You nailed them. Years ago I ran into a pair of liberals like that, a couple in their 30s with a smug certainty about what they thought they knew. I didn’t realize what kind of creatures they were, and I was feeling friendly, so I struck up a conversation with them, which began just shooting the breeze, but somehow we got on the subject of taxes. With kindly smiles and a lot of big words they began to instruct me on the principle of using the tax system to control human behavior, which meant excessively taxing what you don’t want people to do to make them change their ways.

Back then I didn’t have the passion to do anything but be quietly offended, and I didn’t have the presence of mind to ask them who gets to make that decision, or why they would trust them? I just wanted to get away from these two and didn’t think about seizing the opportunity to instruct them on what a grievous affront such government manipulation is to human dignity, or to ask them why they thought they were superior to less educated people as if they were more worthy to live and more entitled to enjoy the fruit of the earth.

My response today might have been quite different, making them want to get away from me. It's not that I have any illusions about changing a brainwashed liberal’s mind, but they should never be able to say the ridiculous things they say unchallenged, and they should never be allowed to portray themselves as intellectually or morally superior with no one standing up to question their delusions.