GET YOUR HAPPY ON! - a meliorist worldview

Sometimes, when I’m feeling really claustrophobic in the city, I would like nothing more than to enjoy the open plains of the Old West. For a bookish “pseudo-intellectual” like myself, Libertarianism seems like such a great idea on paper, because they claim to regard the philosophical pursuits more highly than any other political organization — a government of the mind and of rationale. [sigh]

Libertarianism is a bare essentials approach to government: no executive regulatory office more than what the Libertarians think America needs (the Treasury, the State Department, and the War Department… I mean, Defense Department). Because the Libertarians would have us reduce the government to almost nothing, income taxes would no longer be necessary, and it would be a lot easier to balance the budget and expunge our nation of its multi-trillion dollar debt.

Some pot smokers advocate Libertarianism, because a Libertarian government would decriminalize pot, and no government agency would exist to control the flow of marijuana anyway. War on Drugs? Over. Some anti-Keynesian economists advocate Libertarianism, because it would theoretically allow the purest form of Free Market capitalism that has existed in over a hundred years — a completely unfettered approach to acquisition and divestment. And gun lobbyists LOVE Libertarianism because those living in a nation without federal justice would be forced to fend for themselves — a gun in the hand of every man, woman, and child strong enough to hold a weapon. Maybe that sounds great after a long day of killing animated pixels in Grand Theft Auto, until you realize that we don’t live in the great Old Wild West anymore.

Thankfully, most U.S. cities have regulations against walking around with a holstered pistol, because they realized that giving everyone a gun won’t solve any problems. In fact, no problem can be solved with a gun; there will always be a better solution to any problem. It doesn’t matter the situation. At best, a gun could only delay more problems.

[WARNING: Don’t even try testing me on this one, clever contrarian. I know you think you have a hypothetical desert island scenario where a gun would be necessary, but you’re absolutely wrong. I’ve thought about this argument to endgame and checkmate. Trust me, I’m Big Blue on this one. Guns don’t solve any problems ever.]

Not that I am a big fan of the police or the FBI, but U.S. crime would rise exponentially without a federal law enforcement agency, especially in states that did not have the same resources as other states. Crime would only continue to worsen after honest people realized that there are only two ways to survive and thrive in a Libertarian country: high finance and crime. Crime will seem like the only option to anyone who is not a financial genius, and most financial geniuses will turn to crime for protection anyway. It should be no surprise that Capitalism doesn’t encourage integrity and morality.

Look at the collapsed Eastern Bloc: Russia is a nation dominated by corrupt politicians and incredibly organized criminals. When Yeltsin took over, the most notoriously oppressive regime in the world became the most lenient regime in the world, and the former oppressors (the KGB) became the Russian mafia. Without the FBI, the Secret Service, and the ATF, the criminals would take over (well, they’d gain a greater stranglehold on the populace), and then you’d either be forced to either carry a gun or pay the mafia protection money. As I’ve already stated, guns don’t solve problems, but we live in a nation with a lot of would-be cowboys who suffer from pistol envy; they are Reactionary Neo-Objectivists. Collectively, I think of them as the reincarnation of Howdy Doody — a little ginger-headed, buck-toothed puppet from the Fifties, who wore a cute little cowboy outfit. It’s pretty hard for me to take them seriously, but Cowboy Diplomacy seems to have struck a chord with a large segment of the population, so I feel obligated to illustrate why Cowboy Diplomacy doesn’t and will never work. More on why guns don’t solve problems tomorrow.

Be good to yourselves, my friends. I hope you’ve been able to stay out of the heat wherever you are.

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