Libertarianism III: It's All About Me and My Needs

In the last essay I argued that libertarians have the wrong approach to advancing their cause. I could have quoted libertarian godfather Murray Rothbard: "While Marxists devote about 90 percent of their energies to thinking about strategy and only 10 percent to their basic theories, for libertarians the reverse is true." Rothbard observed that the libertarian strategy amounts to an intellectually satisfying but strategically impotent method of talking at people. "Most classical liberal or laissez-faire activists have adopted, perhaps without much thoughtful consideration, a simple strategy that we may call 'educationism.' Roughly: We have arrived at the truth, but most people are still deluded believers in error; therefore, we must educate these people -- via lectures, discussions, books, pamphlets, newspapers, or whatever -- until they become converted to the correct point of view."

Libertarians not only suffer from a lack of strategy for winning, they have little to offer in the way of maintaining authority should they some day emerge victorious. This is important to consider because American liberty (and I am largely confining this to be an American question, though many of my comments apply to libertarians in other countries) has enemies both internal and external.

Start with external enemies -- the host of armed authoritarian states that would relish an opportunity to seize American wealth and liberty. There is no gentle way of saying this: libertarians sound like absolute fools when they talk about foreign policy. I have heard libertarian thinkers much smarter than me give brilliant, sophisticated, world-wise discourses on libertarian domestic policy, only to sound like naive sophomores when the talk turns to foreign affairs.

Libertarians like to pretend, for example, that the U.S. could have avoided World War II without consequence for liberty. At best they argue from historical accident rather than principal -- the claim that Hitler would have lost by virtue of his failure in Russia, for example, or that Britain could have survived without the American Lend-Lease program.

Likewise comes the libertarian claim that American adventures in the Cold War were misguided. In this they display an ugly penchant for concerning themselves with the liberties of white Americans, which explains the view of many that the U.S. Civil War represents the earliest great infringement on liberty (as if the liberty of slaves doesn't count in the balance).

These arguments against foreign intervention derive from the libertarian principle that coercion is wrong, which is really no fixed principle at all, because nearly all libertarians admit that a military financed through taxation is a necessity for the protection of liberty. Somewhere in their calculus, however, they conclude that this coercion shouldn't extend to financing the liberation of non-Americans. Perhaps this is principled, but it is certainly not the only viable alternative for a true lover of liberty. To tell people languishing in states like China and the former Soviet bloc that our commitment to liberty prevents us from opposing their masters is the height of churlishness and foolishness.

Perhaps the worst is the libertarian position on Israel, which amounts to a replay of Joe Kennedy's see-no-evil, hear-no-evil approach to Hitler in the 1930's. Sure, without American support every man, woman, and child among the Jews might have their throats slit by Muslim thugs, but it's not like they got that country fairly in the first place, and really, it's none of our business. That's not a caricature, by the way. At an event in Washington I heard a prominent libertarian argue that we shouldn't support Israel because what happens to them is their problem, not ours. And libertarians wonder why nobody takes their views on foreign policy seriously.

The libertarian response to this critique is to point out examples of failed U.S. intervention. Yes, the CIA sowed seeds of anti-Americanism in Iran by supporting the Shah. Admitted, we supported a tyrant in Haiti. True, we armed the mujahaddin in Afghanistan. But we also dealt the death blows to Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, and accelerated the self-destruction of the Soviet Union while controlling its expansion. These are not trivial events in the history of liberty. Libertarian academics have developed a cottage industry, however, to produce counterfactual histories which amount to claiming that all of the good things would have happened anyway without American intervention, and probably would have happened faster.

Of course one can just as easily tell a story in which American isolationism leads to the emergence of totalitarian states that divide the rest of the world, restrict trade, and make all of us worse off. The point is that in the area of foreign policy libertarians are most likely to argue from principle, yet this is the area where consequentialism is most required. Nobody cares about principle if it leads to enslavement or death. When libertarians do argue from consequence, they have no experience or expertise to speak from, nor do they associate with people who do. Name the libertarian scholars with serious expertise in foreign or military affairs. Name the libertarian activists with considerable experience in foreign or military affairs. You get the point.

To be taken seriously as a philosophy of governance, libertarianism must grapple with foreign affairs, and with the possible reality that liberty depends on strong military power. Suggest this at a libertarian gathering, however, and you'll hear chuckles of derision. Perhaps they are right. The fact that they chuckle, however, but have yet to answer this question in a convincing manner, is evidence of the libertarian closemindedness on this issue.

