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.

Nice try, but no cigar. You're still attempting bend word definitions to your will, but it won't do. What the word implies is not up to you. I thought you people shunned implied meanings in the Constitution anyway. That's the same door the gun-grabbers try to go through with their semantical gymnastics over the phrase "well regulated militia". I ought to be surprised at you using the same tactics used by those people, but I'm not.

Congress has the power to regulate foreign commerce. It can choose, through legislation, which countries it does business with and who it does not to do business with, how much, how often and when. That's just a fact. If you don't like it, if this glaring verity stands in the way of your arguments and rationalizations, that's not my problem.

You're still attempting bend word definitions to your will, but it won't do.

You cannot regulate what you have banned. Furthermore, do you see any definition in the US Constitution which defines as a crime, trading with anyone?

This isn't about implications. It's about simple facts. The purpose for regulating commerce with foreign nations was simply so that no state could end up with an advantage over another state when drawing up trade agreements. It was NOT to eliminate trade with any particular nation.

I've explained this to Poobah but the government doesn't posess any power that it cannot derive by your consent. You first must posess the power for the government to use it. You nor I have the power to prevent anyone from trading with anyone else. Thus we cannot consent to anyone to use such a power.

If the government is using a power that you didn't first posess, then it is operating by force and fraud.

It can choose, through legislation, which countries it does business with and who it does not to do business with, how much, how often and when. That's just a fact.

Nonsense. The government is not authorized anywhere in the constitution to "do business."

Furthermore, do you see any definition in the US Constitution which defines as a crime, trading with anyone?

Since the Constitution invests the Congress (elected by the consent of the governed) with the power to regulate trade with foreign nations, the Constitution leaves it to Congress to define the particular crimes. Treason is the only defined crime in the Constitution, but that doesn't prevent Congress or the state from passing laws which define other crimes and set consequences for committing such crimes.

Treason is the only defined crime in the Constitution

Wrong. There are three crimes defined in the constitution and in every case, the Congress is given power to make laws which deal with those crimes. They are given no power in the constitution to even DEFINE crimes not listed already.

You don't have the power to tell your neighbor who he can trade with. And you can't give that power to the government if you do not posess it already.

Congress has the power to regulate commerce between the states and foreign nations. They do not have the power to eliminate trade. The word regulation should provide a clue but the fact that you cannot force anyone to stop trading is the nail in the coffin for this particular argument.

My choice is often to vote for a RINO who doesn't share my views, or a libertarian who shares many of my views.

As far as governance, it is immaterial who I vote for, since my views will not be represented in either case. The RINO doesn't share my views, while the libertarian isn't likely to be elected.

Therefore, I vote for the person who shares my views.

We are in this situation because too few people have the stones to stop voting for RINOs, not because a few more people are voting Libertarian.

>>>We are in this situation because too few people have the stones to stop voting for RINOs, not because a few more people are voting Libertarian.

I agree with you. There are a number of Rino's in the Congress, but there aren't many conservative Republican candidates around either. The first priority for those who lean towards the political rightwing, is to assure Democrats and their liberal incarnations are kept out of public office. Now that Republicans control the full Congress, it is important for party activists and conservative advocates to better educate the voters, in how to recognize the most conservative candidate available.

Remember, politics is a slow process.

Democrats must never be allowed to retake control of the House or the Senate. Conservatives and Republicans can't afford another political setback.

The Constitution doesn't prohibit defining crimes not specifically mentioned in the Constitution.

If you've read the tenth amendment you should know by now that the federal government was given explicit and listed powers. That's all they were given. No powers are implied. The crimes of Treason, Piracy and counterfeitting are all they have jurisdiction over and the Congress is limited in its legislative jurisdiction to the seat of the capital and territorial posessions.

It took a constitutional amendment to even provide the feds with the power to prohibit alcohol production. That is because they had no power to do that. (And it can be argued that the amendment itself was void before it was ratified but that's for another day).

Is it your position that sending a bomb through the U.S. mail across state lines is NOT against the law?

