A Libertarian joke

"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you!"

The punchline, to the glibertarians, is that government never helps anybody. Well, except for the people whose houses would have burned down if not for firemen. And their children's teacher. And the librarian who helps them find information. And look, we gotta keep government outta our Social Security and Medicare, right?

The notion that, in a democracy, government is us apparently never even occurs to the glibertarians... they have a profound distrust of the very notion, feeling that the majority of people are cretins and morons who don't appreciate their unique genius and thus will burn them as witches or steal all their money or something. The fact that it's never happened in the history of the United States of America doesn't phase them, they terrify themselves with all these imaginary things that could happen, in a universe where unicorns are real and the majority of people are thugs.

Of course, the majority of people are not thugs. The majority is sometimes thoughtless, often careless, usually oblivious, but thugs they are not, which is why in Glibertopia, where there is no government and everybody defends their rights with their own personal stocks of nuclear weapons, a small minority of thugs would rule via terrorizing the non-thug reality. I've seen it in action in areas where thug rule has replaced government rule -- the majority of people there are not criminals, are not thugs, but are so terrified they won't even point out the thugs to the police so that the thugs can be arrested and taken off the streets. That's Libertopia -- the Bloods and Crips end up running everything. And because the majority of people are not thugs, a democracy is not prone to the sorts of things that glibertarians fear about "tyranny of the majority" and nonsense like that... the majority simply isn't thuggish enough to do that sort of thing.

At which point someone says "but... but... HITLER!" But Hitler never was elected by a majority of Germans. He basically forced himself into office with dirty tricks and the help of his brownshirted storm troopers, and cancelled elections and pronounced himself dictator as soon as he was in place.

So next time a Libertarian makes that "I'm from the government..." joke, make sure you correct him: "Why are you so terrified of yourself? This is a democracy, and you are the government." And if he pooh-poohs that notion, ask him which, of our leaders, were not elected by a majority of Americans in fair and free elections. (Hint: The answer is that every one of them -- every single one of the sorry bastards -- was elected by We The People, and, sad to say, is probably representative of the average American, sigh!).

Government. It's ours -- and if it' s not, it's our own damned faults for re-electing the same stupid-ass bastards time and time again, yo.

-- Badtux the Democratic Penguin