Posted on 04/01/2013 10:39:17 AM PDT by crusher
The Law of Unintended Libertarian Consequences
Over the past forty-five years since becoming politically aware, I have vacillated between conservatism and libertarian thinking in contemplating the world around me. I never feel completely at home with either camp when living out my own minarchist tendencies. It is of course oversimplification, but the former seem to think that everyone wants to be like us, and that the impulse for liberty is the yearning of the human spirit. Evidently they are not paying attention to what is happening in the nation and around the world where dependency is in full march. On the other hand libertarians seem to relish their contempt for my own deeply held Christian faith and view debauchery not as an unfortunate side effect of freedom (my attitude) but rather celebrate hedonism as the whole point of liberty.
But lately my libertarian friends’ views on some issues of the day suggest they cannot comprehend the practical consequences of their own ideology. Let’s look at three instances.
Marriage
In observing the ongoing debate over the historical nature of families, many times I am confronted with the pronouncements that, “The State should just get out of the marriage business” (presumably to let anyone do what they want). Such reasoning opines that by striking down DOMA, the Supreme Court will be disempowering the Federales. Au contraire.
Consider the aftermath of such an edict.
Some states would endorse any voluntary couplings as legal institutions, others would not. Do libertarians really think for one minute that this bifurcation will be allowed to stand? Horse hockey. Sooner or later same-sex duos from Massachusetts, Maryland, or Hawaii will relocate to Tennessee or Mississippi and challenge the historical precepts of marriage there, too. Once DOMA is gone, it is only a matter of a very short while before Washington’s Ruling Class will, instead of “getting out of the marriage business,” jump in with both feet and be MANDATING universal acknowledgement and governmental support for any intimate arrangement that strikes anyone’s fancy. Reduce government power and activity? Get government out of the bedrooms? Pshaw! The future will see the compliance jackboots stomping squarely in the midst of every bedroom, living room, school room, court room, and board room. Count on it. You and your attitudes about “marriage” will be heavily regulated out the wazoo.
Following a course of action to “get government out of the marriage business” will simply and shortly expand exponentially The State’s role in the marriage business.
Immigration
The unholy alliance between The Left, libertarians, and Big Business to allow (read: encourage) alien invasions from foreign states will change forever the nature of the nation. Admittedly many of these domestic agitators do not accept the concept of the sovereign nation state, or at least do not accept the premise that any jurisdiction has the authority to regulate itself and determine who gets to be inside them or to be kept out.
The Left I understand: their Hope is to Change us into their Utopia, Cuba. Big Business I get, as economic fascists (yes, I do know the meaning of the term and am using it correctly) and Francisco D’Anconia’s Brokers of Pull all they want is to accrue their gains, whether ill-gotten or fair-gotten. But libertarians’ “open border” posture indicates to me that their ability to follow a course of action to its logical end is shall we say, challenged. What do they think will be the inevitable result of allowing entrance to tens of millions of residents with no fealty to Western ideals or American traditions? Serious scholarship has confirmed that for every ten alien invaders normalized, traditional freedom concepts are out-voted 7 to 3. Multiply that by 30, 40, or 50 million new voters who believe that the source of prosperity and beneficence is not themselves but rather the State, and you have a perpetual and undefeatable voting bloc in favor of limitless government programs.
Regardless of their alleged social traditionalism (which again, scholarship does not confirm), the influx of the unassimilated through open borders, amnesty, or anything similar will have only one result: the unrestrained growth of collectivism.
Foreign Policy
I am not opposed to war, but I am opposed to stupid wars. Our current quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan fit that description perfectly as they are not in fact wars, they are utopian and nonsensical “nation building” schemes. In that I am in unison with libertarians and The Left. We should get out. Now. Those primitive hell-holes are not worth one drop of Yankee blood or one dime of Yankee treasure. And yes, if we get out now, “every lost soldier will have died in vain.” Guess what? Even if we stay, every life lost will have been wasted any way.
The problem with libertarians at least as encapsulated in the positions of the Paulistas is that they apparently do not believe we live in a dangerous world. Or at least, it was not dangerous until the US began flexing its muscles. This view strikes me as historically illiterate.
To be sure, thanks to the posture of the modern meals-on-wheels-with-guns mindset, much of US policy has managed to make world situations worse. But treating barbarians “nicely” does nothing other than embolden them and assure their attacks. They hate us not because of what we have done, but because of who we are. No amount of internationalist pandering will change that.
This does not mean the Pentagon cannot be reduced. It can, by my judgment about 30%, as we need to wean our “allies” off of the military welfare teat (I would continue to support Israel militarily, but no one else). The US military needs to be smaller and more ruthless. The barbarians need to fear the consequences of their attacks on civilization. The libertarians’ posture of gutting the military to purposefully weaken its capacity will accomplish the exact opposite of what they want.
War in the future will become much more likely than less likely when the aggressor hordes think they can get away with it.
Unintended Consequences
The ultimate outcome is that in these three areas – marriage, “immigration,” and foreign policy -- libertarian prescriptions will result in distinctly unintended, un-libertarian consequences.
Is that ironic or what?
That’s what people on FR do, misunderstand libertarianism.
So nobody ever notices that you leave property and RKBA rights off of that list?
That didn’t make sense, the list is complete unto itself.
Why don’t you put some effort in defending the libertarian support for unlimited abortion and open borders and homosexualizing the military and marriage and adoption?
Because that's what you want me to do.
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