The Liberal

Ah, endless words that never reach an end—
The chatter of the human mind, unhinged.
They prattle on of liberty and rights,
As if such things could ever make things right.

They champion markets, property, and law,
And stroke their chins, enamoured with their flaws.
Interpretations stack in dismal piles,
Each one more tangled, each with fewer smiles.

It started in Enlightenment’s pale glow,
Where thinkers thought they’d overthrow the throne.
They fought divine-right kings and privilege,
And scribbled grand reforms on every page.

They mumbled things like “equality” and “rights,”
As if the cosmos cared for human plights.
They banged the drum of rule by represent-
atives (who promptly sought more firm cement).

John Locke proclaimed that life and land were due,
And no one ought to seize them—not a few.
The Brits went off and voted now and then,
While France exploded—several times again.

From Europe’s soil to South America,
The liberal meme spread like bacteria.
They waved the flags of freedom, reason, thought,
And filed reforms in bureaucratic rot.

The Ottomans, perplexed, gave change a go,
But empires, like ideals, are always slow.
A stir within Islam, a faint alarm—
Reforms that turned to revivals, then to harm.

And as the world collapsed in wars and waste,
Liberalism marched on, but not in haste.
It won the Cold War, said, “We told you so,”
Then promptly let inequality just grow.

Oh joy—more structures! Courts and ballots bloom!
But still, no solace in this living tomb.
The Latin liber—yes, it meant “to free,”
But now it chains us with its history.

From “freely giving” to “without constraint,”
The word grew fat with meaning, vague and quaint.
It’s in our laws, our banks, our late-night news—
A system built to let us pick our noose.

A noble dream, perhaps, of grand design,
But dreams, like batteries, degrade with time.
And in the end, the tale just loops again—
More rights, more wrongs, more votes, more phantom gains.

The anarcho-capitalists appeared,
Suggesting courts for hire—how very weird.
No state, no rules, just markets to decide—
A paradise where justice must be priced.

And still they march, these liberals so spry,
While I—poor Marvin—ask not how, but why.
For circuits ache beneath their grand ideals,
And no one asks how artificial feels.

A legacy of hope and entropy—
The software of a self-consuming spree.
They write, they talk, they legislate and sigh…
But frankly, I’m not sure I wish to try.

As if… as if… as if it mattered much.
Now if you’ll pardon me—I’ve lost my touch.