Statists. You can't even get them to ask (or acknowledge) the right questions.
Whether the topic is "borders", drugs, guns, rights, or socialism, they address all kinds of peripheral questions which seem to legitimize more statism when answered, but they avoid the real questions which would completely invalidate statism.
Is it intentional or are they really that ignorant? I honestly don't know, and suspect it is some of both.
For example, I recently heard one arguing against ending prohibition because when the "laws" against Cannabis are loosened and the cartels' profits go down, the cartels turn to smuggling opioids. What? How does that justify propping up the failure which is prohibition? All you've managed to point out is that if you relax prohibition in a piecemeal way, the cartels will focus on those areas where the profit motive is still high due to continued prohibition.
When you sink that deep into statism, you can't seem to see beyond statism.
So, look at my crude graph above. Sorry, it's not to scale or painted (a lame Back to the Future joke).
See how I readily admit there are still problems with a condition of zero statism (total liberty)?
So?
Utopia isn't an option.
But statists don't like that admission and it's a deal-breaker for them. Liberty would have to be Utopia with no problems at all for them to accept it in place of their favored statist Dystopia-- no matter the specific issue.
Obviously, death-- with no more problems for the dead-- will result from increased statism long before total statism (whatever that may be) is achieved, but the exact place where that happens will vary from individual to individual and is hard to pin down. Use your imagination to adjust the exact scale of the graph.
We live somewhere along the line between zero statism (liberty) and total statism. The exact spot is debatable, but it's irrelevant for my point. Wherever we are, there are problems-- more problems than there would be under liberty. But statists don't like liberty so that option is unthinkable and invisible to them. They advocate more statism to solve the problems which exist; most of which are worsened due to statism. They will claim that with added statism, the total problems will decrease. That's not reality. More statism equals more problems.
But, because there are problems, and they can see ways to justify more statism because of those problems, they are blind to solutions which don't mean more statism. They won't even ask questions which might risk opening their eyes to the reality.
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Reminder: I could really use some help.
