Posted on 08/01/2002 3:27:45 PM PDT by Tomalak
Thought for the day
If you believe in a truly libertarian society, your only way to success is in working to build a society based upon traditional morality, shame and chastity. Contradictory? Actually, no. Given a little examination, it turns out to be rather obvious; almost self-evidently true. If you want to live in a country where every man supports himself rather than looking to the taxpayer, where crime is rare and so massive police powers, ID cards and DNA databases are superfluous, you will not do so on the back of the destructive policies of social liberalism.
Libertarians traditionally do not look to history for the sort of society they wish to build. But I sense that the famous passage with which AJP Taylor begins his English History 1914-1945 comes closest to the libertarian ideal: a place where the normal, sensible Englishman comes into contact with the state only through the post office and policeman. The United States that existed before FDR's massive extensions in state power is similarly the model of the sort of America that libertarians across the pond seek to build. What all successful societies in history with small states have had in common is a strictly moral populace. Victorian Britain could survive without a large state precisely because pious ideas of shame, duty and self-reliance ensured that people would look to themselves for what they needed, rather than the state, and because crime was low enough that the state did not need to seek all the powers it could summon to fight back.
One mistake far too many libertarians make is to associate traditional morality with big government, and hostility to freedom. The opposite is true. The more influence morality has over a man's conduct, the less need there is for the state to control it. Crime can be reduced by many police, many laws, tougher sentences and more guns. But most of all, to have a low crime society without an overbearing state, you need to fashion the sort of country whose people are inclined not to commit crime in the first place. Roger Scruton made this point as brilliantly as ever in his call to "Bring Back Stigma":
"The law combats crime not by eliminating criminal schemes but by increasing the risk attached to them; stigma combats crime by creating people who have no criminal schemes in the first place. The steady replacement of stigma by law, therefore, is a key cause of the constant increase in the number and severity of crimes."
To see morality as inimical to liberty, as a threat to libertarian ambitions, is the most statist thing one can do. It is to leave the state as the only thing to pick up the pieces when society fails to function.
It is no mere joke to say that at present libertarians are those who like the liberal society but hate paying for it. Take a recent column on paedophilia in America's leading Libertarian Magazine, Reason, entitled "Sins of the Fathers". Throughout the article, the message is clear: molesting kids is wrong, but 'merely' wanting to rape them is not. The article is a rebuke aimed at all those with a moral problem with lusting after children.
"The issue is not sexual attraction; it is sexual action...
Bibliophilia means the excessive love of books. It does not mean stealing books from libraries. Pedophilia means the excessive (sexual) love of children. It does not mean having sex with them, although that is what people generally have in mind when they use the term. Because children cannot legally consent to anything, an adult using a child as a sexual object is engaging in a wrongful act. Such an act is wrongful because it entails the use of physical coercion, the threat of such coercion, or (what comes to the same thing in a relationship between an adult and a child) the abuse of the adult’s status as a trusted authority.
Saying that a priest who takes sexual advantage of a child entrusted to his care "suffers from pedophilia" implies that there is something wrong with his sexual functioning, just as saying that he suffers from pernicious anemia implies that there something wrong with the functioning of his hematopoietic system. If that were the issue, it would be his problem, not ours."
I believe that the dominance such people seem to have over libertarianism is a source of much of its undeserved failure. Such arguments only make libertarians sound nasty, extreme, and frankly strange. They may explain their defence of paedophilia on the grounds of a philosophical tradition of 140 years standing, but most ordinary people do not see it that way: what they see is a political movement apparently sympathetic to a pervert. Similarly, attacking the welfare state on grounds of economic efficiency is productive before some, but to the majority, it just looks like greed: not wanting to help those in need. Unless one explains morally the evils of trapping people on welfare so that each time they make an economic advance there is a corresponding benefit cut, and of creating a state which appears to remove every citizen's private duty to others, how can one show that they are wrong to put this thinking down to greed?
So morality surely reduces the need for a large state. But does accepting the importance of morality in society mean a greater role for the state in other areas? I do not believe so. Let us look at the actual aims of social conservatives like Melanie Phillips, Peter Hitchens, Ann Widdecombe, Charles Moore, John Redwood, Roger Scruton and Theodore Dalrymple. How many can you name in mainstream journalism or politics who actually want to change the law to make homosexuality illegal, for example? I do not know of any. Again, we see the reality - the social "authoritarians" are not really authoritarian. They do not want new laws to stop immorality and crime: they want free people to choose to be good themselves. They want a country where virtue is praised and vice condemned.
Ultimately, the enemy of libertarians is state control, not self-control. Morality in ordinary life removes the need for the sort of huge state that politicians have built for us since the 1930s. The more people choose to be good of their own accord, the more convincingly one can question the need for an over-mighty government to keep them in line. But until libertarians give up their crusade against any idea of decent behaviour, I do not see them succeeding.
Socialistic Government in the 20th Century not only replaced societal controls with those of Government, it deliberately undermined the societal values that were behind the societal controls. It was not the Libertarians who attacked morality, it was the people whom they opposed.
