Time to face facts: Most people don’t really want individual liberty

A new poll from Zogby is going to get plenty of attention in the next day or so, because it shows Herman Cain is the top presidential choice of 28 percent of GOP voters. My view is that it’s irrelevant and won’t hold any water, but I’ve been wrong many times before.

Rick Perry is at 18 percent and Mitt Romney at 17 percent. In fourth place is Ron Paul with 11 percent, and then there’s a host of others who really aren’t worth mentioning at the moment.

Writing at Human Events, a writer commented on Paul’s steady poll performance: “Paul’s the most solid performer in Zogby’s polling history for the 2012 GOP race — his 11% might as well be chiseled in stone.” While this sounds like a compliment, it’s more evidence of what I’ve been saying for some time. As much as I like Ron Paul — and would be quite happy if he won — he has no chance of winning.

It’s very simple. There is a very solid core of support for individual freedom. It’s right around 10 percent. It’s not going to get much bigger than that anytime soon. You can bemoan the fact. You can be angry. You can deny it. It’s not going to change. People just don’t want what you and I want. Period.

What do most people want? Well, they want politicians who will lie to them and tell them contradictory things and mess everything up even more. They want Rick Perry. Or Mitt Romney. Or Herman Cain. Or Barack Obama. Or whatever their particular flavor of the moment it. They want someone who will promise to do things that can’t be done, despite the fact that the previous people who’ve made the same promises couldn’t keep them, either.

The bulk of people out there want something for nothing. They want things and they want someone else to pay for them — usually “the rich.” They don’t like to see themselves that way, so they tell themselves that it’s “fair” for other people to pay for what they want. People who think like that are never going to vote for individual liberty, no matter how long or how hard you campaign. And this is why — in addition to the other reasons I’ve outlined before — Ron Paul can’t win. People don’t want what we want.

A rare candidate such as Ron Paul sounds to most people as though he’s from outer space. They don’t understand his reasoning. They don’t understand his positions. All they know is that he doesn’t say what they want to hear. The rest of the candidates are almost interchangeable. The will swap supporters as they shine and make gaffes, but for the most part, Paul will be the oddball. His supporters want him and nobody else. Everybody else wants pretty much anybody other than Ron Paul.

If you want to remain part of the majoritarian political system — and you want individual liberty — get used to losing. That’s what our ideas are going to keep doing when they’re presented for a majority vote. This isn’t cynicism. This isn’t defeatism. This is just reality.

If you want to be free, you have to find that freedom somewhere else. In the long run, it’s not going to come from election results.