Imagine, for a moment, a political movement centered around the belief that the color or our nation’s buildings is the deciding factor of its prosperity. Say, for example, that this group believes in a complex interplay between chrominance, human perception and reaction, resulting in distinct changes in social behavior; in response to which, they’ve worked out a system of urban color-schemes, designed to make America great. Residential buildings should be teal, they say, and banks should be painted green.

Heaven help us if such a movement should ever emerge. Because we’ll never be able to rid ourselves of it.

We would try, of course. Sensible pundits would attack the Painters’ Party ones, but like all other members of their profession, they’d resemble nothing so much as greased boulders; they’d be totally immovable. When we say that their plan would be impractical or too expensive, they’d dourly suggest that the consequences of doing nothing are far worse. They might be told that there are lots of other strategies for dealing with our financial and social problems, but they’d no doubt retort (quite correctly, in fact) that not one of those alternatives even mentions the repainting of even a single building, and thus they all are doomed to failure. When it is (eventually) pointed out that their ideas are nothing more than a pile of silly hogwash, they would be bound to greatly offended, and accuse their opponents of being afraid, closed-minded, and of trying to shut down an important debate.

It would quickly become apparent that the only way to prove the Painters’ Party wrong would be to utterly cave in to their demands. Surely, once their beliefs have been put into practice, and once it’s discovered that their reforms haven’t made the slightest bit of difference — except for bankrupting local municipalities and enriching Shewin-Williams — they would admit that they were wrong, and then go away, right? Well, some of them might; but like the Millerites of old, the dedicated hard-core of the movement would find ample excuses for the seeming failure of the plan, or even simply re-categorize that failure as success.

Then again, no one would be mad enough to actually implement such looney notions on a national scale, probably. Instead, there would more likely be a few concessions here and there as new buildings were put up, or where small towns saw no harm in slapping some paint on a few buildings that could use a touch-up anyway. These steps would have no visible impact, but the Painters would simply say (from behind their unassailable bulwark of crazy) that we simply haven’t gone far enough.

This is the secret power of extreme political philosophy. And it’s why no truly fringe group could ever be destroyed. Any half-measure will be dismissed as inadequate; any complete reform will be spun as a half-measure, or a victim of sabotage, or a secret success. They might hemorrhage money and membership, they might quietly reorganize, and they may even emerge much later under a different name. But they don’t just disappear.

This is why we’re taking Jacob Weisberg’s "The End of Libertarianism" essay with a grain of salt. He may not be talking about the end of the Libertarianism movement as a whole, but rather the end of their influence on financial policy — we still aren’t convinced. That’s not to say that he’s not right about a lot of other things in his essay, but someday the panic will pass, its visceral impact will fade, and the descendents of the big L will start talking about how wonderful it would be if there weren’t so darn many rules, again.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get down to the hardware store.