Posted on 10/09/2009 8:18:11 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
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.
You are as bad as a Democrat with only half of what you purpose. Raise minimum wage? Why not raise it to a Million a year for everyone? You have the same view as a Socialist on the economy and you are as equally wrong... For all the reasons that thousands of years worth of human history have already proven out.
"Any power given to government will be abused."
Learn that maxim before you start purposing such sweeping powers being given to the idiots in Congress...
Is this the same government that was buying hammers for $500 and toilet seats for $1000?
Are you really that naive?
I went about 3-4 replies back to see an argument aSeattle was trying to make promoting federal laws against pornography(ref below).
Technology has gone way past your pornography war. Now every couple in the world with a computer can record themselves and post it on the net. Anyone with a computer on the internet can watch them. So lets assume that watching sex on the computer causes some behaviour problems. So we want the federal government to do what? Arrest you because they claim your IP address showed up at some porn site? So they break in your house and arrest you for some cookie they found on your hard drive?
I think we need to be very careful about what powers we give the government on this.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/rlc/2359274/posts?page=73#68
I think we found John McCain’s troll account...
Or Mitt Romney’s. LOL.
First prize for irony. Did you read your own posts?
Parsy, the reason health care costs go up are two fold: 1. improvements in quality and 2. government mandate.
Mandates are the driver. Mandates block competition, make licensing ridiculously difficult, and limit discrimination (choice). Choice is a two way street.
You're gonna confuse him. ;-)
Bravo.
Agreed, but what is with the infantile self-narrative?
Dunno... Was Willard in favor of a Shamnesty bill as well? I lost track of which RINO was trying to out liberal the rest...
"Romney did not specifically endorse McCain's bill, saying he had not yet formulated a full position on immigration, but called the efforts by McCain and Bush 'reasonable proposals.'" (Nov. 2005, interview with The Boston Globe)
"I don't believe in rounding up 11 million people and forcing them at gunpoint from our country," Romney said. "With these 11 million people, let's have them registered, know who they are. Those who've been arrested or convicted of crimes shouldn't be here; those that are here paying taxes and not taking government benefits should begin a process towards application for citizenship, as they would from their home country."
12/2004, The Lowell (Mass.) Sun
Mine to that #75 was at #76
Libertarianism is a political and economic philosophy which holds that the government exists to secure the rights of the people, and that one man’s rights ends where another person’s rights begin. It has nothing to do with “if it feels good, do it.” Take a good long look at Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Arnold Kling, Thomas Sowell, or Gary Becker. Do these look like hedonistic wild men to you?
My right to swing my fist ends where another man’s face begins. My right to get drunk (a right I have never exercised as I do not drink) ends when I get behind the wheel of a car or stagger through the streets, where I am publicly displaying my drunkenness and imposing a risk on others. A woman’s right to her body ends where the body of her child begins. My right to mow my lawn ends where my neighbor’s lawn begins. My right to smoke a cigarette ends where somebody else’s breathing air begins.
As somebody said earlier, you people are mistaking libertines with libertarians. A junky puking on the sidewalk should be arrested or be fined, as any libertarian I’m aware of would agree.
Thus far I have not seen a single defense of the argument that the modern day war on drugs is just another version of the failed policy of prohibition—that banning drugs does not in any way end drugs, but rather forces them to be sold for drastically higher prices on the black market where the only market force is violence.
Nobody steals a car to sell it to buy cigarettes or alcohol. Nobody sells their body to buy corn syrup. People do these things for drugs because they have a highly inelastic demand for drugs, which are highly priced BECAUSE they are illegal and the greater risk, as well as shrunken supply, that drug dealers face requires the price to rise. And the most violent and coercive dealers are the most successful, whereas in a normal free market producers cannot resort to violence or coercion without their competitors suing them. Drug dealers don’t sue each other over turf wars, they shoot each other.
The violence surrounding the drug trade is a direct result of drugs being illegal. And it has nothing to do with drugs. Any situation in which a good or service is banned, yet for which there remains a high demand for it, brings about the same results—violent gangsterism. Tires, sugar, coffee, it doesn’t matter economically, the principles are the same. Banning it *creates* a black market which creates violent crime. It is also a falsehood that “the criminals will just find other crimes to commit.” In reality, there is no fixed amount of crime to be committed and what crime occurs happens because the criminals believe the benefit outweighs the risk—as they understand it.
If drugs were legalized, it would force current criminals to find something else to do. Given that most people involved in the drug trade are uneducated, common street thugs and *not* criminal mastermind kingpins, if minimum wage laws didn’t exist, they would most likely go into low-skilled labor.
“So we want the federal government to do what? Arrest you because they claim your IP address showed up at some porn site? So they break in your house and arrest you for some cookie they found on your hard drive?”
My my, aren’t you the naive one. You really have no clue as to what’s behind the multi-billion dollar pornography industry and the victims that go along with it’s filth.
PLEASE don’t complain the next time you read about a little boy or girl being molested. I posted the study that was done, you’re free to do with it as you please.
Legalize drugs? YOUR daughter first. No, I insist.
Since libertarians don’t believe in following God’s laws (you can’t believe in libertarian social policies and follow God’s laws), then your so-called “moral libertarians” are phonies that get to pick and choose which of God’s law’s they want to follow. What’s that called? Oh yeah, “ala carte Christianity”.
I did not mean BS, but bravo as in well done. I agree with you. Big government - by scope - is what I fear. It doesn’t matter that “my guy” is in power.
Ironically, I am “my guy” and I am not in power...yet (cue sinister laugh)
Except that pornography does not “cause” violent crime. As somebody who used to believe whole-heartedly that it *does*, believe me, it was hard to accept reality. But the truth is that in many parts of the world, consumption of pornography, often of the most degrading kind, is more widespread than in this country and there is no, repeat NO, associated rise in violent crime.
This was a statistical fact it took me years to accept, because not only was it important for me, a person who hates pornography, to believe that there was an easy cause-and-effect relationship between porn and violent crime (because that way I’d have an easy argument to favor banning it, since porn would therefore have external effects and wouldn’t just affect the porn consumer), but also because if I accepted that porn could become widespread and there would be no associated rise in violent crime, then it seemed like I was turning my back on my faith.
Well, I’ve accepted the reality (ceteris paribus) that porn indeed is harmful only to the porn consumer, however porn is still wrong. My faith didn’t crumble in on itself. Now, granted, there are of course societal effects of pornography which are detrimental, but these *cannot* be quantified and thus should not be left to the government to correct, not out of the morality of the rights of the porn-consumer or something, but because governments by their very nature cannot control something that is unquantifiable. How do you quantify disrespect for women? Or sexual apathy? Or immorality? You can’t. The government doesn’t exist to bring about God’s kingdom on Earth or even to correct people’s morals, government exists to keep people from interfering with each other, to prevent anarchy and its twin, oppression.
Does this mean I’m okay with public displays of pornography or lewdness? No, because what you do in your home may not hurt anybody but what you display in public can indeed impose a cost on others. By the same token, I don’t want a large, centralized bureaucracy in charge of this, I believe it ought to be handled locally (as in city by city) to prevent widespread abuse of the policy by a handful of people.
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