But let's assume that most libertarians would support a military large enough to fend off foreign enemies. They would still have to confront the reality that they have no viable model of power maintenance against domestic enemies of liberty. To see what I mean, imagine that libertarians have nominated a slate of charismatic, well-funded, highly networked candidates (indulge me -- it's a Friday) who have won the Presidency and a solid majority of Congress. These revolutionaries proceed to create the libertarian wet dream -- drug legalization, plans for phasing out government schools and Social Security, isolationist foreign policy, no more ATF . . . and did I mention drug legalization?

In this fantasy the economy booms but foreign states are deterred by our minimal armed forces, people are happy, and sales of Atlas Shrugged go through the roof. It is the End of History.

Except, people get older. Memory fades. The Left remains committed to brainwashing children and co-opting public and private organizations. A child overdoses on heroin. Drugs are slowly re-criminalized. Some idiot old babyboomers (sorry for the triple redundancy) starve to death because they could never be bothered to save for old age. Others lose their savings when they invest them all in Bill Clinton Enterprises. Hello Social Security and financial regulation. The schools stay private because the Left realizes how much easier it is to peddle garbage by McDonaldizing it (i.e., by becoming the low-cost provider and pandering to human weakness).

So, in a generation or less, the revolution is slowly dismantled, and libertarians are blamed for the ills of society. They go back to holding their convention in a Motel Six in Las Vegas, and cheering when their candidate for Sonoma County Commissioner comes in a close third in a three-man race.

The Left doesn't face this problem. Deprived of principle, integrity, or honor, they are happy to snip the bottom rungs as they climb the ladder of power. You can already see this in Europe, where EU thugs are slowly transferring decision-making authority from quasi-democratic legislatures to unelected Brussels technocrats. We saw a hint of it in the U.S., when supposed children of the free-thinking sixties proved strikingly willing to use the power of the federal government to punish and stifle opposition.

But libertarians are all about individual liberty. Thus they face a quandary: How to maintain their state once it's built? This question should be especially pressing, insofar as their model implies that government tends to grow and become oppressive.

There appear to be two avenues open: the first is to adopt a variant of the Left's strategy, and eliminate unfavored options for future generations. Libertarians might, for example, replace the Constitution with a mirror document that does not contain any provision for amendment. This would leave the states open to adopt all manner of idiocy, however. Perhaps libertarians at the state level could adopt similarly permanent protections of individual rights as well. Thus libertarians could effectively ban most opposition parties, without suffering the guilt that Third World dictators endure when they do so more directly. I'm not sure if this would be acceptable in the libertarian paradigm. No matter, however, for the point is that they don't discuss it.

The second avenue for maintaining the libertarian state is culture. If children and new citizens are thoroughly educated in logic, economics, and other foundations of libertarian thinking, then perhaps they can be trusted to maintain liberty even in the face of very persuasive demagogues. But then certain topics become central: childrearing, childhood education, individual self-censorship and discipline, community norms, and reciprocal obligations. It would also require a consideration of the place religion plays in all of the aforementioned. Nearly all of these topics, however, are ignored by individualist libertarians, who furthermore routinely deride -- almost as a condition for membership -- those who call for their rigorous pursuit either as policy or personal practice.

Libertarians have less that's interesting to say about childhood education, for example, than does the Democratic Leadership Council. But childhood education is probably the linchpin of the libertarian society. How many libertarians, however, give much thought to where even their own children will go to school? Sure, they want safety and effectiveness, like any other parent, but how many give serious attention to finding or building schools that inculcate in children the ability to think critically, along with a sense of moral responsibility? Precious few.

If libertarians were serious about taking and maintaining power -- truly serious -- then they would drop the caterwauling over drug criminalization and focus every drop of energy on building schools. The latter is hard work, however, and forces consideration of messy things like moral instruction, and self-discipline, and what makes for good parenting. It's far easier to toke up in the discounted hotel room at the Libertarian Party Convention and rail against the DEA. Thus libertarianism remains less a force for change than a tool for self-expression.

This is in part a product of the natural individualistic nature of libertarianism. The solution isn't to eliminate -- or even drastically reduce -- the individualism that underlies libertarian philosophy, but it does require reconciliation with the social nature of human beings. It also requires acceptance of the fact that people are not only communal in nature, but spiritual. I will address this in my next essay.

First off, I haven't lied about anything. I have only spoken the truth and that truth is quite clear. The legalization of prostitution would not end the spread of STD's. Nor would it end illegal prostitution either.

Now you're changing the subject. Before, you claimed that legalization of prostitution would cause a spread of STD's, now you have backed off and are merely stating it wouldn't end them, and wouldn't end illegal prostitution. (I agree with both of those statements, btw.) But what you said earlier was: I guarantee you, the legalization of prostitution would see skyrocketing increases in STD's, from sea to shining sea. Given that STDs are rarer where prostitutition is legal, this statement is a lie.

