They engage in a subtler form of well-meant self-delusion, one that tends to inhibit human freedom at best and create statist nightmares at worst:
The problem with liberals is that they tend to think and have thought that human beings are autonomous creatures with ‘rights’; they tend to think that all people are inherently free and rational and are only being prevented from enjoying an enlightened existence – as defined by them – because of the burdens and constraints of tradition, history and religion; they tend to believe in the therapeutic use of the state for the purposes of social improvement and regard human nature as malleable and perfectible through the reordering of social norms and institutions.
Those Who In Elysian Fields Would Dwell
Do But Extend The Boundaries of Hell.
The Dish 