The Great Despair

I talk to my brother on a frequent basis, and he is a relative latecomer to my libertarian viewpoints. He never took an interest in politics. Now that politics is taking an interest in him, he has come to religion when it comes to opposing big government.

I have had some time to deal with the realities of government and what it does. That time produces a certain patience and long term outlook on things. My critics will point out how angry I can be over these things, but this is really a muted response on my part. It is hard to be passionate over decades, and I am getting to the decade mark on my libertarian conversion. Prior to that, I was a small government conservative, so I've had a long time to hate on leviathan.

My brother is more despairing. He asks me all the time what I think will happen. What he wants is a hopeful response from me. Can the swelling government and the national debt be overcome? Will we be like California on the national level? Or will the country wake up and join the Tea Party people and Ron Paul?

I don't know the answers to these questions. I know the answers to the problems, and I also know these answers are not currently popular. I also know that I am right. If America persists on its present path, it will meet with fiscal disaster. This means hyperinflation, higher taxes, and bankrupt entitlement programs. I heard these predictions my whole life, and they are arriving right on time. My 40s will be spent struggling. I knew this all the way back in high school from listening to people like George F. Will.

Things could be different, but they won't. Nothing in human history indicates to me that governments have ever done the smart thing. It is in their nature to grow and diminish human flourishing.

Ron Paul and the Tea Party movement give a certain glimmer of hope, but I remember Newt's Contract With America. That was a colossal joke. The Tea Party will merely face betrayal at the hands of just about any Republican except Ron Paul. The GOP Establishment is doing its best to dupe the Tea Party "rubes."

I'm neither optimistic nor pessimistic on these things. I can go either way. I didn't expect the Soviet Union to collapse, but it did. I thought Clinton would be a horrible president, but he was actually pretty good because he opted to not spend the budget surplus. I thought Bush would be even better than Clinton. I was very wrong on that one.

I can't see the future, so I don't make predictions. What I know is that nothing demands that humans make progress. History shows that human civilization can grow stagnant and even retreat into barbarism and tyranny. Our current technological and social advancements are actually an exception to the norm of human history. Yet, the last century has been one of the bloodiest in human history.

It is easy to give over to despair because the evidence is on the side of doom. But good things happen as well. All I know is that we are left with the same tasks. We learn. We strive. We work. We speak out. This is all we can do. Will it be worth it? I don't know. I am intimately acquainted with failure, so I don't let it bother me. In the long run, we are all dead. I have decided to die fighting.

Optimists cannot weather the long term. They fuel themselves on hope as long as that delusion can last. But I don't do this. I accept the worst that can happen. I take it into myself and let it tear into me until it is done, and I am on the other side of it. Then, I realize it was really nothing at all. That is the blessing of losing everything you have. If it doesn't kill you, it will make you stronger.

When The Great Despair hits, I know I can handle it. I've been to the dark places before, so I'm not afraid to go there again. I fully expect this country to go to shit, but I might be pleasantly surprised. Either way, I have it covered.

Posted in: