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Posted on 10/29/2006 11:39:15 AM PST by Philistone
Social Conservatism for Libertarians
As a long-time libertarian, one-time pot-smoking, shroom-dropping, coke-snorting, head banger, and short time Thomas Aquinas College student I have seen the divide between "social conservatives" and "libertarians" and today would like to address certain social conservative positions and why libertarians would do well to support them. These arguments would, obviously, work for liberals as well, but since liberals are immune to reasoned argument I will ignore them in what follows. Certain social conservatives would also do well to heed these arguments since arguments relying strictly on the Bible are not likely to sway either libertarians OR liberals.
Axioms of libertarianism
While libertarians may disagree on certain things, what makes them libertarians is their belief in the following two axioms:
1) The fundamental (and maybe ONLY) purpose of a state is to protect its citizens - this may or may not include a provision for the enforcement of contracts.
2) An individual's freedom to act is absolute up until the point where it infringes on the freedoms of another.
Would it be possible to derive socially conservative positions from these two axioms, rationally and empirically? That is our task today in what follows.
Continued at Politically Incorrect
The problem isn't the libertarian theorists. It's the rank and file libertarians.
The cynic in me, developed over decades of experience, informs me that libertarianism tends to attract the wrong people for the wrong reasons.
Once there is critical mass of such people, libertarianism devolves into an anarchistic free for all and race to the bottom.
I might point out that, while libertarianism does attract some people who are seeking unfettered license to do any damn thing, it's -that- group that devolves and races to the bottom. Libertarianism itself continues in its fairly calm and untroubled manner. In fact, the true libertarians shake their head at the free-for-all and mutter something along the lines of, "Damn fools, they don't know how to handle true freedom."
The fact is, true freedom is the MOST demanding situation. It requires the most discipline, and the hardest kind: SELF-DISCIPLINE.
It's a no-brainer to act responsibly when somebody else is dictating your morality (left or right). It's a lot harder to keep yourself in line.
Why? Because people are not hermetically sealed off from one another so that one persons's irresponsible behavior affects him and him alone.
It doesn't too many failures to destroy the larger good others are striving to achieve.
Why? Because people are not hermetically sealed off from one another so that one person's irresponsible behavior affects him and him alone.
It doesn't too many failures to destroy the larger good others are striving to achieve.
Heh. I'm 54. Agree pretty much with your assessment.
> I'm not a party member...just a small "L" libertarian like Uncle Milton.
Yep.
That's one reason I live in a rural area. (Clean air and water, and lack of lawn-height ordinances are among the many others.) I can hang my big Old Glory on my front porch and not worry the least about anybody giving me sh!t about it, either.
> It doesn't too many failures to destroy the larger good others are striving to achieve.
The first place to Do The Right Thing is in one's own life, on one's own property, and figure out how to have a good life without overly pissing off the neighbors. Acting irresponsibly flies in the face of enjoyment and appreciation of true freedom. So while I agree with you, I claim that responsibility and self-discipline go hand in hand with real libertarianism, and those who don't bother to try to make it work are just in it for the good time.
Please read more carefully.
Let's take a recent example:
Social Conservative: "Christian pharmacists should not have to dispense prescription abortificants if it would violate their moral prinicples."
Libertarian: "People are free to sell anything which may be legally sold to anyone they chose, and the government has no right to tell them what they may or may not sell or to whom."
Under current law, you cannot chose to whom you sell your goods. And in certain cases (cf. above) you cannot even determine which goods you sell. Under libertarianism, you have the right to sell what you want to whom you want.
Point 2: To the extent that social conservatives wish to impose their ideology upon libertarians, libertarians have the right to fight back. But again, MOST social conservatives do not wish to IMPOSE their views. Unlike radical Islamism, you cannot convert people to Christianity by force.
As to "Conservative Morality", libertarians would do well to seperate the goals of this morality from the means to achieving these goals and look at it from a libertarian point of view.
Let's take an example: Abstinence before marriage.
Social conservatives believe that pre-marital sex is wrong. Period.
Libertarians believe that individuals are responsible for the consequences of their actions. Period.
