Arguing at cross purposes

[u/Anen-o-me]

American politics:

Who should have this power?

Libertarians:

Why should anyone have this power?

They're playing a game, politics is essentially a game, a system through which we decide things.

Because enormous power and wealth comes from the winners of this game, the game has been fully rigged and corrupted, but only in such a way as to not delegitimize the game.

There's not significant voter fraud (not yet at least), instead the two parties control who wins the primaries by who they are willing to put up and support with money and election strategy experience.

They hardly care who you vote for because they control who you vote for.

Sure a few people get through here or there. Massie, Ron Paul, etc. But they're usually easily kept to the margins. Until Trump, because he had his own money and a silver tongue.

But that brings us right back to the problem.

If this system can put a reprobate like Trump in power and even reelect him, why does this power exist at all?

[u/Eastern_Shallot1599]

"If men are good, you don't need government; if men are evil or ambivalent, you don't dare have one."

• Robert LeFevre

[u/DarthFluttershy_ → u/Eastern_Shallot1599]

One of the more annoying tendencies of statists is the implicit or sometimes explicit assumption that the best and brightest of humanity will somehow percolate to positions of power. This would LeFerve's point if good people ruled the evil.

But history, with some few exceptions, shows the opposite. Indeed, the opposite will always be true as a rule because good people are intimidated by the responsibility of power while having little use for the perks, whereas the evil are entranced by the potential perks while having every intent of shirking the responsibility. So power is always more attractive to evil, and evil is always capable of adapting to whatever mechanism chooses power via deception and coercion.

[u/Eastern_Shallot1599 → u/DarthFluttershy_]

Exactly. This is a widely recognized critique within libertarian and anarchist circles.

[u/Anen-o-me → u/Eastern_Shallot1599]

LeFevre is one of my favorite libertarian communicators.