Your analogy to concealed firearm permits is convoluted reasoning, only a libertarian mindset could fabricate.

Not at all:
"If we legalize prostitution, the sky will fall because STDs would then spread rampantly, whereas it isn't now (even though STDs are lower in NV where it's legal)."
"If we legalize concealed carry, the sky will fall because there will be shootouts and blood running in the streets (even though crime rates are lower where concealed carry is legal, and such shootouts have never occurred)."

The vast majority of American's have a moral value system and oppose behavior that is both wrong and harmful.

Yet another logical fallacy, appeal to the majority.

The libertarian philosophy has never been accepted by the American people and never will be, beyond the extremist fringe faction. Libertarian politics is for all practical purposes, nonexistent. As with liberalism, there's nothing rational or logical about libertarianism.

There's nothing rational or logical about your posts, because you insist on using logical fallacies. Your reply here, incidentally, is not responsive to my criticism of you for using a different logical fallacy earlier.

And I'm very satisfied with my conservative values and the political positions those values represent. I will continue to defend them.

I'm sure you will ... but you have to use non-fallacious reasoning if you wish to appear rational.

I'm sure you have more gibberish in your bag of rhetorical nonsense. Rant on!

LOL! Pointing out fallacies isn't gibberish, except to someone who has never heard of them.

I have to agree with much of what the author said... most, but not all. He used a method of argument typically used by liberals, when their arguments are either weak or nonexistent. He presented several real solid facts, interspersed with hyperbole, conjecture and outright lies. Furthermore, he failed to even consider two questions that his thesis raises.

He failed to even mention any of the positive issues that Libertarians stand for, of which there are many.
Not only did he fail to consider the all too real problems with the alternatives, he didn't even offer any viable alternative. By failing to offer an alternative, he comes across as a spoiler who, knowing that his team isn't any better, wants to complain about the other team, rather than fix the problems on his own team.

But, before I go into those issues, I want to address a couple of the author's statements, both pro and con (something that the author failed to do).

Pro: Indeed, most Libertarians of note have no concept of how to deal with hostile foreign governments. Their foreign policy ideas are actually ideals, based on laboratory philosophy that works only in the vacuum of intellectual thought. Were the world filled only with educated, thoughtful philosophers, maybe their foreign policy ideas would have a chance of success. On the other hand, many Libertarians of lesser note have a much more realistic grasp of the world as it is. They understand the need for a strong and proactive military. Unfortunately, such realistic Libertarians are in the minority or at least, not in a position to make their views known.

Con: The author loses a large degree of credibility when he suggests, not only, that the Civil War was not a great infringement on liberty, but that the Civil War was about slavery. In fact, more than any other single person of any era, the Father of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, was responsible for the first major subversion of the Constitution and the introduction of Federalism, that our Founding Fathers had worked so hard to deny the government and now threatens the very fabric of our society. Furthermore, only a graduate of a public school would ever think that the Civil War was about slavery. Even most liberals, when you pin them down, will admit that the Civil War was about economics and greed - greed that led to a willingness to ignore the Constitution and grant the Federal government far more powers than the Constitution allowed, just so the North could have justification for imposing their will on the South and punish them for their wealth.

Pro: The Libertarians (at least the ones who seem to be in control of the party) seem to have no idea how they would actually go about governing, should they ever come to power. Granted, since there is very little chance of that happening, they have the philosopher's luxury of not having to deal with that possibility for a long time. Many of them may indeed have solid and well thought out plans. But, we have yet to hear any of them, so we must expect the worst.

Con: The author would have us think that Libertarians would try to indoctrinate people to their way of thinking, as a way to scare the reader into worrying about his freedom to raise his children according to his own values and the subversion of community norms. Nothing could be further from the truth. Granted, Libertarians would see to it that information concerning Libertarian thought was no longer suppressed, as it is today, by mutual agreement of both major parties. In fact, most Libertarians that I am familiar with would tell you that, community norms are only surpassed in importance by individual freedom. They want the most control at the lowest levels - personal first, community second, state third and national last. As a reformed Republican, Independent, I know many Republicans and more than a few Libertarians and it has been my observation that, while only a few Republicans send their kids to private schools, almost all of the Libertarians that I know send their kids to private schools (some even go to, dare I say, "religious" schools). Libertarians are, in general, more concerned with a "complete" education, than with a Libertarian education and much more so than Democrats or Republicans. They believe that, given ALL the facts, most people will side with them. In this instance, the author is just blowing hot air to achieve scare value. It's hogwash.

