There are two things about libertarians that I find sad and amusing. (Actually, to be honest, there's a lot more than just two, but I won't list them at the moment. They are a pretty hilarious group of people.) One is that they have this almost borderline irrational fear of the power of the government, especially the federal government, where they don't trust it (not that I necessarily blame them) and want to fight it keep it from becoming something tyrannical. That’s an admirable goal. The ironic part is that while they feel that strongly that way they for some strange reason have absolutely no problems with corporations, and the wealthy pretty much doing the same thing only worse in the governments stead and in fact go out of there way to foster circumstances where that can happen. They have no problem of a ruling class of elite subjecting everybody. They must not the way they act. They don't like government, yet from their actions must see business and the wealthy as all ethical, moral, entities that have all our best interest at heart. Either that or they must absolutely blindly follow free market capitalism and think it can magically fix everything no matter how obvious it flaws are to the point they just don't allow themselves to even consider anything else.
The second one is how big of hypocrites most of them are. Maybe it's just the fact I've tried to be a keen observer of human nature all my life, but one thing I have noticed is that with VERY few exceptions I've never seen a person happy when some form of government cuts effect them, and very rarely do they agree with it unless it's felt at best only marginally at all by them. Even with hardcore libertarians or republicans I've never seen somebody have to drive down a poorly maintained road while there car is getting tore up and say, "Wow, isn't it nice the government didn't fix this. I'm so glad some people somewhere have a little bit of extra money for that. Maybe in a couple years a tiny fraction of that will somehow make it's way to me so I can fix my car, even though it probably won't. Or maybe we should have private roads where it will cost everybody even more to fix them because they operate off a profit." I've never seen them do anything but complain where the local education system delivers substandard schooling for their children. I've never seen any of them praise it when they can't go to the DMV or the courthouse, the one day of the week they have off because the state had to resort to furloughs to save money. I've never seen them glad when the local police and fire departments don't arrive as quickly as needed because they have a lack of resources. I've never heard of any of them being happy when the mail arrives only a mere one day late. I've never heard them say how glad they were when some tainted meat gets into the food supply because of the lack of inspectors. The list goes on and on. What's funny is that I have heard a lot of them bitch incessantly when those things happen to them, like the government isn't doing it's job that it deserves of them. I don't think they even realize the irony of how they are acting.
From my observation of people my in my life, whether they have a libertarian bent or not is that I've noticed that when people say they want less government or and to spend less money what they really mean, what they really really mean, is that they want the government to spend less and reduce itself AS LONG AS IT DOESN'T EFFECT THEM. They want the government to take something away from somebody else or disenfranchise other people so they don't have to suffer. That's what they really want. Nobody just wants to reduce government. The very few that do are almost all so well of they are the very few that won't have to worry about the serious ramifications of fit. A lot of it just strokes a vastly overblown sense of property rights libertarians seem to have and is another rationalization for selfishness they need to tell themselves.
When has the government ever significantly reduced itself in recent history no matter who was in power? Anybody that thinks anybody is going to do that when they say so or thinks it's even ever going to be practical in the modern world even if people wanted to is just being naive and is going to be played like a fool for the people promising that. For many reasons, short of us getting heartless to the point we just let people die in the street, or have masses of people go under due to poverty, that ship set sail a long time ago. (Then again this is the USA, we might very well get to that point the way are society is going.) Reality doesn’t work that way, and it’s even more sad when it espoused with a group of people that supposedly seem to prize intellectualism (Then again I find pseudo-intellectualism to be the biggest trait of libertarians. I almost think it has to be some sort of secret requirement in order to be among them.) The only difference with politics in this situation is that at least democrats unlike others, if nothing else, are honest with themselves about it.
