervent assertions of the Mises Institute on the subject of fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels, they argue in a series of essays apparently written for gullible children, are the very bulwark and foundation of all human freedom, and without fossil fuels, life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness are well nigh impossible. Woe, woe to us should we ever forget this fundamental truth about the nature of human personhood.
Those who deign to suggest otherwise are "Green Tyrants," who are looking to place you and your loved ones in the authoritarian hellhole of renewable energies. Wind is slavery! Solar is serfdom! The purpose of the environmental movement is nothing more nor less than domination, and globalism, and sadness.
This is all more than a little faintly insane, a bizarro world inversion of the self-evident truth.
Let's say you value your independence, that you desire to be as vigorously self-sufficient as humanly possible. Which serves the cause of your freedom more: solar and wind, or fossil fuels? Which makes you dependent on outside systems and interests, and which allows maximal self-reliance?
Wind and solar are infinitely renewable natural resources. They are easily and freely accessible to anyone with even a modest plot of land. My own home, for instance, would produce sufficient energy from a solar array to meet all of my energy needs. That would include 90% of my transportation.
Is that energy as cheap and energy dense as gasoline? No. It's not. But through thrift and prudence, it'd do.
Fossil fuels provide only the illusion of individual liberty. They rely upon sprawling and complex systems of production infrastructure and profit-seeking corporate bureaucracies, all of which work hand-in-hand with government. They are also, as often as not, a resource produced directly and in the service of state power. In some instances, like Norway, those states are respectful of individual liberties. In most instances, they are not. Even a fool knows this. Only the delusional deny it.
What we also know is that these systems are the very farthest thing from resilient. If even one element of a vast global supply and production chain fails, fossil fuels become scarce or vanish entirely. In a crisis, when those systems are compromised, they cannot be trusted. I mean, all you have to do is hack the billing system of a provider, and Americans panic, and every gas station on the East Coast is suddenly without fuel. Lord, that was dumb...but illustrative. Or when, after a Category 1 Hurricane, the very center of the entire American oil industry was suddenly a sweaty mess of argumentative Texans sitting in their SUVs and pickups, waiting in lines for gas so long they'd have embarrassed the Soviets.
For homesteaders and preppers and others who value their freedom, the choice is obvious. Panels and windmills and water turbines, people. C'mon.
Beyond this, there's the impact of fossil fuel use on climate. This is a libertarian concern, because our planetary weather systems impact local ability to produce food. If you destabilize that system, you take away the freedom to reliably grow crops and provide for yourself and your family. Saying: we wish to be locally resilient, we wish grow and produce food, and do not want the greed of the elite to destroy our right to freely enjoy the fruits of creation?
This ain't oppressive, unless by "oppressive" you mean "repressing the right of the powerful to take the freedoms of the average human being."
For any libertarian who is actually libertarian, rather than a patsy for oligarchs, state powers, and corporate interests, this is all rather obvious.
Fossil fuel provides a form of freedom, true. But it is one that comes at a cost, a cost that must be acknowledged and carefully considered.
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