Now in a libertarian society where third-party taxpayers were not there to pick up the tab for promiscuous behaviour, WHAT WOULD BE THE END RESULT?
People would be more careful about who they had sex with and how they were protected.
The END result would be that abstinance would gain greater value than it has now.
In other words, libertarian goals and social conservative goals would converge.
Lots of folks say they want the same good things. Much of politics is about the means, not the ends.
Of course pharmicists should be free to sell whatever they please, just like any other merchant in a free market. As long as abortifacants are desired, some pharmacist will answer that need and have them available. As long as they are legal. The conservative wants to make them illegal, remember.
So in this case the conservative and libertarian principles are diametrically opposed, and the fact that the liberals are trying to force pharmacists to carry the abortificants is no different from the conservatives trying to ban them.
I don't favor abortion. But there are loads of things that I don't like that I am nevertheless unwilling to outlaw.
> MOST social conservatives do not wish to IMPOSE their views.
Excuse me? What is your definition of a "social conservative"? As opposed to, say, a fiscal conservative. Is it not someone who would like society's values to mirror their own? And what is one of the primary goals of this, except that those values that are NOT in line with the proposed agenda are suppressed. By law. That's IMPOSITION.
Please, tell me you misspoke. Otherwise you just undercut your entire premise.
I may have mistaken a small sampling for a broader trend. In my area, at least according to the local Libertarian web sites, the members all have long grey pony tails and wear tie-dye t-shirts.
Examples please?
Abortion is a special case which libertarians need to consider carefully. IF a state has an obligation to protect its citizens, then at what point does that obligation commence? Social conservatives have an answer. Libertarians need to come up with an answer too. It's not simply a case of outlawing a behavior of which you may or may not approve.
As long as a complete roll-back of the public space is politically impracticable, social conservatives will fight for the right to be represented in it.
America is a big country, and social conservatives understand that. If you don't like the culture of San Francisco, move to Boise or Plano. What makes social conservatives cranky (and should make libertarians cranky too) is when socialist bureaucrats from Washington decide that they are going to impose San Francisco culture on Boise or Plano.
Don't make the mistake that liberals make of assuming that social conservatives are all ignorant rednecks simply waiting for the chance to herd us all into religious re-education camps. Mostly what they want is to be left alone to raise their families the way they see fit.
And THAT happens to be a goal I share.
>> And what is one of the primary goals of this, except that those values that are NOT in line with the proposed agenda are suppressed. By law. That's IMPOSITION.
> Examples please?
Sure. One easy example is gay public behavior, and marriage in particular. Those who believe homosexuality is a sin against God (the majority of social conservatives agree with that statement) are generally not content to ignore it; they want it made illegal, suppressed in public, and many (perhaps a majority, I don't know) would agree to have the government snooping in the bedrooms of gay people nationwide to suppress it. Certainly they don't want it encouraged or sanctioned by the state.
The social conservative political agenda states that gay folks should not be permitted access to some of the social functions available to straight folks, such as a government-sanctioned marriage.
The libertarian doesn't want the government in the marrying business period, gay, straight, or otherwise. So while they agree on not sanctioning gay marriage, it's only because the libertarian wants the government out of all marriage. Social conservatives naturally want their own (straight) marriages sanctioned, hence the disagreement.
With regard to behavior, libertarians don't give a damn what other folks do in the privacy of their own home, and generally don't care what other folks do in public as long as it doesn't leave stains on park benches or startle the horses. They certainly don't want the government snooping in anybody's bedroom.
So any law that restricts the right of one person to pursue something which another person is free to pursue, is anathema to a libertarian. Thus, the fewer such restrictions, the better.
> Abortion is a special case which libertarians need to consider carefully. IF a state has an obligation to protect its citizens, then at what point does that obligation commence? Social conservatives have an answer. Libertarians need to come up with an answer too.
As you say, abortion is a special and difficult case -- at what point between conception and the first cry at birth does it become murder to abort? The libertarian, recognizing that reasonable people will always differ on this point, says: "Keep the government out of the abortion business in BOTH directions." That is, the government should neither fund abortions (which is onerous to those believing all abortion is murder), nor restrict access to private medical care including abortions.
