The Conservative - Libertarian Schism: Freedom and Confidence

FreeRepublic ^ | July 31, 2002 | Francis W. Porretto

[fporretto]

Each abridgement of liberty has been used to justify further ones. Scholars of political systems have noted this repeatedly. The lesson is not lost on those whose agenda is total power. They perpetually strain to wedge the camel's nose into the tent, and not for the nose's sake.

Many a fine person will concede to you that "liberty is all very well in theory," follow that up with "but," and go on from there to tabulate aspects of life that, in his opinion, the voluntary actions of responsible persons interacting in freedom could never cope with. Oftentimes, free men and free markets have coped with his objections in the recent past, whether he knows it or not. You could point this out to him, provide references and footnotes, and still not overcome his resistance, for it does not depend on the specifics he cited.

His reluctance to embrace freedom is frequently based on fear, the power-monger's best friend.

Fantasist Robert Anton Wilson has written: "The State is based on threat." And so it is. After all, the State, no matter how structured, is a parasitic creature. It seizes our wealth and constrains our freedom, gives vague promises of performance in return, and then as often as not fails to deliver. No self-respecting people would tolerate such an institution if it did not regard the alternatives as worse.

The alternatives are seldom discussed in objective, unemotional terms. Sometimes they are worse, by my assessment, but why should you accept my word for it?

Let it be. The typical American, when he opts for State action over freedom, isn't acting on reasoned conviction, but on fear of a negative result. Sometimes the fear, which is frequently backed by a visceral revulsion, is so strong that no amount of counterevidence can dissolve it, including the abject failure of State action.

We've had a number of recent examples of this. To name only two prominent ones:

1. The welfare reform of 1996, which limited total welfare benefits to healthy adults and imposed work and training requirements for collecting them, is among the most successful social policy enactments of our time. Huge numbers of welfare recipients have left the dole and assumed paying jobs, transforming themselves from dead loads on society to contributors to it. Yet many politicians and those sympathetic to their aims continue to argue that the welfare system must be expanded, liberalized, and made more generous. A good fraction of these are honestly concerned about the possibility that the 1996 restrictions, the first substantial curtailments of State welfarism since the New Deal, are producing privation among Americans unable to care for themselves.
2. The War On Drugs, whose lineage reaches back to the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Control Act, has consumed tens of billions of dollars, radically diverted the attentions of state and federal law enforcement, exercised a pernicious corrupting influence on police forces, polluted our relations with several other countries, funded an immense underworld whose marketing practices are founded on bloodshed, and abridged the liberty and privacy of law-abiding Americans, but has produced no significant decrease in recreational drug consumption. Yet many Americans will not even consider the possibility that the War On Drugs should be scaled back or terminated altogether. Most resist from the fear that drug use and violence would explode without limit, possibly leading to the dissolution of civil society.

In either of the above cases, could we but take away the fear factor, there would be essentially no argument remaining.

Fear, like pain, can be useful. When it engenders caution, it can prolong life and preserve health. Conservatives in particular appreciate the value of caution. The conservative mindset is innately opposed to radical, destabilizing change, and history has proved such opposition to be wise.

However, a fear that nothing can dispel is a pure detriment to him who suffers it.

Generally, the antidote to fear is knowledge: logically sound arguments grounded in unshakable postulates and well buttressed by practical experience. Once one knows what brings a particular undesirable condition about, one has a chance of changing or averting it. The great challenge is to overcome fears so intense that they preclude a rational examination of the thing feared.

Where mainstream conservatives and libertarians part company is along the disjunction of their fears. The conservative tends to fear that, without State involvement in various social matters, the country and its norms would suffer unacceptably. Areas where such a fear applies include drug use, abortion, international trade, immigration, cultural matters, sexual behavior, and public deportment. The libertarian tends to fear the consequences of State involvement more greatly. He argues to the conservative that non-coercive ways of curbing the things he dislikes, ways that are free of statist hazards, should be investigated first, before turning to the police.

I call myself a libertarian, but I can't discount conservative fears in all cases -- especially where the libertarian approach to some social ill involves a major change to established ways. Radical transformations of society don't have a rosy history.

Yet conservatives, too, could be more realistic, and could show more confidence in the ideals they strive to defend. As Thomas Sowell has written in discussing the War On Drugs, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damned fool about it."

