Homer as emperor

I have little interest in discussing this subject further, but I do wonder at this person’s statement that libertarians must have “faith” in the moral goodness of humanity. This is patently absurd. In fact, just the opposite is the case. As a political principle, libertarians have almost no faith in the moral goodness of humanity. And because they recognize that government is run by people, they think it best to prevent those people from having power over us. As Jefferson put it two centuries ago,

Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him?

It is precisely because we know that human beings are frequently immoral, unthinking, awful creatures that we want to ensure that they have as little political power as possible—because this is what happens when they get the power to rule other people’s lives. But to people like this guy, the syllogism seems to work this way:

People can’t be trusted to do the right thing
Government is run by people
Government can be trusted to do the right thing.

Sorry, but that seems like a non sequitir to me. It has about the same logic as when Homer Simpson says “everyone is stupid except me.”