Progressives, figure it out!

When I'm hard on progressives it's because I desperately want them to figure it out. In their more lucid, logical moments, when they're advocating a just, open, prosperous society with a robust welfare state (and not arguing to nationalise Amazon and abolish corporations), I get it. I see their vision for the world and I can be at peace with it.

If I lived in that society, a high-tax, high-entitlement society with an otherwise free market, open borders, free trade, and a peaceful posture toward the rest of the world, then I would be content.

I am a libertarian. So somewhere deep in my lizard brain a little voice would be yelling "taxation is extortion!" every year at tax time and some portion of my sense of justice would be offended.

But would it offend me enough to activate me as a political actor? I don't think so. I'd probably review video games for a living, or be a teacher/football coach, or an astronomer.

I got activated politically because of what I saw as the predations of the government on communities that couldn't defend themselves. LGBT people, Muslims, the victims of America's war machine and police state, immigrants/refugees, etc. That's what gets me out of bed in the morning, that's why I can't think of doing anything else.

If I thought my taxes were the price of peace and justice then I could live with that. I can't live with them being turned into missiles for Yemeni weddings and barbed wire on the border.

All that other libertarian stuff speaks to me deep down and I agree with it, but I don't care all that much. Progressives need to understand that the laws of economics are how they're going to fund their schemes rather than a barrier to be overcome, but after that I stop being worried about them.

My relationship with conservatism is functionally dead. At this point, I don't even want them supporting my positions because all it does is discredit those positions in the eyes of everyone else and make me question my own beliefs. They sold everything they believed in for these four years of monstrous power, and it's unforgivable.

So I guess that's it. If I'm harder on progressives it's because I expect and hope for more from them. I don't think libertarians will ever be in power in my lifetime. It's too hard to convince people with power and authority to relinquish it. But progressives might be in power, and if they can just figure it out and channel that power in a tolerable way, I might have a chance to relax someday.

It's all self-interest in the end, I suppose. Libertarian through and through.