The past two decades, starting roughly with Ronald Reagan's ascent to national prominence, have laid the foundations for an enduring coalition between freedom-oriented libertarian thinkers and virtue-and-stability-oriented conservative thinkers. Each side needs to learn greater confidence in the other, if we are to establish the serious exchange of ideas and reservations, free of invective and dismissive rhetoric, as an ongoing process. Such confidence must include sufficient humility to allow for respect for the other side's fears -- for an unshakable confidence in one's own rightness is nearly always misplaced. There is little to learn from those who agree with you, whereas much may be learned from those who disagree.

[tpaine]

---- Crickets on #152. ----

-- 'Forget' to answer, or do you just intend to ignore the tough questions & comments?

[HumanaeVitae]

You are correct.

Thanks, HV

[ihatemyalarmclock]

For instance, recently, I had someone from here hand me the URL to an article he told me proved that Prohibition lowered the death rate from alcohol abuse. When I pointed out to him how he read the article wrong, and that it actually said, in no uncertain terms, that Prohibition caused MORE alcohol related deaths and jacked the homicide rate up to levels that weren't seen again until 1975, he suddenly couldn't be bothered to discuss the issue like a rational adult anymore, and resorted to "Drugs are wrong and immoral, and so is anyone who supports them! You are wrong and I am right!" type tactics.

Let me offer a real-life example: my own mother. She was born in 1931 and raised in North Carolina about the time the Volstead Act (prohibition) was repealed. But in (mostly Southern) states, legal "dryness" lingered for decades (even as every single state and legislative official had access to as much liquor as he could drink, whenever he wanted it.)

My parents' environment was the blue-collar world where, as in the 20's and 30's, the only available alcohol was bootleg. (You probably know that some of those country-boys, in their zeal to outrun the "Rev-e-nooers" back then, eventually turned their hopped-up vehicles into today's billion-dollar NASCAR.)

Back to Mama. In the 30's, with nothing legal (and a serious Baptist stigma attached to consuming any alcohol at all) those who wanted a drink were reduced to buying not only what might be poison (some of it was,) but of drinking as much as possible in a short time. You dasn't get caught.

So in my mother's childhood, all she knew of "imbibers" were people who drank to get drunk. This would bring out latent anger in some of them and they'd beat the hell out of available children. (Sometimes she was one of them.) This was not a crime, then and there.

The drunk driver who killed my mother's mother in 1933 was not even brought up on charges. It was barely a crime, then and there.

Now, as a grown woman, when things had stabilized, she did not turn into Carrie Nation, but had gained a deep suspicion for anyone who drank any amount of alcohol. I don't blame her. Enforcing those feelings was her "stage 2" ability to cope with alcoholic beverages. She can have one glass of wine, but not two. A few people cannot have even one, while still others can drink Herculean amounts. My mother's own body chemistry is her basis for wondering --even at age 71 -- why anybody can have more than a drink or two and continue to enjoy it, because she literally cannot. And the ones who did in her childhood were often quite cruel to her.

But you're right, WyldKard: all the verifiable numbers show that prohibition increased, rather than decreased, alcoholism or just plain drinking to excess. Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in the mid 1930's, of original members who had had no trouble getting all they wanted to drink when it was technically "illegal."

I won't even get into the beginnings of organized crime here; that's a whole 'nother thread. Or 12.

[HumanaeVitae]

Actually, Tom, I try to pick out the arguments that you make that aren't either nit-picking or purely argumentative. There aren't many.

What you can't, or won't, realize is that libertarianism is completly flawed because no one can agree on a uniform standard for "reason". It's that simple. Your version of reason is different than mine and everyone elses. Thus, whatever we decide to be "reasonable" is completely arbitrary. In fact, any big idea such as "justice", or "fairness" or "liberty" suffers the same flaws. There are no ideals. Someone much smarter than either you or I, Plato, tried to solve this with the Doctrine of Forms. He failed.

Plus, most of the time I don't even know what your arguments are about. For instance, you say that you're a libertarian, then you say that liberty is limited. I say, "hey great, looks like your a conservative" because you've admit that society can regulate liberty; what other reason would society have to curtail liberty other than order? So, then you say--no wait, I'm a conservative.

I really don't want to argue who either doesn't know what I'm talking about or whose comeback is, effectively, "I know you are, but what am I".

So, let's put it this way. You win.

HV

[tpaine]

You want to dodge the constitutional questions & issues I raised? -- Fine with me.
The rest of your post you labeled yourself. Nitpicking bull. - Thanks.