No. Do you think that because a federal agency is used or that state lines are crossed that the crime doesn't exist until the federal government defines it as such?

If there is no federal law against an action or behavior, then it can't be against federal law. Likewise with state law.
You can't arrest and prosecute anybody for an act, if there is no law on the books against it. That goes for state and federal jurisdictions. Ex post facto, and all that.

So you think the Unabomber is illegally imprisoned?

If there is no federal law against an action or behavior, then it can't be against federal law.

And this is supposed to prove that the federal government actually has authority to define other crimes why?

You can't arrest and prosecute anybody for an act, if there is no law on the books against it.

So you're saying that it's legal for a man in Arkansas to kill a man in Texas because there's no law preventing it?

My point was simply that libertarians tend to criticise and seek to reverse government policy, as a way of expressing their politics. So, they look to the government for a solution in the sense that they expect the government to change in order to bring about a freer society. I'm arguing that this is backwards; most effort should be spent on educating people and attempting to change the culture at a very fundamental, philosophical level. In this way, a free society can develop from the bottom up. Changes in government policy would come later, but much easier and at less political cost. So basically, I'm arguing against libertarianism as a political party, but for it as a philosophical/ideological movement. Hope I clarified myself.

Oh, and he quotes Murray Rothbard only in part on the strategy question: to read this dimwit, you'd never know that he's quoting from an essay wherein Rothbard constructs an entire theory of libertarian strategy.

Really? And just how is that strategy going? A quick glance at the scoreboard will tell you that this strategy is losing very badly.

Don't confuse the complete failure (ie. refusal) to ADOPT a strategy with a failure of the strategy itself. Now that neoconservative Republicans have control of all branches of government, anything that goes wrong from here on will not be the fault of the Democrats nor ESPECIALLY the fault of Libertarians (either ideologically or as a political party). In fact as far as any previous problems go, one might blame many political movements (including the communists). But libertarians are certainly NOT at fault given the complete unwillingness of either Democrats or Republicans (or YOU for that matter) to seriously entertain any of their proposals or ideas. Libertarians would be the LAST people to blame for the mess we're in today -- regardless of your opinion of their ideas.

So you're saying that it's legal for a man in Arkansas to kill a man in Texas because there's no law preventing it?

There is a law against it (laws don't necessarily "prevent" crime, by the way, only prescribe penalties for violating the laws)--murder is illegal in both Texas and Arkansas, according to state laws; there is no federal equivalent to state homicide law. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you have a problem or problems with me or something? It appears that you do. I know one of these is reading comprehension.

Did I "blame" libertarians for anything at all? No, I didn't. Yet you come at me as if I did.

You need to chill with the labels.

Libertarians have tons of work to do. Look at the scoreboard.

No mercy.
Coming soon: Tha SYNDICATE.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.

There is a law against it

There is a law against kidnapping in Texas as well. It isn't necessary that there be a federal law.

None of this really deals with the fact that Congress isn't given the power to define crimes other than the three listed in the constitution. (Excepting Washington DC of course).

Congress is given the power to define crimes in the Constitution and it exercises its power. If you disagree with that, too bad. Your disagreement doesn't change facts.

I think this all comes down to a disagreement in interpretation of Amendment X. And when there is disagreement, whose argument will prevail? Does your interpretation carry more weight than mine? Do you matter more than me? Do I matter more than you? So how are these interpretive disputes solved?-----why, the answer to that is given in the Constitution, too. Ta-daaaaah! The Judiciary Branch! The supreme Court, with the exceptions listed in Article III, section 2, shall have "appellate jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, wich such exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make."

In other words, it's useless for you and I to be arguing back and forth over Congressional authority, because such questions have already been asked and answered, in the Constitution, under all three branches of government and the state governments, with the Supreme Court having appellate jurisdiction.

I'm rather glad you and I could disagree without tearing each other up. This is my last word on the subject. As you well know, unwritten law says women always get the last word, but if you would like to have it, whether you're male or female, you have my leave. :-)

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