Misleading Yourself

...is an offense for which you'll never find someone else to blame. Consider the following:

Libertarianism is spreading on our college campuses. An unusually large number of politically-minded, frustrated students, who refer to themselves as the "liberty movement," believe themselves to be part of a rising tide that will restore the country to greatness.

Much of the recent growth in libertarian activism emerged after Ron Paul's 2008 failed presidential bid, when Jeff Frazee, Paul's national youth coordinator, founded Young Americans for Liberty (YAL). Aided in part by the right-of-center activist training group the Leadership Institute and its team of field representatives, YAL now boasts chapters on over 380 campuses and a membership of some 125,000 students. Another libertarian group, Students for Liberty, has since seen exponential growth since its founding in 2008. At the end of 2008, there were 42 campus groups in the SFL network. By 2013, SFL claimed an affiliation with 930 groups worldwide: 767 in the U.S., over 100 in Europe, and a few dozen in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

David Deerson, who was the president of UNC-Chapel Hill's YAL chapter until he graduated in May, says that his personal story is a "microcosm" of the growth of the liberty movement on campus. When he arrived at UNC as a freshman, he sought out the student libertarian group. There were only about four people regularly attending the weekly meetings, and they didn't do much in terms of activism. But by the time Deerson graduated, roughly 25 people attended weekly meetings, and the group--now a chapter of YAL--was winning awards for its activism.

While it's heartening to read of young Americans taking a lively interest in freedom and cocking a jaundiced eye at politicians' promises of a governmentally-engineered Utopia, the assertions in the cited article have insufficient foundation for anyone to take them as a harbinger of a libertarian groundswell. From later in the article:

Another issue driving libertarian activism is disenchantment with middle class entitlements. Programs like Social Security are beginning to run deficits, and demographic projections suggest that receiving a substantial payout upon retirement may not be an option for those just entering the program. In surveys, many millennials say they don't think the program will exist by the time they're supposed to receive benefits.

Young people are getting a "raw deal" from politicians' deceptive promises, Deerson said.

What are these young folks really cheesed off about? The entitlements themselves, or that today's young Americans are highly unlikely ever to receive significant payouts from them?

It would behoove us to ask around before we leap to any rosy-glassed conclusions.

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Over the decades I've watched political trends, I've noticed some strong correlations among youth, political engagement, and particular passions:

• The young man is principally concerned with sex and money. The late teen / early adult is biased heavily toward sex; as he ages, the balance tilts ever more toward money.
• Young women are nearly obsessed with romance and getting properly mated up. Very few are interested at all in politics or political theory; the ones who are lean heavily toward the Lesbian-Feminist Left. ("The angry ugly-girl faction" -- Duyen Ky)
• Young Americans of both sexes have very short horizons and powerful time-preferences. This stems from being:
  1. Young;
  2. And American;
  
  ...and nothing can be done about it.

In short, young Americans are the pampered progeny of the most opulent and indulgent society in the history of the world. Their natural interests are in extending their range of enjoyments and conveniences, if possible at little or no cost. Moreover, we, their parents, made them that way.

Yes, there are exceptions. The cited article is about such exceptions. And what does that word exception mean, Gentle Reader?

For those reasons, I remain skeptical about a "rise of libertarianism" originating among young American adults. Indeed, I'd be surprised to discover that the trend on college and university campuses is all that strong. It's likely to be a fleeting surge of distaste for current conditions and recent developments, if anything.

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Youth movements this century past have always been unrealistically Utopian. They've focused almost exclusively on two fantasies:

• The abolition of war;
• The abolition of "poverty."

This is a consequence of youth itself: the lack of knowledge and historical perspective required to grasp that central bit of wisdom best articulated by the great Thomas Sowell:

There Are No Solutions;
There Are Only Tradeoffs.

With the decline in sincere religious belief, especially Christian belief, this has become a larger problem than ever. Who, after all, told us that "The poor you will always have with you" -- ? Who was it who railed against the religious establishment of classical Judea for making the Temple effectively inaccessible to poor Jews? Who was it who drove the "moneychangers and the sellers of doves" out of the Temple vestibule -- and why? And just how many young people understand the implications of all that?

Christian faith, among its other virtues, provides a conceptual bridge for the young: a protective channel from the irrepressible all-things-are-possible confidence of the unscarred to the older-and-sadder-but-wiser comprehension of the way the world works that only comes with life experience. Properly appreciated and internalized, it cushions the young person against his ignorance of economics and the darker aspects of human nature. It guides him toward proper treatment of those around him, especially the less fortunate. But treated as an old-fart's superstition, or (arguably worse) as a set of ritualized dogmas that can be held apart from the "real world," it loses that protective character.

Psychologist Peter Breggin, in a lecture he delivered many years ago, noted that the tendency to become more conservative with age is coupled to an intensifying interest in religion. However, he inferred that such a swelling interest is driven by a desire to explain one's success in this world. He erred in that inference; the belief that one's religious faith and affiliation is the key to his material success nearly always arises before success is acquired. Nor is it always incorrect.

From here I could vault into a tirade about modern "social justice" clerics who preach that we have a responsibility to bring the Kingdom of God to reality here on Earth, but you've already heard that one, so I'll spare you.

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Don't kid yourself. The salvation of this country from the social-fascist Left will not come from our supposedly idealistic and energetic young people. All but a tiny minority of them have "drunk the Kool-Aid^®" of the Heaven-on-Earth Left, and won't shake off the sugar hangover until they reach their forties...if, indeed, they ever do. As gratifying as it is that the liberty movement is gaining more footholds on college campuses, these will not be the incubators of the Second American Revolution. At best, they will be auxiliaries: primarily useful for disillusioning their coevals, to whatever extent the starry-eyed idealism of youth allows for such, as the collapse of the Liberal-Fascist Corporate State accelerates.

The hard work will remain with those of us who have lived the nightmare unswaddled by parental concern or the uniquely protective environment of the Ivory Tower. We cannot delegate it to younger and fresher bodies. Even the attempt is likely to cause harm: to ourselves as parents, guardians, and "gray heads," and to the nation at large.