From Reason.com (emphasis mine):
Clearly, we need a government that spends less and does less but also appeals to most Americans of whatever ideological persuasion. We know what sort of operating system has improved our commercial, cultural, and personal lives: It’s one that flows directly from libertarian ideas about maximizing options for individuals and the groups they form to discover and follow their bliss.
As opposed to the one-size-fits-all model that DC has tried to shove down our throats these last 8 years.
This commercial-cultural-personal system provides basic frameworks and expectations that facilitate the creation of reputation and expectations of being treated with respect and reciprocity. It’s built on persuasion not threats or coercion and allows people to turn away and leave if they want to.
As opposed to the forced and coerced “you will participate like it or not” Progressive attitude.
It neither requires pre-approval nor does it demand forced affirmation (simple tolerance will do).
As opposed to the permission based system now creeping all over us (e.g., MAY I do “this” with my own property?), a permissionless government based on Rights prevailing over a bureaucratic morass of permits and forms.
It calls for consensus as rarely as needed and only when absolutely necessary. When there were only three or four channels on TV, conflict over what was “acceptable” was likely inevitable. In a world of infinite choices that cannot be forced on anyone, discussions over what is good or bad take the form of conversation and not censorship. We have managed to create an operating system that is better than the one it replaced because it lets more and more of us launch whatever applications we want without crashing the whole computer or network. We can learn from each other and mash-up things we want to, however we want to. When we shop at Whole Foods or on Amazon, when we stream at Netflix, when we eat what we want and marry whomever we want, we’re all libertarians, regardless of whether we voted for Jeff Sessions or Elizabeth Warren.
The trick, of course, is to translate that live-and-let live ethos, the cornucopia model into politics and government, which by definition precludes exit. Here, Trump’s brashness and divisiveness is forcing all of us to realize government isn’t and can’t be all things to all people without endless conflict. We don’t agree on enough to give the power the ability to dictate terms to all of us (and needless to say, such a system can’t possibly be fiscally sustainable).
Simple way to reduce that conflict (not that Progressives like Bruce Currie will agree with) is to lessen the power that Government has. It has become so contentious and so angst ridden is that the outcome(s) are just so danged too high because Government has become too powerful, too money hungry, and too instrusive leading to exactly the wrong people to want the power it now wields.
Make the stakes so much lower and much of what we see now will go away.
(H/T: The Corner)
