The US government is like a pizza that everyone agrees tastes terrible. The Democrats and Republicans in Congress argue over whether to add rainbow sprinkles or chocolate sprinkles to make it taste better. Libertarians¹ insist neither will make it taste better—sprinkles shouldn’t even be on a pizza. Besides, you’ve got all these other toppings on it already, which don’t go together at all: marshmallows, licorice, mayonnaise, and jelly. But the real problem is the dough is stale and the cheese is rotten. Besides, there are healthier things to be eating than pizza.

The Democrats and Republicans ignore the libertarians and add both chocolate and rainbow sprinkles. Now the pizza tastes even worse than before, but they don’t take the sprinkles or any of the other terrible toppings off. The sprinkles have seeped into the cheese, so they’re too difficult to remove. Instead, Congress argues about which further new toppings to add to try to make the pizza taste better.

The libertarian says there is no topping that can possibly save the pizza at this point. Your only hope is to remove all the terrible toppings and go back to a basic plain cheese pizza (the Constitution)—that tastes perfectly fine as is. If people really want extra toppings, they can add it themselves, rather than you choosing the toppings for everyone.

“How about ice cream?” says the Democrat.

“On a pizza?” asks the Republican.

“Everybody loves ice cream.”

Congress then argues over which flavor of ice cream is better—vanilla or chocolate—until compromising to add both vanilla and chocolate. Then they are shocked when the pizza tastes even worse than before.

All the libertarian can do is say, “I told you so.” The libertarian cannot actually improve the pizza, though he wants to and knows how to (by removing all the excess toppings), because the Democrats and Republicans own the pizza shop (control Congress), and the libertarian is just a busboy.

Though the Democrats and Republicans rhetorically hate each other, they will work together to prevent the busboy from being promoted to pizza maker because that would mean them losing their power of being the ones who choose the toppings. They’re friends with the marshmallow and licorice makers who pay them well to get their toppings on the pizza. Democrats and Republicans would rather make a bad pizza themselves than let someone else make a good pizza. They don’t want to be demoted to busboys or let a competing pizza shop open.

So whenever the libertarian suggests how to improve the pizza, the Democrats and Republicans both ignore him, saying, “You’re just a busboy. You’ve never made a pizza before. We know what we’re doing.”

Though all it takes is one bite from the terrible pizza to realize that they do not.

1. Small-L libertarians, as in anyone who wants to reduce the size of the government. ↩︎