Libertarians are Broken

Many libertarian types are convinced that if only they could explain their point of view just right and to enough people the masses would be persuaded that government isn’t really the answer to the nations problem.  Government, they would say, can cause more problems than they are attempting to solve.

Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true.  Politics is a religion and individual’s policy preferences are based far more in emotion than in reason.  One of the primary differences between the libertarian types that I know and those on the left and right is to approach problem solving intellectually rather than emotionally.  I tend to think that this difference in looking at problems is what keeps us marginalized in policy making circles.

This isn’t to say that all supporters of libertarianism are the epitome of rationality.  Quite contrary – there are plenty of nutjobs in our neck of the woods.  In fact, those very nutjobs are deadweight to most of our ideas.  Too many on the left and right think that the primary goal of libertarianism is to legalize drugs so that we can all get high.

In my last post I explained why I think that my daughter’s diabetes is best served by the lack of government intervention.  I have tried over and over and over again to explain to my wife how our lives would be much worse with “universal health care” than under the current system.  And would probably be even better still if the government would just let well enough alone and get out of the way.

But she won’t hear any of it, she is convinced that life would continue as is under government paid health care except we just wouldn’t pay the bills.  And she gets more than a little emotional at my arguments.  She thinks I’m heartless and ignorant.  So I’ve learned to just not talk about it.

The moral of the story is that until and unless the small government advocates can come up with emotional stories to promote our point of view we will continue to be locked out of government.

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