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.
looks like rain tomorrow
I have enjoyed reading your posts on this thread.
And I hate to say it, and hate even more that it's true, but what you've said also applies to not a few Republicans these days!
It's a never-ending high you never come down off.
Mostly because you are on drugs all the time.
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.
Seriously, though, this is more than a little cockeyed. As a libertarian you see all the failures of government and have an answer for them. So yes, you're pretty frustrated all the time.
But that's because government always acts. It isn't going to go away and it isn't going to stop doing what it wants to do. When it makes mistakes, you're the one who points them out first.
But if we really lived in a laissez-faire order, libertarians would be in a complacent fog and other people would be the Cassandras seeing and foreseeing catastrophes everywhere.
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.
Don't tell me Murray fancies himself a "Libertarian". Last interview I watched, he was a socialist who thinks children should be labeled and sorted in a social engineering program.
Sorry, it was not my intent to include ALL Libertarians as "drug-crazed". :)
Please note that I "do battle" nearly every weekend with a Libertarian who's looking for any Constitution-related excuse to shoot at someone—especially cops.
Not going to happen.
That faction is a small subset of Libertarianism, even though most of us have no use for the war on (some) drugs. It' just not a major issue with most Libertarians.
The problem is that critics of Libertarians and the Libertarian party aren't going to give up their straw man, so those kind of comments are always going to be associated with Libertarians
The need something to marginalise what they can't rebut.
Oh cut the crap. What you're doing is the same as those that brand us Libertarians as "Loserdopertarians", hyperbole.
Fact is that all of those factions exist within the Libertarian party, and we manage.
Somebody pisses in your favorite punch bowl and you whine about getting assailed. Get over it. It happens no matter what political party one belongs to. It's called dissention, and it's normal. It's also not a Libertarian view to silence such dissention.
WTF?
Don’t sugar coat it. Say what you really mean.
Thanks, GS!
Then he isn't "a Libertarian", he's a nut case!
If he called himself "a Republican", would you believe that his behavior was about his "politics"? Of course not.
You've got to imagine that not a few yahoos and white supremacists also vote Republican, so what does that say about the rest of us? Nothing!
I've never heard of any Libertarian saying this. Please provide a link.
IMO, the drug-crazed Libertarians need to be marginalized.
As opposed to the crazed pro-drug warrior police state alphabet federal depts trampling on civilian's lives?
We are getting a methadone clinic in our tiny rural town because Americans weren't serious about keeping ALL ILLEGAL drugs away from this country's impressionables. We should have been shooting down known drug flights back in the 80s.
Uh, drugs are already illegal there skippy.
Losertarians need to lose the Open Borders mentality
Libertarians stand on the borders is still stronger than McCain, Bush, and most of the GOP's stand. There wouldn't be any welfare system or anchor baby magnet drawing illegals here in the first place
and pull their collective heads out of the sand on Islam's nukes.
Islam would be a smoking hole in the ground if that would ever happen.
Let me guess: Child porn, drugs, open borders, abortion? Those are all bunk arguments.
Libertarians vehemently oppose child porn just as much as everybody does, and on legal porn it's the parent's responsibility, not the government.
Kids use to buy cocaine and heroin in drugstores at the turn of the 20th Century; did they turn out to be drug addicts?
Yeah libertarians are for open borders, they oppose a fence, and I disagree with them here. But they still oppose anchor babies, welfare handouts, and gov't economic policies that force businesses to hire illegals. With a purely free market Americans would be filling these jobs, not illegals. There would be no incentive for illegals to come here.
And more libertarians are pro-life than pro-abortion, and even the pro-abortion libertarians still oppose taxpayer funding of abortion. The LP has a chapter for pro-life libertarians. Besides, it's hypocritical to call libertarians pro-abortion when at least a good third of all Republicans are pro-abortion.
Look, in this day and age, there's not going to be a Constitutional Amendment banning abortion or even Roe vs Wade overturned. Of course, that doesn't mean it should stop but for now the pro-life movement should do is seize the pro-choice argument by attacking abortion from the economic aspect of it.
i’ll try to switch to decaf ;^D
No transcript appears for that Glenn Beck program who had, once in the recent past, called himself a Libertarian (or libertarian). It was comedy anyway—a parody of Ron Paul rhetoric.
As opposed to the crazed pro-drug warrior police state alphabet federal depts trampling on civilian's lives?
It's drugs that do the trampling of our fragmenting culture—plus Hollywood and our borders.
Uh, drugs are already illegal there skippy.
Not if I was running the Federal show: They'd be gone, along with your freedom to stupify yourselves and enslave our children to stupification—and worse.
Libertarians stand on the borders is still stronger than McCain, Bush, and most of the GOP's stand. There wouldn't be any welfare system or anchor baby magnet drawing illegals here in the first place.
The only Libertarian I've dealt with, who sounds exactly like (and may be) FR poster "Government is the Problem", never answers my question on borders.
Islam would be a smoking hole in the ground if that would ever happen.
I read all your posts with great interest so I can say, that's reassuring!
As a former student, and just out of the Navy, I once worked for the Census Bureau: There is a tremendous amount of slop in those numbers.
I own three houses separated by a minimum of 300 miles. To test the veracity of the 2000 Census, I faked all the answers on the 2000 Census questionaire, placing one family of 15 "Mezquitoes" (native Mexicans) in my 620 square foot mobile home.
Nothing came of it!
==8-O
No doubt. This is exactly the time that we need to cause rifts in opposition to Obama. That's very keen.
I nearly fell off my chair when I read that. That's a good one!
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