Posted on 06/14/2013 5:02:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Why are there no libertarian countries?"
In a much-discussed essay for Salon magazine, Michael Lind asks: "If libertarians are correct in claiming that they understand how best to organize a modern society, how is it that not a single country in the world in the early twenty-first century is organized along libertarian lines?"
Such is the philosophical poverty of liberalism today that this stands as a profound question.
Definitions vary, but broadly speaking, libertarianism is the idea that people should be as free as possible from state coercion so long as they don't harm anyone. The job of the state is limited to fighting crime, providing for the common defense, and protecting the rights and contracts of citizens. The individual is sovereign, he is the captain of himself.
It's true, no ideal libertarian state has ever existed outside a table for one. And no such state will ever exist. But here's an important caveat: No ideal state of any other kind will be created either. America's great, but it ain't perfect. Sweden's social democracy is all right, but if it were perfect, I suspect fewer cars would be on fire over there.
Ideals are called ideals for a reason: They're ideals. They're goals, aspirations, abstract straight rules we use as measuring sticks against the crooked timber of humanity.
In the old Soviet Union, Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia and today's North Korea, they tried to move toward the ideal communist system. Combined, they killed about 100 million of their own people. That's a hefty moral distinction right there: When freedom-lovers move society toward their ideal, mistakes may be made, but people tend to flourish. When the hard left is given free reign, millions are murdered and enslaved. Which ideal would you like to move toward?
Lind sees it differently. "If socialism is discredited by the failure of communist regimes in the real world, why isn't libertarianism discredited by the absence of any libertarian regimes in the real world? Communism was tried and failed. Libertarianism has never even been tried ..."
What an odd standard. You know what else is a complete failure? Time travel. After all, it's never succeeded anywhere!
What's so striking about the Lind standard is how thoroughly conservative it is.
Pick a date in the past, and you can imagine someone asking similar questions. "Why should women have equal rights?" some court intellectual surely asked. "Show me anywhere in the world where that has been tried." Before that, "Give the peasants the right to vote? Unheard of!"
In other words, there's a first time for everything.
It's a little bizarre how the left has always conflated statism with modernity and progress. The idea that rulers -- be they chieftains, kings, priests, politburos or wonkish bureaucrats -- are enlightened or smart enough to tell others how to live is older than the written word. And the idea that someone stronger, with better weapons, has the right to take what is yours predates man's discovery of fire by millennia. And yet, we're always told that the latest rationalization for increased state power is the "wave of the future."
That phrase, "the wave of the future," became famous thanks to a 1940 essay by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. She argued that the time of liberal democratic capitalism was drawing to a close and the smart money was on statism of one flavor or another -- fascism, communism, socialism, etc. What was lost on her, and millions of others, was that this wasn't progress toward the new, but regression to the past. These "waves of the future" were simply gussied-up tribalisms, anachronisms made gaudy with the trappings of modernity, like a gibbon in a spacesuit.
The only truly new political idea in the last couple thousand years is this libertarian idea, broadly understood. The revolution wrought by John Locke, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith and the Founding Fathers is the only real revolution going. And it's still unfolding.
Indeed, what's remarkable about all of the states Lind identifies as proof that libertarianism doesn't work are in fact proof that it does. What made the American experiment new were its libertarian innovations, broadly speaking. Moreover, those innovations made us prosper. Even Sweden -- the liberal Best in Show -- owes its successes to its libertarian concessions.
I'm actually not a full-blown libertarian myself, but it's an ideal I'd like America to move closer to, not further away from as we've been doing of late -- bizarrely in the name of "progress" of all things.
I was in the college Libertarians for a while. They couldn’t even agree on how to manage refreshments for our meetings. No one was in charge, see, and no one wanted to take responsibility for gathering money or delegating authority... plus half of them were on motorcycles and couldn’t bring anything to the meeting except a list of reasons why they shouldn’t have to wear helmets...
This is probably the stupidest--and one of the most fundamental--axioms of the Left.
It can be hard to understand their thinking.
Some are too stupid to understand “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
Some are too ignorant ever to have considered it.
Some understand it but assume that they themselves could seize power and be the ones to rule--some, that they will manage to appoint like-minded rulers.
