What it amounts to Jon, is that people would rather live in their carefully constructed mind "reality," than deal with reality and achieve some sort of imperfect or perfecting libertarian society, rather preferring to living in the perfect libertarian society in their heads (even if no two people can agree with what that is), while the closest one we have ever had in history, and a very lot paid dearly to achieve, rapidly fades from view for what maybe forever. The trouble is they have nothing to replace it with, and what is to replace it, is a tyrants wet dream. Goat
Jon Roland wrote: > Of course I can't guarantee the civic virtue of others, but that is not > the measure of whether the Constitution is a "failure", any more than > the collapse of the house is the failure of the hammer that the > carpenter left hanging on the wall instead of using it to put in some > needed nails, or an argument that we should do away with hammers and > rely on our fists. > > What is your alternative? Everyone becoming a libertarian saint? How can > you guarantee that? At least a well-designed constitution, like ours, > can enable a bare majority, or even a determined minority, to maintain a > libertarian order. Without it, it only takes a small minority to bring > down the entire civilization and turn everyone against one another. > > My dismal point needs to be understood. Life is not a choice between > what we want and what we don't want. It is a choice among the > alternatives are are actually available, and sometimes all the > alternatives are bad. A libertarian order lies within one of those > lesser evils. It is an order that is very difficult to achieve or > maintain. It requires a huge effort from almost everyone. It is > inherently unstable and subject to perturbations that can bring it down, > along with civilization itself. At best, we get to enjoy such an order > only for brief periods of history, in a few lucky places, bounded in > time and space by a wasteland. > > Sasan Sadat-Sharifi wrote: >> The U.S. Constitution, by any measure, is a complete and total >> failure, and yet you continue to promote it as our only source of >> salvation. You can argue all you want that things would be better if >> ordinary citizens participated more in Government, but the fact of the >> matter is that you can never guarantee that they will do so. >> > >
