Opposed Sortie
columnist: Random Outlier

Topic: Libertarianism
The Iron Curtain

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Libertarian arguments crumble in a marketplace of our natural allies, conservative voters with a stake in state welfarism.

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by Random Outlier
(Libertarian)
Sunday, February 10, 2008

Within the month a libertarian writer wondered why our natural allies, the conservatives, were missing in action or, worse, defectors to the dark side.

Hell, the answer is easy. Those millions of our potential allies are shoulder- to-shoulder with the legendary ghetto welfare queens, pails poised near that magical spigot which dispenses those lovely green checks, drafts on their neighbor's accounts.

These potential warriors of the libertarian revolt are behind the iron curtain, or perhaps the green-check drapery is a better phrase for it. They have a pretty good deal in life, making them a reluctant audience for any sort tof radical analysis.

Myself not excepted. I have passed that mysterious birthday, the portal to delightful subsidies from my struggling and hard-working children, and, in due course, grandchildren and  great-grandchildren, and .... well,  you get the idea, but it may be too possible to forget that  my pass also permits me to pick the pockets of you and yours. 

A small privately earned income is sufficient to my actual needs, and I had the moral choice of returning my social security checks to the feds.  Alas for a weak character. Damme for a controlled but persistent taste for a touch of the unnecessary, a wee dram of the distillers' finest, pursuit of the comely, even such things as the occasional lust for a new  firearm in quest of respect afield, undoubtedly in futile desire to compensate for deteriorating marksmanship.

Those fine green checks permit a few such small indulgences, along with socializing with beloved comrades in places where a bill is presented before you walk out. 

These are friends of decades,  but more to the point,  to the man and woman, they are  "conservative" -- or at the very least against the "liberals." 

I adore them, and they return a certain affection most of the time, but it congeals into a drain-trap slime when I yield to the impulse to say horrible and outrageous things such as, "Ron Paul is making more reasonable arguments than any other candidate these days."

Eyebrows rise, a small silence occurs, and this is from people who cherish the latest stories proving Hillary a nincompoop, Obama an over-reaching rock star, McCain just, well, you know, not "conservative enough" because "we need smaller government, lower taxes, less regulation. " 

These are intelligent citizens. Some are quite religious, but none has any allegiance to the truly whacko fringe of the religious right.

Instead they are eminently practical citizens. They have worked themselves like  coal-mine mules to do  the decent things  -- to educate themselves, to take care of the kids and the aged parents, to support their churches, to succor their friends in need.

If one is willing to use the trite, something like the "backbone of America," would fit them by any sane standard.

So when from my lips slips  "Ron Paul says..."  or "Libertarians think ..." why do I hear the silent choral lyrics?  "He really is nuts, golden-years bonkers,  hallelujah amen."

Because of our mutual personal interest in the communal slurpfest at the public trough. That's why.

If I am slopped by the elected vote-buyers operating through bureaucrats in the Social Security Administration, so are they. If I benefitted from subsidized eduation, so did  they.  If I took a year's worth of GI-Bill cash in graduate school, they have their farm subsidies. Some of them even add  an additional generous public pension resulting from a life's work as a net tax consumer.

There is no difference between them and me save a small and purely fortuitious incident decades ago when I was handed a copy of "Atlas Shrugged," and found the arguments reasonable and worth further study. That that makes me a libertarian by blind luck, not wit. 

So who is to morally deny them their green checks? Or me? After all, a guy's gotta live in the world that exists, not the one he wishes for. Right? Sure.

Which is too glib.

There are reasons, attributable largely to bad government,  why ordinary existence has become so expensive that transfer payments are necessary for too many people, and those reasons are beyond any sort of immediate control by my people, by  you, by me. 

The freedom agenda might, by a miracle, begin to be implemented in the next minute, but its fruition to the point of practical everyday usefulness  is the work of generations. Meanwhile, the law of personal survival remains unrepealed.

One of the things all this means is that I am well advised to severely limit serious comment in a libertarian vein among the folks whose company I prefer, and I suspect the same is true for most libertarians when they are among the majority -- good people whose interest in the philosophical underpinnings of government is not high.

Courting the scorn or condescension of friends is a dependable path to dining alone, a price too high to make explanation of the libertarian agenda acceptable as pleasant social discourse.

(Or: Don't talk politics at the table, except maybe to pass on the latest laffer at some liberal's expense.)

This leads to a question about how one changes enough minds to, some day, be politically meaningful.

Maybe I'll try to write something about that later, but  herewith a warning that my judgment of the political communications skills of some of our great libertarians is not terribly high.

Meanwhile, soldier on, be of good cheer, etc., and remember, if Mr. Hucklebee can pray for a miracle, we can work for one. 

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2008 Random Outlier, all rights reserved.
Published: Sunday, February 10, 2008
Last modified: Monday, February 11, 2008

The views expressed in this article are those of Random Outlier only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Random Outlier is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

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