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.