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.
Can you cite any examples. You seem to have a highly idealized (and completely unconfirmable) view of 1800's America. The examples I can think of are Cromwell's England, the Taliban's Afghanistan, etc.
You are missing that the "choose freely" depends entirely upon fear of ostracism, upon societal coercion.
What a pathetic way to live. An adult should be capable of making decisions that his neighbors *hate* if he feels it is the right thing to do.
I'm still miffed at this deliberate misrepresentation of Szasz's views. The author of this article is essentially a liar. Lying via omission is just as bad as fabrication in my book.
Using current laws as a gauge, consider the number of murderers per one million people to the number of recreational drug users (excluding caffeine and alcohol) per million people. If coercive laws are a greater deterrent than each person's moral compass the number of people being coerced by law not to commit murder would be the same or near the same as the number of people coerced by law not to use recreational drugs.
The numbers aren't even close. Five percent of the population use recreational drugs whereas less then one-hundredth of one percent of the population have committed murder.
It's a person's moral compass or conscience -- not coercive laws -- that deters them from committing murder.
Each person's moral compass points north. North being the right to their own life and by extension, right to their own property. That's why by comparison there is a much smaller ratio of violent crimes and fraud than crimes of vice.
In other words, murder, rape, assault, theft and fraud are infrequent whereas gambling, prostitution and recreational drug use are abundant. It's a person's north-pointing moral compass that they respect other people's right to life and property.
A person's first priority is to have self-responsibility.
Each act by a person has risk and consequences. Sometimes the consequence is an immediate benefit gained. Other times a person's act creates a problem or was in error. When that happens the benefits to be gained come from correcting the problem or error.
When an individual is not willing to accept responsibility for his or her own actions they have denied themselves from gaining the benefits of their actions. That includes acts of self-defense.
The greatest right is the right to life. The second greatest right is the right to self-defense. With that there's a prerequisite of self-defense from what? What does a person need to defend themselves against? The obvious are violent crimes such as murder, rape, assault and robbery. What's perhaps the best self-defensive that the most people could afford? A hand gun and training in how to use it for self-defense.
To the violent criminal that has a broken moral compass the gun-toting, north-pointing moral-compass citizen becomes the greatest deterrent to the criminal.
Studies have shown that violent criminals in prison said that when they were on the outside they far more feared being confronted by a citizen with a gun than a law enforcement officer with a gun. Again pointing to the moral compass as being a far greater deterrent to crime than coercive laws.
The violent criminal fears for his life when confronted by a north-pointing moral-compass citizen with a gun. ...Yet by comparison feels safe when confronted by law enforcement officers that enforces the laws.
What about self-defense against fraud? What tools are available to defend against fraud? There's investigators, public and private, arbitration services, criminal and civil courts and written contracts.
When a person thinks they've been harmed by another person they can file criminal charges and or file a civil lawsuit claim against the suspect.
There is no need for laws that prohibit acts between consenting adults because if a third person is harmed by the actions of the either or both the consenting adults they can file a civil lawsuit to gain restitution. If one or both consenting adults assault a third person or commits fraud against a third person the third person/victim can file criminal charges. It's the same for a lone individual that acts without engaging any other person or another person's property.
In criminal and civil court trials impartial juries can decide if the charges are valid or if an acquittal is called for. The lack of impartial juries has been the lynch pin to deteriorate moral compasses while creating the illusion of separation of powers that it subverts.
Libertarians promote many immoral activities that they parade around as rights.
Simply not true. -- You lie, & you fail to answer the question in your anti-libertarian smear.
Like prostitution, homosexuality and things of that nature. They try to frame it as a property right but that's not accurate.
- "It"? Whats it? - You lose coherency in the lying process.
Poppycock. There are fewer violent crimes because they are harder to conceal. Corpses are far more conspicious than bad checks.
To the violent criminal that has a broken moral compass the gun-toting, north-pointing moral-compass citizen becomes the greatest deterrent to the criminal. Studies have shown that violent criminals in prison said that when they were on the outside they far more feared being confronted by a citizen with a gun than a law enforcement officer with a gun. Again pointing to the moral compass as being a far greater deterrent to crime than coercive laws.
Apparently this "moral compass" is mounted in transparent plexiglass in people's foreheads. How else do criminals know if they are being held at gunpoint by a holy man or a mad man.
