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Four Libertarian Films For Martin Luther King Day

January 18, 2021

It’s something of an irony that the Left still claims to be the champion of equality and tolerance but has nowadays officially dropped both of those things in favor of identity politics. The Martin Luther King vision of a world in which people “will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” can’t be squared with demands for people to be treated differently based on color, let alone for Antifa-style street violence to pursue that demand. So here are four libertarian films for this Martin Luther King libertarian holiday.


Loving

A married interracial couple’s determination to reside in their home state of Virginia, in violation of Virginia laws against interracial marriage, leads to the legal overturning of all such laws in sixteen states. Based on a true story. [ Loving credits: Dir: Jeff Nichols/ Ruth Negga, Joel Edgerton, Will Dalton/ 123 min/ Drama, Romance/ Government as Bigot, Sexual Liberty, Social Tolerance]

“What [director] Nichols does — and does so exquisitely — is to show not only the deep love between two ordinary people but also…the damage an intrusive and bigoted authority can do.”
–Boston Herald


How Jack Became Black

A father forced by the public school system to categorize his multiracial children by “primary race” explores the silliness of racial identity. [ How Jack Became Black credits: Dir: Eli Steele/ 96 min/ Documentary/ Equality & Law, Individualism/ 2018]

“There is a growing group in this country who feel that they cannot be simply placed into one racial category. Yet, what if that is exactly what society is trying to make them do? This is a battle we see taking place in the new documentary How Jack Became Black.”
–The Black Geeks


Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

The interracial marriage of a black man and a young white woman tests the boundaries of their parents’ enthusiasm for racial tolerance. [ Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner credits: Dir: Stanley Kramer/ Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier/ 108 min/ Drama/ Social Tolerance]

“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a most delightfully acted and gracefully entertaining film.”
–New York Times


To Kill A Mockingbird

A small-town lawyer defends an innocent black man accused of rape. [ To Kill a Mockingbird credits: Dir: Robert Mulligan/ Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Phillip Alford/ 131 min/ Drama/ Social Tolerance]

“The underlying story here has a strong social tolerance theme that libertarians will certainly like, and it has as well a suggestion of the nonaggression principle. Even apart from its philosophical content, this is a terrific film. It’s thoroughly moving from beginning to end. All the characters are carefully sketched, even the lesser ones. And the two southern children at the center of this story really were southern. No faked accents here. The haunting music and small-town scenery add tremendous atmosphere. All this combines to create a nostalgic quality that’s like walking into one’s youth and another age.
–MissLiberty.com


And a bonus…this clever commercial shows how capitalism brings people together at Red House Furniture. It has 6.7 MILLION views on YouTube.


How does identity politics destroy Martin Luther King’s vision of tolerance? This three minute video from Capital Research explains. Incidentally, YouTube initially restricted access to it, apparently for the dangerous idea it explicitly promotes: the universal brotherhood and sisterhood of mankind.

The Soviet Story | Documentary

January 17, 2021

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN DOCUMENTARIES
The untold story of Soviet mass murder is documented through rare archival photographic footage and interviews with survivors. [ The Soviet Story credits: Dir: Edvins Snore/ 86 min/ Documentary/ Democide, Anti-Socialism/ 2008]

Note: the full documentary can typically be found via online search.

“The extermination of tens of millions of Soviet citizens at the hands of their own government is one of the biggest under-reported crimes of the twentieth century, under-reported because left-leaning intellectuals are uncomfortable with the parallels it obviously implies between the Soviet and Nazi systems. Those parallels get laid out cold here.”

This is the raw and unvarnished story of Soviet communist atrocities. It is not easy to watch — nothing is held back. It is not a film for kids. There are moments when it includes brief historical and current film clips that show cold murder, not as a technique to shock, but because it happened, and the footage brings it home in a way that mere words would not. If you have the slightest sympathy for communism, or the USSR, or Stalin in particular, or if you even just think that communism was bad but not as bad as Nazism, this film will forever change your mind. I do not say all this to deter the viewer, but to forewarn that this is a powerful film that will leave you shaken. That said, I thought it a duty to watch it to be better informed on the subject, and I’m glad I did. It does some small justice to the victims that their loss be told.

