Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

I was only about eight years old when I realized that the solutions to most of the world’s difficulties were pathetically obvious, but that those in power—who profit politically and economically from those difficulties—don’t really want to hear about it. They’re having too much fun, running and ruining our lives for us and taking care of us to death. Democracy means that we are ruled by the fools and idiots and criminals of our choice. In my view, this is not progress; how about not being ruled?

The better part of seventy years later, I’m still convinced that I was right about this way back in 1954. Politicians see problems as an endless source of opportunity and solved problems as the direst of threats. If need be, they’ll invent new problems they can pretend to solve so we’ll vote for them.

I’ve been thinking lately about foreign policy. Not my favorite subject, but the professionals in the field are such incompetent buffoons that I can’t help myself. For example, everybody claims to worry about Iran. And yet, that’s the easiest problem of all to solve. The Islamist mullahs control a whole nation full of “captive peoples” who were just getting used to the 20th century, and don’t want to be bundled back into the Dark Ages, especially women. The Ayatollahs must be looking constantly over their shoulders. World War Two and the Guide Lamp division of General Motors gave us the solution: Liberator Pistols, simple, rugged single-shot weapons that could be produced cheaply and air-dropped by the millions on the general population of Nazi-occupied Europe to alter the “balance of power”. The overly-fastidious Dwight Eisenhower thought they were aw icky for some typically stupid reason, but they could have significantly shortened the war, saving American lives by the thousands. A simple, reliable, plastic automatic pistol would be easy to design and produce these days. Are you going to tell a woman that she can’t wear lipstick or be outside by herself if she’s armed?

Then there’s international computer hacking, which threatens lives and property, and rights. In the Nineteenth century, horse-thieves were routinely hanged because a man without his horse on the lone prairie was dead. Much the same is true now of computer access. Let me say up front that I’m not convinced that Vladimir Putin and the Russians are the villains in this. It fits the Democrats’ narrative too well. But the solution, once again, is very simple: hire the Mossad, Israel’s dreaded covert “intelligence” force, to find out who’s doing this hacking and kill them.

The remaining—and worst threat to America is China. They’re out to conquer the world and the weapon they rely on most is their enormous population. They’re like ants, and, true communists that they are, they have little regard for the individual. In Korea, they used to send troops into battle unarmed, thinking their sheer numbers could overwhelm a better-equipped enemy.

If I were running things I’d very publicly increase production and deployment of neutron bombs—you know, the special nukes that kill people and leave real estate and infrastructure intact? They greatly reduce the advantage of a huge population, and the commies know it. Equip our naval artillery with neutron weapons and the course of history will change, especially in the Southwest Pacific. The Chinese people could probably use a healthy dose of Liberator Pistols, as well.

The weapon we Americans should rely on is our philosophy, as expressed in the literature of liberty. I have said before there ought to be a Radio Free Earth, satellites prepared to broadcast, and extremely cheap little ear-sized receivers, we would drop like the Liberator pistols, tuned to the satellites. The first thing I’d put on is readings from Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson—the Tom and Tom Show—and then feature all the usual guys, like John Locke and H.L. Mencken, working my way up to Ayn Rand. Imagine a billion Chinese enthralled with Atlas Shrugged. I would feature readings from my own thirty-odd books, but that’s probably just me. That maundering moron Comrade Josef Biden’s contribution to all this was to cancel similar broadcasts to Cuba.

I would ask which side he’s on, but I know.