Despite the constant frustration, I wouldn't choose any other path!
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Posted on 02/10/2009 4:45:13 AM PST by Netizen
What It Feels Like To Be A Libertarian
(posted January 2009)
Political analysts frequently consider what it means to be a libertarian. In fact, in 1997, Charles Murray published a short book entitled "What It Means to Be a Libertarian" that does an excellent job of presenting the core principles of libertarian political philosophy. But almost no one ever discusses what it feels like to be a libertarian. How does it actually feel to be someone who holds the principles described in Murray’s book?
I’ll tell you. It feels bad. Being a libertarian means living with an almost unendurable level of frustration. It means being subject to unending scorn and derision despite being inevitably proven correct by events. How does it feel to be a libertarian? Imagine what the internal life of Cassandra must have been and you will have a pretty good idea.
Imagine spending two decades warning that government policy is leading to a major economic collapse, and then, when the collapse comes, watching the world conclude that markets do not work.
Imagine continually explaining that markets function because they have a built in corrective mechanism; that periodic contractions are necessary to weed out unproductive ventures; that continually loosening credit to avoid such corrections just puts off the day of reckoning and inevitably leads to a larger recession; that this is precisely what the government did during the 1920's that led to the great depression; and then, when the recession hits, seeing it offered as proof of the failure of laissez-faire capitalism.
Imagine spending years decrying federal intervention in the home mortgage market; pointing out the dangers associated with legislation such as the Community Reinvestment Act that forces lenders to make more risky loans than they otherwise would; testifying before Congress on the lack of oversight and inevitable insolvency of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to legislators who angrily respond either that one is "exaggerat[ing] a threat of safety and soundness . . . which I do not see" (Barney Frank) or "[I[f it ain’t broke, why do you want to fix it? Have the GSEs [government-sponsored enterprises] ever missed their housing goals" (Maxine Waters) or "[T[he problem that we have and that we are faced with is maybe some individuals who wanted to do away with GSEs in the first place" (Gregory Meeks) or that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are "one of the great success stories of all time" (Christopher Dodd); and arguing that the moral hazard created by the implicit federal backing of such privately-owned government-sponsored enterprises is likely to set off a wave of unjustifiably risky investments, and then, when the housing market implodes under the weight of bad loans, watching the collapse get blamed on the greed and rapaciousness of "Wall Street."
I remember attending a lecture at Georgetown in the mid-1990s given by a member of the libertarian Cato Institute in which he predicted that, unless changed, government policy would trigger an economic crisis by 2006. That prediction was obviously ideologically-motivated alarmism. After all, the crisis did not occur until 2008.
Libertarians spend their lives accurately predicting the future effects of government policy. Their predictions are accurate because they are derived from Hayek’s insights into the limitations of human knowledge, from the recognition that the people who comprise the government respond to incentives just like anyone else and are not magically transformed to selfless agents of the good merely by accepting government employment, from the awareness that for government to provide a benefit to some, it must first take it from others, and from the knowledge that politicians cannot repeal the laws of economics. For the same reason, their predictions are usually negative and utterly inconsistent with the utopian wishful-thinking that lies at the heart of virtually all contemporary political advocacy. And because no one likes to hear that he cannot have his cake and eat it too or be told that his good intentions cannot be translated into reality either by waving a magic wand or by passing legislation, these predictions are greeted not merely with disbelief, but with derision.
It is human nature to want to shoot the messenger bearing unwelcome tidings. And so, for the sin of continually pointing out that the emperor has no clothes, libertarians are attacked as heartless bastards devoid of compassion for the less fortunate, despicable flacks for the rich or for business interests, unthinking dogmatists who place blind faith in the free market, or, at best, members of the lunatic fringe.
Cassandra’s curse was to always tell the truth about the future, but never be believed. If you add to that curse that she would be ridiculed, derided, and shunned for making her predictions, you have a pretty fair approximation of what it feels like to be a libertarian.
If you’d like a taste of what it feels like to be a libertarian, try telling people that the incoming Obama Administration is advocating precisely those aspects of FDR’s New Deal that prolonged the great depression for a decade; that propping up failed and failing ventures with government money in order to save jobs in the present merely shifts resources from relatively more to relatively less productive uses, impedes the corrective process, undermines the economic growth necessary for recovery, and increases unemployment in the long term; and that any "economic" stimulus package will inexorably be made to serve political rather than economic ends, and see what kind of reaction you get. And trust me, it won’t feel any better five or ten years from now when everything you have just said has been proven true and Obama, like FDR, is nonetheless revered as the savior of the country.
