Bad Times at Joshua Tree

A few days ago I read an article, which was obviously satire and clearly labeled as such, about how Libertarians were finally able to enjoy America’s National Parks due to  the  government shutdown.  It was the kind of comedy which just writes itself.  Just put  in a lot of quotes that could be from Libertarians,  expressing  the Libertarian philosophy, and it’s funny.   All about how they could ride their dune buggies wherever they liked  and scare the shit out of all the animals and drop garbage everywhere because now they were finally free to.  It  was very funny.
Then, just now, I  read an article about how vandals are taking advantage of the shutdown to wreak  havoc on Joshua Tree National Park, carving out their own roads, dropping garbage all over the place and, in at least one case, chopping down a tree.  Now, I think the Joshua tree is technically a cactus, but that is not the point.  It is rare, it is protected (there is actually a National Park dedicated to it) and there is no reason  at all for  anybody to chop one  down, except that some people just like destroying shit.  So, I’m not laughing now.
This is the problem with Libertarianism (ditto Anarchy – the difference between the two groups is mostly stylistic, as Anarchists are far more likely to dress in black leather) and  the  current  unintended  experiment proves it.  Without any government oversight at all, things  quickly turn to shit.
It would be a wonderful world if people were good  enough to get  by with no government.  If nobody wanted to trash the local environment, if  everybody felt  responsible for the  products they sold, if people obeyed the  unwritten laws of proper  social behavior, we could have  our  utopian paradise, and we could have it  right now.
But, people are shit.  Until we solve that problem, it’s going to be real hard to solve any of the others.