FreeTraveler
01-29-2012, 10:34 PM
http://tirelessagorist.blogspot.com/2012/01/libertarians-are-true-pragmatists.html
Abstract:
Libertarians have long been regarded as impractical dreamers, slaves to a political philosophy of no real-world value. The practical, or pragmatic view, they are told, is that government serves crucial purposes in today's complex world, and that compromising our ideals is a necessity for the survival of our society. Careful observation, however, demonstrates that libertarians (and other small-government groups) are the pragmatists, while those who believe in the benefits of big government are the impractical dreamers. There is a cornucopia of evidence to support this simple observation.
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was established over 35 years ago to rid us of the scourge of illegal drugs (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9031855/Its-time-to-end-the-failed-war-on-drugs.html). Yet today, the use of marijuana and cocaine is actually higher than it was when the DEA was founded, more than a trillion dollars has been spent to stem the flow (over $40 billion (http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock) in 2010 alone), yet the drugs on the street are more potent than ever (http://www.drugaddictiontreatment.com/types-of-addiction/street-drug-addiction/high-concentration-in-street-drugs/), and our inner cities have become warzones where civil liberties fall prey to the battle between the prohibitionists and the black market. Thanks largely to the drug war, a larger percentage (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html?pagewanted=all) of our citizens are incarcerated than any other country on earth.
{many more examples}
Unlike the dreams of utopian benevolence that the fans of big government embrace, FedGov's programs have repeatedly been shown to be poster children for massive bureaucracy, incompetence and graft run amok. They are the most egregious violators of civil liberties, and "our government (http://www.lp.org/issues/environment), at the federal, state, and local levels, is the single greatest polluter in the land."
{state and local governments guilty too}
In the face of such overwhelming evidence, I question the sanity of allowing Uncle Sam, who has proven to be a poor security guard, to provide additional services as a reward for his incompetence.
...
I daresay few of us, in helping to organize our local community, would choose to put the safety of our food, the maintenance of our roads, the education of our children, and the control of our monetary system, and therefore of our economy, in the hands of the security staff. Yet that is exactly what we have done by handing over all these chores to government agencies.
We should seriously question whether the services we need, outside of security, are best provided by an organization that brooks no competition, controls the justice system that protects us from predators, has the power to dictate terms to its supposed customers, and can unilaterally raise its "prices" to correct any revenue shortfall.
Even if we accept that government has some critical purposes, conflating those with a long laundry list of the needs of society and turning the provision of all those services over to government is a horrid mistake that leads to an ever-ballooning, ever-less-efficient monstrosity destined to eventually collapse under its own weight.
...and that's all I have to say about that.
Full story here (http://tirelessagorist.blogspot.com/2012/01/libertarians-are-true-pragmatists.html).
Abstract:
Libertarians have long been regarded as impractical dreamers, slaves to a political philosophy of no real-world value. The practical, or pragmatic view, they are told, is that government serves crucial purposes in today's complex world, and that compromising our ideals is a necessity for the survival of our society. Careful observation, however, demonstrates that libertarians (and other small-government groups) are the pragmatists, while those who believe in the benefits of big government are the impractical dreamers. There is a cornucopia of evidence to support this simple observation.
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was established over 35 years ago to rid us of the scourge of illegal drugs (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9031855/Its-time-to-end-the-failed-war-on-drugs.html). Yet today, the use of marijuana and cocaine is actually higher than it was when the DEA was founded, more than a trillion dollars has been spent to stem the flow (over $40 billion (http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock) in 2010 alone), yet the drugs on the street are more potent than ever (http://www.drugaddictiontreatment.com/types-of-addiction/street-drug-addiction/high-concentration-in-street-drugs/), and our inner cities have become warzones where civil liberties fall prey to the battle between the prohibitionists and the black market. Thanks largely to the drug war, a larger percentage (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html?pagewanted=all) of our citizens are incarcerated than any other country on earth.
{many more examples}
Unlike the dreams of utopian benevolence that the fans of big government embrace, FedGov's programs have repeatedly been shown to be poster children for massive bureaucracy, incompetence and graft run amok. They are the most egregious violators of civil liberties, and "our government (http://www.lp.org/issues/environment), at the federal, state, and local levels, is the single greatest polluter in the land."
{state and local governments guilty too}
In the face of such overwhelming evidence, I question the sanity of allowing Uncle Sam, who has proven to be a poor security guard, to provide additional services as a reward for his incompetence.
...
I daresay few of us, in helping to organize our local community, would choose to put the safety of our food, the maintenance of our roads, the education of our children, and the control of our monetary system, and therefore of our economy, in the hands of the security staff. Yet that is exactly what we have done by handing over all these chores to government agencies.
We should seriously question whether the services we need, outside of security, are best provided by an organization that brooks no competition, controls the justice system that protects us from predators, has the power to dictate terms to its supposed customers, and can unilaterally raise its "prices" to correct any revenue shortfall.
Even if we accept that government has some critical purposes, conflating those with a long laundry list of the needs of society and turning the provision of all those services over to government is a horrid mistake that leads to an ever-ballooning, ever-less-efficient monstrosity destined to eventually collapse under its own weight.
...and that's all I have to say about that.
Full story here (http://tirelessagorist.blogspot.com/2012/01/libertarians-are-true-pragmatists.html).