Take the outrageous New Deal venture that became known as the ADC--Aid To Dependent Children. It was not just an unconstitutional exercise from Washington, supposed to ease the burden of children in a single parent household. Part and parcel with the new approach, was a deliberate decision to outlaw any suggestion of stigmatization of the unwed mother--the clientele of the new program. The result is as well known as it was predictable--an exponential explosion in the American Bastardy rate.
The history of the Twentieth Century cannot be neatly systematized, of course. There were many cross-currents. But the real damage was done not by any traditional philosophic movement. All traditional societies have been under attack by Socialists of one hue or another, bent upon promoting egalitarian nonsense; with most of those proponents also promoting some version of the movement for an undifferentiated humanity. Stigmatizing people for having children out of wedlock did not fit the new Socialist norm, anymore than pride in ancestry was tolerated by the new Socialist norm.
Morality, community homogeneity, community religious sentiments, etc., are all ultimately the targets of those who want to break down any distinctions between peoples. While Libertarians may want to live and let live; they have never been those leading the charge against any community's value system. Quite the contrary.
As a Conservative seeking to preserve what is left of the American heritage, I find no problem with most of the people who label themselves "Libertarian." While some of them may occasionally embrace something ridiculous like liberal immigration, fifty years after our population reached its optimum level, they are not the ones promoting a breakdown of the American cultural identity. And most are easily persuaded that the present situation is very wrong. They are rational people, beset as are American Conservatives, by those who hate everything that America used to stand for.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
'You can have an immoral people, or you can have a small state, but you can't have both.'
The article was not advocating a big state and bad people: it wanted a small state and good people. Can't you see that?
Yes, I actually understood the article. As I pointed out the author was engaging in calculated deception.
'You can have an immoral people, or you can have a small state, but you can't have both.'
This statement is utterly false:
The possible combinations are:
Small state, bad people --Modern Russia, Somalia
Small state, good people -- United States 1800's
Big State, bad people -- USSR
Big State, good people -- Modern China
Its a false dillema, people are good and bad as individuals not as groups. There are cultural environments that healthier than others but ultimately they reflect the values of the individuals who comprise the society.
How exactly do you judge if a State is good or bad. Saddam Hussain's speechs read like a Baptist sermon.
America one the "nicer" countries on Earth has killed millions of innocent people. Usually we've had good intentions. But when you're 5 years old and covered in burning Napalm, the fact that the pilot attends Bible study every Wed. doesn't help.
Conversely, we as a society want to discourage:
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." -John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798 Address to the military
LOL! So you think Somalia and today's Russia are good models for the world? Obviously you can try to have no real morals and no real state, but it will be anarchy.
If you want a working country, you can have the state to restrain people, or you can have morality.
If you choose the state, you get mega-government and very high taxes.
If you choose neither, anarchy is what you get.
If you choose morality, that is when you get a truly great country, like America in the 1800s, as you mentioned.
As for the person who thought it a "truism" that sexual attraction to kids was not a moral issue, I just hope you don't work with children.
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." - John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798 Address to the military
The article was asking if these priests were suffering from an "illness" or if they were criminals.
The Church decided to treat them as if they they had a mental disorder rather than treat them as criminals.
Szasz, as a psychiatrist, was writing an article critical of the dogma of modern psychiatry. Morality was not addressed.
This post deliberately misrepresented his views.
The Church shielded these priests which allowed them to use the Church to victimize children. Szasz is arguing for their immediate arrest.
Now is that the impression given by the quote above?
Oh yeah - being against personal irresponsibility, disaffection and alienation, sloth and laziness, immorality, promiscuity, ideology, and big government is just a "personal preference". Nothing to do with making a better, freer society.
Are you French or something, or did you believe all that postmodernism you were taught at college?
If you want to end state control, you need to reinforce self-control and moral responsibility. The article sums up my own view perfectly.
The point everyone misses is this: personal morality reduces the need for a large state, and a large state reduces the need for personal morality. Immorality breeds socialism/statism, and socialism/statism breeds immorality.
Sigh. No. Obviously you can try to have no real morals and no real state, but it will be anarchy.
Actually, there have been anarchies that had murder rates far lower than the United States. The punishments for murder were much greater as well.
If you choose the state, you get mega-government and very high taxes.
Not always. Modern Socialist times, I suppose.
If you choose morality, that is when you get a truly great country, like America in the 1800s, as you mentioned.
This is one of many possible routes.
As for the person who thought it a "truism" that sexual attraction to kids was not a moral issue, I just hope you don't work with children.
Why don't you read Szasz's article. Just because morality was not within the scope of a psychiatric article does not mean he does not have a strong moral position on the subject.
Its a pity the Catholic church doesn't have the common sense that Szasz has. I suppose they are too busy rambling on about morality.
Excellent point. I hadn't thought of it that way round.
That only proves my point. In those days, the state didn't need to crack down on such things because the American people were so moral that almost no one did them. Not now, though.
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