After reading the entire article, the best you can do is recycle the same tired bromides about Libertarians?
Laissez-faire on most things, but strong on border control, drugs, crime in general.
Federal government should concern itself with natioanl security, war, foreign policy. Everything else should be the purview of the states."
I'm about the same. We humans like to label things and not all labels fit well or at all. I'd still call myself Libertarian before Republican, but generally just call myself independent. I've heard "Conservative Libertarian" once or twice. Sure, whatever.
I consider myself a Minarchist with strong libertarian leanings. The “philosophy” I hold is not any one party but a combination of several ideals. I’ve created my own ideology by combining a few together.
For instance, I take Objectivism, Minarchism, and libertarian ideals to form my own “philosophy”. Now I don’t agree with everything in each of these ideologies but can agree with the vast majority.
. . .
We could have used some help against ACORN and Palestinian funding of The Øbama campaign.
Make up your damn mind already. Do you want us marginalized or do you want us to support you?
...If democrats are socialists and republicans are nationalists, communists and capitalists, added together for the one party running government, National Socialists...
...Big business good ole boys and big government politicans together are trying to enslave the apathetic, docile, bovine masses. And getting away with it!!!
I agree. I'd like to see more 'states rights'. My only concern is like 'slavery', could/would certain states use 'states rights' to allow certain activities that otherwise might not be allowed?
Someone earlier said that libertarians don't like religionists, so, I have my doubts about that.
We've all seen this diagram before, and some agree that it is valid, and others argue that it really doesn't represent people's views. I would argue that it works, as long as you understand that the diagram is a political game board that it is constantly in movement, rolling around based on current events -- and the people on the board lean and sometimes move based on the board moving.
There are people whose natural inclination is to be libertarian-leaning Conservatives and others who are statist-leaning Conservatives. Whether or not we want to admit it, there are also centrist-leaning Conservatives who could have and might even have voted for Obama -- although I doubt that there are any of them here on FR . Yet those "leanings", not the Conservatism, are the source of most of our FR arguments.
The big question to me is where the Republican Party stands on this game board, and who does it want to capture with its message? If the Republican Party wants to survive, it must look to what attracts, not just its grumpy old farts (who are already basically "lifers"), but rather what can mobilize its younger generation to get out the vote. Because getting up a "McCain Facebook page" 5 days before the election when Obama has had one up for two years, didn't cut it last election and certainly isn't going to cut it in the future.
I would argue that the vast majority of the younger voters are going to be libertarian-leaning. They were as attracted to Ron Paul, as the statist-leaning Republicans were revolted by him. But these younger voters are the ones who really were mobilized to win -- they knew the latest and most popular methods of communicating the message and were wizards at fundraising. The problem is that no one took them seriously and the Republican Party completely marginalized them last election.
So the next question is: What now? Is the Republican Party going to stay the statist, old farts club? Or is going to capture the small "l" libertarians? Because, IMHO, that is going to make the difference between whether the Party can and will ever be taken seriously again.
As someone who agrees with the underlying Libertarian philosophy I think they got most of it right with a few exceptions. Abortion is one such issue. Where they view it as government intruding in private lives, I view it strictly as one of civil liberties. My particular twist on it is that the liberties being trampled are that of the unborn child and as such should be prohibited.
The big issue IMO that keeping Republicans and Libertarians from coming to a meeting of the minds is the drug issue. On this one I side with the Lib’s. While I can see the need to protect society at large from the proven social effects of certain drugs, I think Marijuana should be a personal choice.
In other words, they think that with the proper economic education, San Francisco or Detroit could become fiscally conservative cities with low taxes and little government spending or bureaucracy. That there's no reason why a city filled with feminists, homosexuals, and drug addicts couldn't be self-reliant and conservative when it comes to tax & spend issues. Nothing in the real world would support that belief.
And I think that those are the "sticking issues" for many people -- but I also think that they are the issues that have rational arguments on both sides.
For example, I agree with your position on abortion for the same reasons. But the question is what can be done about it? Some think it is purely an overturning of Rowe vs Wade and federally outlawing abortion -- nice idea but nearly impossible a task. However, if you return abortion to the State level, you might succeed in outlawing abortions in some States, reducing the number of children who are killed. Eventually, other States might follow.
And yet, having said all of that, ultimately it is still "a personal decision" because if a woman is truly determined to get rid of her baby, there isn't much one can do to stop it. The best you can do is to reduce the numbers, not eliminate it altogether -- unless you have a complete cultural shift in this country as to how the origins of the issue is dealt with.
Re the drugs issue, I have equal and opposite arguments in my head as well.