History is written by the victors, as the saying goes; but when the victors are exhausted by two world wars, a great deal can be swept under the carpet in the pursuit of future peace. In the 1940s, when the democratic powers, in alliance with “Uncle Joe” Stalin, finally finished off the Axis, no one wanted to hear about the horrors that had been going on in Uncle Joe’s basement, let alone that they greatly exceeded those of the Nazi enemy just vanquished. Credible estimates (1,2,3,4,5) put the death toll of Soviet atrocities in the tens of millions, and at least some of that was known at the time — but there was no attempt to capture Stalin, no Nuremberg trial for the officials who ordered the Soviet mass exterminations, no books or films revealing the horrors, nothing to mark in history that these events had even happened. Today not one in a thousand know this bit of history, making it among the best-hidden crimes of the last century.

Why does that matter? Because socialism is making a comeback. College kids today can jokingly wear Soviet outfits to a costume party or sport a t-shirt of Marx, and no one bats an eye because Marxist crimes against humanity are little advertised in intellectual circles or in popular culture. High-ranking politicians now openly and proudly call themselves socialist. Newsweek cheerily asserted on its magazine cover in 2009 that “we are all socialists now.” Of course, such people do not intend to take modernity down the path of mass atrocities, but they are painfully naive about the dark side of the centralized power that socialism necessitates and about its proven potential to corrupt, largely because that history is little told. This compelling and authoritative documentary is a small corrective to that historical deficiency.

One of the key points made in this film – and it’s nailed down here like never before – is that mass extermination is not an aberration of socialist governments but in their very DNA, and it didn’t start with Nazi Germany but with the USSR. Indeed, it originated in their common root: Marxism. Karl Marx is authoritatively quoted: “The classes and the races too weak to master the conditions of life must give way…They must perish in the revolutionary holocaust.” More specifically, Marx wrote that “racial trash” such as Serbs, Scottish Highlanders, and some others were too backward to be ready for socialism, and when the revolution came they would have to be destroyed. Apparently the idea of getting rid of inconvenient people was in the plan from the beginning.

And it was not impolite among early socialists to take that idea seriously: the well-known British playwright and socialist George Bernard Shaw is seen here in a short film clip openly advocating the extermination of those who consume more than they produce, even going so far as to call upon science to invent a painless but deadly gas that would kill them (which the Nazis later would invent). He was not considered a bad person for doing so, just someone sharing his thoughtful opinion. Of course, German National Socialists killed based on race; Soviet socialists killed based on class. But as one commentator here explains it: “Both systems disagree with human nature as it is. Nazism is based on false biology. Communism is based on false sociology.” In the end, both left thousands of mass graves, millions of people dead, for a common purpose: to create the “new man,” the ideal purified human to live in their respective paradises.

The film focuses particularly on extermination of the Ukrainians, in itself a democide of about 7 million people. Stalin achieved this through mass starvation, by exporting all food, denying people the ability to purchase food, and sealing the borders with guards. These events are told in short film clips and in interviews of aging survivors who choke back tears in their telling of what happened. The Holodomor, as the Ukrainians call this crime, occurred in 1932-33, long before Hitler’s extermination of the Jews, and it is not unrelated. As we learn in the film, one of the people monitoring this situation was no less than Adolph Hitler, who saw in it new possibilities; on Hitler’s recommendation Nazi officials would later consult with their Soviet counterparts on just how they managed to kill so many so quickly.

This is another central point that comes up in the film — not only were Soviet socialists and German National Socialists cut from the same intellectual cloth, but they heavily cooperated in the early years of WWII. In 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed a secret pact to divide Europe. After invading Poland from opposite sides, the two countries coordinated Hitler’s invasion of Scandinavia. Soviet and Nazi officers met regularly and cheered each other on; clips are shown here of comfortable parties in which the two groups are happily socializing. The Soviet Union was the main supplier to the Nazis. When Jews escaped to the USSR to avoid the Holocaust, the Soviets sent them back to Germany. The two countries might have remained allies throughout the war had Hitler not reneged on their pact in 1941.

