I was asked recently how I can continue to be a libertarian who thinks big government is eventually evil. Two things were pointed out, one of which was reiterated in the news today. The first is that many big cities are now full of zombie "tranq" people. They have been ingesting drugs laden with some kind of horse tranquilizer. You can see a recent video showing just how bad it is here. But trust me, it's pretty bad. The guy circled below is not tying his shoe. This bent over posture is commonly associated with tranq. People just stand there bent over like this for long periods of time, bobbing slowly.
The second thing pointed out to me was how the authoritarian CCP regime in China is top down managing their country and specifically how they have now limited game playing time for children up to 18 years old, by law, to 3 hours per week. The argument, as usual, has elements of truth. After all, gaming is addictive for sure. I know several people who have gotten addicted and it took them the better part of a decade to break free. That's time of real living they will never get back.
So if these things are so bad for people, why does the libertarian not want government to outlaw them and why, when not outlawed, do bad things as mentioned above occur? And so the simpleton conclusion is that libertarians just don't care about people, thus we need more big government.
Let me respond to this by asking you if you think we have capitalism in the USA today. After all, we are told that our current system of capitalism is bad (and it is) so we need socialism instead. Unfortunately, very few realize that in order to have capitalism, you have to have capital. Our currency has no capital in it. It's just debt currency. It's not money. We haven't had real capitalism since Nixon took us off the gold standard, officially kicking off the Global Debt Ponzi.
Likewise, something is missing in the world that is absolutely critical to the libertarian view and that is the feedback loop. Libertarians do not think everyone is very smart, but we do think that a hard punch in the face, be it literal or figurative or financial or health wise, tends to teach even the stupidest among us to consider a different path. That hard punch is the feedback loop. Those who do stupid things who are shielded from this feedback loop are being done a huge disservice.
Government, more often than not, stands in the way of the feedback loop. For example, look at the picture above. It's disgusting squalor and a waste of human life. But government goes around letting them live on the streets and then handing out new needles, etc. so that they can continue drugging up. The right thing to do would be to mandate clean streets and no camping on the sidewalk and no free anything. No free food, water, drug needles, condoms, etc. Nothing. How long could these people live on the street like this without all of these support items being given to them by government? This is how government has stopped the natural feedback loop in this case.
And what about kids gaming themselves into oblivion? Well, parents should be the arbiters of what is good for their children, but government has stepped into to "help" parents in this regard. Any disagreement between kids and parents must always devolve into the use of force. Maybe not immediately to physical force but getting locked in your room or having your gaming PC taken away for not following limits are both acts of force. If you use any kind of measures against your child in order to get them to comply then they can and do report you to the school who in turn is very happy to send a CPS agent to your home, accompanied by an armed cop of course.
The feedback loop is not always kind. It's not supposed to be kind. It's supposed to be a learning mechanism that makes people reconsider stupid choices. We don't need government to control us or make the rules. We simply need government to allow natural feedback loops to work.
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