It should come as no surprise that we here at Lean Left reserve a special sort of contempt for libertarians. Hell, we’ve even reserved an entire category for mocking them. Kevin and I have often joked that Libertarianism is like Communism: It looks good on paper, but one only needs to spend about five minutes around other human beings to figure out why it can never work. And SayUncle (himself either a small-l libertarian or a South Park Republican, depending on when you ask him) likes to say that to see why Libertarianism can’t work, you need only watch an episode of Cops. (I’m pretty sure he’s quoting somebody else when he says that.)

But what is it about libertarians that drives us batty? I can’t speak for the Kevins, but I know a big part of what bugs me about them: It’s that they’re the ultimate naysayers. They’re really good at bitching about stuff, and telling you all about what they oppose and why they oppose it, but when it comes time to suggest a better idea, they’re nowhere to be found. If they respond at all, which isn’t often, it’s with the most vacuous rhetoric imaginable: “Let The Market™ decide,” they’ll say, or “We don’t need new laws, let’s enforce the existing ones.” Don’t look to them for anything helpful or useful. They’ve got nothing.

Nearly 50 million Americans without health care? “Get a better job!” Yep, just put your lousy job’s pay stub under your pillow, and the Better Job Fairy (aka, “The Invisible Hand of the Market™”) will handle everything. (And if you’re a single parent without health care, be sure to leave a note asking the Better Job Fairy to call her friend, the Day Care Fairy. Maybe she can even hook you up with the Time Fairy and the Money Fairy so you can get job training or a better education in between working two jobs and raising your kids. But I digress…)

That’s but one example. Name any problem society faces, and libertarians have vacuous, untenable explanations as to why we don’t need to do anything about it. Say what you will about liberals and conservatives, but at least they’re trying to address society’s problems. You may disagree with how they’re going about it, but they’re trying to go about it. Not so, the libertarians. All they want to do is tell you all about why what you want to do won’t work, and why your idea is a bad one.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I’ve got nothing against informed dissent. In fact, it’s critical if this whole “government of, by, and for the people” thing is going to work. Look no further than Kennedy/Vietnam or Cheney/Iraq to see why lack of dissent is bad. But that dissent can’t take the form of that guy in the meeting (you know the guy, every meeting has one) who shoots down everyone else’s ideas without ever offering a better idea. (As an old boss of mine used to say, if you’re complaining about one idea without offering a better one, you’re just whining.)

And indeed, there are parts of Libertarianism that are actually good and make sense, if kept within reason. There really are a lot of cases where we (and, by extension, the state) ought to err on the side of leaving people alone. Behaviors that don’t hurt anybody shouldn’t be criminalized. Even self-destructive behaviors needn’t be criminalized or regulated. (Now, encouraging people to engage in self-destructive behavior, and actively striving to profit from self-destructive behavior, are other matters). No, it’s not so much Libertarianism that’s the problem. It’s self-described libertarians. And in this regard, I find that the small-l variety to be even more annoying than the ones that go all out and embrace the big-L. (At least those in the latter category have the balls to commit.)

You know what libertarians are? They’re that friend you had growing up (and everybody had this friend) who, whenever anyone suggested “Let’s do X,” no matter what X is, they didn’t want to do it, but when asked what they want to do, they say “I don’t know.” They’re the ultimate hedge-betters. They never have to take any blame when things don’t work, because nothing was ever their idea, and they opposed all of everyone else’s idea. They can avoid accountability for any and all problems.

So until self-described libertarians start putting forward a positive agenda; until they start giving us viable ideas for what they are willing to do to address society’s problems; until they start taking ownership of something, anything, apart from their own selfish asses, I not-so-humbly submit that there’s simply no reason to take them seriously.

Related posts, yet-to-be-written: The Market™ Doesn’t Give A Shit, and Libertarians Deny Global Warming Because Libertarianism Has No Solution To Global Warming