Argument #1 against the War on Drugs: Even with huge amounts of money and the goodwill of the majority of the population, the War on Drugs hasn't worked. We can't even keep drugs out of our prisons so how are we going to keep it away from the general population in a free society? The price of the War on Drugs, both in increasing federal powers and in money, has been too high for too little return.
Argument #2 against the War on Drugs. I have no more right to tell you what you can or can't put into your body than I have to tell you that you must eat vegetables for lunch instead of red meat. It's your home, your body, you deal with consequences of what you do. Not my problem.
Argument #3 against the War on Drugs: It's a corrupt rip-off. It's "protection money" to protect you from yourself.
Argument #4 against the War on Drugs: "Houston, we have a problem". We have so many people in jail for non-violent drug offenses that our prisons are overflowing and we are forced to release violent criminals out on to the street to keep the non-violent drug offenders in. In terms of priorities, it's a really bad trade off. And when the non-violent drug offenders are finally returned to the street, do you think that they have "learned their lesson"? More likely, we have just turned what started out as a non-violent offender into a violent and completely unproductive member of society.
Argument #1 FOR the War on Drugs: I don't do drugs, so I don't want to live in a society where everyone is "high" and looking for their next "fix", nor do I want to have to pay for people who are non-productive because they are high all the time. Problem is -- I already do, even with a War on Drugs.
Wasn't Ron Paul 'isolationist'? Wasn't Buchannan blasted for that? The younger crowd may have been drawn to the idea of isolationists (no wars), (nobody WANTS wars) but, they are too young to remember the US being forced into WWII by FDR's deliberate negligence.
I'm not sure we can be completely isolationist anymore.
I agree and for me, its a no compromise issue. If a woman wants the right to determine what happens to her body then she also has the right and responsibility of preventing the pregnancy in the first place. She has the right to choose which form of about 12 different types of birth control she wants to use. She doesn't have the right to murder an unborn baby.
Yes, there are a few instances and they ARE few, where rape, incest and the life of the mother are the issuse and these can be taken into account. The idea is that abortions should be extremely rare. jmo
"Isolationist" is the preferred term for detractors to use on Ron Paul, but it is not his philosophy. He believes in a strong US military for US defense, but not an aggressive, threatening military in every country in the world pushing all the way to Russia's doorstep & itching for a fight.
No country can survive "in isolation". We must always engage in commerce, but we have no business telling every country in the world what they must do -- and I truly don't think that this makes us here any "safer" because we are meddlers. Quite the opposite, we are more vulnerable because we are spread so thin minding everyone else's business.
And even more importantly, this "we are everywhere" attitude by Congress and the Presidency has become a great in for globalists like Soros to push their agenda using our military to back it up. The globalists financing our politicians don't give a good damn about America -- and they are just as eager for the destruction of our country and our sovereignty as any enemy we might have on the outside! They are only interested in money and power, and when they are done using us to defeat everyone else, they'll come after us too!
It must be hell to be the only perfect person in the room.
I had to laugh at Arugment #3. The funny thing being that you got it right. What’s even more absurd is that when you look at the positions of most Dems you’ll find a protection racket or a confidence racket at the heart of almost all of them.
This year the plot of 24 has America with a female president, determined to intervene in a civil war in Africa to "stop a genocide of thousands". Problem is that the African general who she is planning to attack has kidnapped the designer of the computer firewall protecting America's most sensitive infrastructure controls (air traffic control, water supplies, chemicals, etc), and has gotten the computer guy to create a device to penetrate the firewall. The African general first demonstrates what the device can do with a near miss of two US commercial jets. Meanwhile the female US President is still insisting that "protecting the potential genocide victims in Africa" is more important than protecting America, and she isn't backing down -- even after he actually crashes two US jets in visual range of the White House and he attempts a release of deadly chemicals into the air over a town Kansas.
The point is that this US president character sees her role as "ruling the world", not because she is a megalomaniac, but because that's what the US presidency is to her and to most Americans, right now. She was willing to sacrifice American lives in order to save Africans, just to make her point! I sat there thinking, "Who elected you? Who are you responsible to? Americans, not Africans! You should get assassinated!"
This scenario is not that far-fetched. When Congress and the President see themselves as "rulers of the world" instead of as "stewards of America", Americans are not "safer". Quite the opposite, we are less safe.
I favor many of the Libertarian Party ideas, and off and on I am a member of the party itself.
Personally, I think the Libertarian Party would have much more influence if it ceased being a political party and became instead a political action group or club similar to the NRA, AARP, or even a community reform organization similar to ACORN ( but moral and ethical in its actions).
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