Hubris

After getting a touch distracted by the differences between "ethical Libertarianism" and "pragmatic libertarianism" my friend Aretae ponders the nature of Left Wing Hubris:
http://aretae.blogspot.com/2010/01/flavors-of-libertarian.html
Which frankly is not that different from Right Wing Hubris.

Both are founded in the belief that "We can make things better. The problem is not the system, the problem is we are not in charge."

No. The problem is the system. Or to quote one of the greatest philosophers of our age:

Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How’s that again? I missed something.

Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let’s play that over again, too.

Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure “good” government; it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare--most people want to run things but want no part of the blame. -R.A.Heinlein

My good friend Ernie Hancock once explained how, if a Libertarian was ever elected President, he wouldn't need to be elected president. The inaugural address goes like this:

Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?
Um, yeah, so like, you're all free now.
I'm going to go play golf.

It's called personal responsibility.