“Every Friend Joys In Your Success”

I had lunch at the local Chinese buffet yesterday. That phrase was in my fortune cookie at the end of the meal. I’m not one to pay a lot of attention to fortune cookies, more often than not rather than take it seriously I’ll add the phrase “in bed” after my fortune for a cheap laugh. But this one hit me.

I’ve been giving this phrase thought in conjunction with the Libertarian party. It seems to me we can tell who our friends our by watching who “joys in our success.” Too often I see Libertarians almost cheering for the failure of one of our own. We’d rather watch the party fail rather than see others of our own number succeed.

What the hell is wrong with us?

A victory for any of us should be a victory for all of us…shouldn’t it?

Are we all so friggin’ insecure that we need to tear each other down in order to build ourselves up or is it a case of ego so large that we can’t ever admit someone else might have a good idea?

I’m not sure, but it seems to me that for some of us, it’s more important for things to be done our way than for the party to win. On more than one occasion I’ve seen good people step up and propose ideas to solve well-known issues or to take new initiative only to have their ideas picked apart by people that never put themselves out on the line, never risk anything, are never the first to do anything. They’ll wait until some poor sucker tries to accomplish something and then BAM! They’ll produce any number of reasons and excuses why that idea won’t work. Or they’ll decide that it was a good idea, but they’ve got just what is needed to actually make it work.

I’ve seen it done by individuals; I’ve seen it done by groups. I’ve seen it done to long time activists and I’ve seen it done to new members, well, “former” new members as most of them quit, realizing that any group that would “eat its young” in this way was not a group they wanted to associate with. Can’t say that I blame them.

I’ve had it happen to me. I’ve been guilty of it myself. But not anymore. I’ll “Joy In The Success” of my friends and fellow Libertarians if it kills me!

Or I’ll quit and give up, because life is too short for this crap.