Posted on 08/01/2002 3:27:45 PM PDT by Tomalak
Thought for the day
If you believe in a truly libertarian society, your only way to success is in working to build a society based upon traditional morality, shame and chastity. Contradictory? Actually, no. Given a little examination, it turns out to be rather obvious; almost self-evidently true. If you want to live in a country where every man supports himself rather than looking to the taxpayer, where crime is rare and so massive police powers, ID cards and DNA databases are superfluous, you will not do so on the back of the destructive policies of social liberalism.
Libertarians traditionally do not look to history for the sort of society they wish to build. But I sense that the famous passage with which AJP Taylor begins his English History 1914-1945 comes closest to the libertarian ideal: a place where the normal, sensible Englishman comes into contact with the state only through the post office and policeman. The United States that existed before FDR's massive extensions in state power is similarly the model of the sort of America that libertarians across the pond seek to build. What all successful societies in history with small states have had in common is a strictly moral populace. Victorian Britain could survive without a large state precisely because pious ideas of shame, duty and self-reliance ensured that people would look to themselves for what they needed, rather than the state, and because crime was low enough that the state did not need to seek all the powers it could summon to fight back.
One mistake far too many libertarians make is to associate traditional morality with big government, and hostility to freedom. The opposite is true. The more influence morality has over a man's conduct, the less need there is for the state to control it. Crime can be reduced by many police, many laws, tougher sentences and more guns. But most of all, to have a low crime society without an overbearing state, you need to fashion the sort of country whose people are inclined not to commit crime in the first place. Roger Scruton made this point as brilliantly as ever in his call to "Bring Back Stigma":
"The law combats crime not by eliminating criminal schemes but by increasing the risk attached to them; stigma combats crime by creating people who have no criminal schemes in the first place. The steady replacement of stigma by law, therefore, is a key cause of the constant increase in the number and severity of crimes."
To see morality as inimical to liberty, as a threat to libertarian ambitions, is the most statist thing one can do. It is to leave the state as the only thing to pick up the pieces when society fails to function.
It is no mere joke to say that at present libertarians are those who like the liberal society but hate paying for it. Take a recent column on paedophilia in America's leading Libertarian Magazine, Reason, entitled "Sins of the Fathers". Throughout the article, the message is clear: molesting kids is wrong, but 'merely' wanting to rape them is not. The article is a rebuke aimed at all those with a moral problem with lusting after children.
"The issue is not sexual attraction; it is sexual action...
Bibliophilia means the excessive love of books. It does not mean stealing books from libraries. Pedophilia means the excessive (sexual) love of children. It does not mean having sex with them, although that is what people generally have in mind when they use the term. Because children cannot legally consent to anything, an adult using a child as a sexual object is engaging in a wrongful act. Such an act is wrongful because it entails the use of physical coercion, the threat of such coercion, or (what comes to the same thing in a relationship between an adult and a child) the abuse of the adult’s status as a trusted authority.
Saying that a priest who takes sexual advantage of a child entrusted to his care "suffers from pedophilia" implies that there is something wrong with his sexual functioning, just as saying that he suffers from pernicious anemia implies that there something wrong with the functioning of his hematopoietic system. If that were the issue, it would be his problem, not ours."
I believe that the dominance such people seem to have over libertarianism is a source of much of its undeserved failure. Such arguments only make libertarians sound nasty, extreme, and frankly strange. They may explain their defence of paedophilia on the grounds of a philosophical tradition of 140 years standing, but most ordinary people do not see it that way: what they see is a political movement apparently sympathetic to a pervert. Similarly, attacking the welfare state on grounds of economic efficiency is productive before some, but to the majority, it just looks like greed: not wanting to help those in need. Unless one explains morally the evils of trapping people on welfare so that each time they make an economic advance there is a corresponding benefit cut, and of creating a state which appears to remove every citizen's private duty to others, how can one show that they are wrong to put this thinking down to greed?
So morality surely reduces the need for a large state. But does accepting the importance of morality in society mean a greater role for the state in other areas? I do not believe so. Let us look at the actual aims of social conservatives like Melanie Phillips, Peter Hitchens, Ann Widdecombe, Charles Moore, John Redwood, Roger Scruton and Theodore Dalrymple. How many can you name in mainstream journalism or politics who actually want to change the law to make homosexuality illegal, for example? I do not know of any. Again, we see the reality - the social "authoritarians" are not really authoritarian. They do not want new laws to stop immorality and crime: they want free people to choose to be good themselves. They want a country where virtue is praised and vice condemned.
Ultimately, the enemy of libertarians is state control, not self-control. Morality in ordinary life removes the need for the sort of huge state that politicians have built for us since the 1930s. The more people choose to be good of their own accord, the more convincingly one can question the need for an over-mighty government to keep them in line. But until libertarians give up their crusade against any idea of decent behaviour, I do not see them succeeding.
This is not a mistake made by libertarians, but rather a fraud perpetrated by authoritarians who wish to elevate their personal preferences to the stature of moral law.
Absurd. Read through any number of FR threads and you find libertarians condemning virtually any sort of morality as equivalent to government mandates and a police state. In fact, almost every time a moral issue is brought up on a thread, some libertarians leap to the presumption that traditional morality implies the laws to enforce it. This is almost as common as the use of the word "statist" (or "authoritarian" I suppose) toward someone disagreeing with a libertarian's position.
