WHY SHEEPLE NO LIKE SHELDON?
From Reason magazine:
How to Talk to Nonlibertarians
Take a shower and don't stand so close to them when you talk. Just kidding! Do go on, Sheldon Richman:
If libertarians want to change how nonlibertarians think about government, they will need to understand how nonlibertarians think about government. By "nonlibertarians," I mean the majority of people who spend little if any time pondering political theory or what Murray Rothbard called political ethics. They may focus at times on particular government programs and actions, or on proposals for new programs, but rarely about government as an institution.
You mean normal people?
...So how can libertarians speak to these people in a way they will understand? How do we get them to question deeply held beliefs that may never have been articulated? My basic advice is to start by trying to see government as they see it. This may be distasteful, but if you want to persuade people, what else are you going to do? Without this, you might as well be speaking in a foreign language.
I have to say it's amazing they let this be published someplace non-initiates might see it. (I know, fellas, but at least technically Reason magazine is available to the public.) Richman sounds like an alien in a cheesy sci-fi story trying to figure out what is this "love" the humans speak of?
But he does try: He even acknowledges that people worry about losing their job and having no safety net to help them, which must have been a big step for him. Unfortunately:
...The libertarian job is to convince people that, on two counts, government provision is a bad way to secure a good end. First, it is morally wrong because it requires compulsion — the threat of physical violence — starting with taxation. And second, as a consequence of the first feature, state provision is inferior to private provision because it is outside the free and competitive market — a process that, unlike the political realm, ties rewards to customer service and stimulates entrepreneurial discovery, which makes products and services better and cheaper.
I see the problem here: Richman thinks that the littlebrains don't know that the power of the state is terrible. But we do know it, and nonetheless prefer to deal with the welfare state -- yes, even with police and taxes -- than take a chance on rule by corporations, because we also know that people who pitch us "customer service" and "entrepreneurial discovery" as an alternative to our current means of survival are the sort of well-manicured grifters who try to talk senior citizens into giving up their life savings for a fake stock certificate.
With a little patience Richman might be able to polish his act sufficiently that after ten minutes people won't want to throw garbage at him, but I don't think he has it in him -- really, look at this --
In other words, consumers would be safer without government protection. But that counterintuitive claim must be patiently demonstrated, not merely insisted on. (One disadvantage for libertarians is that most people are ignorant of economics.)
-- and imagine the guy trying to win hearts and minds anywhere but FreedomFest and Koch Industries. We all get tired of glad-handers, but these guys don't even seem to like people. And they certainly don't want to offer them anything except the opportunity to be smug shits like themselves -- and they think that's a great come-on because for libertarians that's the tippity-top of the Maslow pyramid. They'll give out toy guns in Harlem to make a point, and give a speech at Howard to make a point -- but it's not the people of Harlem or Howard they're trying to make their points to -- it's the people who already agree with them, and who'll get the press release and say boy, our guys really showed those people.
It's not a formula for political success. Fortunately for them, their sponsors have deep pockets and can buy politicians who'll just straight up lie to them about what they're trying to do.