What's it Gonna Take? by L. Neil Smith

I really enjoyed this essay, sent by JPFO today. These paragraphs illustrate very clearly why the world is in such a mess:

A police officer once informed me loftily that civilization has to be
maintained by authoritarian managers because individuals in general are
selfishly uninterested in doing the hard work of maintaining it
themselves.

Unsurprisingly, after I pointed out that when individuals become
interested in maintaining civilization -- by voting down bond issues, treating
teachers and administrators like the hired hands they are, or carrying
self-defense weapons that demonstrably make society safer -- they're either
told, not so very politely, to go away, or they get arrested, he didn't have a
whole lot to say, because he knew that it's true.

Read the rest here.


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The Strength of Libertarians

It takes a strong person to be a libertarian. It is easy to be weak and need others to be controlled, like the authoritarians do (under whichever aliases they wish be be known). It takes a strong person to stand up and support the right of others to do things that harm no one, but that you may find personally undesirable. That is why I see Demopublicans as weak. They can't afford to let go of their need for total control. Or at least their need to control those things they don't like. If they don't like certain drugs, they pass or enforce laws regulating their use by everyone else. If they fear guns, they try to forbid their possession in every situation they can get away with. Only libertarians are strong enough to back off and let people live their own lives, and make their own mistakes. That is strength of character.