It is a popular notion among many libertarians that people want freedom, but they are denied freedom by the government. The masses are either duped or cowed into submission to the powers of the State. Though this notion is popular, it is untrue. Orwell's 1984 cannot exist for a majority of the population. It can only exist for a minority. For the majority, it is Alduous Huxley's Brave New World. In short, no majority can ever be the victims of tyranny. Tyranny is the majority.
It is always within the power of the majority to change or abolish its government. The fall of the Soviet Union and the Arab Spring are testimony to this. The recent defeat of legislation to crack down on the piracy of intellectual property on the internet is another example. Even when faced with the facts of its own coming fiscal collapse, the government still will not override the will of the people to establish a balanced budget. Conversely, the electorate are given freedom options and candidates in election after election, yet those candidates get voted down in favor of whoever is the slickest liar. The majority of the population get the government they expect and ask for. If they don't, that government will collapse or reform itself to accord itself with those wishes.
Changing the government is a simple matter. You merely need to change the hearts and minds of the majority of the population. No change in elected officials will ever do the trick. A libertarian as president would make little difference if he was elected in opposition to the will of the majority. In short, all governments whether monarchy, dictatorship, democracy, republic, or anarchy is at the will and mercy of the vast majority of the population. Even Rome had to offer bread and circuses to keep the people from revolting.
People do not want freedom. The history of the world and countless examples demonstrate this truth again and again. Freedom is not popular. It isn't that people want to be enslaved and impoverished. They do not necessarily want other people to be enslaved and impoverished. But they do want to collect money they did not earn, and they want to punish those they despise. Those twin desires are why we see the erosion in social and economic liberty. This is morally repugnant, but the government as well as the people cover over this immorality with an appeal to the "common good." This makes wrong turn into right. A neighbor may not have the balls to go next door and rob his neighbor at gunpoint, but he is quite content to let the government do it for him.
What the government allows the majority to do is to pursue immoral actions while absolving itself of culpability. Nothing demonstrates this more than the German myth that the people in Germany were at the mercy of Hitler. The reality is they loved that man, voted him into power, and supported him until their defeat and their disgrace. Ashamed of the Holocaust, this myth of impotence popped up to cleanse their guilty consciences of the crimes they were complicit in.
To be against the government is ultimately to be against your countrymen. You are defying them and their crimes and immorality. Libertarians must not make this distinction between the government and the people. The government is the people. Once this is established and repeated again and again, the people will have to answer for the crimes they have supported. At that moment, they can either remain complicit in the crime, or they can choose to stand apart from their countrymen and defy them. This is what it means to be a libertarian. Libertarians are the ones who defy the majority.
Changing the government won't change the people. Changing the people will change the government. The way to change people is to hold them morally and intellectually accountable for either supporting or defying the government. This is done on an individual basis. As for those who declare apathy and indifference, this is no excuse either. There are no sidelines when it comes to tyranny. You are in the game whether you chose to play or not. This is why it is called tyranny.
Eventually, tyrannies collapse as they must. But they are often replaced with another tyranny. This is because people don't change. They want to collect money they did not earn and punish people they hate. The only hope is a moral hope and revolution. I don't know of a single libertarian who believes in liberty merely as a voting option. It is part of a worldview and a lifestyle as well. This is because freedom demands responsibility. Until the majority of the population is converted to this libertarian worldview, nothing will change.
Libertarians are great educators. We permeate the culture in a variety of ways. But does it make any difference? I can't think of a single person in my life that came around to my way of thinking on anything much less liberty. My personal belief is that people tend to not listen. It goes as far as closing their eyes and sticking their fingers in their ears. Not only do they not know, they don't want to know. Watching the reaction to Ron Paul demonstrates this better than my words can express. Ron Paul is respected for being right and promptly ignored.
The other popular belief amongst libertarians is that people will become libertarians once they learn the facts. This is also not true. I have benefited immensely from these educational endeavors, but I am already a convert. The failed war on drugs shows the folly of government actions in this regard, but I have yet to convince anyone that it should be abandoned. The simple fact is that Prohibition ended because most people liked to drink. Similarly, marijuana will be legalized as more and more people actually smoke the shit. But it won't come as a result of some change in thinking. Likewise, people respond strongly against SOPA legislation because it might interfere with them downloading their torrents. But they are silent on NDAA because that will be against individuals who are probably Muslim.
There are no principles animating the population. The Egyptian Revolution was basically a case of an old fart miscalculating and shutting down the massively popular internet. You can tax us and take away our freedoms. But don't fuck with our Facebook.
Freedom is not popular. It never was, and I doubt that it ever will be. Almost every libertarian I know acknowledges this in one way or another. Libertopia is merely the belief that the majority might come around. They won't, but it is nice to dream. In the end, people want their welfare checks, and they want whoever they hate to suffer. People are utterly fucked up. This is why I am a libertarian pessimist. I don't ever see this changing. Freedom when it happens is mostly accidental.
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