“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” James Madison

Despite the fact that “political rants” were the original intention of my blog (started over six years ago) I rarely write about the subject anymore. Therefore, you should check out the latest post at The Kyle Conspiracy about the renewal of the Patriot Act. This is an unfortunate example of the ways in which the Obama Administration is no less “evil” than a McCain (or realistically, any other) administration would have been.

Being a cynical libertarian is fun most of the time! Our pessimistic outlook is usually validated by government failure!

It’s frustrating sometimes, because much of the 20-something blogosphere is decidedly liberal. I do not consider myself a liberal. I suppose I am “liberal” in many of the areas that matter to many 20-somethings: pro-choice (rabidly so), pro-gay marriage (although I think marriage should be privitized and the government should have no place in any marriage), and against the war in Iraq from almost the beginning.

But if forced to choose I’d say I’m a conservative. I think the government should be as small as possible.

I don’t think healthcare should be government run. Given the mess that is our healthcare system, “public option” may look like the only hope for people who make too much for Medicaid but still can’t afford insurance, but I don’t beleive the government will able to do so in an efficient, or more importantly, affordable manner. I think the people who have problems getting health insurance now will still have problems getting health insurance.  No, I don’t think government run health care would be facist or even that socialist – I just don’t think it will be any good. It’d be nice if health insurance was run more like car insurance, but that’s not going to happen anymore than my idea that health insurance industry in general is a bad idea and should be eliminated all together.

I bring up health insurance only because its dominated so much of the media attention lately, and because saying I don’t think government run health insurance is a good idea raises accusations of hating poor people. But I guess I should say for the record that I’m also anti-union, I think the FDA does more harm than good, and I’m against affirmative action.

Now that you’re all on board with assuming that I’m a misguided and terrible person…

Libertarian ideas aren’t very popular and it doesn’t help that the libertarian party itself is filled with batshit insanity. And I’m used to people assuming that I’m a liberal. I don’t get offended by it, but I do get annoyed by the assumption because it’s based on “well you’re educated and you’re not a bad person so of course you’re not a conservative! Those people are religious gun nuts who want all women in the kitchen, barefoot in pregnant” (I’m also a fan of the 2nd amendment and I do not consider myself a feminist)

 I have no problem sitting down and telling you why I hold all the above “evil” opinions (hey, maybe I can convert a few to the libertarian side) but much of my political posturing has become a lot more tongue-in-cheek in the past few years. Partially because arguging about politics — even “debating” politics — is like arguing about religious beliefs. Given the abject failure of government I see political opinions as equally rooted in faith as religious beliefs.  And partially because I’ve seen how a lot of it doesn’t matter. I don’t say that to be overly cynical. For most of the population, no matter what the government does, their day to day life will not be changed in a radical manner. (Yes, there are caveats to this – I think they are obvious enough that I don’t have to go into them, and you can assume I’m taking them into account.) And that’s how it should be. What the government does should have very little affect on your day to day life. The government certainly shouldn’t make your life worse.

But it shouldn’t be in the business of making your life better either.

“A government that is big enough to give you anything is big enough to take it all away” -Thomas Jefferson