So libertarians DO have an answer -- that it's none of the government's business. Waging a government-sponsored "War on Abortion" won't be any more effective than the government-sponsored War on Drugs. If as a caring individual one wishes to reduce the number of abortions, one can devote one's time and energy to supporting and extending the numerous other (better) options for what to do with an unwanted pregnancy.
The role of the govenment in protecting its citizens should be limited to protection from external threats. Protecting citizens from one another is very problematic, and protecting them from themselves is anathema, to the libertarian.
Personally I would like to see abortion become unnecessary because a) unwanted pregancies are mostly avoided through education and access to contraceptives, and b) those that do result are dealt with more lovingly (less violently). Legislation is ineffective at encouraging moral and loving behavior; the government should stay out of it.
> Don't make the mistake that liberals make of assuming that social conservatives are all ignorant rednecks simply waiting for the chance to herd us all into religious re-education camps.
No such mistake made here. I live in a rural area where social conservatism runs deep, and my neighbors are by and large good, decent folks. Moreover, they are mostly of the "leave me alone and I'll leave you alone" sort. We don't do things to piss each other off, so we get along fine.
> Mostly what they want is to be left alone to raise their families the way they see fit. And THAT happens to be a goal I share.
If in fact the social conservative political movement was driven by such "live and let live" types, I wouldn't be having this conversation with you. But in fact the political movement is populated with the same sort of power-and-control seekers that exist in the social liberal camp (who want to impose -their- beliefs on everybody in the name of socialism or whatever). You may be correct that most conservative individuals just want to be left alone. But the political movement which purports to represent them, and with which they claim to identify, does indeed want to impose a legislative agenda on everybody.
Perhaps there is where you and I can agree. I distain the big-L Libertarian party because I don't think they really represent my small-l libertarian position. You may likewise be able to see that the legislative agenda of the social conservative political movement goes beyond the simple freedoms you describe as your own desires.
Just a thought...
Small "L" checking in too. Seriously, Libertarians should run as Republicans. They'll never get anywhere. The GOP could use a dose of libertarianism anyway.
True enough.
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
Some libertarian thoughts on 'social conservatism':
http://www.neoperspectives.com/Social_Conservativsm.htm
Thanks.
If I have time, I'll write "Libertarianism for Social Conservatives!"
Presumably, most children are dependent upon their parents for sustinence until they leave the parental household. As for cutting the umbilical cord, I believe that most people would have difficulty accepting that a being goes from non-human to human over the course of a 2 second procedure.
Passing a Constitional amendment creating a federal definition of the term marriage is the exact opposite of this position. I have other thoughts on this issue, but this is all that's needed to be said to show the disharmony between social conservatives and libertarians on this issue.
As I have stated in previous posts, many of these problems would fall out of the equation in a libertarian society. The only purpose for requiring public sanction of marriage is that the tax system, legal system and Social Security system is structured in such a way as to require it. As long as that is the case, then social conservatives will fight to limit the types of couples that the public sanction can be applied to. As I stated in the blog, it is also simply another attempt by liberals to change the meaning of words for their own purposes and should be opposed by all who believe that the world can be understood and manipulated using reason and not simply by having politically correct thoughts.
One example of something is not enough to predicate an argument on, because there may be other variables at work. This is why studying the social sciences is so difficult.
You are correct. I did state that the subject was a difficult one, but the libertarian argument that, e.g. legalizing drug use will eliminate third party harm is a theoretical one. It should be an empirical one. The case for prostitution is similar.
Again, most social conservatives today are resigned to an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude. They don't want to take their kids to the park to play among used hypodermic needles and condoms. They don't want to sit down to a nice football game with their kids and see Janet Jackson's breast. They don't want their children being taught masturbation techniques in school. They could care less about San Francisco culture, but don't want it imposed on them in Boise or Plano or Fresno.
As for free speech, it is under attack from the "hate speech" left much more so than from the conservative right.
If you're interested, I've set up a discussion board at Multiple Utopias to address these questions in further detail.
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