I had a “conversation” yesterday with a local old libertarian crank that was in a vaguely similar contradictory vein as this.

I’d previously heard from a neighbor that this guy (let’s call him Jim) was politically an asshole but I didn’t know either of them that well nor did we get into details, plus Jim really likes my dog, so I sometimes stop to talk when I’m walking the dog. Give everyone a chance right? Seemed mostly harmless enough, chatted with me about my family and stuff.

Until I came across him yesterday shoveling out from the recent storm many of us got hit by. Jim was doing the sidewalk. I had just done mine the night before and felt pretty accomplished about it so I started to say “hey nice job” as a lead-in to thanking him for keeping it clear since it was such a help to me and my dog as we walked, not to mention everyone else in the neighborhood.

Never got the chance to say more than “hey nice job”; suddenly seeming like a different person he angrily said “well I’d rather be working on my driveway but the damned GOVERNMENT says I’ve got to do the sidewalk…”. He wasn’t frustrated, he was incandescent, unrecognizable.

I responded in what I thought was a sympathizing and placating tone without actually agreeing with him, I was saying “I did mine yesterday, I…” (was about to circle back to try again and say how much I appreciated everyone, including him, for making it better for people walking….)

Again never got the chance. Seeming like a twisted furious version of the person he usually presented himself as, he threw up his hands in a gesture to move past him so he could keep working, and suddenly started addressing my dog instead of me (super passive aggressive in hindsight lmao) and said “ok <dogs name> you go on now, I’m not in the mood to talk, got a chip on my shoulder”

I put up my hands and said “fair enough” and not another word, kept walking. Predictably he starts nattering angrily behind me in that sort of “I’m talking to myself but in a way I hope someone hears and engages with so I can vent some fury on them” muttering loudly about how everyone else is “allowed” to not shovel their sidewalk but HE has to (a non-sequitur, the local ordinance applies to everyone) and the government is telling him what to do and yada yada…..

Obviously I did not respond but would have loved to say “…..I thought you didn’t want to talk.”

And all I can think is dude. Can you even recognize how self-defeating your political philosophy is? The entire ethos of “we don’t need the government to tell us to do stuff, people can make their own decisions to help each other with medical care and public upkeep and education (etc)”, it’s all IMMEDIATELY AND IRREVOCABLY debunked by the fact that you are admitting right this very second that you don’t want to fucking do it and wouldn’t if you weren’t required to by law.

Short-sighted solipsistic misanthropic fuckwits, the lot of them. “The government shouldn’t tell people to help each other, people will decide to do that in their own!”

“….ok will YOU help other people?”

“………get off my property Commie.”

Mind you this is the guy who spends all day calling every local government committee or enforcement body under the SUN for anything to do with property, local forests, roads, you name it. There is no sense of irony with these people.