A Stitch in Haste

"If you can't fix it, Jack, you gotta stand it."
--Brokeback Mountain

Arnold Kling wonders whether libertarians who "agree" to live in high-tax, high-regulation, anti-freedom regimes aren't a bit like the patients in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Kling recalls the scene in which the protagonist, Randle McMurphy, is shocked (sorry, poor word choice) — um, surprised to learn that his fellow confinees are self-admitted and can simply flee the cruel, sadistic tyranny of Nurse Ratched any time they like.

Somehow, I thought there was a connection between that scene and libertarians complaining about the decline of the U.S. Constitution while showing a revealed preference for living with the abuses of power that take place.

My response at that blog:

Huh? How is "libertarians don't riot in the streets" (or move to — um, where?) a revealed preference to anything?

The correct analogy would be if Nurse Ratched showed up uninvited at a libertarian's home, ordered him to lose weight, throw out his porn, use compact fluorescent bulbs and pay for her mother's pension and eldercare, and then he said, "Eh, who cares?"

But of course that wouldn't happen. The libertarian would act — because he could.

Compliance at the point of a gun is not "revealing a preference" for being robbed.

Who's right: Me or Kling?

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Another commenter at Kling's post:

There are some choices that libertarians can make. They can move to places that are more libertarian. Move from New York to Wyoming, for example.

First, New York and Wyoming are hardly perfect substitutes — just ask Matthew Shepard's mother.

Second, why is it the burden of libertarians to "pack up and move" whenever their rights are infringed? A prerogative, perhaps, but not a burden. And how is choosing not to do so an indication of some contrived libertarian "hypocrisy" or "moral failing" or "revealed preference"?

The EconLog post on why libertarians seem so willing to submit to government excesses and abuses, to which I blogged a reply seems to have legs.

My latest comment entry:

There is of course a third way [as opposed to submission or civil disobedience]: to sue, hopefully before "activist judges" who understand their solemn constitutional duty to thwart the tyranny of the majority.

And

Civil disobedience? We can't even get people to check "No" on the $3 Presidential Campaign Fund box on tax returns.

Also, I would submit (sorry, poor word choice) that the Taser and the increasingly lax standards by which its use is considered appropriate have made traditional 1960s-style civil disobedience difficult if not impossible.

Discuss.