The sudden realization that liberals are realists…
March 3, 2009
So a friend of mine on Facebook posted a link to this essay from Reason Magazine’s webpage about how the liberals and libertarians can’t play in the same sand box after all:
And while I didn’t find the conclusions that unexpected, I was struck by the comments (which were, frankly, more interesting than the essay itself) and came to a realization from reading them: 21st century libertarians are pie-in-the-sky optimists, conservatives are cynical pessimists, and liberals are, surprise surprise, the realists in the bunch.
Libertarians can wax poetic about ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ and how if only individuals acted in their own true self interest then we’d build a utopia, but the reality is that this might work if we each lived on our own little singular island, alone in the world completely, but in a society it’s DOA. I’ve only lived in one other country besides the US, Mexico. Mexico has the laissez faire economics and political system that libertarians love. They have very little governmental interference in any aspect of the individual’s life. This means, of course, that if you’re poor, you have unsafe water, unpaved roads, and no electricity. It also means that if you get trampled by a bull at the rodeo no ambulance will come to take you to the hospital and if a rabid dog bites you, tough luck. It means that banks can charge whatever interest they want on a loan (and they can change the interest rate half way through the loan, if they want) and phone companies can charge outrageous rates, cancel your service, change your bill’s due date, whatever, without government interference. And it means if you get kidnapped by narcos you’re probably going to die.
The idea that individuals serving their own best interest with little government involvement will lead to less problems is rather absurd, if we use Mexico as an example. Of course, the conservative idea that individuals are inherently bad and need to be socially controlled is equally absurd. They believe in law and order above all else, and have a truly wacky idea of government as some sort of schizophrenic presence that should both protect us from ‘the gays,’ lay a heavy law enforcement hand on society (in a Christian glove), and keep out of our wallets come tax time and out of our corporate balance sheets all the time. It’s completely hypocritical, which is why their so-called ‘philosophy’ is imploding in Rush Limbaugh’s vocal chords.
Liberalism, on the other hand, sees the whole situation as a complex mess that demands a range of approaches and solutions. Not all liberals are alike, just as conservatives and libertarians are motley bunches themselves. But I’m a liberal because I see the world in shades of gray, not in stark whites or blacks. As such, I see a range of solutions to problems and see that some of them won’t be solved in my lifetime, but will demand attention for generations. Fortunately, I’m not alone in this. It’s a relief, isn’t it?
