Comments on: Are Libertarians Cheerier?

By: Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 22:04:00 +0000

Amber, I don’t know about you, but I have no doubts on that score.

By: Amber

Amber — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 21:40:00 +0000

We may be more cheerful. But don't you dare say that we're better in bed. People get a little touchy.

By: William Tanksley

William Tanksley — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 13:13:00 +0000

Cheerful? I’m sorry, but I have to disagree. Or I have to change my reading list. The libertarian blogs I read talk endlessly about the sheer horror of the obstacles we face, how deceived everyone else is, and so on.

Almost none of them say ANYTHING about optimism, much less about how specifically to achieve the changes we want.

I’m an optimistic libertarian. I enjoy reading left, right, center, and libertarian writings. I like thinking of ways to solve things (while making money).

The rationales I see here for libertarian cheerieness would depress me if I believed them. I should be cheery because conservatives have a twinge when they vote for Bush, or because conservatives play dirtier than liberals? Please! Stop salivating; Pavlov’s left the building. I should be cheery because I believe that people are basically good and don’t need oversight? Then why do the people we have keep on setting up horrible oversight?

There’s a much better reason to be cheerful — it’s because we’re working for change, and we know what we’re doing. I believe most of us know what we’re doing, but most of us aren’t doing anything.

So hop to it! Make those changes! And stop whining, for heaven’s sake. It’s not a political failure; it’s a business opportunity!!!!

-Billy

By: keelay

keelay — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 12:23:00 +0000

It’s the weeeeed, man.

By: Jim Henley

Jim Henley — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 12:06:00 +0000

Will’s cheerful? Let’s all write Cato and get him fired for cheeriness!

By: Amanda

Amanda — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 11:37:00 +0000

I think a certain amount of optimism has to go along with libertarianism. If, like me, you think people are generally great, and things tend to work out, you’re unlikely to think much meddling is necessary.

If you constantly think the country is in decline, or the Big Bad Scaries are coming, or people are just waiting to rip each other apart, you almost have to be for a big stompy-foot government to keep things in line.

By: Maestro

Maestro — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 10:51:00 +0000

I think this exchange sums up us libertarian-types fairly well -
Marge: You know, Homer, it’s easy to criticize.
Homer: Fun, too!
The lack of guilt helps too….

By: Lemuel Kolkava

Lemuel Kolkava — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 10:39:00 +0000

I would like to think that I am a libertarian, but I don’t think it has any relation to ones attitudes. I have always thought that being cheery and generally content is almost an intellectual defect, a mental incapacity to perceive and grasp the grim reality in the world. But then, I am a European… (And we Europeans tend to have pessimism in our genes, since the frolickers (who couldn’t no longer stand us and vice versa) all emigrated – guess where to? Plus being a libertarian in Europe is really depressing.)

By: Bernard

Bernard — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 10:30:00 +0000

I don’t think cheery people are real libertarians (he said, before running for cover).

By: Lane

Lane — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 10:11:00 +0000

But I guess it didn’t, because I’m still smiling despite the fact that Movable Type doesn’t display comments immediately, causing me to annoyingly double-post, and then to write an even more annoying third post about it…

By: Lane

Lane — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 10:10:00 +0000

I think one reason that libertarians are happier is that a lot of us have been touched by Ayn Rand at one point or another…

Well, that sure wiped the smile right off of my face.

By: Lane

Lane — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 10:07:00 +0000

I think one reason that libertarians are happier is that a lot of us have been touched by Ayn Rand at one point or another…

Good Lord, no! That sure wiped the grin right off of my face.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 08:57:00 +0000

Maybe it’s easier to be cheerful when you don’t need to go through life reaffirming one’s loyalty to one’s peer claque at whatever the cost to one’s own self-respect. I’m plenty grateful for my material blessings like the high-resolution monitor I’m typing on and the snug magic polymer socks I’m wearing. But I’m even more grateful that I don’t need to try to defend the natural rightness of 100% estate tax to support a bundle of positive rights based on inherited citizenship in the richest country in the world. Kill the voluntary nepotism using negative rights in the service of involuntary inheritance rules and positive rights “to reduce inequality,” the better to enforce inequality with the absolutely poor brown people, mmmm.

In our age, the law, in its majesty, allows both rich and poor to inherit their citizenship. The populist left and right compete to discard the most negative and individual rights in favor of rights reserved for citizens. Almost all the left, from knuckle-dragging semiliterate populists to the rarefied leftist 91% of often-literate academics, wrap themselves in a mantle of moral superiority which they claim as their inherited right from internationalist socialism. (Be sure never, ever to wonder whether your nationalist socialism is quite the same thing!) The Internet repeats and remembers it all without quite understanding it (yet). And libertarians, by and large, maintain a positive mental attitude.:-)

By: Party Pooper

Party Pooper — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 05:21:00 +0000

I just pooped in my pants; should I be happy about that too? I wouldn’t be so happy if I were you. Someday, you’re going to die. Looking on the bright side, death is the great equalizer. Every scum billionaire out there is going to kick the bucket too. One hopes that they will have a long, painful illness before they are sucked away into eternal nothingness. Only their indestructible greed will be left behind in the form of their heirs. Kinda makes you wish for a 100% estate tax, doesn’t it?

By: McClain

McClain — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 02:19:00 +0000

I guess ham-fisted gloating isn’t, technically, ‘cheerful.’
The ‘Right’ still seems fairly happy, nevertheless.
It IS nice to sit on the sidelines and make snarky comments while someone you dislike beats up someone you despise.