The Soviet Story is a very thorough telling, with many witnesses, documentation, interviews with historians, and video footage. There are several books on this subject (1,2,3,4,5); but it’s rare, and more persuasive, to see it covered in film.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, so it’s important to get it right. The extermination of tens of millions of Soviet citizens at the hands of their own government is one of the biggest under-reported crimes of the twentieth century, under-reported because left-leaning intellectuals are uncomfortable with the parallels it obviously implies between the Soviet and Nazi systems. Those parallels get laid out cold here.

External Reviews

“Gripping, audacious and uncompromising…”
–The Economist

“For those who think they’ve seen everything they need to know about wartime Europe, this film will provide an extraordinary jolt to the senses… ”
–Film Threat

“Make no mistake: this is a film everyone should see, including those college students who think nothing of sporting ‘Communist chic.’ There is a wealth of revelatory information here, more than sufficient to counter the narrative that while the Nazis were Satanic evil, the Soviets were just amiable, rough-edged vodka-addled Puritans who, at worst, are the butts of Yakov Smirnoff jokes. The Soviet Story lays as much waste to the other morally and factually bankrupt narrative common to the Left: that the Soviet Union was based on a romantic, noble idea that sadly just wasn’t practical.”
–The New Individualist

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Covid Hypocrisy: Remy Video Mocks Two-Faced Pols

January 15, 2021

COVID has proven like nothing before that there is one law for the little guy and another kinder, gentler version of the law for politicians. Among those caught violating their own lockdowns, the list includes: Austin Mayor Steve Adler (D), CA Governor Gavin Newsom (D), San Francisco Mayor London Breed (D), Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl (D), San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo (D), CA Senator Dianne Feinstein (D), Denver Mayor Michael Hancock (D), and many others. In this short music video, libertarian comedian Remy sings It Wasn’t Me in honor of the COVID hypocrisy of our political gentry.

Anthem Film Festival Seeking New Libertarian Films

January 15, 2021

The 2021 Anthem Film Festival — the annual screening of the latest libertarian films and documentaries — will be held in the shadow of Mount Rushmore in Rapid City, South Dakota, July 21-24, 2021. It is part of the larger FreedomFest event. You may purchase registration here.

The festival is currently seeking libertarian films for its 2021 event. “We seek movies and documentaries about self-reliance, innovation, entrepreneurship, individual rights, and the triumph of persuasion over force. Libertarian films often point out the unintended consequences of government intervention, but they’re just as likely to be about a protagonist’s personal struggle for self-expression or self-reliance.”  You can learn more about the submission process here.

Not sure if your film is right for this event? Check out this list of film festival winners for the years 2011-2020.

Michael Apted, Director Of Four Libertarian Films, Dead

January 9, 2021

It was announced that filmmaker Michael Apted has passed. He was a prolific film director, producer, actor, and writer. Libertarians will remember him for four films, most particularly Amazing Grace, which tells the true story of William Wilberforce, probably the most important abolitionist in history. Michael Apted is also notable for being one of the few directors to make a film about the Tianamen massacre, Moving the Mountain, as well as two films dealing with the U.S. government’s recent treatment of Native Americans, Thunderheart and Incident at Oglala.

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)

January 7, 2021

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN FILMS
A young Pakistani immigrant and his English boyfriend overcome all obstacles to launch a fabulous laundromat: [ My Beautiful Laundrette credits: Dir: Stephen Frears/ Saeed Jaffrey, Roshan Seth, Daniel Day-Lewis/ 97 min/ Comedy, Romance/ Pro-Capitalism, Individualism]

Enter the broken world of lower-class post-Industrial urban England, circa 1980. Unemployment is high. English hooligans hang around the streets, harassing passers-by and committing petty crimes. It is a place without hope or opportunity. After decades of living under enlightened central planning, the population has lost its mojo. What’s needed is some entrepreneurial spirit, and it comes, ironically, from a family of Pakistani immigrants who are determined to claw their way up, by any means necessary.

