It's understandable why we are bothered by the statists around us: our rights are violated on a daily basis. We are taxed, regulated, threatened with jail for engaging in victimless crimes.
But why are statists so hot and bothered by us? Get into a discussion with a mainstreamer and if he finds out you oppose public education, or high taxes, or welfare, or anti-discrimination laws... they go apoplectic. But why? They are getting their way. Yes, I might bitch about taxes--but the advocate of the state and its programs and its power to tax is getting my tax dollars. I am not able to resist. I am only able to gripe about it. Why does this bug them so much. Must their victory be so complete? Or is there a gnawing guilt there?
If we were to achieve a taxless, peaceful, libertarian society, and some yahoo came along griping about the good old days, how we should have taxation--no doubt people would cock an eyebrow or two and view him as an amusing oddity. But get riled up? Why? We'd be living in libertarian paradise. Probably too busy living life retired at the age of 32 to bother with political argumentation any more.
One reader writes: "I was pondering this point myself today. Leftists have won every single major cultural battle/decision of the last 50 years with the exception of the recently overturned partial birth abortion. Yet every year brings a more vile, demanding and insulting version of the left. The only answer I can come up with is that leftism must have a thread of a pathology running through it that refuses to rest and treats each new step leftward as a missed opportunity to make 2 steps leftward. ....puzzling"
