The pursuit of an impossible goal

Libertarianism has been in the news lately. The Tea Party activists have grown their movement from insignificance to one that has caused at least one Left leaning individual to promote a "crashing" of said parties.Juvenile antics aside,the mere fact that this individual cares enough to make the effort to try to embarrass and marginalize the Tea Partiers, tells one that this is a movement that has achieved enough significance to warrant attention.

Ron Paul-the Doctor/Congressman from Texas, has captured the hearts of millions of anger conservatives who have grown disillusioned with the Big Government Republican Party during the Bush Era. He won a straw poll at a recent CPAC meeting in February for who should be the next Republican candidate for President. Momentum seems to be on the Libertarians side for once.

But is their goal of small government really achievable?

Most Americans today accept a relative high level of governmental spending. The difference tends to be where it is done and how much money it cost. Conservatives are in favor of expenditures on military, but not social spending. Liberals are the opposite. Moderates on both sides favor spending on both, but place emphasis on different aspects.

Meanwhile,libertarians want to do away with almost all spending by government except for the most bare essentials--police and enough military to protect the borders. No money for education, infrastructure, health care, social security, etc. They propose that each community make do with what they each can generate fiscally themselves.

The most obvious problem with this is how this permits poorer communities to whither on the vine. If your people are too poor to support infrastructure for education, health care, and business how then are you supposed to self-improve? How do you pull yourself up by the boot straps if your boots have no straps?

The other issue with libertarianism is that it ignores history and human behavior. Without laws, the most strongest of a group will seek to dominate the weaker portion of a group. Empires are a excellent example of this. From the earliest regimes to the present, large, wealthy people have sought to control and dominate land and people either through direct use of force or through "soft power"--embargoes, the placement of people friendly to the Empire in places of power, etc.

Libertarianism is tends towards Social Darwinism. Social Darwinism is the idea where if left unhampered by laws, the strong will soon come to dominate the society as a result of their natural superior physical and intellectual traits.Libertarianism doesn't explicitly say that should be the case, but only that persons should be free to fulfill their goals without hindrance from government.

But as we've seen from history, such a lack of restraint often times leads to gross abuses of human rights.Slavery, child labor, unsafe work conditions, and convict leasing, are some of most notable cases where lack of law has been of a great detriment to the health of people.

Furthermore, lack of regulation can crush capitalism as it permits powerful interests to monopolize certain industries and the subversion of the stock market by those who use unethical practices to make millions.

What I find to be irritating is the hypocrisy of people like Ron Paul. He says he doesn't want governmental interference in the economic realm, but is stridently Pro-Life--and thus advocates governmental interference in something infinitely more personal than economics. Sorry, but you cannot say you are for personal liberty in one instance and for restraints on liberty in another. You don't get to pick and choose when and to whom liberty applies to.

The outraged as expressed by the Tea Partiers and supporters of Ron Paul is legitimate and to a certain extent, I find truth in it. The spending by our government has exploded to unprecedented heights. We are on an unsustainable track and the liberal response of "Bush started it" doesn't justify Obama's adding on to it anymore than a person in a mob using such an explanation to excuse an assault on a single person.Our government simply has to learn to run more efficiently with less funds.

We also as a nation have to get a point where personal responsibility for our actions and for caring for our own, becomes our national mentality. You cannot or should not depend or expect to depend on government to take care of you. It isn't fair or right for the people of this government to provide care to people who are able to work. The sense of entitlement to access to government largess has become all too prevalent in this nation.

Libertarianism is not a practical solution to our nation's problems. Too many people on both sides of the aisle have too much invested to go to a bare bones governmental structure nor would most Americans give up their comfortable lifestyles for something totally unknown.

The Ron Pauls and Tea Partiers are then latest manifestations of the Anti-Federalists and like their ancestors, they will be on the losing side of history. But I believe that they will make an impact in terms of reforms.Just what those reforms entail have yet to be seen, but there is so much debt that it seems impossible that nothing will change.

A comment on comments

I have a habit of reading the comments under the articles I read on the Internet. Why, I don't know. It is a rarity that I'll find a halfway intelligent remark. Most of what I read are either remarks that insult the other side of a debate or an expression of the absolute certainty of the poster that their beliefs are the correct ones.

The Internet has been for the most part, a boon for democracy. The expression, sharing, and dialogue between different view points are healthy for a democracy. We need that interaction for this country to progress.

But the Internet also has help lead the to the destruction of civility and tolerance in political discourse. Websites dedicated to a particular viewpoint take articles and find ways to use them to incite their fellow ideologues. These ideologues then either take this information and either blog about it or use it bash a rival ideologue on some forum or comments section of a article.

