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.
Bad Times at Joshua Tree
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