[clamper1797]

Fine ... nice talking with you. I TRULY hope I don't run into you at the unemployment office. It's not ANY fun. BTW I just now was handed my next to last unemployment check by my lady who brought in the mail.

[Bob Mc]

"I TRULY hope I don't run into you at the unemployment office."

I guarantee you won't. I would never accept welfare from the government.

[clamper1797]

OK ... well then I wish you luck ... be sure to make your reservation for that prime spot under the bridge.

[clamper1797]

BTW in-between my last posts and these recent ones I was at friends house. Mary ... was laid off by Sun Micro systems four months ago. She was a QC manager .... So ... hmmm let me see .... my friend Chris ASIC designer Masters EE from MIT laid off by National 8 months. My friend Dennis QA manager Cisco laid off last week, my friend Mary QC manager for Sun laid off for 4 months ... my sister-in-law VP of HR Sun Micro systems laid off 5 months ... the list goes on ... I suspect when the Tech depression hits Texas ... (it's already hitting Boston and Silicon Valley) You may yet get a taste of what it's like ... generally I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy ... but there's a few arrogant fools out there that could use a taste of it.

[HumanaeVitae]

By positing that there are perfect "forms" of everything, which led to idealism which led...see earlier posts.

[rb22982]

And herein lies the main problem. There is no constitutional right to high property value.

Unless the land when purchased has a stipulation (such as many developments have) that states what is and isn't acceptable to keep property values high as part of the agreement, of course you have no right to sue your neighbor. You are free to ignore, plead, beg and boycott your neighbor but not sue them.

Second, you are taking a 1 in a few million and trying to prove the norm. Most people who could afford to buy a home next to a $750,000 home will not purposely lower the value of their home.

[rb22982]

Really? Who decides the limits?

When you use force or fraud (a form of theft) against someone else.

[WyldKard]

I have a reason... An animal can not give consent to sex with a human.

Animals can't consent to anything, period, because animals don't have rights, period. Otherwise, we'd be brought up on murder charges every time we turned them into tasty steaks and attractive leather boots.

I still can't find any reason it's a compelling state interesting to make illegal, but I figure if the moron gets himself caught doing it, cite him with animal abuse. I doubt we'll have SWAT agents busting down his door over it.

[WyldKard]

I came to this thread expecting an extremely rational and civil discussion, seeing that fporretto was the author and origniator of this thread. I see in the next post how a wish was expressed that this discussion could be civil. But at your post #5, you've made it all but impossible for that civil discussion to take place.

For instance, you state, "the so-called Conservatives who support it tooth and nail do so with a religious zeal that prevent such rational and logical debate." Apparently, it doesn't occur to you that you put off numerous posters by juxtaposing "religious zeal" with "rational and logical debate" as if the two are mutually exclusive.

I really don't mean to "play dumb" or be disrespectful, but I don't understand why anything I posted "stopped" people from posting, and had a rational debate. Obviously it didn't stop you from posting some excellent and insightful things.

Unfortunately, I see too many people who call themselves Conservatives, but then act like Socialists. THey have no problem with the WOD and refuse to answer any questions about it's illegality. When I used the words "religious zeal", that wasn't a dig at any one particular organized religion, it was just a descriptor of the sort of zeal exuded.

People don't have to approve of drugs or their use to be against the WoD. I think you have certainly showed this. Unfortunately, it's very disheartening to have debates with people who don't want to debate, they just want to name call and ridicule, you know?

[HumanaeVitae]

Thanks for replying, appreciate the debate.

"There is no constitutional right to high property value."

True. No argument there.

"Unless the land when purchased has a stipulation..."

Here's the problem with your response: you're arguing the specific here. In other words, it's not about what's legal right now, but whether or not regulating what can be done on one's property *should* be regulated. I can make a strong case that I'm simply doing what I want to do on my own property. You could make an equally strong case that what I'm doing on my property is hurting your economic well being, which hurts your personal liberty. Who's right? How do you know?

Again, this is the problem with libertarianism. Define "liberty". You say that my right to throw my fist stops at your face. But my fist is always going to be further away from my perspective, and your face always closer from yours. There is no such thing as objective 'reason'. Or objective 'fairness'. Or 'equality'.

