Exhaustion

DK’s struggle to comment on what is happening is typical of Libertarian bloggers – we’ve seen so-called change occurring in May, and now have to make the same arguments for liberty for a new bunch of gurning, illiberal idiots.

Sure, the coalition is not the same as the last Labour government – and anyone who claims that it is misses the point. But the differences are outweighed by the massive similarities – in particular, the faith that the state is the answer to all of our problems – it is just a case of getting the “right” party into power.

So we make the same points again, again and again. And the government either doesn’t hear, or doesn’t care, or is simply unwilling to change.

Yet I still have hope – hope that at some point the people of this country will finally see through the nonsense spouted by statists. But what worries me is just how big, how terrifying the crisis will have to be for the people to finally lose their faith in the statist propaganda. We’ve had a nonsense war on terror, an attempt to bankrupt a country through propping up failed banks, and a continual war on civil liberties and still nothing – people still vote for the statists. What will it take to stop them from doing so?

But given the complete absence of change (or even the desire for real change among the majority), those of us who have been banging on for years about the growth of the state and the ensuing diminishing of our liberty are bound to feel dispirited and exhausted. Yet the case we make still needs to be made and I hope that, despite the weariness many bloggers are feeling at the moment, that there will still be some who go on making that case.