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Dear Liberal Friend
I feel your pain. You just suffered through an election in which your side lost and a politician you despise was returned to the White House at the head of a triumphant band of congressional allies. Now you fear that the "enemy" administration will use the power of the state to shove its alien values down your throat.

Of course I sympathize. As a libertarian, I've spent all my life suffering through disappointing election returns. Each turn of the political wheel brings new laws and bureaucracies that exist to impose values on me that I utterly reject. The difference between me and you is that I never have high hopes on election eve, so I feel resignation instead of despair. Oh. Another difference is that some of the alien values shoved down my throat in the past were yours. Whoops! I guess now you know how it feels.

But what's all this talk about emigration and secession? Are you really so distraught that you want to leave the country and (maybe) take some of the geography with you?

Well, you know that I'm sympathetic; I've discussed such options myself. I suppose it's unfeeling of me to mention that folks like you once vocally hoped the IRS would hunt people like me to the ends of the Earth when we pondered escaping to a less kleptocratic jurisdiction, and you unkindly suggested that "Appomatox settled all that" when we fantasized about raising our own flag over a friendly locale. That's in the past. Let's let bygones be bygones. ...

...Now, as for this new-found secessionist sentiment of yours and this talk of a looming civil war between progressive blue states and reactionary red states ...

Ummm ... are you sure you're up to it? Oh I know that the blue states have big universities and successful businesses and a vibrant culture -- wasn't I the one who turned you on to that great Ethiopian restaurant before I moved away? But, believe it or not, red states have businesses, colleges and culture too, as well as something that you don't have and that you're going to need if you're serious about this brother-against-brother stuff: guns.

It was all well and good when your side was running the show to sniff at the Second Amendment and say that the government should have a monopoly on force. You insisted that any talk of resisting the powers-that-be was just SO reactionary (you DO remember our little chat after the Waco unpleasantness, don't you?). But the world looks a little bit different when the cops work for the opposition, doesn't it? If you plan to redraw national borders, you're going to want something of a heavier caliber than those sharply worded e-mails you've been circulating. Frankly, the other side is heavily armed; you're not. ...

...So here's the deal: If you agree to let me live my own life according to my own values, so long as I don't trample on your rights, I'll agree to do the same by you. Think about it; if we all lived according to that sort of understanding, the stakes would be an awful lot lower when your side lost an election. Then you could go about your business without taking time out to chat with immigration lawyers or draw maps with creative new borders on them.

There's no rush; George W. Bush will be in office for four more years. That's plenty of time to consider the potential benefits of a society in which people live and let live, instead of treating each election as an opportunity break the other side to their will.