This is part of economics professor Walter Block’s answer to someone who expressed deep pessimism about the prospects for liberty in the future:

I agree with your negative assessment of short term success. It is due to biological hard wiring, in my view. However, the fight is so much FUN! So, forget about whether we win or lose. You’re right, we’ll probably lose, at least in the short run. In the long run, who knows?

I urge you to focus, instead, on the sheer pleasure of undermining the world view of the mainstream media, and all those other blowhards in the pulpit, in academia, etc. Don’t you just LOVE it when Ron tweaks their pompous noses?

I tell you, I’ve been in this libertarian movement since 1962. Then, there were but a few of us, a very few. We were fully, totally, and completely ignored by mainstream media. Nowadays, libertarianism is all over the place. We are EVERYWHERE. No longer are we libertarians confused with librarians, libertines, etc. Thanks to our man Ron Paul, we are acquainting millions of people with the freedom philosophy, and converting thousands, no–tens of thousands, no–hundreds of thousands of people to our banner.

I’ve noticed what Walter talks about in the last paragraph also. It seems as if libertarians have become the “Loyal Opposition,” to take a phrase I learned growing up in Canada. One measure of our power is the frequency with which we are attacked: it’s much higher now than a few decades ago.

Like Walter also, I think you need to have fun fighting against state oppression. In this series of three articles I wrote in 2004 (here, here, and here: read in order), I talk about how I had fun fighting against a local sales tax increase.