I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen libertarians make claims like “we don’t need to regulate manufacturers, they won’t make things that harm people, otherwise they’ll go out of business!” In fact, one of their greatest desires is to shut down the FDA and other federal regulatory agencies because clearly, the people will make sure that products that are bad for you go away.
So why is this true?
Yes, they made less money overall and their profit was made on cost cutting measures, but with all the force brought to bear against tobacco manufacturers by… wait for it… the government, why is the public still giving them billions of dollars a year?
Don’t they know it’s bad for them?
Seriously, most libertarians live in a complete fantasy world, filled with magical unicorns and rainbows. They think that if the government were to magically disappear, everyone would suddenly become intelligent and rational and responsible for themselves, crime would vanish and we’d all sit around singing kumbayah. It’s just not so, of course, it’s just not something we ever see. When the government pauses in most countries, you don’t have peaceful capitalism, you have riots and anarchy. Civil order collapses.
It reminds me of one guy I used to know, long, long ago, who espoused anarcho-capitalism. He was convinced if the government went away, it would be a capitalist utopia. So I asked him where people would get the currency to be used in this utopia and he was convinced that we’d all just invent a currency, whether it was backed by anything tangible or not, and it would be adopted universally. Of course, he was 15 at the time.
What an idiot.
Of course, most libertarians I run into have a vastly unrealistic view of themselves. They think that in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, they’re going to be Lord Humongous, when in reality they’re more likely to be the dead guys hanging on the front of his car. Or, to be more accurate, they think they’re Rambo, but instead they’re this guy.
The first thing that’s going to happen when you declare that you have property rights in the absence of a government agency to back you up is that Rambo is going to shove his M16 straight up your ass.
Scream about your “inalienable rights” all you want, just don’t be surprised when you get your fat, stupid backside kicked down the road.
Libertarians are such morons.