Not to disparage every libertarian, I have certainly conversed with those whose concern was with government enacted moral law, but who recognized the necessity of a non-governmental common morality. But Tomalak's point is valid: Far too many (though not all) libertarians abandon traditional morality due to a fear that it is the enemy of freedom.
You are missing that the "choose freely" depends entirely upon fear of ostracism, upon societal coercion. Upon a relatively closed society where disgrace and gossip can ruin lives. Upon "what the neighbors will say". Lets take an example. Libertarians go on and on about the superiority of militia to a standing army. They seem to believe that militias were raised voluntarily. Hey guys, if your father and brother were strapping on their guns you certainly had the freedom to develop a head cold and stay home. Provided you don't mind being labelled a coward, an outcast for life. Provided you don't mind a lifetime of humiliation and insults. Like being a dork in high school for the rest of your life. "Volunteers" knew that the risk of physical death was prefereable to the certainty of social death. Just as a "voluntary" militia system could only function in a society where shirkers are disgraced for life, so "choosing freely" depends upon a village society where reputations are in concrete and no one can sneeze without someone offering him a handkerchief.
But I don't think you need to be religious to be moral.
You cannot have a societal moral consensus strong enough to punish "victimless" offenses (like viewing pornography) without religion. In the absence of religion there are no hard and fast rules that anyone has any real right to punish or ostracize anyone for disobeying. The existentialists were absolutely right about that. No God, no moral rules.
Why? Any community can ostracize anyone. It doesn't have to be religious.
In part you understood me correctly, in part not. First, God is the source of all moral norms, and that natural law describes the decent and moral life regardless of whether the person living that life accepts or rejects God. Consequently, someone who rejects God but wishes to live a decent and moral life does so by "borrowing" the natural law already laid down by God. So in the sense of the secular world, it is possible to live what is perceived by the secular world to be a decent and moral life according to the world's perspective. Christians use the example of the Jewish Pharisees, who in the sense of the world were righteous but in pursuing their sense of righteousness had lost sight of God. It is not possible to live a moral life according to God's perspective, unless a person has accepted God as his or her moral sovereign. In other words, without an outside sovereign (and this could mean either God or the state), human beings are incapable of creating consistent, long-term, moral judgments. Instead, we end up with people unable to distinguish between right and wrong. If you need proof, look to Peter Singer at Princeton, with his human ethic of baby slaying. I would also submit that even the state is incapable of enforcing any kind of objectively just, consistent morality long term because it is fundamentally subject to capture by non-moral people.
Second, as the article asserted, however, libertarianism only works in a community that shares a similar moral compass. That moral compass - whether God-given or created by people - can't be forced on someone, so the only means of achieving such a community is to keep it small. The larger the community, the greater the need to enforce what is perceived as God's law by imposing that law on people at the fringes. In the end, you end up with a human theocracy rather than a libertarian state.
Third, I'm pretty sure that the quote could be expanded to include societal morals and standards. And I'll even submit that there are individuals who - through reason and self-control - have adopted worldly standards of just and decent behavior while rejecting God and His laws. But the problem is that without an objective standard, it is impossible to maintain purely worldly morals. Once you open the door for relativist, non-objective morality then shame and moral opprobrium lose their ability to control behavior a priori, which in turn opens the door for the state to step in and control behavior post hoc.
This is not a mistake made by libertarians, but rather a fraud perpetrated by authoritarians who wish to elevate their personal preferences to the stature of moral law. - steve_b
Absurd. Read through any number of FR threads and you find libertarians condemning virtually any sort of morality as equivalent to government mandates and a police state.
And read, -- anti-libertarian 'moral majority' advocates urging governmental solutions to moral problems.
In fact, almost every time a moral issue is brought up on a thread, some libertarians leap to the presumption that traditional morality implies the laws to enforce it.
Rightly so. This is indeed how it is proposed that the WOD's, abortion, etc, be fought. With more government control.
This is almost as common as the use of the word "statist" (or "authoritarian" I suppose) toward someone disagreeing with a libertarian's position.
Again, rightly so. -- These words are being used in their correct meaning. Such governnmental control of life, liberty & property is unconstitutional, thus its advocacy IS authoritarian statism.
Why is behaving morally a threat to you? Why do you think morality is a tool of government?
In fact, morality is the only viable alternative to government control.
Why don't you understand that you're advocating giving the government the power to control things which aren't necessary for good governance?
Name one post in which I have advocated any increase in government power in this debate.
We have a constitution/BoR's to control exactly how the government is allowed to 'regulate' individual behavior.
It's being violated by the WoD's, for instance. -- and the moral majority urges that governments violate it in a war on abortion and 'porno', for instance.
Why can't you understand these constitutional principles?
Why is behaving morally a threat to you? Why do you think morality is a tool of government?
Snide comment. -- Such behavior is not a 'threat' to me, -- and I do not think so at all. - You are raising silly straw men. Why?
In fact, morality is the only viable alternative to government control.
So you say, -- but forcing government to comply to the constitution, and educating people to stop asking for evermore government controls, is the viable solution.
As it happens, that is also the goal of FR. Were you aware of that?
Exhibit A of my contention above: "In fact, almost every time a moral issue is brought up on a thread, some libertarians leap to the presumption that traditional morality implies the laws to enforce it. "
Tomalak hasn't argued in favor of expanded government power at all. Yet for some reason you leap to the conclusion that he must be advocating that, presumably based on his advocacy of moral restraint.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.