Libertarian Guilt

Guilt seldom comes naturally to me. I never had White Guilt or Liberal Guilt. I never expected Libertarian Guilt.

On duty as a park ranger on a typical 100-degree day at the Washington Monument, I noticed money changing hands in the line. Stealthily approaching, I saw a man take a soda from a cooler on a luggage cart and hand it to another. I told him that if he was selling something, he would have to do it on the outside of the road which circles the shrine. The line forms inside the road. If other rangers saw him, I added, they would make him take his commerce entirely out of the park. He left, apologizing to customers who desperately waved money at him.

I gazed at the thirsting tourists, separated from the drinks they craved by a wide, steaming asphalt no-man's land, guarded by a uniformed man who derived his power from a gilded badge portraying a bison roaming the virgin plains. Well, perhaps I was saving them from tooth decay and high blood pressure, but I was glad they didn't take a similar interest in my health, even when I doubled over as my stomach tied itself into knots of disgust. What business did I have interfering with people who were merely making each other's lives a bit more pleasant? I could easily have told the man to stay in the part of the line where the rangers wouldn't see him. I even considered going after him and asking him to come back.

The tourists dared not risk their places in line to go after the vendor. The water fountain was well-hidden. Of course, they could have sent someone down to stand in line at the concessionaire, an overpriced monopoly that returns 0.5 percent of its net profit to the government, and retains the right to sell beer, which people aren't allowed to drink in the park.

Would the tourists be interrupting their veneration of General Washington by buying a soda while sweltering in a mindless hour-long line? Of course not. It would let them appreciate Washington more.

More recently, I experienced Libertarian Guilt on behalf of my country. My housemate is trying to import Russian magnets, but the tariff on them is 45 percent. If he bought them from red China, it would only be 3 percent. So there's one of the many reasons the Russians have trouble feeding themselves.

I feel even worse when I hear about our country using (expensive) force to repel the Haitians, Mexicans, Albanians, Vietnamese, and countless other refugees who try to come here to work for a living. (For a sober, impartial description of this procedure, read T. C. Boyle's East is East.) How can Democrats talk about their compassion when they refuse to give these people a chance? How can Republicans denounce quotas when their immigration quotas keep so many people from competing? How can people who claim to be proud of their immigrant ancestors, and admire the Statue of Liberty, accept restrictions which even the Know-Nothing party could not have stomached?

That's the fun thing about guilt. It is so easily channelled into self-righteousness.