Mayday, Mayday!

For most libertarians, of course, May 1 is the day we gather friends and family around the Beltaine fires for nude dancing and orgies led by the Horned God. But it was also May Day, the international labor holiday. For communist regimes, it became an excuse for elaborate bread-and-circuses pageants and parades meant to distract from the brutality and squalor they'd imposed on their populations. In honor (in the loosest sense of the word) of that, Catallarchy has a great May Day essay series by both the regular crew and various guest bloggers. Check it out.

Comments

[mike_twincities]

You forgot a small part...

Before the orgies, we toss well-known theocrats into the Wicker Man...

🙂

Live free, fight or fall.

[kmw]

For most libertarians, of course, May 1 is the day we gather friends and family around the Beltaine fires for nude dancing and orgies led by the Horned God.

I'm apparently hanging out with the wrong libertarians.

[Holden Caulfield]

Back when I was at Pencey Prep, on May Day all the libertarians on our floor would just go wild. They would build a fire and dance in the goddamn nude, for godsakes. Then this one boy, Julian Sanchez, would toss a well-known theocrat into a burning Wicker Man, or some goddamn thing.

I thought the nude dancing was kind of flitty, if you want to know the truth. Still, old Sanchez was a very intelligent guy. I have to admit it. Old Julian. Goddamn. Those goddamn libertarians. Always burning stuff.

But those were the days. Never post on a libertarian blog, I swear. You always end up missing people.

[free form]

You know, Caulfield, I didn't like your story--thought you were a whiner and a bore--but your persistent appearances here in this forum are cracking me up!

[Holden Caulfield]

Heh heh. Thank you for the compliment.

[kevrob]

I'm OK with the Catallarchy crowd alerting naive youngsters to the horrors of state communism, but we should remember the events that the original labor movement "May Day" was supposed to commemorate: the Haymarket riot and bombing in Chicago and the Bay View Massacre in Milwaukee. In both cases the police were called out to confront protesters, firing on and killing some of the marchers. In an age when troops were not routinely issued repeating weapons, the very act of massing a large group was often seen as a threat of violence. That's why the UK had a "Riot Act", from which we get that cliche about reading it. Our labor laws, which, as a libertarian, I oppose, are in large part an effort to remove the threat of violence from both sides of the union/company equation. Imagine the trouble that would have been saved if The Powers That Were had used the police as a neutral force to be interposed between the antagonists in disputes, rather than as an enforcer of the status quo.

Kevin

[Jim Walsh fnord]

I remember a certain little piece of doggerel from The Illuminatus Trilogy:

Horray, horray,
It's the first of May
Outdoor F!@#ing starts today!

(Sigh) Robert Anton, we hardly knew ye...

[Franklin Harris]

Damn. Beat to the "Wicker Man" reference.