Now, on to the things that the author left out -

The Good Side of Libertarianism:

Like it or not, the ONLY political party that stands steadfastly behind the "original intent" of the Constitution, is the Libertarian Party. There is no doubt that the Democrats would just as soon forget all about the Constitution, but in that regard, the Republicans are not that far behind. Despite all of their shortcomings, the Libertarians are much more dedicated to Constitutional law than either of the major parties.

Most of the author's supportable facts had to do with only two points; the failure of the Libertarian leadership to understand real world foreign policy requirements or their failure to present their plan to govern. But he failed to address the nine points that stand Libertarians in very elite company. The nine points are the nine of the ten amendments that make up the Bill of Rights that have been subverted by our elected representatives of both major parties (not including the third amendment, which has not yet been subverted). Then add to that most of the other 17 amendments that have been subverted by the major parties and the author's points, though still valid, shrink significantly in relation. All this brings up the second point that the author left out.

In many cases, the alternatives are even worse:

Most people tend to vote for candidates from one of the two major parties. So let's look at what those two parties have given us. In fact, since many of the people on this forum seem to think that the Republicans can do no wrong, let's particularly look at what the Republicans have given us.

USA Patriot Act - Only one Republican in the House voted against this abomination, described by Constitutional scholars of both political persuasions, as the greatest single attack on the Fourth Amendment in history and it weakened 15 other privacy laws. Over one-third of the 367 pages that make up the USA Patriot Act have nothing to do with anything but information gathering in US banks and other US financial institutions, most of which are in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment. Both parties overwhelmingly voted for this bill, but it points out that the Republicans are very little different than the Democrats, when it comes to taking away our rights. Thank you so much Republicans.
The Homeland Security Act - The Republican controlled House just passed this disgraceful legislation that will, among other things, create a mammoth Orwellian database, overseen by the Defense Department's Information Awareness Office, headed by the convicted mastermind of Iran-Contra, John Poindexter. According to this legislation, this database will contain massive amounts of private data about every citizen, including every credit card purchase you make, every magazine subscription you buy, every medical prescription you fill, every web site you visit, every e-mail address that you send to or receive from, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book, every event you attend, judicial and divorce records, traffic tickets and even complaints from nosy neighbors. If you have one of those toll road tags on your car windshield, then it will also record the date and time of every toll plaza you go through. If you have OnStar in your car, then it will record your car's location at specific intervals. So, if you spend too much time at a gun store, you may be classified as a subversive. If you spend too much time at church, then you will be classified as a right wing wacko. And frequenting the FreeRepublic web site,... well, even if you don't post, it will certainly put you near the top of the list of suspicious people to watch. Thank you so much Republicans.
The Our Lady of Peace Act - The Republican controlled House just passed this outrage, as well. It requires states to forward to the FBI, all kinds of private information about every citizen, for use in instant background checks. This goes far beyond the criminal history information and judicial restrictions that may be in place for a person. For example, you could be denied the right to purchase a gun because the computer turns up the fact that 30 years ago, when you were in junior high school, you underwent psychological evaluation for depression after you broke up with your first girlfriend, even though no problem was found. Even arrests that were dismissed for lack of evidence, including wrongful arrest, would be submitted and could prevent you from purchasing a gun. Thank you so much Republicans.
Campaign Finance Reform - Once again, Republicans voted en masse to pass this diabolical Incumbent Protection bill, weakly disguised as campaign finance reform. Among other things, it is clearly a violation of the First Amendment. Thank you so much Republicans.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) - In 1996, Republicans inserted an amendment into HIPAA, that claimed the right of the IRS to tax the earnings of US expatriates for ten years after they renounced their US citizenship and had become taxpaying citizens of another country. This is saying, not only to those American expats, but to everyone who remains here, that your money isn't yours. It belongs to the government and if you leave, we are taking it back. Thank you so much Republicans.

The list is far too long to present here. But, it should be clear that BOTH parties have not only failed to protect our rights on numerous occasions, but have actively subverted our rights repeatedly. Certainly there are some Libertarians that I would never vote for. But, on the other hand, there are more than a few Republicans that I would never vote for, too (Senators Specter, McCain and Grassley come to mind). That's why I am a reformed Republican, Independent. Today, I look closely at every candidate's record and his stand on the issues and unfortunately, I most often end up voting for the lesser evil. Most of the time, that means voting Republican, but some of the time, it means voting Libertarian, Reform, Constitution or even Independent.

By following this "the party can do no wrong" philosophy, we are digging ourselves and our country into a hole that we may never climb out of.

It's time that we put away labels and start voting for the MAN, rather than the Party.

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