Hayek is an inspiration to me.
Which of our founding fathers do you think come closest to "libertarian" ideals in their beliefs?
First, thanks for joining me here. I've been thinking hard about a "majority libertarian-conservatism," and what it would require, and it's good to see that others are, if not necessarily in agreement with my tentative conclusions, at least interested enough in the subject to pursue it in company, more or less civilly.
I'm sure you noticed the emphasis on "tentative." All conclusions in the political sphere must be tentative. Scott Adams, he of "Dilbert" fame, has told us in his marvelous book The Dilbert Principle that we're idiots, and take it from me: he's right. Want proof? The thing we do best is learn from our mistakes! A non-idiotic race would have found a better way centuries ago, a way that averted the need to try everything at least twice.
Anyway, to get back to the re-examination of libertarian thinking, the central tenet thereof is ethical individualism: that is, the maintenance of the fundamental rule of right action that individuals ought to be free to do as they please with that which is rightfully theirs, including their bodies and all their other property.
I could go into a long disquisition about the evolving concept of property and how the concept of rights has mutated alongside it, but you have better things to do than read that abstract a rant, especially on a Sunday morning. Suffice it to say that, when we unpack the principle of ethical individualism carefully, and with due regard for the precise meanings of its components, the largest problems attached to "pure" libertarianism tend to disappear.
Much of the difficulty arose from overextending the individual-rights model, into areas where, for the present and foreseeable future, human beings don't have the option of dealing with one another as individuals. There's a strain of anarcho-libertarian thought that holds that the ideal to strive for is the elimination of all political collectivities. It has much merit -- as a hope for the future, after much else has changed. I received an E-mail note last night on that very subject, from a gentleman by the name of Mark Fadiman, who writes for Investors' Business Daily. His reflections were stimulated by the lead article in this thread. I plan to explore them with him as time permits.
Are there still questions of importance, to which "pure" libertarian thinking cannot give satisfactory answers? Perhaps. Some may have been raised here. But if we keep our thinking caps on and avoid dogmatism and cant, we might just see our way clear to their solutions.
Sam Cree: All of the Founding Fathers, including the most government-oriented of them, were far more freedom-minded than anyone in politics today except for Ron Paul. Probably the most freedom-minded was Thomas Jefferson, who adopted liberty as his animating ideal from the composition of the Declaration of Independence, if not before. Incidentally, one of our blessings, as Americans, is to have that document as our birth certificate. Nothing else in political literature remotely compares to it.
Starwind: All the areas of contention you cite are "commons problems": areas where we've traditionally relied on collectivized solutions. In some cases, they should remain that way, at least for the present, because a sudden privatization would cause more chaos than the incremental improvements from privatization would be worth. In others, such as limited-access highways and airports, there's a strong case to be made for trying privatization. As a general observation, I propose that the accumulation of wealth and the advance of technological progress naturally expand the thinkable sphere of individual liberty. If these trends continue, it will become possible, and beneficial on net balance, to whittle away more of our collectivities in favor of individual choice and private property.
On the subject of private property: It's remarkable how much trouble has been caused by the seemingly minor incursions on that concept by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Once upon a time, good behavior was reinforced by the unwillingness of good people to associate themselves with a bad actor socially or commercially. People wouldn't buy from or sell to someone whose behavior had brought shame on the community. His recourses were few; usually the best of them was to move to another place where he might be able to "live down" his transgressions. The antidiscrimination provisions of the 1964 CRA, by severing many of the rights associated with private property, especially private business enterprises, destroyed those correctives to bad public behavior.
Vercingetorix: (That's a name I haven't heard since high school Latin!) You are correct that abortions will occur even if there are stringent laws against them. That was one of the arguments adduced by the pro-choice forces in the years before Roe v. Wade. Whatever decisions are made about abortion will be arbitrary and political, which is to say, they won't be reasoned tightly enough to be free from all objections, and they'll have to command a majority consensus to be stable. In the near term, I anticipate a legal regime in which a baby that shows brain waves has Constitutionally protected rights to life. At the least, that would make our definition of the inception of human life consistent with our definition of human death. It would certainly be preferable to the current regime, in which partial-birth abortions of entirely viable babies are essentially unregulated.
Ultimately, the limitation of the practice of abortion to some irreducible minimum will require that we reconstruct what President Bush called "a culture of life." For abortion is very easy, and with modern technology all first-trimester abortions and most second-trimester abortions can be performed in such a fashion that no one aside from the unwilling mother and the abortionist need ever know. Given those circumstances, the only way to stem the blood tide of abortion yet avert a police state is to get women to conceive only wanted babies. From here we could go in a dozen different directions, but it's too big a subject for one rant.
conservatism_IS_compassion: Good to hear from you again, Lynn. I hope all is well with you and yours. Drop a line sometime, and perhaps we can get together for lunch.
To everyone: Keep your thinking caps in place and your humility screwed on tight. Conservatives and libertarians have far more in common than the often vitriolic exchanges here and elsewhere would suggest. Libertarians need the conservative respect for the wisdom available from tradition and experience. Conservatives need the fundamental principles and willingness to admit failure that libertarians can provide. Frank Meyer and others poured their efforts into harmonizing individual freedom and the maintenance of common norms. The least we can do is... well, it's what we're doing here!
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
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