Saturday, June 21, 2008

Parody of the travelling libertarian, or, National Lampoon's Libertarian Family Vacation

Here is a very funny post over at Reflecting Light. Something tells me that this guy would find something governmentally evil and liberty destroying in the existence of "the world's largest ball of yarn." Consider:

Future libertarian of America (FLA) questions libertarian (anti)-authority figure:

Daddy, why is it that you make me sit still while riding in the car?

Libertarian anti-authority figure ponders on FLA's question for at least three full seconds,

Questions like these always give me pause. There's the standard party line "because your moving about in the car while daddy is driving can be dangerous," but wait, since not all movement in a car is dangerous and exceptions are sometimes made to the rule, the party line is not valid - it never is.

and then proceeds to respond:

No; the real reason daddy makes you sit still in the car is because he can.

Besides, if the government had not arbitrarily made riding in a trailer illegal, you'd be there right now free to move about as you like. So in reality daddy only makes rules for you to follow as a result of government arbitrarily making rules for him to follow. See what I mean, honey, about the evil arbitrary nature of government and how it destroys individual liberty? Never forget this lesson.

Now please, sit back down, buckle up, and stop asking these stupid questions which any libertarian worth her salt already knows the answer to.

If you've ever argued with a libertarian about whether any and all rules and standards and limits are "arbitrary," then you know exactly where I'm coming from. For instance, are speed limits arbitrary? Libertarians think they are, all reasonable arguments to the contrary notwithstanding. To a libertarian, governments set "arbitrary" limits on the speed at which you may drive your car in a given area simply because they can. The same applies to most everything else with libertarians, right down to government at the most local level.

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