On the several occasions I've been held at gunpoint, the moral philosophy of the antagonist was THE LAST DAMN THING ON MY MIND.
The violent criminal fears for his life when confronted by a north-pointing moral-compass citizen with a gun. ...Yet by comparison feels safe when confronted by law enforcement officers that enforces the laws.
What color is the sky in your world? Have you ever met the LAPD or the New Orleans police or a Russian militia? Criminals don't feel safe when confronted by these folks.
Without morality, ANY form of government is doomed.
What a pathetic way to live. An adult should be capable of making decisions that his neighbors *hate* if he feels it is the right thing to do.
What a romantic view of humanity. The hard truth is that most people are guided by their desire to be thought well of by the society around them. Most people follow the crowd. Always have. Always will. Do you see a world of John Galts around you ?
If the crowd is unable to enforce norms by withholding approval, people will inevitably sink to their lowest common denominator. Do you think it is coincidence that the explosion of crime on America's streets coincided directly with the across the board collapse of respect for authority that occurred in the '60's ? Khephera and Tomolak are absolutely right. Once anti-Christian forces took control of popular culture the ability of society to stigmatize and thereby control instant gratification behavior (which is seldom good) collapsed. So a society without moral consensus demanded law and order.
Libertarians seem to think that civilized behavior is rational and natural and to be expected. It is absolutely nothing of the sort. It is the product of years of inculcated impulse denying indoctrination. It is the result of a societal consensus on what conduct will or will not be tolerated. It is teaching people to Not be natural, to Not just say or do whatever they feel like at the time. Once religious values have collapsed what you have is Amsterdam and Peter Singer, not iron jawed Ayn Randian ubermensch.
Well, why don't you quit engaging in blanket generalizations:
Libertarians promote many immoral activities that they parade around as rights. Like prostitution, homosexuality and things of that nature.
It's hard to debate with someone who frames his viewpoint in such a manner. Try responding to individual comments from individual libertarian posters, and maybe the tone of debate on the threads will improve.
So saying the government has no role in prohibiting a vice somehow equates to promoting that vice? Guess William F. Buckley is promoting drugs now, since, even though he soundly condemns drug use, is questioning drug prohibition.
Above and beyond the rest of what you said, asking that particular rhetorical question is pretty funny, given the nature of that character in Atlast Shrugged.
These people are not worth associating with.
Do you see a world of John Galts around you ?
Actually, yes. Except my friends are not one-dimensional like Rand's idealized archetypes.
Do you think it is coincidence that the explosion of crime on America's streets coincided directly with the across the board collapse of respect for authority that occurred in the '60's ?
Those in "authority" were intellectually and morally bankrupt. They still are.
Once anti-Christian forces took control of popular culture the ability of society to stigmatize and thereby control instant gratification behavior (which is seldom good) collapsed. So a society without moral consensus demanded law and order.
The same thing happened in Rome. The falling away from traditional Roman morality was symptom but not the primary cause of decadence.
Libertarians seem to think that civilized behavior is rational and natural and to be expected.
Another Strawman. I've said nothing of the sort.
I am so glad you brought this up. You get it, you really get it!
When you live in a society in which people find it acceptable in theory to have these kinds of thoughts, then you will develop the kind of government which prosecutes thought crimes. You have summed up beautifully why we "authoritarians" are opposed to criminal statutes that penalize thought (such as hate crimes) and wish to enforce social stigma, shame, and other forms of group behavior that enforces individual compliance with an agreed-upon morality.
But does support for legalized drugs promote drug use? Does the government make things better, or worse in these areas? I think prostitution is abhorrent - but does forcing it underground increase the public health hazards associated with prostitution?
Claiming that legalization equals promotion equals immorality clouds the debate. And of your list above, the GOP promotes more or less open borders, and, although they are against abortion in their platform, the national party really doesn't do much against abortion. So to say these are just libertarian matters is not entirely a sound approach.
And, to belabor that point some more, consider tobacco. Tobacco use has significantly decreased over the last couple of decades. How? Not be making it illegal, but through education, persuasion, taxation and impositions of social stigma. These things make make the remaining smokers mad, but their smokes are still legal. So just because a substance is legal, it doesn't mean it has to be promoted - sometimes, it can mean there are more effective ways to combat the substance.
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