Omar, a young man from this family, is given a failing laundromat to operate, but he can’t manage it all by himself. He happens to run across Johnny, an English former schoolmate turned street criminal. Johnny is young and strong, just the type he needs to help with the laundromat, so Omar hires him, despite family objections. Yes, it is an unlikely union — the two are divided by race and social class — but market forces unleashed by Thatcher are starting to undermine the power of those divisions. That point comes up again, and even more explicitly, when Omar’s uncle, Nasser, evicts a penniless Pakistani from his apartment, and Johnny expresses surprise at the lack of racial loyalty. Nasser replies: “I’m a professional businessman, not a professional Pakistani. There is no question of race in the new enterprise culture.” Making money is the great unifier.

It’s also the great liberator, though only Omar seems to know it. Nasser sees in Omar someone whose life he can mold in the traditional fashion, even down to choosing Omar’s wife. Meanwhile, Omar’s father, a socialist intellectual, who lays in bed all day mulling over his past success as a writer, keeps pushing Omar to go to college and become a politician, journalist, or trade union leader. What neither of them realize is that Omar has his own plans, and that his success in business and increasing pride and self-confidence is freeing him to follow his own path. And the comedic cherry on the cake is that they haven’t a clue Omar is gay and in a relationship with, of all people…Johnny.

My only objection to this film is its rather cynical view of drug dealing and theft. In one scene Omar and Johnny sell some drugs to raise capital for the laundromat, and when someone related to the dealing demands money, they commit theft. It’s all treated as a one-time thing, I suppose to demonstrate their commitment to success, but it wasn’t necessary to the main plot and it undermines both their likability and the otherwise strong libertarian current running through events.

My Beautiful Laundrette scored a rare 100% critics approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s a quirky drama-comedy, with a gay romance sub-plot, probably not for everyone, but the people who like it, really like it.

External Reviews

“The spirit of free enterprise underpins the Hanif Kureishi-scripted, Stephen Frears-directed comedy…My Beautiful Laundrette was a teasing provocation to the mindset of the 70s old left.”
–The Guardian

“My Beautiful Laundrette proposes a liberal-libertarian ‘politics of irony’ that has a relationship of flat rejection towards traditional forms of left politics grounded in class. Indeed, it might be argued that the main zone of its political engagement lies in the conflict between residual, welfarist traditions of liberalism and a libertarian politics which, licensed by Thatcherism, is seeking an exit from this increasingly defunct social democracy.”
–Visions of England: Class and Culture in Contemporary Cinema

“What’s interesting about this film is that novelist/screenwriter Hanif Kureishi thought he was making a savage indictment of Thatcherite capitalism. But to me, the good characters in the movie — white and Pakistani, gay and straight — are the ones who work for a living, and the bad characters are clearly the whining socialist immigrant intellectual, who doesn’t like his son opening a small business, and the British thugs who try to intimidate the young Pakistani businessman. My favorite line: The enterprising brother of the layabout intellectual takes a young working-class Briton with him to evict some deadbeat tenants. The young Brit suggests that it’s surprising the Pakistani businessman would be evicting people of color. And the businessman says, ‘I’m a professional businessman, not a professional Pakistani. There is no question of race in the new enterprise culture.’ I think Kureishi thinks that’s a bad attitude. The joke’s on him.”
–David Boaz, Cato Institute

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This site is a collection of films and documentaries of particular interest to libertarians (and those interested in libertarianism). It began as a book, Miss Liberty’s Guide to Film: Movies for the Libertarian Millennium, where many of the recommended films were first reviewed. The current collection has grown to now more than double the number in that original list, and it’s growing still.

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