The venom-dripped words that fill the subsequent posts cannot be good for dialogue for all that it accomplishes is too elicit an response that is equally lethal for a healthy debate.

The problem is that so many of these people isolate themselves from other points of views that it creates a significant level of tolerance.Then when they engage others with differing views that are so convinced of the supremacy of their beliefs and the utterly absurdity of the other persons, that they have no thought of trying to understand where the other person is coming from. The other avatar is a dastardly member of the most execrable party known to man.

We tend to think of segregation along the lines of racial or ethnic lines, but I think we now have to include politics in that as well.More and more we see people congregating in ideology specific websites where the members don't debate, but engage in intellectual incest.What will happen is that over time the ideas of said group will become deformed by the lack of rigorous challenge of beliefs and concepts that scientists so diligently apply to their own theories.

I know nothing will change when it comes to anonymous people bashing other anonymous people in the comments section. People have too much invested emotionally in politics and the very anonymity of it makes brave men of us all. But it would be nice to see people learn some decorum and at least try to respect other people's opinions.

A faint hope it maybe, but faint is better than none.

When the "Best and Brightest" are neither

It is widely known that college campuses' and the surrounding towns are breeding grounds for future Left Wing activists. That has come to be a fact of life in America of of the 21st century.

These incubators of liberal politics have created an atmosphere where arrogance, self righteousness, and intolerance are part of the DNA of the residents. No place in America embraces the "progressive" world view so passionately as universities have.Ann Arbor, Michigan--my hometown--is notorious for being a particular fecund area for radical left wing politics.

Since I have grown up around such people I have come to really loath such people. It isn't so much their politics--I straddle the line between Left and Right ideologically--but the infuriating display of the aforementioned traits.

I came across an excellent example of this while reading about World War II Ace Gregory "Pappy" Boyington--whose exploits would inspire the television show Black Sheep Squadron as well as a host of books--on Wikipedia.(http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pappy_Boyington)

One quote got to me: "she didn't believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce." Yeah, who would want to produce people who were willing to sacrifice their own lives in order for others to remain safe?

Frankly, she is the type person no nation or university would want to produce. Arrogant, simple minded, naive...I could go on, but it would be a waste of words to point out this person's flaws.

What she represents is the typical leftist who imbides the sayings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr and applies it to the world at large. While I have much sympathy for those men,it is due to the exertions of men like Boyington that "peaceniks" can speak their mind so freely.

Could have either Gandhi or the dear Reverend been able to speak their mind in Nazi Germany?Judging by what happened to the Scholls, I don't think so.

How about the Soviet Union? China? Cuba? Perhaps we will see change in Iran because of the protests, but if history is any guide change will have depend on how infected the Iranian government is by malaise and incompetence moreso than the "moral power" of the masses.

Mass protests, sit ins, and non-violence work only in societies that are governed by laws that are strongly backed by force who willing submit to the law of the land themselves.The Marines and the armed forces as a whole are the guarantee of each American's right to speak their mind. A lawyer or activist group is helpless against armed persons who come with bad intentions.

For proof of the futility of groups like Amnesty International, one only need to see Rwanda. They spent much time broadcasting to the world of the terrible massaces of the Tutis' by the Hutus, that resulted in the accomplishment of nothing save the deaths of 800,000 persons. One could also point to the ongoing conflict in the Sudan and the Congo for more proof of the ineffectiveness of law and activist groups versus armed persons who are determined to fulfill their malicious goals.

War is an absolute waste of man, machine, and genius. It is destroys the bodies and souls of men, and desolates the land that they live upon. It strangles innocence and smothers love while fanning the flames of hatred.In short, it represents the worst of man's nature.

But that doesn't mean one should never pick up the sword when we are presented with a challenge to our lives. There is no spiritual gain by refusing to defend oneself or other's from people who intend to do harm. If someone kills you and/or your loved one what have you gained? Moral superiority over your assailant? Who cares? Your dead and the perpetrator is still free to kill others.

As awful as war is, there are worse things. Mindless pacificism is one of those. It is one thing to refuse to fight in a war that is not directly tied to the defense of the nation(Vietnam, both Iraq Wars). But it is altogether different when we are talking about the defense of the country.Pappy Boyington and others of his generation were willing to lay down their lives so young people like the girl at the University of Washington could have the chance to go to college.

An excellent and pithy summation of the reason for the exertions of men like Boyington and John Basilone can be found in an epitaph engraved in a memorial in British 2nd Division's cemetary in Kohima, India. It reads:

When You Go Home Tell Them Of Us and Say
For Your Tomorrow We Gave Our Today.