Why most Americians think Libertarians are nerdy and immature losers #642

Last Saturday night in Washington, DC, a gaggle of Libertarians who (surprise!) couldn't find dates all decided to go to the Jefferson Memorial at midnight in recognition of Thomas Jefferson's birthday. Libertarians operate under the delusion that Jefferson was one of them, a guy who despised authority, smoked pot, and probably lived in his parents' basement until he was about 40 years old. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, but one only has to listen to them rave about how things will change when Ron Paul gets to be president (yup...they still say "when"...) to know that most of these well-intentioned but pathetically sad people aren't exactly tied to reality.

Anyway, it wasn't a bad thing that they went to the memorial. That's what the memorial's there for, and personally I enjoy it the most late at night when the crowds are gone and you can take it all in in a more solemn and reverent setting.

But that's where the dimwit brigade comes in. Rather than show respect for the memorial and others present, they bring cameras and music and begin singing and dancing and carrying on, finally getting to the point where the Park Police tell them that they have to leave.

So what do our dateless, clueless Libertarian friends do? Do they apologize and offer to tone it down? Do they leave as they've been told to do by the lawful authority? Nope. They begin to badger and harangue the police officers, demanding to see the laws that grant the police authority to remove them and claiming that if Jefferson were alive, he'd be supporting them. (Historical note: Jefferson was very big on law and order and obeying lawful authority, despite what today's Libertarians think.) That's right, they got up in the officers' faces and got even louder and more out of control, and finally one of them, a trust-fund kid named Mary Oberwetter, was placed under arrest when she continued to re-enter the chamber after being removed. Another socially-repressed Libertarian named Jason Talley continued to argue with the police but backed down short of getting locked up himself. Per the Washington Post article on this, Talley tried to make the claim that he and the others were being oppressed by the big, bad government.

"So you're saying the state is going to reject us?" Talley says. "It's Thomas Jefferson's birthday. We're here to celebrate that. And the state is throwing us out. There is something wrong with America when we get thrown out of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial when we're silent and peaceful and celebratory!"

"Thomas Jefferson's looking down, and he'd be very dissatisfied," Talley says.

However, Talley's diatribe has been amply responded to by someone much more mature and educated than he:

Quite the contrary, says Peter Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation professor of history at U-Va.

"What they're referring to here is Jefferson's endorsement of popular resistance to tyrannical authority," he said yesterday. "What these folks were involved in was provoking authorities into having to enforce the law. Jefferson was very anal about obedience to the law.

"It trivializes Jefferson to suggest that in his name or spirit someone would ignore the will of the people as expressed in law," Onuf said. "I don't think he'd bother to turn over in his grave in this case."

So in the end, a bunch of 20-something and 30-something spoiled white kids got mad because the police told them to stop doing something and spoiled white kids don't like being told that they can't do stuff. Now this is all over the internet and Youtube and the Libertarian blogosphere is off the hook with electronic screams of fascism and tyranny.

As for me, I'm backing the cops on this one. You Libertarians need to get jobs and focus on living your lives without bothering the rest of us for a while. And yes, that includes boring us all to tears with tales of what Ron Paul will do when he, like Jesus, comes to save us all.