well, the whole folly behind foc and the paulites libertarian notions is refusal to admit that people will invariably and inevitably seek power over others. however, they -- like many others of quasi-religious disposition -- only see the problems their faith has coached them to perceive, so they focus on government as the enemy, and not the human need for power, which is realized not just through government but also through business and aristocracy and religion. as a result, they -- unlike those of saner mind -- want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. we all agree that authoritarian states are a problem, but selectively choosing such tiny points of nuttery as the gold standard and individualist mantras as potential anodynes are tantamount to blindness.
realistically, i choose to believe that an approach of simply slowly undoing the evils of the bush years are the best and most realistic start, and which do not require a economic reset based entirely on naive idealism. dealing with the broader problems of american debt and international lien are going to take many years, and are not solved by childish dogma. i am certainly not going to support scouring the federal government with fire simply because it has been doing evil while in poor stewardship these past eight years, and neither will i believe that large government is fundamentally evil unto itself -- in fact, local governments are quite capable of institutionalizing the same evils, because that is what the human tendency towards rule risks at every level.
the paulites do not have a solution. they are simply disenchanted idealists or selfish opportunists with an axe to grind with larger society.
