Once again, here’s a reality check: Masses don’t want libertarian ideas

By David McElroy · January 17, 2012

When the supposedly conservative Republican candidates attack the leading GOP contender for being an evil capitalist, you know the world has turned upside down. Mostly, though, you know there’s not much of a market anymore for people who believe in economic freedom.

Some of my best friends are highly invested in a futile effort to elect Ron Paul president. I’ve talked before about why it’s going to fail, and I’ve also talked about why I won’t be voting for him (or anybody else). But I’ve been told forcefully by my friends that I’m wrong — that Paul can be elected. I’ve also been told that even if he’s not elected, he’s “educating” voters and the effort will pay off some other time, when the masses are (apparently) suddenly going to ditch their core values and start agreeing with libertarian principles.

Anyone who’s paying attention to the realities of this year’s Republican campaign can see that this is pure fantasy. Most people don’t want our ideas. Even if you’re willing to accept a “limited government” — if such is even possible — there’s no evidence that people want such an animal. If you listen to the Republican candidates bicker, it’s clear that everyone other than Ron Paul will say whatever it takes to win votes. And it’s also clear that Paul isn’t going to break out of his core support among a minority of libertarians and economic conservatives.

In Monday night’s GOP debate in South Carolina, the “conservative” candidates attacked Mitt Romney for having spent years at Bain Capital, which made its money buying companies and making them more profitable. As part of that process, many people in unprofitable companies lose jobs. Self-styled super-conservative Newt Gingrich has been attacking Romney for this, despite the fact that anybody who knows anything about free market economics understand that this is the way the market functions. It always has and always will. (Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter called it “creative destruction.”)

Meanwhile, Rick Perry was attacking Romney for not having released his tax returns. Why? That’s just what candidates do these days. And the reason for that is what, exactly? I have no idea what it’s supposed to prove. All I know is that if I were a candidate, I wouldn’t release my tax returns, either. I also wouldn’t parade around naked for people to inspect my body. Both inspections seem to serve purposes that would make just as much (or as little) sense.

In the meantime, Romney was downplaying the importance of a recent law giving a U.S. president the power to send Americans to military prisons with no right to trials. He said during Monday night’s debate that Barack Obama would never misuse that power — and he wouldn’t, either — so we should just trust our royal sovereign instead of insisting that we have rights. And these are supposed to be the guys who are closest to supporting individual freedom?

It’s very clear that Romney is a big fan of the big government status quo. He was the architect of the Massachusetts health care plan that was the model for ObamaCare. He favors a president having tyrannical power to arrest people and send them to military prisons without trials. Wouldn’t these sorts of positions mean that he’s being punished by conservative GOP primary voters?

Nope. In fact, Romney has won the two states that have voted so far — Iowa and New Hampshire — and he has a 21-point lead in the allegedly conservative southern state of South Carolina. Are you starting to see the picture? The voters don’t want what libertarians and economic conservatives are selling.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, reporter Kimberley Strassel explains how you win the GOP nomination. You put together a coalition of religious social conservatives, warmongering military hawks and whatever economic conservatives are willing to vote for the GOP candidate out of fear of the Democrat. (OK, she didn’t word it like that, but that’s what it boils down to.)

The bottom line is that if you want to win the Republican nomination, you have to be something that no libertarian or traditional conservative can be. You have to love big government — and promise to use it to give voters what they want.

The vast majority of voters don’t want what we want. They don’t want government that’s actually smaller. Oh, every group would like some piece or other of government trimmed, but not the pieces they care about. What almost nobody wants is a wholesale dismantling of the welfare state and the military-industrial complex. They’re not going to start wanting it just because we say it enough.

I know that. The other candidates know that. The media know that. Everybody seems to know that except for people delusional enough to believe that voters are suddenly going to reject what they believe and start agreeing with us. That’s not going to happen. Why do people persist in believing this fantasy?

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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