At the very beginning, I used to be a libertarian purely because of the economic reasons. The government is very ineffective in general. Also maybe you know the Mises’ article called Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth that explains why central planning doesn’t work.

However, later I was more focused on libertarianism from the ethical point of view. It’s simply wrong to force your own will upon others with coercion.

But eventually I realized there is something more than ethics and economics. I am a libertarian simply because my heart tells me to be. Maybe it looks like a cliché but it’s connected with the previous two reasons.

Every day I see people who are hurt by the government and its flawed system. Here are few random examples:

1) I’ve heard about a guy who paid his taxes as he was supposed to, but the Tax Office had some mess in their papers, and they couldn’t find his tax return. And they came to a conclusion he didn’t pay them, so they did a writ of execution. He returned from work and found his apartment sealed.

The Tax Office found his paper later, and then they were like “Oops, sorry! We’re so silly! Our tax return was here all along! Well, shit happens!” and that’s it. No one was punished and there were no consequences either for the government nor the Tax Office.

The financial damages were done and no compensation was made.

2) I knew a farmer who had sheep. He had couple more sheep that he was allowed according the law, so one day he was fined. How did they find out? They showed him photos of his property made with a drone or maybe with a satellite. They counted his sheep and realized he had a couple more. Thus, the punishment.

It reminds me of a similar case. It was prohibited in New Zealand to grow plants in backyards (for some reason). Some guy was caught and also fined!

(source: https://imgur.com/a/SbhCG)

3) A family in the USA had a deer as a pet, but they didn’t know it’s illegal. The authorities found out, they walk into their home and shot the deer dead. I’ve seen a YouTube video about this. Lots of people in the comment section were like: “It’s totally bad! Poor family… But they broke the law, so it’s OK I guess!”

(source: https://youtu.be/i57roj23q9c)

I remember reading about a family that had a raccoon as a pet, and they had a proper permit to have such an animal in their house, but the permit doesn’t allow keeping the animal outside. They didn’t know. Later they built some outside enclosure connected via tunnel with their house. The law was broken – a sheriff visited them, took the animal and it was eventually euthanized.

So an innocent animal was killed for absolutely no reason and people were hurt for no reason. Thanks, government.

4) There are many people who own a growshop. They sell products made from marijuana. Because governments consider marijuana a dangerous drug, they do raids on these shops, seize all stuff and put their owners to the prison.

5) Oh, and I remember that UK case of a child who was kept alive on the life support devices in hospital. And the court decided to plug off the child against the parents’ will, so this child was literally murdered by a government.

And many many more cases.

So I can see it every day. The governments all around the world hurt people. They cause permanent damage on their property, money, health, mental health, living animals and many more. That’s not a joke, but a real thing.

And it’s not some crazy conspiracy theory. Maybe you can say it’s biased, because these cases are mostly shared among other libertarians, but no, it’s not the case. Lots of these cases are also reported in mainstream media.

And people know it happens. So why on earth aren’t we all libertarians?

Funny thing, statists know that it happens, and they don’t approve it either. They also say it’s bad and sad. But, they:

don’t think it’s a natural outcome of the government itself, but rather some rare unfortunate thing and a human failure. Shit happens.

see it as a flaw in the system, but they think it’s just a minor flaw that can be easily fixed. All we have to do is to change some laws, replace some politicians with other ones, vote harder and so on.

admit it’s horrible, but they believe there is a great explanation behind it. It’s shouldn’t be a bad thing when the government does it, right? They must have their reasons! Ordinary people like us just don’t understand.

hope it’s gonna get better. They hope the next politician or the president will be a better ruler who finally fix all troubles. No wonder that CHANGE is the favorite word for every single election. Many political parties and presidential candidates repeat “Vote for me! Vote for change!”, because they know people are unsatisfied, and they know the government hurts people every single day – sometimes more, sometimes less.

think it’s just their country and everywhere else it’s much better. In Romania, In Germany, In Spain… people ask “why does our government has to be so shitty? Why us? Why do only we have to have such corrupt government?!”, but it’s just an illusion caused by the fact they read news only about their own country, not the others.

are conviced it’d be much worse without the government. The problem is that you can apply this argument to pretty much anything. Anything could be accepted with an excuse ‘it could be even worse’.

And so on. See – they use lots of mental gymnastics to accept their fate and the fact they are pretty powerless against their government.

Some statists think it’s just because the evil people have all the power, and we need to just give power to some good people.

But even if you take the good people with good intentions and big hearts, it still will lead to this type of tyranny.

Power itself will lead there. It’s because even the nicest person on earth can’t have all the information available (for example prices), because there are so many people with so many desires and needs. Only the free market is the closest thing that can dynamically respond to the chaos we live in. And what is a perfect world for some, is a pure hell for others. And that’s why you can’t let a central authority decide about the world and force others to live according to these decisions. The result is always the same – some people who don’t fit in the system are hurt.

You don’t like the public education system created by your masters and you want your own? Too bad! You have no choice. Do as the government says or your children get kidnapped by authorities. You disagree with some laws? Well, follow them, otherwise you’ll be put in jail. You don’t like the currency you’re paying with? Well, it’s not upon you to decide the currency. Be happy you have crypto at least!

It’s time to admit it! The governments all around the world hurt people and need to be limited as much as possible!