Keysmiths for Liberty

To our bafflement, our efforts to spread the message of liberty are met with rejection. Like the denizens of Plato's cave, our audience not only shuns the light but resents us for trying to release them from their ideological prison. It is difficult," Voltaire wrote, to free fools from the chains they revere."

We keep trying the lock of their dogmatic dungeon, but we keep failing. We get frustrated. Then we get angry. Then we get mean. We let them know they are fools for conspiring in their own captivity and villains for endorsing ours.

In the heat of verbal battle, we forget what we had set out to do in the first place. The worthy aim of liberation gradually gives way to the vain urge to aggravate those who refuse to be liberated. We offer fewer ideas and more barbs. The other side responds in kind. What was supposed to be a contest of ideas becomes a clash of egos. And when egos are on the line, everyone becomes more entrenched in their position.

Eventually someone storms off and it's over. And what have we accomplished? Nothing but resentment for us and for the ideas we sought to represent. Instead of opening minds, we have hardened hearts toward liberty. Not good.

The worst thing," Frederic Bastiat wrote, that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended."