The World Needs More "Negativity"

Recently, I was invited to participate in a “March For Capitalism.”  This is scheduled, no less, for December 2nd, which just happens to be In The Dead Of Winter here in northern Canada.  What’s more, the concept of “capitalism” as a cause is as ludicrous as it is vague.  Capitalism covers way too much ground, for one thing.  Do they want me, a Libertarian, to endorse monopolistic practices?  How about the outright control of government by a handful of mega-corporations?  To hell with it; I’m a free-enterpriser, not a capitalist.

In this country, after one is over the age of fifteen, one does not risk frostbite by going outside during the paltry six or seven hours of daylight which illuminate the snowdrifts of winter, anyway.  At least, one does not do so without a real good reason.  Without such a reason, deliberately parading about at this time of year is viewed, quite rightly, as insanity.  So what cause could compel me to do this?

None.  Oh sure, I will march against things, even in winter, but for something?  Never.  I will march against the “humanitarian bombing” campaigns of the New World Order.  I will demonstrate against the mass murder of a generation of unborn babies.  I will stand on windswept street corners and hand out leaflets denouncing the fascist police states that the USA and Canada have become.  I will not, however, so much as yell “Hurrah!” out the window for anything, not even in summer.

In politics and sociology, as in math and physics, a negative in opposition to another negative yields a positive.  We do the most good when we oppose some evil scheme of government and, one hopes, thereby thwart it.  For example, one could demonstrate for the concept of peace, but in the absence of a war, why would anyone bother?  Some, of course, do this, but as recent history has shown, positive groups such as “Women’s Strike For Peace” disappeared as soon as NATO began bombing hospitals in Belgrade.  Most of the “pro-peace” forces quickly lined up to endorse the “humanitarian” bombing, anyway.  They’re just so positive, it wouldn’t have felt right for them to oppose government-sanctioned slaughter.

Me, in my typically negative fashion, I ran out to join the Edmonton Anti-NATO Committee.  (You’ll notice, gentle reader, that this organisation has negativity built right into its name.)  I opposed.  I criticised.  I was *gasp* negative.

I don’t give to charities that are for things; I contribute to those which are against things.  The Canadian Cancer Society, to which I have frequently contributed, is not for cancer, but against it.  I don’t give my assistance to any organisation that is pro-life; they must be against abortion to win my support. 

Beneath their lovely surfaces, the “positive” causes are all about doing, or endorsing, evil.  Let’s look at one.  During the 1960s’ protests, a gang of insipid, vacuous losers called “Up With People” was sent to tour American college campuses.  They jumped about in their red, white and blue cheerleader outfits and called for less “negativity” and more “positiveness.”  Guess what they wanted young Americans to be for? -- the Goddamned US government and its imperial war against Viet Nam.

I was no more able to muster any positive feelings for napalm strikes on Asian villagers then than I am to get all warm and fuzzy about the cluster bombs that are still going off all over Yugoslavia today.  I was against “Up With People” and their whole napalm-heated agenda.

I have never yet encountered any “positive” cause which was not just a mask for some of that old-time evil.  The devil doesn’t look like he’s portrayed in those movies, kids; he’s nice and good-looking and well-spoken and inoffensive and always positive, and I say to hell with him.

In summation, I would gladly march against the tariffs and taxes and regulations and general government meddling in free enterprise, but I will never march for capitalism or anything else.  My motto is this: “If you have nothing negative to say, then go home and shut the f**k up!”

And to hell with Thumper, too.

November 11, 2001