There are a lot of libertarians who are pessimistic.  They see big government all around them (correctly for the most part), but they fail to see our gains in liberty in certain areas.

To be sure, there are many reasons for a libertarian to be optimistic.  Despite all of the calls for more gun control, gun ownership continues to increase, and there has been little success for the left in trying to ban guns or even control them more.

Homeschooling is another area to be optimistic, as it has increased dramatically in the last couple of decades with the utter incompetence of the government school system.

A third area where we have seen substantial gains in liberty is with the partial legalization of marijuana in many states.  While it is still regulated and considered illegal by the federal government, it has nonetheless been essentially decriminalized in many places.  While the overall war on drugs remains, we have at least made great progress with marijuana.

In addition to all of these specific areas, also consider that libertarianism is far more widespread now than it has been in any of our lifetimes.  If you think the percentage of libertarians is low now, you should have seen it a couple of decades ago.  With the last two Ron Paul presidential campaigns, coupled with the internet, libertarianism has spread considerably, even if the number of hardcore libertarians is still a tiny percentage.  If you hold a liberty event in a medium-sized city, you can at least fill a classroom, if not an auditorium, with people.  In the past, you may have been lucky to get five people.

With all of that said, there is one area where I am rather pessimistic, and that is with the incredible worship of militarism in the United States.  We are supposed to stand and applaud all of the heroes for “serving” our country.  Just by signing on the dotted line, you are forever regarded as a hero unless you do something really egregious.  Of course, even there it is open to debate.  If you kill innocent people in a foreign country, you may still be regarded as a hero in America.

I recently saw an article on Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning).  The article described how Manning was threatening suicide and showed a picture of Manning’s toes on a ledge (as if threatening to jump).

Right before leaving office, Obama granted clemency to Chelsea Manning, which cut short the prison sentence for turning over government secrets to Wikileaks.  While I think Obama did too little too late and that he probably did it because of pressure from the left, it is one of the few good things Obama did while in office.

In the recent article on Manning’s threatened suicide, I read the comments section.  It was really depressing because it showed me just how many nasty people there are out there.  Even worse, I’m guessing many of the commenters would call themselves Christian.

There were some comments and discussions over transgenderism, which is to be expected.  Some thought that Manning is mentally ill, which resulted in a gender change.  Obviously Manning has mental problems, or there wouldn’t be threats of suicide.  But most of the comments were just linking mental illness and transgenderism.  There was only one commenter I saw who pointed out that Manning endured severe torture while being held captive and that this could have led to major mental problems.  In fact, it is hard to imagine not being mentally damaged after having to endure prolonged torture.

But then many of the comments, one after another, were just nasty.  They continuously called Manning a traitor, and many people were making comments such as, “I’ll help push you along” or “I’ll give you a little push.”  They were teasing the situation saying that, not only do they not care if Manning commits suicide, but that they are actually hoping that Manning does commit suicide.

To me, this is just despicable.  I made a comment to the article to the effect that it is disappointing that so many people consider Manning a traitor and do not care about the murderers that Manning exposed (who shot innocent people from a helicopter in Iraq).  I said that Manning was exposing the government’s hiding of criminality.  I received two replies to my comment, both of which were negative and nasty.  One of the responses said that there is room on the ledge for me as well (to commit suicide).

The article was linked on Drudge Report.  Even though Drudge’s site mostly just links news articles, it is a site frequented mostly by conservatives.

I tend to get more fed up with the left and the political correctness and the class warfare and the hypocrisy.  In the age of Trump, it is especially infuriating to see the left in such an outrage when Trump says something mean, yet they have nothing bad to say when he bombs Syria or threatens Russia.

On the subject of militarism though, the political right is the worst, and it is probably the most important issue.  The political left is certainly hypocritical and not anti-war by any means, but the nasty comments really come from the right when militarism and patriotism are the subjects.

I find in most areas that the political left tends to be much nastier with words and far more intolerant of diverging view points.  But when it comes to the military, everything changes.

The crazy thing is that the most militaristic people are probably many of the same people who you’d most want to deal with in your day-to-day life.  Most of them wouldn’t hurt a fly if given the chance. Many of them go to church and pray.  Unfortunately, many of them also worship militarism and all of the death and destruction that comes with it.

Ultimately, I think the U.S. military is going to contract (decline) from its overseas “commitments”.  Unfortunately, I don’t think it will be for moral and ethical reasons.  I wish the wars and interventions would end because people came to the realization that it is immoral to kill innocent people, even if they look a little different and act a little different in a foreign country.

The reason that the U.S. empire will decline will be for economic reasons.  At this stage, it is unsustainable to continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars per year on maintaining a vast empire overseas.  When the choice comes between cutting Granny’s check for Social Security or withdrawing forces from Syria, we can all hope that Granny will see the light and take the Social Security check.