Why I could never be a libertarian

Here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah: you'll tell me that idiot judges are part of the government.
And then I point out that having a large government is the only ingress for coalitions to protect those who would otherwise be under-represented in a smaller cabal. And then you ask for stats on the size of the U.S. government vs. Russian government. And then I tell you you're missing the point. All not important; let's fast-forward.

Rousseau was deluded, ok? You want "human nature"? Russia's got your human nature right there, baby. And I, for one, want protection from it.

Why do we even talk about these questions as if they haven't been solved? Why can't we just go to our local academic library, get access to the HRAF database, and assess the results of all of these lovely large-scale social experiments that have been running for years, in the guise of "culture," all around the globe? We don't need a headline like "Girls' and boys' math performance now equal" -- though those are never amiss -- to know that gender is a ridiculously plastic and non-diagnostic concept; fr'eavens sake, just look at what happens when girls are raised as boys in Albania.

I think we don't, because -- well, we're lazy; and, ok, HRAF really should be open, free, and accessible to anyone with an internet connection, in this day and age. But also because we believe there's some real and intrinsic difference between growing up in the U.S. and growing up in Albania or Russia. And there is, certainly. But it's completely trivial in the face of all the things that aren't different. And I've never really been able to figure out why most of the people who claim otherwise are the very same ones who seem most quick to reach for the charge of racism. (But, then, I've never been able to wrap my head around gender-essentialist feminism, either.)

We digress, of course. Global big government now!

Preferably, headquartered in Brussels.