Some probably have a vague fantasy that an enlightened ruler will emerge--"enlightened" meaning someone who thinks as they do.
Some are so convinced of the righteousness of their cause as to consider the emergence of such an enlightened ruler to be inevitable.
Some are angry and/or sadistic, iconoclastic, and vengeful.
Some, cynically, understand very well and intend to seize power for their personal purposes, with themselves as rulers, ideology having nothing to do with it; altruistic causes are a magnet for sociopaths and other dangerous disfunctionals.
No, because the Founders knew that no paper checks and balances would hold back corruption in an amoral government: any limits would simply be ignored. Exactly as is happening with the current abomination.
And yes, corruption and abuse of power is hardly the exclusive domain of obozo and clinton. They were just the most recent and egregious examples.
And arguably the most pathological.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.John Adams
Yes. We should. Most of which are seriously LIBERTARIAN in nature.
Never misconstrue a libertarian society with a libertine society. Under a Leftist libertine system, you do not suffer the consequences of your actions. Under libertarianism, no one else will save you from your own stupidity.
Massive difference.
Jefferson is widely regarded as the First Libertarian. His ideals are what the whole liberty movement is about.
IOW... You seem rather conflicted and don't seem to know what the hell you are talking about.
One of the assumptions of the religion of Humanism that goes hand in glove with evolutionary assumptions is that every species is getting better and better through natural selection.
The extension of this is that at some point, there will exist humans that are sufficiently advanced to implement these policies in the "right way". And we won't know if we've reached that point unless we actually try.
Interesting. I had no idea they were that extreme.
“what business does government have telling them they can’t? Are they harming anyone? Are they costing taxpayers money? Are they endangering anyone but themselves?”
Wonderfully put — worth repeating!
Perfect summary! If only we could replace college political science textbooks with your six concise paragraphs, students would be better served.
The Founders did not so much assume a moral society as they understand the Constitution could only survive in a moral society. It is vitally important for the left to destroy morality if they are to end the authority of the Constitution.
Massive difference.
This is a salient point lost on many so called libertarians and why they, as an "organized" party will never be taken seriously beyond their own ranks. Morality under God matters.
I am sorry then because I misunderstood part of your post.
LLS
The Framers could not envision the states would remove themselves from the federal government, and be replaced with another body of popular representatives, only with horrendous six year terms.
What little remains of our republic doesn't stand a chance until the horrible 17th is repealed.
No, I do not support free drugs or sex with whomever or whatever a person wants etc. I am all about Freedom and Liberty but within a moral society. If you want to read the thoughts of a great man on our society and what it will take to keep it in place and working... read Washington.
“Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth.”
“It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.”
“The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
“Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.”
“The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.”
“The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.”
“Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
“The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon.”
“It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.”
“If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.”
“Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.”
“We are persuaded that good Christians will always be good citizens, and that where righteousness prevails among individuals the Nation will be great and happy. Thus while just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government it’s surest support.”
“The administration of justice is the firmest pillar of government.”
“Nothing can be more hurtful to the service, than the neglect of discipline; for that discipline, more than numbers, gives one army the superiority over another.”
George Washington
I’m just saying that PART of their ethos is worthwhile, specifically the articles of the individual over the collective, but the idea of a rudderless ship (e.g. morality without God) is foolish and doomed to fail.
In keeping with Marxist dialecticism, morality is simply a collection of practices and values designed to perpetuate the status quo. So yes, if obama and his minions are to implement their brave new world, existing morality — and the Constitution that arose therefrom — must be destroyed.
Progressivism, Socialism, Marxism, Fascism, Communism...
all collectivism.
That would be a PERSONALITY DISORDER!!
And feverishly!!
No. You aren't. You are only for "freedom" and "liberty" as long as you approve. Period.
Living in a really free society means that someone out there is going to do something you don't like. You need to man-up and realize that if they are only hurting themselves, you don't get to make the rules.
Case in point - 2005 Andro ban. Wasn't hurting anyone. Isn't a Federal power. But because of your "War on Drugs", they were outlawed.
Just drop the charade of the whole "freedom and liberty" and you'll be consistent.
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