And that gets me to the second post, where you say that force is the standard to know if rights are being violated. That tells me you're probably a Rand fan. But, if there's no God, and we need an 'objective' answer to what 'reason' or 'freedom' or 'liberty' means, to whom do we appeal? Rand says that two 'rational' people can't disagree, but we're disagreeing right here. And what Rand doesn't tell you is that this statement--"Two rational people cannot have disagreements"--which she repeats often in her works, is *non-negotiable* to her 'philosophy'. Because if two rational people can honestly disagree, then it's not Objectivism, it's Subjectivism, or better yet Nonsensism.

So, on the issue of force, if we can't agree on which version of 'liberty' or 'truth' or whatever should prevail, eventually someone is going to have to come in and pick between competing visions of what these ideas mean. And once we arrive at what 'liberty' means, and you or I still dissent, how do we enforce the decision? Answer: force. Thus, Rand's entire philosophy relies on arbitrary decisions on what abstract concepts mean, which are then backed up by guns. Because if Objectivism isn't backed up by force, how will it prevail? By appealing to God?

[rb22982]

Here's the problem with your response: you're arguing the specific here. In other words, it's not about what's legal right now, but whether or not regulating what can be done on one's property *should* be regulated. I can make a strong case that I'm simply doing what I want to do on my own property. You could make an equally strong case that what I'm doing on my property is hurting your economic well being, which hurts your personal liberty. Who's right? How do you know?

No its not a problem. Economic well being is not necessarily personal liberty.

This is what liberty means.

The condition of being free from restriction or control.
The right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one's own choosing

Therefore, if I wanted to move into a development and a stipulation on my contract said I had to keep my property looking groomed to keep property values high and to be considerate of my neighbors, then I have voluntarily entered into an agreement as such. If I purchase property and there is no such stipulation, then it is not violate a contract (fraud), it is not commiting force on someone else, and therefore there is no ground to hold your neighbor accountable.

Again, this is the problem with libertarianism. Define "liberty". You say that my right to throw my fist stops at your face. But my fist is always going to be further away from my perspective, and your face always closer from yours. There is no such thing as objective 'reason'. Or objective 'fairness'. Or 'equality'.

This makes no sense. Either you are forcing me to do something or you are not. There is no 'grey area' as you would like myself to believe. Making physical contact or threating is using force. Asking a neighbor to stop doing something that you do not like is completely another.

And that gets me to the second post, where you say that force is the standard to know if rights are being violated. That tells me you're probably a Rand fan. But, if there's no God, and we need an 'objective' answer to what 'reason' or 'freedom' or 'liberty' means, to whom do we appeal? Rand says that two 'rational' people can't disagree, but we're disagreeing right here. And what Rand doesn't tell you is that this statement--"Two rational people cannot have disagreements"--which she repeats often in her works, is *non-negotiable* to her 'philosophy'. Because if two rational people can honestly disagree, then it's not Objectivism, it's Subjectivism, or better yet Nonsensism.

I haven't read any of Rand's work except Capitalism: The Unknown ideal. Reason is not the discussion at hand, liberty and freedom are, which I've already defined.

So, on the issue of force, if we can't agree on which version of 'liberty' or 'truth' or whatever should prevail, eventually someone is going to have to come in and pick between competing visions of what these ideas mean. And once we arrive at what 'liberty' means, and you or I still dissent, how do we enforce the decision? Answer: force. Thus, Rand's entire philosophy relies on arbitrary decisions on what abstract concepts mean, which are then backed up by guns. Because if Objectivism isn't backed up by force, how will it prevail? By appealing to God?

No, you have it backwards. You have to define force first, before you can define liberty. Liberty could easily be said as free from (initial) force. I should have said initial force, as once you violate the rights of others, you have given up your rights in the process. When you are not (initially) forcing people to do anything, you have liberty.

[technochick99]

I mean, if you're a libertarian why would you give any charity to these people because of their "voluntary" decisions?

Where does this type of thinking come from? I'm a Libt. and believe strongly in charity and social responsibility. I don't think thay Libt's are especially anti-charity, except perhaps Randian/Objectivists.

I do have serious issues with govt enforced donations though.

[hinckley buzzard]

"And now you are trying to change the topic."

You are right. He wants to pursue issues of liberty and the constitution. You pretended to, but it is now clear that you are only interested in the legalization of drugs.

What is it with you libertarians? All the issues in the nation, and the only one you want to rant about is the WOD.

At least he was honest.